Pourin' Out a Little Liquor

I just started gaming with a new face-to-face group about a month ago.  We're running through a Pathfinder campaign right now, and while it's not my favorite system, I do enjoy getting back into face to face gaming.

With that being said, it's always a bit awkward at the beginning, especially when you're joining an established group.  There's an entire world of shared memories and experiences and inside jokes that you haven't been a part of yet and while the longer you are a part of the group, the more of those become your own, at first it can be difficult.

Sorting through all of this on my way back from the game, I began to wax nostalgic about my old gaming groups, so I thought I'd put up a tribute to all my old groups.

My first group was, as I'm sure is common to most of us, a group of kids from school.  Most of us were in the same grade, except one guy that was a grade ahead of us.  Even though we didn't know what a grognard was at the time, we were still able to conceptualize the idea, because he had played white box with his uncle when he was younger and would always talk about how that system was better than this newjack 2e.  The rest of us only knew 2e, though, and we loved it.  We had our established GM who also played his Mary Sue sorta-NPC, the guy who always played a dwarf, another guy who always played sneaky thieves, you know the group.  You've PLAYED with that group.  Anyway, we'd get together a couple times a month at one of our houses and, fueled by soda, candy and potato chips, we'd game until the sun came up, then pass out and sleep until noon.  Eventually, we left 2e behind for other games - Gamma World, Warhammer, Twilight 2000, before settling on Old World of Darkness sometime during High School, and that was our jam until we graduated.  Folks went off to college, and that was the end of that group.

There was a long stretch where I didn't game at all.  Life was pretty hectic, and there just wasn't any time for it.  It wasn't until I was about 25 that I found myself back at my folks' house, digging through the detritus of my youth that I found my old Gamma World 1e box set.  Sitting on my old bed, flipping through it, I remembered spending how much fun roleplaying was.  I thought of the late nights, the laughter and the camaraderie.  I remembered sunny afternoons flipping through the 2e Player's Handbook while Pink Floyd sang about how "Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell draws the faithful to their knees in a softly spoken magic spells."

Just like that, I was hooked again.  I called around to my old group to see who was still in town, found a couple of them, and we agreed to start getting together weekly.  A few of the old gang brought some new faces along, and we decided to go with Gamma World, mostly I think because I was the only one who actually brought a game to the first get together.  From there on out, we'd meet in my apartment, which was in a not-so-great part of town that was right next to the bar district, and we'd leave the windows open to let the sounds of the city filter through as background noise.  We spent the better part of a year tripping the light post-apocalyptic before my job moved me to Texas and, for the second time, I had to say goodbye to my friends.

Shortly after I moved to Texas, I discovered the Pen and Paper Games forum, which has (or had, to be honest I haven't been there in awhile) a very lively section for DFW gamers.  Not knowing a blessed soul in the area, I figured this was as good a way to meet people as any, so I started looking for open games.  I met up with the group at a local Barnes & Noble for the first meeting, where we talked through 4e (which had just been released), and the GM explained his idea for the campaign.  The group was mostly older guys, I think I was the youngest one there, but there was good stuff in the mix there. The GM was invested in his campaign, the players were enthusiastic (well, except one Guy, but he was the gruff sort anyways) and we had a blast.  Unfortunately, as time went by, my job got pretty crazy, with 60-80 hour work weeks being the norm, and I just didn't have the time or energy to devote to a game, my future wife, and my sanity.  Something had to give, and it was the game.

The campaign obviously carried on without me, and the GM was nice enough, when it finally wrapped, to shoot me an email containing an afterword he'd written for my character, detailing how his life had progressed after I'd left.

I got word at some point that one of the guys that had been in the group had succumbed to a long illness he'd been battling as longs as we'd known him, and the GM and I saw each other at the wake and agreed to keep in touch.

When my workload eventually lightened, I decided to take another crack at a Gamma World game, and put an ad up on Pen and Paper.  I convinced two of my IRL friends who had never roleplayed to give it a shot, and together with a husband and wife team and their friend and another guy who looked just like the Dean from Community, we started a new campaign.  My apartment had zero parking and wasn't all that big, so after one attempt to run it at my place, we moved it to the husband and wife's house.  The group was great - we probably shot the shit more that we actually played, but we had a blast doing it.  While one of my IRL friends didn't stick with it very long, the other enjoyed the hell out of it, and we ran through 4e Gamma World for about a year.  Unfortunately, my work picked up again, and they lived a half hour away.  In normal times, it didn't bother me too much to play till midnight and then drive home, but after an 70 hour work week, I just didn't have it in me, and I had to bow out of that one.

There was another lull in gaming for awhile as I dug myself out of my workhole before the GM from the 4e campaign called me up and asked if I wanted to try out a game called Labyrinth Lord.  He was gaming with his son and another guy from the old campaign, and we sat around his kitchen table and rolled up new characters for an open world, sandbox style game.  Our first time out the gate, we rolled up a green dragon as a random encounter, people died, and it was fun.  We kept on going, slowly adding people as we went.  The son of the guy who had passed away joined up, and we moved the games to his house.  A friend of his played video games in the background, but was slowly drawn in by the laughter emanating from around the table.  We went from Labyrinth Lord to Stars Without Number, to Traveler.  I tried my hand at GMing again, running them through 2e, then World of Darkness.  At our height, we were getting together six to eight times a month.  This was probably the longest I put in with a group since my high school group, and I enjoyed the hell out if it.

Then it ended.

To be honest, I'm still not really sure why, and at this point, I guess it doesn't really matter.  One week we were gaming, and then next we weren't.  One of them said they were burnt out, and everyone just evaporated.  I was in the process of moving away from the area that we'd been congregating in, so to be honest, it would have been harder to keep getting there, but it was still weird, to have a group of people that you spend that much time with just not be there anymore.

At some point towards the end of the old group, I got into Constantcon style gaming, and got together with (in order of beardedness)  +Wayne Snyder, +Edgar Johnson, +Adam Muszkiewicz, +Bear Wojtek and +Gabriel Perez Gallardi, we have explored deepest darkest Ur-Hadad, Survived Fort Simian, slew Mushroom Wizards and smoked their brains, etc etc.  You had to be there sort of stuff.  It's still ongoing, and it's been epic..  

Still, after the end of the old face to face group, I fell into a bit of a funk, and while I kept myself busy moving myself, my wife, our cats, a condo full of stuff (books), and two storage sheds full of more stuff (more books) into our house (a process which took way longer than it really should have), I didn't do much face to face gaming, or blogging about gaming for that matter.

Then I heard from the husband and wife gamers, who were looking to start up the Pathfinder game.  I am the New Guy in a group that has been playing together for the better part of thirty years, and once again I'm probably the youngest person there, so it can be a bit of a struggle at times, but we're busy creating new things together, so it'll get easier with time.  They've got a Runequest game that they play on alternate weekends that I think I'm going to jump on, and the wife keeps threatening to run a Call of Cthulhu game at some point.   Each game starts with a potluck dinner.  We eat well, shoot the shit for awhile, then kill some orcs for a bit.   It's a good group with good people, and it's good to be gaming face to face again.

So for all the groups that I've gamed with before, this one is for you.

FtA: More on Bearings

Last week, I laid out the idea of Bearings, which I believe is the most unique aspect of From the Ashes.  I wanted to take some time and talk through some of the aspects of the notion that I think will encourage some unique roleplaying opportunities.

