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For the True Believers

By | | Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Launch Party

I’ll be running a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Launch Party on Saturday, March 3, 2012, at Imagine Games and Hobbies, starting at 1:00 pm. If you’re interested in trying the game, you can sign up at the store.

So, I got my .pdf copy of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying a week ago. What with one thing ((Lots of work at the day job.)) and another ((A nasty, nasty cold.)), it’s taken me some time to do an in-depth read of the game, and then put together a review. I’ve almost caught my breath for the moment ((Which, of course, jinxes me to make sure another project or illness will land on me tomorrow.)), so I thought I’d get my impressions down before running the launch party event on Saturday.

The Short Version

The game is a lot of fun, and nicely emulates the feel of comic book superhero stories.

The Long Version

If you’ve read my report on the launch party I attended to play the game, you’ve got an overview of things. Now that I’ve had a chance to read the rules, I can talk in more depth about a number of points I touch on in that initial post.

First off, it’s important to understand what the design goals of the game are: what the designers intend the game to do. MHR is not really a superhero RPG – well, it is, but it is more specifically a comic book RPG, focused on emulating the stories told in Marvel comic books. That means it makes certain decisions and choices from the start that are reflected, encouraged, and reinforced throughout the rules. For instance:

  • Playing characters from Marvel comic books is the assumed default.
  • Play focuses on published events, such as the Breakout mini-event in the rule book, and the forthcoming Civil War event book.
  • Important choices and decisions made by the characters are what drive character change and advancement.

By focusing on these things, the game… I don’t want to say “sacrifices,” because that implies something negative. Let’s just say “de-emphasizes” certain elements. For example, because the game assumes playing Marvel characters, there is little advice about how to create your own, original character. There is plenty of discussion about how to model an existing Marvel character using the rules, which is easy to adapt to an original character, but the build-it-yourself hero options doesn’t receive the same kind of support that existing Marvel characters do. You can do it pretty easily, but it’s not something the book spends a lot of time talking about. The same is true of advice on building events.

I want to re-iterate that I don’t think this is a bad thing, but it is pretty counter to the way most superhero games do things. It shouldn’t really surprise people who are familiar with Margaret Weis Productions’ other Cortex Plus games, like Leverage and Smallville. Each game is focused like a laser on a very specific type of play experience – heists for Leverage and inter-character drama for Smallville – paring away everything that doesn’t lead to that play experience and tweaking everything that remains to drive the desired outcome. It produces a magnificently tight, thematic game, with systems that are eminently lootable and hackable.

What it doesn’t produce is generic games. So, if you go into the game thinking that it’ll give you the support and freedom ((Well, to be fair, it does give you the freedom to do what you want. Just not a lot of the support. Not overtly. As mentioned, the games are eminently lootable and hackable, and tweaking them to your desired flavour is not difficult.)) to do your own thing that, say, Champions does, you’re going to be disappointed. Set your expectations accordingly.

What MHR gives you is a fun, short-term, flavourful, pick-up-and-play superhero comic book game.

Let’s talk some specifics.

Dice Pools

The basic mechanic of the game is assembling a dice pool, rolling the dice, picking two dice to add together for your total, and a third die to represent the effect. It’s pretty bare-bones and simple, but the way you do these things turns it into a narrative event worthy of gracing the pages of your favourite comic. The main reason is the way you assemble your dice pool. You get to add a die for each of the following things:

  • Affiliation. Each hero has a die rating for when he or she is operating solo, with a buddy, or with a team. The ratings are d6, d8, and d10, arranged as best fits that hero. Thus, Daredevil shines when he’s solo, Captain America works best in a team, and Spider-Man ((Who teams up with everybody in the Marvel Universe.)) is at the top of his game when he’s helping one other hero. This leads to some very interesting decisions during action scenes, as players weigh the benefit of different group configurations.
  • Distinctions. Each hero also has a set of three Distinctions – character traits, catch phrases, distinguishing characteristics. These can either help the character or cause problems, and the hero can either add a d8 (the Distinction helps) or a d4 (the Distinction causes a problem). Adding a d4 gains the character a Plot Point ((About which more later.)), and the player gets the choice of when the Distinctions is positive or negative. More interesting narrative decisions.
  • Power Groups. Each character has one or two power groups, each of which contain a few different powers rated by die type. The hero can add a single die from each power group to the dice pool, as long as he or she can describe how that power helps. This adds another layer of narrative gold to the process – is Spider-Man going to just punch the bad guy, adding a d10 for Superhuman Strength from his Spider Powers, or is he going to swing off a lamp post and kick the villain in the head, adding both the d10 for Superhuman Strength and a d8 for Swing Line in his Web Shooter power group? These decisions go a long way to creating dynamic description about what’s happening.
  • Specialties. Each hero also has a few skills that he or she is especially good at, and can add a die – usually a d8 or d10 ((There are some dice tricks that can change the die type and number here.)) – to the roll. Thus, you get to decide whether your hero is being sneaky, or tough, or agile, or whatever, based on your specialties. This is usually just the icing on the narrative cake, but can sometimes be the whole point of the action.
  • Other Dice. There are other dice you can pull in, usually from things that you or others have done in the scene. For example, if you’ve damaged your opponent – applied Stress, in this system – you can add the Stress die as a sort of wound penalty for your target. Or if you happen to, say, catch a falling helicopter, you may get a die to use it as a weapon on your next turn. These are all the stunts and situational modifiers of the game, and tend to reflect teamwork, planning, or the environment.