• Engagement with the world - In From the Ashes, changing the world is literally a matter of life and death - the only ways to keep the reaper off your back are to either not use your mutations, or to change the world around you. 
• Intraparty conflict based on opposing viewpoints - Let's face it - how often does your Chaotic character really debate the finer points of societal philosophy with the Lawful character?  In From the Ashes, each character is trying to change the world to bring it in alignment with their own worldview, but chances are that nobody will be at the same point, or they are, they won't be for long.  There's only one world, and each party member has their own worldview, and while their desires may align, any such alignment is only temporary.  This should cause debate amongst the party as to the best way to progress.
• Shifting views based on changing needs - what happens when the world's position overshoot's your mark?  You've spent the last few sessions pushing the world towards order, when all of a sudden you look around and realize you've created an authoritarian nightmare.  All of a sudden, you need to push the world down the ladder, and you could find yourself fighting against the very system you helped to establish.

This is a system which has been built purely to scratch an itch that I feel when whenever I engage with fiction of any kind.  As much as I love zombie movies, I've yet to find the right one that balances the personal horror of the situation with the wider, "what's going on in the world?" aspect that I crave (World War Z came the closest, but that's a different story).  It's the same thing with roleplaying.  When I GM, I veer towards the triptych model, sending the PCs zooming from one exotic locale to the next, always pushing the "big picture".  When I play, it's what I crave.

So hopefully some other people out there are looking for an RPG to scratch that same itch, and this will be just the backscratcher they're looking for.

Perfect!

FtA: The World Is a Vampire... or an Angel

One of the original concepts for From the Ashes, and the one that I've struggled with most since I started down this path, has been how to create a system where the world reacts to the actions of the characters.  At the core of From the Ashes is the idea that the world is what you make of it.  As each game begins, the world is at its tipping point, and the actions of the characters will have a say in the manner in which it will develop.

But how to communicate that?

After wrestling with this for months, I've come up with a system that plots something like your alignment on a four quadrant graph.  Bearings, as they're known in From the Ashes, represent more than just an ambiguous moral code, they represent your ideas of how the world should work.  This is determined by a series of questions asked by your GM at the beginning of your character's first game.  Depending on your answers, your position on the graph moves up, down, left or right, until you find the place where you belong.

The X Axis represents Inspiration - from where do you draw your ideas?  It runs from Innovation on the left to Tradition on the right.  Someone heavily Traditional will look to the past when solving problems, seeking the wisdom of the ancients to help dig society out of the mess it's found itself in.  On the other hand, someone to the left will seek to come up with new ways of doing things and reject the old ways - after all, they were what got things where they are to begin with!

The Y axis represents Methodology - how will you implement your ideas?  It runs from Law above to Anarchy below.  Someone heavily into Law believes that only a robust (some might say authoritarian) system of government can properly check the natural, base impulses of its citizens.  If a character finds themselves at the bottom of the chart, they believe in promoting absolute freedom, where no-one tells anyone what to do, or how to live.

As the characters progress through the world, their Bearings may shift.  Not for everyday actions, but major decisions may shift a character's location on the plane.  Helping the sheriff capture some wanted murderers may not affect the Bearings of a moderate Anarchist, but helping a local lord to put down a peasant uprising would result in a shift of all but the staunchest Law-inclined.

How does this fit in with the development of the world?

Well, the world also has a character sheet, and a graph of its own.  This world (or area, or town, or whatever) starts out the game at 0,0 - tabula rasa.  The actions of the characters will shift the location of the world, but in a much more volatile manner.  While catching the murderers may not have a big impact on the moral code of the individual, on the societal level, it has a great impact, and will move the world towards Law.

Here's the thing, though - every character's mutations are slowly killing them, and it's because mutations are unnatural and their minds and bodies know it.  There is evidence that all the mutations spring from the mind, even if they are physical in nature, and the on some level, the character's mind and body realize that these things don't belong in a rational world.  They attempt to make sense of this contradiction by removing that which doesn't belong - themselves.  They push their bodies to the breaking point, and as the power of the mutations grow, so does the inner objection to their own existence in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, until they reach a level at which it becomes unacceptable, and the mind shuts down the body - Level 9.

There is hope, though.  It's been found that by engaging with the world and focusing attention outward instead of inward, the progress of a mutant's mutations can be slowed.  By attempting to shape the world around it, the mutant is able to make the world make sense again.

In practical terms, each time a character reaches a certain point in its progression, there is a chance that they will level up.  This percentage is mitigated by the distance of its Bearings from the world's own Bearings.  The closer they are, the more in tune they are with the world as it exists, the less chance that they will find themselves inching closer to death.

I'm still working out the numbers and a less clumsy way to explain it, but that's the gist.

As long as I'm talking about it, this is really the last oddly-shaped piece of the puzzle to fall into place, and while there are a few more pieces to place, they are mostly large, and square (hit points, damage, that sort of thing).  Once this has been hammered into place, the system will be essentially complete, and ready for playtesting.

I really can't believe I just typed that.  It's been a long time coming, and hopefully some of you still have some enthusiasm for the finished product.  If you're interested in playtesting, drop me a line, and I'll shoot you out a draft once it's ready!

The Uncanny Chasm

Oh Father Ted, you never let me down.

I'd imagine that many, if not most, of the readers of this blog have heard of the Uncanny Valley, but in case some have not, it refers to the fact that the closer you get to building a robot that simulates humanity, the more "wrong" the robot appears, until it finally hits that point of seamless integration between expectation and reality.

What does this have to do with RPGs?  Well, a game that takes place entirely in the imagination has similar issues.  There is the chasm between the mind of the creator and the mind of the user, and there is the chasm between the mind of the GM and the mind of the PC.  In either instance, the Uncanny Chasm represents the gap between how it is "meant to be" and how it is "perceived to be".

Now, "meant to be" is a loaded phrase.  Some will take issue with it, I'm sure, but at the end of the day, if something is created, that thing has a form.  In order for you to actualize something, you have to conceptualize it, and in order to conceptualize it you have to visualize it.  Basically, the game can inhabit some sort of quantum superposition where it has no direction, purpose or meaning if you like, but as soon as it's actualized, it collapses into a thing, and that thing has form, shape and function.

"Perceived to be" is much easier to to take in - it's the house rules, it's the home-brews, it's the on-the-fly judgement calls that make your game different from any other game out there, regardless of the rules you're using.

So how do you cross that chasm?  How do you get others to play the game that is in your head?

Some will say, "Why would you want to?", and for them, I have no answer.  To me, creation is an act of sharing, and if I'm going to actualize something, I see it as my duty to make sure that my vision is as clear as possible.  So I don't create with these people in mind, and rarely spare them a thought - they will do what they will with what I create, or ignore it completely, as is their right.  My goal is not to create some sort of totalitarian creative space where those who do not use what I have created exactly as I intend are herded into reeducation camps, but rather make sure that those who are looking for something full and alive are able to grok it with as little head scratching as possible.  Basically, if you like what I'm selling, let me make sure you see it as clearly and fully as possible.

So, with that caveat out of the way, the short answer to my question, "How do you get others to play the game that is in your head?" is, "You can't".

No, seriously, you can't.

It is impossible to drag something down from the ether, define it completely, package it and hand it off to someone else without losing something along the way.  Films probably come the closest, but even so, two people can watch the same movie, see the same pictures and hear the same words, and yet come away from the movie with different experiences and understandings.  It only gets harder as you get deeper into the meatspace - two people can read the same book, and imagine the characters as completely different from how the author imagined, or even described, them.  Once you get to roleplaying games, all bets are off.

So it's a matter of expectations - you certainly can't hope that someone is going to play your game exactly as you imagine it, and the world in the GM's mind translating well to the minds of the players is as likely as not.

And yet... and yet... it does happen.  Rarely intentionally, but a thousands monkeys with a thousand typewriters and all that.

How?

I don't think there is a simple answer here, only things that contribute in varying degrees to the ability of a project to bridge the chasm.

Some fall into the trap of thinking that it's the rules.  They're partially right, but not in the way they think.  I'll come back to that.

Art is an easier one to point to.  It allows the reader to peek into the mind of the Creator.  Problem is, unless the Creator is also the Artist, you've actually added another Chasm to be leapt.  Art only gives the feel of a setting, though, not the setting itself.  It can tell you what certain inhabitants and circumstances look like in the world, but it is by no means comprehensive, and it is almost impossible to communicate the "meaning" of a game via the art?  Vibrant colors and strong, clean lines may indicate high fantasy, while drab coloring and heavy shadows may evoke noirish sensibilities, but there are other uses for each, as well - Superheroes use the former, while the latter could also be indicative of horror.  So while not perfect, art does provide a viable, if a bit crumbly, bridge across the chasm.

Another way to go about it is with color.  You know, the little bits of flavor text scattered through the book? They drop you into random parts of the world in question, giving you insight into the Creator's vision, without  the investment of a novel.  If you scatter them widely enough, your reader goes away with a good sense of things.

Then there's background.  This one is tricky.  Done well, it makes you ask questions, and draws you into the world.  World of Darkness is a good example of this.  While the conceptual element of their games are simple (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc), it is legerdemain.  Each game is its own rabbit hole, drawing you further and further from what you think you know about them.  Done poorly, and you end up with an RPG that shall remain nameless.  I grabbed the pdf off of DriveThruRPG, based on an intriguing blurb.  Opened it up, and first had to scroll through a 48 page short story, followed by a 14 page history of this nightmare future, taken decade by decade from the present day all the way to the year 3,450 or whatever.  All just to tell me that it is an Aliens-inspired Lovecraftian Survival Horror game.  It took me all of about 2 pages to twig that, before my eyes rolled back in my skull and the tablet dropped from my hands.

Finally, we get to rules.  I saved this for last, because it is such a fiercely contested topic, one which has given rise to two camps, which do battle regularly with the ferocity of a thousand tigers.  Those camps are, of course, Team SYSTEM MATTERS and Team THE PLAY'S THE THING.  I think that both are essentially correct, depending on how you approach gaming in general.  If you want, you can take any rule set and use it to play any type of roleplaying game you can imagine.  You can play a George Bernard Shaw-esque social comedy using basic Dungeons and Dragons.  You can take the rule set for Classic World of Darkness and use it to play survival horror in space.  You can bend, twist and house rule any system to make it do what you want, if you only want it enough.

Now, with that being said, there are some systems which make it easier for you to do this, and require less acrobatics on your part in order to make it work.  For instance, while your characters may want to play an RPG version of The Importance of Being Earnest, you can either have them roleplay it out, in which case they have to possess the voice and vocabulary necessary to make it feel like an Oscar Wilde game, or make a lot of Charisma checks.  But what if there was a system that was designed specifically to mimic social interaction of that nature?  It allows those who enjoy that sort of thing to play along, without actually having to do it themselves.

While you may love OD&D, how many contortions must you perform to get it to work in a modern day setting?  Clips of ammunition, the relative speed of a car vs. a horse, computers, etc.  Can you do it?  Sure, absolutely.  You can figure out how to use those rules to make all of those things work.  Or, you can use a system that is designed with specifically that in mind, and have it all there, no houseruling required.

So my point regarding rules would be, I think, that SYSTEM CAN HELP YOUR PLAYERS DO THEIR THING.  There is no roleplaying game out there that can only be played by one system.  You can always take your own approach and adapt some other system to do it.  You can dig a ditch with a shovel, or you can dig it with your hands.  Either one will get you what you want, but one is going to make it easier to get it done.    In keeping with the theme of this post, you can build a bridge over the Chasm, or you can tie a rope.

Now that we're past that hurdle, it's worth it to mention that some systems make it easier to leap the chasm.  Some systems operate in such broad strokes that the worlds described are instantly recognizable to almost anyone who plays them.  I believe Dungeons and Dragons' initial success was due in no small part to the fact that the setting was generic enough that you didn't need too much background to be able to play.  You say "Fantasy", and just about everybody thinks, "Dwarves, Elves, Magic, Dragons."  There's no need to cross that chasm, because you're already on the same side.  Pull out BECMI and start talking about the trenches of Verdun, and the Chasm widens between you and your players.

I don't really have any grand idea to wrap this all up with, there is no "solution" to the problem.  There's a problem, and different things you can do to address it, but you'll never do away with it completely.  As a GM, you will always care more about your world than your players will.  As a designer, you will always care more about your world than GMs will.  It's the way of the world - the Uncanny Chasm is littered with the scattered remains of tons of great ideas.  While your ideas are more likely than not to end up there, there are things you can do to make it (slightly) less likely.

FtA: Redefining Risk and Reward

I compare RPGs to comics quite a bit in my head.  I imagine that the Venn Diagram of the two fanbases has quite a bit of crossover, and their underlying principles are much the same. I'm not going write a dissertation comparing the two, don't worry.  There is one key point that both share, that I want to touch on - the fact that both presuppose a world where problems can be solved with violence.

I'm not sure if I've brought it up on this blog before, but as anyone who has ever gamed with me can attest, I'm not a fan of combat.  Margaret Atwood said that war is what happens when language fails, and that seems to be a recurring theme among the characters that I play.  The first time I met an earlier iteration of my current gaming group, rather than participate in combat, I threatened to sink the ship we were fighting on unless the enemies stood down.  I later realized that 4E was not the game for me when I attempted to build a pacifist cleric, and found that it was literally impossible to do so, using the game as written.  I briefly considered asking my GM if I could inflict the damage upon myself in order to heal others, but that seemed a bridge too far, and while it was interesting concept, I felt it was better just to take the not-so-subtle hint that WOTC had left for me.  Pathfinder was better, I created a character who was nigh impossible to be detected.  He shadowed the party for several sessions, pilfering and making mischief before being discovered.  In the current Stars Without Number game, I play a character who has no combat ability whatsoever, more akin to a Microsoft Tech Support desk jockey than a traditional hero.  No, given the opportunity, I would rather avoid combat altogether at best.  With no other choice, I prefer to do as Sun Tzu advises, and make as many calculations before the battle as possible, stacking the deck in my favor.   I want to pick the battlefield, lay traps, arrange the PCs in the most advantageous position, stack as many bonuses as possible, so that when the combat occurs, as little is left to chance as possible; because while many people find exhilaration in hitting the right number on an oddly shaped piece of plastic, roleplaying is all about problem solving.  The less randomization involved, the more certain victory becomes.

When I GM, this presents me with a challenge.  I need to cater to the expectations of my party - there's no use setting up a chess board if folks show up wanting to play checkers.  When I do set up combat, I have to fight against my nature to stack the deck unreasonably in favor of the monsters.  Every time I pull out the Ogre Magi and have them using their flight, invisibility and cones of cold concurrently, player's jaws drop, and at least one PC usually dies.  As a GM, my goal isn't to kill the PCs - it's to present them with problems, and challenge them to come up with solutions.  But every time I get into a combat situation, I have to fight my natural inclinations, and make sure that I leave them some daylight.  Otherwise, I start thinking thoughts like, "Why WOULDN'T the Storm Giants have a pack of Elder Red Dragons on chains, guarding their treasure horde?"

No, I would much rather present the PCs with difficult situations that challenge them.  In a perfect world, those situations would have nothing to do with combat, but so many game systems are set up with combat as a presupposition that it makes it difficult to strike out in another direction.  I'll come back to this in a minute, though.

First, what does this have to do with comics?  For a long time, comics were effectively exercises in Monster of the Week style storytelling.  Villain A has an EVIL PLOT™, Hero X discovers it, they fight, and Villain A is defeated, his plan thwarted.  It's the basic storytelling arc - Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Resolution.  Sound familiar?  It should - it's the basis for the majority of adventures ever created. Over time, comics evolved somewhat - the combat became contextualized, with less panels devoted to the actual fisticuffs.  The violence became implied, and took a back seat to character development, and soap-opera style theatrics.  Alan Moore sounded the death knell for these style comics with Watchmen, which puts the ultimate futility of violence on full display.

It's gotten to the point where, in a recent Major Story Event, Avengers vs. X-Men, the actual fighting was relegated to a second book, AvX.  The main book was all talky character drama type stuff, with the fighting there perfunctory, more representative as a visual metaphor for the conflict than anything else.

To a certain extent, we've seen some of that go on in gaming, but to a large extent, it's out on the fringes, in the indie games corner of the market.    By and large, if you're starting an RPG, it means that somebody is about to get shot, stabbed or beaten.  Much as in comics, the language of conflict is violence.

The main difference between comics and RPGs, though, is in the nature of Risk and Reward.  According to Alan Moore, Stan Lee once said that readers didn't want change, they wanted the illusion of change, and that policy has become de rigeur.  Hence Spider-Man being in his mid twenties for thirty years.  Hence the revolving door of death in comics.  It keeps the franchises viable, but at the same time, it puts a time limit on the buy in of the readers.  Once you've seen your favorite character get resurrected from the dead, defeat the unstoppable villain, etc.  You start to realize that there is no Risk, so you settle into a cycle of diminishing Rewards for your investment in the story.  

In RPGs, there's no need to create the illusion of change, change can happen whenever.  While players can become attached to their characters they aren't franchises - rare is the player who pushes back from the table after their character dies and says, "Never again!  I'm done with RPGs!"  On another level, though, our community is just like the comics community, retelling the same stories over and over again, just with different window dressing.  Our heroes wear chain mail, not spandex, but the language of conflict and resolution is the same - if you hit it hard enough, you win!

Even "new" games perpetuate the system.  We're all on the grind, killing monsters to gain experience, which gives us the ability to kill more monsters in new and exciting ways.  The risk is all tied to the character's mortality, and the reward is tied his ability to kill.

When I was sitting down to design an RPG, I wanted something different.  I wanted a game that was designed around the idea of problem solving, but using a different language than what players have become accustomed to.  The problem being, of course, how do you get somebody to play such a game?  I saw a g+ thread awhile back talking about a group of PCs were using their dancing skills to thwart an invasion or some-such, and while it made my heart glad, I can't imagine that you could design an entire game around the mechanic, and even if you did, would there be any functional difference between my dancing roll vs. your dancing roll  and my combat roll vs. your combat roll?

So I've accepted the fact that combat probably needs to be a part of From the Ashes.  With that acknowledgement came the question - if you can't change the game, what about the rules of the game?  Rather than try and convince people not to fight, how about making the rule set drop a hint, a la 4E style, that combat is pointless?  If the point of combat is to perpetuate your character's ability to fight, why not set a hard stop on the development of your character?

So yeah - in From the Ashes, you're on the clock.  Kind of like Spawn back when Spawn was relevant, every character sets off knowing exactly how much power they have in them.

Remember this?

Except that rather than being a countdown, there will still be the normal leveling system.  They'll gain power as the progress, but once they hit the cap, it's over.  They will never be as powerful as they are at that moment, one second before they die.  Changing the language of conflict - if you know that you're going to die, what risk does combat have?  Death becomes, rather than an obstacle to be overcome, a fact of life that must be accepted.

But if the risk is fundamentally altered, so too must the reward be altered.

As I envision From the Ashes, it's a cooperative world building RPG.  The world itself starts off tabula rasa, and the actions of the PCs shape its development.  Without the constraints of a fight/level up/rinse/repeat paradigm, what can they do with a new world?  Will there be combat?  Sure, of course, but does killing any who oppose you make the new world better, or perpetuate the problems that led to the end of the world before?

If From the Ashes works out like I hope it does, there will be an emphasis on self sacrifice and creation, rather than violence perpetrated upon others and destruction.

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

What a trip - I received an email from myself, 10 years ago, via www.futureme.org.  I was a very different person 10 years ago, living somewhere else, doing other things, with different hopes and dreams.  Quite honestly, I'd forgotten all about it, which was probably my intent in sending so far into the future.  This combined with typical New Year reflections and the fact that I've recently seen Les Miserables has put me into a contemplative mood.  I'm going to go all Live Journal here, so if you came here looking for a light hearted gaming post, you're excused.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of Les Miserables, and in particular the character of Javert.  The knee-jerk reaction of most is to label him as a villain, but when questioned, few can find any action that he's taken that is wrong.  He is inflexible in his application of justice, but holds himself to the same standard, at one point offering to turn himself in for filing what he believes to be a false report, for instance.  In fact, he raises a salient point - Jean Valjean, nominally the hero of the tale, uses poverty to excuse his crime, but Javert points out that he was born in the gutter as well, and made his way in the world by adhering to a code.  There comes a point, though, where Javert is presented with a situation where what is Right is not Just, and is unable to resolve the conflict.  As a result, he throws himself into a river, unable to accept the fact that the system that he has used as a guide throughout his life, the bedrock upon which his life was built, was flawed.

To me, there is nothing more pitiable.

The email I received yesterday reminded me of some mistakes that I had made at that point in my life.  Not to be melodramatic, but those mistakes changed the course of my life.  Had I made different decisions at those points, I might be elsewhere, on a completely different path.  Looking back, I'm glad that I made those mistakes - they, and the experiences that came as a result, were formative in my development as an adult, and of course had I ended up elsewhere doing other things, I wouldn't have met my wife.  So while I'm glad that things turned out the way it did, I ended the email to myself with some advice, which sent chills down my spine, and touched all this off.

"Ask yourself - What If You're Wrong?"

There is a bit of Javert in all of us, myself included.  There are things we take for granted in our life - for instance, go through this list and I guarantee you'll find at least one thing that you thought was true that is not.  And if that bit of trivia that you were so certain about isn't true, what other misconceptions are out there, lurking deep in your mind, pulling your strings, setting you ablaze with wrathful fire?

What If You're Wrong?

My New Years Resolution is to listen more and talk less.  It's to question more and assert less.  It's to seek more and be less.  More importantly, it's to assume as little as possible, most of all that my own certitude is indicative of objective truth.

I don't want to be Javert.  I don't want to live my life under the care of a misconception, and only realize it when it is too late.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Curse the Player, Not the Character

****Warning - If you Haven't played Bioshock, this post may contain spoilers which will severely inhibit your enjoyment of the game.  Turn back if this sort of thing concerns you - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED****

I'm a huge fan of Bioshock.  I think it might be my favorite video game, no scratch that, I think it might be my favorite game period.  In general, I don't play first person shooters.  I find them dull and repetitive, and the idea of lining your sights up on a two pixel tall figure to try and kill it before it kills you just doesn't appeal to me.  I heard good things about Bioshock, though.  A horrific first person shooter with philosophical overtones?  Well sign me up!

It did not disappoint.

It was horrific, it played with the ideas of Ayn Rand, it presented you with serious questions of ethics and morality.  Oh yeah, and you blew stuff up.  The thing that sealed the deal for me, though, was THAT PART.  If you've played it, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, seriously, this is your last chance to turn back.

Okay.  So when it turned out that you had been doing the bidding of the bad guy, not your character, but YOU YOURSELF.  You, lulled into complacency by video game tropes, not even thinking about what the missions were accomplishing, were mind controlled just as much as your avatar by faceless being with a sunny sounding brogue and a, "Would you kindly..."

Mind.  Blown.

Seriously, I put down the controller, and, all alone in my apartment, said out loud, "Damn.  DAMN."

I can honestly say that is the only time that a game, video or otherwise, has had that kind of impact on me.  So before I continue, hats off to 2K Games.

Now, to the point.  I got to thinking, how to replicate that experience in an RPG?  Specifically with regards to cursed items.  Traditionally, in games that I've played, when somebody gets a cursed item, it usually goes something like, "Bad news, bro.  That sword you picked up has a -1 modifier, and you can't ditch it until you find a priest."

Fair enough, that's accurate, but that's a player's description, and draws a bold line between the player and the character.  Whenever I can, I'd rather blur that line, and force the player into the mindset of the character, so why not mess with the players a bit, rather than just the characters?  Here are a couple that  have come to mind.


Bloodthirsty Weapon

This one is a direct homage to Bioshock - the weapon appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a weapon of speed, allowing the user to strike first in combat.  Who wouldn't want to use that weapon?  It works fine, doing just what it says on the tin, until the  party finds itself in a social setting, when the weapon leaps into the hand of the person who has been wielding it, and it strikes at the nearest noncombatant NPC.  That's when you realize the weapon has been controlling you all along, not vice versa.


Weapon of Misdirection -1

This sword radiates strong magic, and the DM should tell the person wielding that it is a +3 weapon.  Then, simply increase any foe's defense/AC/whatever by 4, without telling the player.  If the player gets frustrated and tries to switch weapons, the DM secretly rolls a Wisdom check/saving throw/whatever.  If it's failed, the character thinks they have switched weapons, while still holding the same cursed weapon.  If they pass the check, they realize the weapon is cursed.

Deck of Many Curses

See who the degenerate gamblers in your group are.  It's a Deck of Many Things, with all the good stuff taken out.  With unlimited draws.

Ring of Inner Truth

Ring of +1 Wisdom, but at the GM's discretion, table talk is actually spoken aloud by the character.

Tent of Paranoia

This tent aids in the healing of the characters, and is big enough for the entire party.  Any who sleep within it double their normal healing.  For the following 24 hours, however, all NPCs appear to be monsters or other demonic creatures.  Any speech will be heard as threatening, and movements observed will promise violence.  The illusion persists until they are dead, at which point their true form is revealed.  Actual monsters and other demonic creatures appear and act as normal.


The point is, you're the GM - nothing says that you have to be a reliable narrator!  It's something gamers tend to take for granted, but it doesn't have to be that way - keep them on their toes and make them question everything!

The Harrowing pt II - Wrapping Up

First off, an apology - I was truly a lazy blogger yesterday, copying and pasting the article from Wikipedia, and the God of Sloth cursed my work, with horrible formatting that I didn't even check!  I've reformatted yesterday's post, so if you were curious just what in hell I was talking about, now you can know.

So, down to business.  I set out this month with lofty goals, and as the month winds down, I can look back and say that the the results were decidedly.... mixed.

I was able to blow through the Risus One Page Challenge entries with little problem.  Both of my submissions can be found here.  I'm a bit proud of both of them, even if they both leaned a bit more towards post-apocalyptic than steam punk.  It was a fun exercise.

NaGaDeMon is next.  I started off the month designing a board game, sort of like Axis and Allies, but with less of an emphasis on military strength.  The game has evolved, and is now a card game.  There are 172 nations in play, and much like during the Cold War, escalation is everyone's enemy, and the nuclear Damocles Sword hangs over all players.  Convince the people to rise up, buy them off or just invade and take them over, there are many different ways to secure world domination, but if you invest too much of your resources, you may succumb to forces at work on the home front.  I've been working with someone I know to turn this into a real thing, and while there is zero chance it will be anything close to playable by the end of the month, it's real.  It's going to happen.  So while I failed the NaGaDeMon challenge, something good has come of it, for sure.

NaNoWriMo.  This was always going to be the longshot, and lo and behold, I didn't quite make it.  Actually, it would be fairer to say that I bombed out spectacularly.  I held through the first week, missed one day and never recovered.  But hey, I now have a quarter-finished novel under my belt, so I can go back and peck at it sporadically.  I also learned that the "Don't edit, just write" is impossible for me to do.  Literally.  Impossible.

The Clockwork Cave continues to slog along.  In an interesting twist though, a sort of "mini-game" that I designed as a part of the adventure has mutated (heh) into the core mechanic for From the Ashes.  I'm actually quite pleased with it, and I think it fits the system not only mechanically, but spiritually, as well - it enhances the idea behind the game.

So that's pretty much it.  The easy stuff was easy, the hard stuff was hard, I made some progress, fulfilled some goals, left some undone.  Pretty much life, yeah?

2000 cp Revisited

So you might of heard of this, yes?  The 2000 cp hoohah?  I participated in some of the... conversations on g+, but it's taken until now for me to formalize my thoughts to the point where I can offer some cohesive statement on the whole thing.

The bottom line here, for me, is that we play a game that exists solely within the confines of our mind.  Things exist, not because they must, but because we choose them to be so.  As such, if we choose them not to be so, they need not be so.

So that leads me to this: the idea of lazy module design only applies to those who lack imagination themselves.  Nothing in a module need exist unless the person reading it chooses to agree with it.  If you do not want there to be 2000 cp, there can be 2454 cp, or there can be none at all.  What I find more interesting, though, is taking the module literally and then working with it, no matter how deranged it seems.

So rather than change the module, why not ask yourself as a GM, why ARE there 2000 cp in a rat's nest?  How DID that improbable sum come to exist in such an innocuous location?  You don't need to plan out every possible scenario in advance, but rather leave yourself open to allowing for those scenarios to play out as needed.  Leave the 2000 cp where it is, and allow for the possibility that there IS a reason for it being there, and allow the PCs to explore that, should they so choose.

For instance, the party stumbles upon the rats, defeat them and search for treasure.  They find the 2000 cp, and say, "What?  Six rats have 2000 cp?  Well that's highly unlikely."

Rather than agreeing with them, stare right back at them, and say, "It is rather odd that there are exactly 2000 cp.  Would you like to look around more closely?"

They could find a seal, indicating that this was once the treasure chamber of a local bandit, looted of all except the least valuable (200 lbs for 20 gp?  No thank you!).  They could find that there is a secret passage that is held closed by 200 lbs of weight, and removing even a single coin opens it - it could also be a trap, and the secret passage is beneath their feet!  They could discover that the coins are cursed, and that that a mage has been storing them here for future use, and is planning to distribute them at court.  They could be ensorcelled, allowing the spellcaster to listen in on any room in which they are placed.  The coins might not be coins at all, the pile could be a previously undiscovered offshoot of mimics.  They could be an illusion, designed to confuse adventurers long enough for  something to respond to a silent alarm tripped by their probings.

My point here is, that there are an infinite number of reasons why exactly 2000 cp are sitting in a rats nest, and only the GM has the power to make it interesting, or boring, not the game designer.

In general, especially when I'm in a Sandbox/Hexcrawl/Megadungeon, I try and allow the players the latitude they need to steer the game in a direction that they find interesting.  Even if I have a general idea of the direction that a game is headed in, that doesn't mean there can't be distractions along the way.  If the fact that 2000 cp are hidden in a rat's nest, then why not give them a story to chase?

I want to encourage creativity in my players.  I want them to find solutions to problems I didn't realize existed.  I want them to think of alternative solutions to problems I did come up with myself.  Just because I had thought of one particular way of solving a scenario doesn't mean that if they come up with a better one it's invalid.  Hell, even if it's not as good as mine, I'm still not going to shut them down - let's roll with what you've got, and see where it takes us.

Rather than saying, "No", ask yourself, "Why Not?"

Coldfire: The RPG?

I remember reading these novels not long after the last one came out, some time in the mid 90s, and was smitten.  Compelling characters, a truly unique, fully fleshed out world, and a plot that kept me turning the pages, I've gone back to C.S. Friedman's trilogy many times since.

After stumbling upon a notification that she had recently wrote a new novella set in the history of the setting, I was reminded of how awesome it was, but more importantly, how shovel-ready an RPG would be set in that world.

The basic premise is that way back when, a spaceship full of humans landed on the planet of Erna.  While it appeared earth-like at first, there was an energy field surrounding the planet, which the humans called the Fae.  The energy was expressed through various aspects, creating differnt "types" of Fae - Earth, Solar, Tidal and Dark.  The first colonists were almost wiped out as they discovered that the Fae reacted to the humans' brain activity, and created monsters ripped from their imaginations.  Discovering there were rules to the Fae's existence, the realized that the Fae could be "worked" - that it could react to the conscious mind as well as the unconscious, and that sacrifice was the most powerful way to influence it.  Destroying all of their technology, they sacrificed their past to guarantee a future on Erna, and an uneasy truce was reached between the humans and the Fae.  A new church rose up, dedicated to focusing the will of mankind towards the goal of mastering the Fae, and even managed some significant victories.  The longer the humans stayed on Erna, the more people became able to, and adept at, working the Fae.  By the time the story begins, adepts, as they are known, are hawking enchanted items to the common folk, warrior priests walk the land destroying fae creatures, and the rakh, Erna's indigenous species, are tentatively interacting with the humans.

So you've got Mage-types who can work the various types of the Fae - earth fae is plentiful and stable except during earthquakes and near volcanoes, when they can run wild.  Solar fae has been worked in the past, but only through great effort by the Church - although it is plentiful, it is ephemeral and almost impossible to touch.  The Tidal fae is similar - some rare women can sense it, but only the rakh have been able to work it with any sustained success.  The Dark fae is the most powerful fae available to humans, but is ultimately deadly to all those who work it.  You've got priests, trained in the art of battling dark fae creatures, some of which can work the earth fae themselves, but who are viewed with mistrust by their own elders in the church.  You have the rakh, wild, noble beasts as a separate race.  The RPG literally writes itself.

That literally only scratches the surface of these books, and more information can be found here, here, here.  The point is, though, that it could easily be translated into an RPG.  I discovered a contact email address for C.S. Friedman on her website yesterday, and shot her an email, asking her about this very matter, and she was kind enough to reply, quickly even!

There has to be a company interested in the kind of investment that would take. Thus far the offers I’ve had, I did not feel would do the work justice.

Fingers crossed.

So hey now, here's hoping.

Devil's Advocate Theater: Skills

Welcome to the first installment of Devil's Advocate Theater, where I argue both sides of an argument, because I'm ornery.

The first item up for debate is Skills.  A fairly divisive topic in the OSR, there are no shortage of folks ready to line up and argue one side or the other in this debate, but how many are there that will argue both for AND against them, eh?

Introducing our two debaters today, we have the Grognard and the Munchkin.

Grognard:  I'm pleased to be here today, and would like to thank From the Ashes, and James MacGeorge in particular, for moderating this debate.

Munchkin: I would like to thank them both as well.  But more powerfully.

Moderator: Well, we're off to a good start - both sides agree.

Grognard: Technically, he doesn't agree with me, since he felt it necessary to emphasize the magnitude of his agreement.

Moderator: Yes, well let's get to the matter at hand - Skills.  Valuable tool or bane of all that is good in life?  Grognard, you won the coin toss, so you get first response.

Grognard:  Bane of all that is good.  Hands down.  Role Playing is meant to be a challenge for the player.  Skills act like cheat codes, allowing you to take shortcuts, and dumbs down the game overall.

Moderator: Well, a very strident answer, direct and to the point.  Munchkin?

Munchkin: We're playing a game called Dungeons and Dragons, where people throw fireballs and call down the might of their gods upon those that anger them.  There are already cheat codes built into the game - they're called spells.

Grognard: Exactly my point - spells were built into the game from the beginning.  To borrow a phrase, "I must not use skills.  Skills are the game killer.  Skills are the little-death that bring feats."  Skills were the first step away from dudes picking up swords and venturing into dungeons and the first step towards the superheroes in chain-mail in 4e.

Moderator:  I'm hearing a presupposition there that 4e is an inherently bad game.  Which  is a different debate from this one.  So leaving that aside, we'll say that 4e is a different game than the original, and move on from there.

Grognard: Okay, consider this.  Skills remove the need for player involvement with the game.  It removes all incentive for the player to actually participate in the game itself.  The game changes from a game of skill to a game whose outcome is determined by the roll of the dice.  Chess becomes craps.  Many of the best traps conceived for D&D involve the player working out the mechanism and disarming it, based on observations, asking the right questions, etc.  With Skills, it just becomes, "Roll a perception check".  You got it?  Great, the trap is disarmed!  Where's the fun in that?   Where's the skill?

Munchkin: Look, if I wanted to be a master trapsmith, I would have gone into a life of crime.  I play these games to relax and have fun.

Grognard: You can have fun and still be involved!  If all you want to do is roll dice, there are board games and dice games out there for you.

Munchkin: Those games don't offer the narrative content that I crave.

Moderator: Sounds like we're veering off track again.  Let's refocus.  Munchkin, why do you believe that Skills are valuable tools?

Munchkin: Because not using them is discriminatory.

Grognard:  Discriminatory?  What???

Munchkin: Yes, discriminatory.  If the most your character is able to do is what you as the player can do, then you have certain class skills that just cannot be played by certain players.  How do you play someone with an Intelligence score of 18 if you yourself aren't all that smart?  How does a slovenly, abrasive jerk play someone with a high Charisma?  Nobody would ever be able to play a Paladin, because all the people who already have Paladin-like attributes are out there doing heroic things in real life, not playing games about them!

Grognard: Well first of all, I take exception to your characterization of gamers.  I'm sure there are some paladins in our ranks.  Secondly, that's just ridiculous.  Attributes are different from skills.  Higher attributes allow you to mitigate shall we say... shortcomings within the player.  They enhance what is already there.  Skills allow you to create, whole cloth, abilities which the player does not possess.

Munchkin: Do you know how to use a sword?

Grognard:  I hardly think that's relevant.

Munchkin: Moderator, will you instruct the Grognard to answer the question?

Moderator: This isn't a trial, Munchkin.

Grognard: I'll answer.  I can swing a sword, which is a step towards using a sword.

Munchkin: Okay then, let's go back to casting a spell.  Isn't casting a spell allowing you to "create, whole cloth, abilities which the player does not possess"?

Grognard: Yes, but again, it's a presupposition of the original game.

Moderator:  We're veering off point, gentlemen....

Grognard:  For the record, by the way, I'm not in favor of ability scores trumping player ability, either.

Munchkin: What???

Grognard: Your character is your avatar within the game.  If you're trying to talk your way past the guard, should you get a Charisma roll when you tell him, "I am Vecna, here to destroy you, stand aside little man!"?

Munchkin: Of course!  Maybe the guard doesn't know what Vecna looks like, and if you have a high enough Charisma, maybe you can sell it really well!

Grognard: What if you're a halfling?

Munchkin: I've met some pretty terrifying halflings....

Grognard: The point is, what you say matters, and skills or attributes shouldn't take the place of role playing and common sense.  If you're spouting nonsense, you shouldn't expect that a number on a piece of paper will mitigate that.

Munchkin: But that's ridiculous!  Your rule only makes sense when applied to social and mental attributes.  Should someone prove they can lift a gate in real life if they want their character to do so in game?

Moderator: Again, we've lost sight of our original topic, but unfortunately we're out of time.  I'd like to thank the reading audience for spending time with us this evening, and remember: if you can't be Good, be Neutral!

Realism vs. Hyperrealism

Much has been made of joethelawyer's review of the session of Dwimmermount, run by Erik Tenkar, of Tenkar's Tavern fame, and I'm hardly the first to weigh in, but since when have such considerations ever stopped someone from blogging? 

There's a reason why nobody has published an rpg based on accountants who go to work every day to deal with their shitty bosses and crunch numbers in excel spreadheets.  With that being said, nobody has published an rpg where the GM asks the players what they want and then just gives it to them, either. Realism vs. Hyperrealism.

So most games fall somewhere on that axis, with the "sweet spot" being, like many things, in the eye of the beholder.   I noticed it for the first time when I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV.  I absolutely LOVED GTA2, 3 and all its iterations.  It was big, it was brash, it was gonzo.  It was a cartoonish version of the 80s and 90s that was close enough to reality that it could look over at the player and wink knowlingly, and if you were familiar enough with its in jokes, you got a good laugh.  If not, you still had a solid game playing experience.  With GTA4, Rockstar drank its own bathwater and suddenly we were in a real life simulation as a gangster.  There were occasional flashes of humor, but nothing comparable to the previous games.  It crystalized for me when I sat down on my couch and play a game on my television where my character sat down on a couch and watched a television.  At that point, the navelgazing created a singularity that pulled me right out of the game.  I put down the controller, and haven't played it since. 

I've been reading Grognardia for awhile, and anyone who does is probably familiar with Jim's turn of phrase, Gygaxian Naturalism.  Basically, the idea being that the monsters the PCs encounter existed before the combat, and will still exist afterwards (assuming they survive).  Based on the descriptions I've read of the session, it seems as though Dwimmermount is the architectural extension of this theory.  This is a dungeon that has been around for ages, has served multiple purposes, been inhabited by numerous creatures, etc.  It's a "naturalist" dungeon - it existed before the PCs arrived, and will be around long after they're gone.  Some of the stuff they find will make sense, perhaps because whatever they're interacting with is from a recent incarnation, perhaps because it's just obvious, but some of the other, more obscure stuff just might not make sense because the PCs lack the context to understand it. 

Is that a design flaw?  I don't think so.  Is that context required?  Again - I don't think so.  It just depends on where, on the axis described above, your "sweet spot" lies.  What, for you, constitutes a "good" dungeon?  If, as joethelawyer says, you're in it for the gold and glory, high adventure and praises from the serving wenches, then you probably lie closer to the "hyperrealism" side of things - titans riding tarrasques into battle would be the extreme end of it.  If you're looking to simulate the feeling of exploring ancient, long abandoned ruins, you're probably closer to the "realism" end of the spectrum, with 1st level adventures from 1978 D&D where you're being paid a few coppers to clean the stirges out of the bar's basement on that far end. 

Although I was a Dwimmermount backer, I have yet to download any of the previews, preferring instead to see the finished product before going back to see how the sausage was made.  I do feel pretty confident saying that Dwimmermount probably just didn't work for that group of players.  Hell, when I get it, it may not work for mine either - my group tends towards the more gonzo side of things, so they may react the same way.  Either way, though, I'm looking forward to holding the finished product in my hand.

So where does your group fall on the spectrum?

Design

As I've been going through the various paper and files I've accumulated over the last year or so as I've worked on From the Ashes, I've started dividing them into two camps - Mechanics and Universe.  The mechanics have changed to a certain extent as I've gone along.  Initially a Gamma World retroclone, I included such old-timey concepts as THAC, Hit Dice, Armor Class, and even toyed with breaking out the borrowed-from-Marvel-Superheroes-Action Chart.  As it's evolved, I've moved away from some of those concepts, and kept others (I won't get your hopes up - the Action Chart was discarded).  At it's core, the system that has emerged is simple, even elegant, if I may be so bold.  I'm still working through some of the kinks, trying to figure out what I haven't thought of as I try to break the rules.  So far so good.  The biggest challenge I have had was in regards to my last big post, where I decided to scrap the entire idea of random mutations.  What worries me about this is mostly that it requires trust in the players, and to a certain extent, the GMs who run this game.  If it's not done right, it could be not-fun.  If it's run right, I'd see people custom designing off-the-wall mutations and using them creatively.  If it's done wrong, you'd end up with a samey group of Alpha Mutants wandering the wastelands nuking things with their mind.

Which has gotten me thinking - that sounds not-fun to me, but maybe to someone else that sounds like a great time.  So for whom am I building this game?  To a certain extent myself, but, like all of my writing, it's more of an "excorcise the demon" type of thing, get it down on paper and get it out get it out get it OUT!  I'm building the game that I want to play.  Of course, RPGs are not single player games, so I have to make a game that not only do I want to play, but others want to play with me.  I love DCCRPG, I love what their doing, but the introduction, where it says that the game was created for on person, always struck me as a bit of chest beating that had little bearing on actual game design - like a Conanalike barbarian holding aloft a dripping sword, newly fashioned, still glowing from the forge and proclaiming, "Do you see what I have wrought????"

So if you accept you're not building a game for yourself, who are you building it for?  Do you cast as wide a net as possible and risk being bland and forgettable, target a niche market within our niche market and risk missing a tiny tiny target, or walk the line between the two and risk ending up as palatable to neither?

The broader the net you want to cast, the less important the Universe stuff is.  White Wolf had it's target demographic nailed to the wall with their Storyteller Series, and I don't imagine that their market share has grown considerably - they know who they're selling to, they know how many of them there are, and they know how many books they'll buy in a year, so they write their books for those specific people.  Nobody at White Wolf is wringing their hands and trying to figure out how to break out of their niche - they OWN their niche - why leave?

It seems the broader the net you want to cast, the less specific you want to be - you don't want to alienate people that hate playing elves by building an elf-centric product.  A big part of D&D's success was that it was almost literally just a set of rules that you could hang just about any type of game on.  Sure, you got Greyhawk as a suggested setting, but if you didn't like it, you could start your own world of Hawkgrey, where things were completely different.  You had the broad remit of, "A game of adventurers battling monsters", anything beyond that you brought to the game yourself. 

The only way to top that is to build the better mousetrap - if you're playing D&D and you're happy with those rules, why switch systems, unless you find a better set of rules?  You're not invested in anything that the company has given you, beyond the initial idea. 

My bragging earlier as evidence to the contrary, I'm not confident in my mechanical design skills to go head to head in that kind of battle, but I do want to have a game that others will play, so that means finding some sort of halfway point between the System and the Universe.  Enough to let people "see" my vision, while leaving them room to dream their own dreams.

This week, on a very special From the Ashes...

So last Wednesday our Pathfinder game failed to materialize so Ark's son, aka The Boy, asked to try his hand at GMing.  Taking the Rules-Light approach with Labyrinth Lord, it was a magical night, filled with surrealist marvels.  Highlights included the goblin chief with plate mail skin swinging a 12 foot long club, a dragon ripping the top off of a mountain, and a case of mistaken identity when a group of friendly NPCs were mistaken for... something hostile, and slaughtered.

The bit that stuck with me, though, was at the end.  In the climactic battle, Ark's character went toe to toe with a dragon, who unleashed a ferocious breath weapon, and Ark's character... died horribly.

Now, a friend once told me that you can tell alot by a person by the way they roleplay (a concept which worries me slightly as I think back on some of my own roleplaying experiences).  If that is true, then I think it goes doubly so for they manner in which they GM.  How they roleplay shows how they interact with peers, how they problem solve, and how they deal with the immutable.  How they GM shows how they deal with being the immutable themselves, and dealing with others from a position of power.  Are they a "Blue Bolts From the Heavens" type?  A Monty Hauler?  A Power Playing Mary-Sue-er?  I think this speaks to their inner self, which is what made what came next as touching as it was.

Ark, having just been roasted by the dragon, shrugged his shoulders, put his character sheet away, and announced, "I'm dead!".  The Boy's brow furrowed, as he realized - he had just killed his Dad.  Well, really, he had killed an avatar of his Dad's will projected upon the screen of his own imagination, but the distinction was a bit too fine.  "No, you're not dead!", the Boy proclaimed.  "But yes, I really am!", replied Ark.  The Boy twisted the rules into knots, trying to keep his Father alive.  Back and forth this went, until our time was just about out.  Our third player attempted to bribe the dragon by offering up several of his magical bastard swords, but the dragon, having lost it's taste for adventurer flesh, wandered off.  Similarly, the Boy and his Father wandered out into the night, the Boy's brow still furrowed, glancing worriedly up at his Father as they left.

My cold black heart was warmed.  It's easy to become callous towards the deaths of PCs, and seeing it through the eyes of a child was quite an experience.  He's a good kid - a credit to himself, and his Father.

WWtCD?

In a previous post, I had discussed the differences between player and character expectations, and I thought it was a topic that deserved some more room to breathe.  Specifically, I got to thinking about my time as a GM in a Gamma World campaign, and what a pain in the ass it was trying to create a world in which ordinary, every day items were wondrous artifacts of a bygone age.  Rolling up the "treasure" and finding they had discovered a fire extinguisher, and trying to describe it without giving it a way ("a red, tube shaped object with a hose running off of it that ends in a cone").  As much of a pain as it was, though, it was vital to keeping the "feel" of the game alive, because most people, or at least most people I have played with, sort of idealize themselves when they roleplay, so getting them into the heads of their characters can be a real challenge.  If I had told them that they had found a fire extinguisher, they would have been off to the Preservationists to hawk it without a second thought.  Instead, they went all the way through the "Figure Out an Artifact" chart, and were at one point using it as a bludgeoning weapon. 

When I play, I try and come up with a concept for my character as early in the character generation process as possible.  If I can do it beforehand and then fit the stats into the concept, all the better.  Once I've got that character, I try and react to situations as I feel my character would, which can lead to conflict in some cases with my fellow party members.  Playing a 1st level Elven Fighter, my fellow adventurers cannot understand why I won't go near the front lines, even though I have the biggest number of hit points.  Well, if you're an Elf that will live for thousands of years, provided you don't trip down the stairs or get impaled on the end of a spear, and you're only one or two sword strokes away from death, I think you'd be getting well acquainted with bows and arrows.  Similarly, when I played a Warforged Psionicist, the Evil, Evil GM had us square off against a monster that devoured metal.  My Warforged watched the fighter's shield turn to dust and broke and ran to "go for help".  It's those sorts of things, in my humble opinion, that make role playing fun.  Sure, there's always room in the party for a square jawed hero who laughs at death, but take the time to humanize your character!  Get in their head, and ask, WWtCD?

Lockpicking made easy

Over on Rather Gamey the other day, Ark was asking how people thought Skyrim would influence pen and paper RPGs.  As I was sitting on my couch this morning, I had an idea - why not use the lockpicking mechanism at my home game?

This is purely conceptual at this point, I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but it seems like it could work.  It helps that I think that the lockpicking minigame is brilliant on it's own, of course.  So my thought is that I save a game in the thieves guild training room, where there is a chest with a lock of each difficulty type to be found.  Leave that game where it is, and continue on with my regular game.  When it comes time for the home game, evaluate the difficulty of the lock, and have the player who is making the attempt have at it with the lock that the GM selects.  Anyone can try and pick a lock, but non-rogues only get one try (one lockpick).  Rogues get an additional lockpick for every 5% they have in Pick Locks (thinking in 2e terms here, adjust as needed for your game system - x number of lockpicks for every x points in that skill, for example). 

Once you use up your last lockpick, you jam the lock, so sorry, better luck next time.

I have a feeling there will be many locks to pick at my next 2e game (evil laugh... EVIL LAUGH!!!!)

Gaming Theory

Last night, I picked up a copy of Sorceror, an indie game published by Adept Press in 2002 that was written by Ron Edwards, winner of the 2002 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming.  This reminded me of how much I enjoy his articles.  I'm a member of The Forge, his forum for game development, although I don't feel as though From The Ashes has developed to the point where I'm comfortable sharing.  I also take time as often as I'm able to read through The Archives for discussions on Game Theory and other various and sundry topics related to RPGs.  A couple of my favorite articles include:

Fantasy Heartbreakers
More Fantasy Heartbreakers

And there are some selected articles Here

I still examine games (and GMs) through the lens of his GNS Theory, even though he's since abandoned it in favor of the Big Model.  GNS just works for me, especially as I GM - I can watch my players and, by figuring out which style of gaming they play, determine what it is they're looking for from my game. 

So if you've ever thought about RPGs, I mean really THOUGHT about them, take some time to get to know Mr. Edwards!

Achievement

It's funny how the nature of a game can shape its goals.  In the original D&D, the purpose of the game is mainly survival for the first few levels.  You're no hero, you're just a schlub that happened to pick up a sword or a spellbook and stumble from adventure to adventure.  The mortality rate is shockingly high, so high that you wonder how desperate life must be in that world that adventuring is considered a viable career.  You start out with essentially no difference between your player and your character, and over time, you build the skills you need in order to become the person you want to be.  Over time, this evolved, to the point where in 4e, you begin the game as about the equivalent of a fourth or fifth level version of your 1e character, and build to godlike status as you go.  Correspondingly, the goalposts shift from mere survival to legendary quests.  It's sort of like how bank robberies, once the staple of comic books, have been replaced by near daily threats to the universe - that sort of thing just doesn't cut it for today's audience.  Going to the caves on the outskirts of town to find a lost child and bring them back isn't fit for a 1st level 4e character, unless there are firebreathing kobolds that have kidnapped them.

Not trying to turn this into an edition war post, just that as the game evolved, so did our expectations for what a game of D&D means.  4e being more combat heavy that previous editions, focuses all of it's powers on building the better kobold-killer, whereas I remember spells in 2e that were ludicrously useless, but added to the flavor.  I think that the NonWeapon Proficiencies were some of the greatest things ever introduced to the game, because it forced the characters to think about what their characters did when they weren't killing things.  I hope that when 5e comes around, they put some thought into that, and, now that they have devised an incredibly well balanced, finely tuned combat system, can turn to the role playing aspects of the game.

Move the expectations for a game of D&D beyond character advancement, bring them into the realm of character development!

Old School

Much is made of the whole "Old School Renaissance", and I am greatful for its existence.  I think that there is value in looking back on what came before, and not forgetting where you come from, so to speak.  I think it's important to look at things as they are, though. 

Near as I can tell, the "Old School" is representative more of a mindset than a system in particular, which makes the abundance of retroclones bewildering, to say the least.  Rules-light is attractive, but let's face it - some of the stuff that our forefathers abandoned was jettisoned for a reason - it didn't work the first time around. 

I play a Labyrinth Lord campaign, and I love it.  I enjoy the back to basics approach that forces me to rely on my wits rather than powers.  But there are things in it that just stick in my craw - the Charisma modifier doesn't change whether you've got a 13 or an 18, for instance.  The insane area of effect for the Entagle spell (80 ft in diameter!).  Using a chart to determine hits instead of THAC0.  That sort of stuff.

Yes, there were great things about the original games, and lord knows we wouldn't be here without them.  I'm all for us keeping that flame alive, and not marching blindly into the future of collectible cards and paid downloadable content.  But let's not forget why we left some of that stuff behind to begin with, huh?