The upshot of it all is that, by the time you’ve gathered your mittful of dice to roll, you’ve got a pretty good picture in your head of what’s going on.

And that’s just cool.

The Plot Point Economy

This game, like many other modern games, has an in-game mechanical currency called Plot Points. Players can spend these to add extra dice to their totals, or to keep two effect dice, or to activate certain powers, or to capitalize on the Watcher’s ((This is what the game calls the GM.)) bad rolls, or a number of other things. This is not terribly new, but the implementation of the economy – the method by which players gain and spend Plot Points – is smooth, elegant, and well-defined. There are codified rules as to when the Watcher hands over a Plot Point, which is something that is lacking in a lot of games, and there are clear times for characters to spend them, with clear rules for what they get.

I like this an awful lot. As a GM in a number of games that use these kinds of points, it’s refreshing to have a systematic way to determine when a player gets one. Otherwise, I find it’s far too easy to lose track of handing them out in the crush of other things that a Watcher has to manage. The triggers for distributing and using the Plot Points are built right in to the rest of the system, and that makes it a lot easier.

The Doom Pool

All rolls in this game are opposed rolls. When a player picks up the dice to try and do something, the Watcher picks up the dice to try and stop it. If a villain is opposing the hero, the Watcher uses dice from the villain’s character sheet. If there is no villain, but there’s still a chance of failure, the Watcher picks up the Doom Pool.

This is a pool of dice that starts small and grows throughout the session. Normally, it starts at 2d6, though different events may set different starting points depending on how tough the scenario is. Dice get added to the Doom Pool whenever a player rolls a 1 – and the player gets a Plot Point in payment. Alternately, the size of a die can be increased, turning a d6 to a d8, for example. Thus, the tension ratchets up as the session goes on, and things get tougher for the heroes.

In addition, the Watcher can spend dice from the Doom Pool to use almost like Plot Points, adding to a villain’s roll or activating something nasty. These dice are generally gone from the Doom Pool after that, unless the Watcher gives the hero a Plot Point to return the die to the Doom Pool. There are a couple of other little tricks that tie into this mechanic, but I really think the genius lies in the way the players get to watch the Doom Pool grow as a direct result of their own bad luck, and the stakes rise along with the dice.

Balance

I’m a firm believer in the idea that game balance doesn’t mean everyone starts with the same number of points, but that everyone has the same potential to steal the spotlight in play and show off how cool their characters are. This game takes that idea to heart – looking at the heroes included, it is obvious that there was no point-buy formula to indicate how many powers someone had, or even how many die sides they get on any power. The builds in the rulebook are based on what the hero can do, not on how they stack up against each other.

With all of that, though, it looks perfectly reasonable to have Daredevil and Thor in the same session, each of them doing what they do best, and each having the opportunity to shine. Thor won’t necessarily overshadow Daredevil, because even though Daredevil has fewer and weaker powers, each turn gives each hero the same chance and potential to build an interesting and memorable moment in the spotlight. I hadn’t thought this would be the case, but actually playing the game has made me a real believer. The balance in this game exists despite inequity in hero builds.

Turn Order and Teamwork

Fred Hicks wrote a wonderful and detailed account of the turn order and the reasoning behind it here, so I’m not going to repeat it. I just want to point out how it really goes a long way towards inspiring the planning and teamwork aspects of superhero groups without the need of grafting on complicated or awkward co-operation rules. By letting the turn order develop the way it does, the players are encouraged to think both tactically and strategically, and to try different kinds of teamwork combos. It seems like a small thing, but just not having to hold an action in order to take your turn right after a specific other player really makes it more likely that you’ll try to set up some sort of combo, a la the Fastball Special.

Art and Graphic Design

I’m not a real visual guy, but I can appreciate an attractive book, and this is it. Not surprising, given the wonderful wealth of images available from the Marvel archives, sure. But beyond that, the book ((Well, the .pdf. I assume the book will be, as well.)) is striking, colourful, and organized clearly. Indeed, the linked page references in the margins make the .pdf a real joy to use.

Final Thoughts

I’ve played the game, and I’ve read the rules. I haven’t run it yet. But I’m really looking forward to giving it a try. I think that the game is wonderfully focused on what it sets out to do, and can easily be hacked, tweaked, and looted to make it work in a much broader application, as well. Personally, I don’t have a lot of interest in running a campaign set in the Marvel Universe with my players playing Marvel characters, and so I wish that there was more support in the book for doing my own thing with it ((That said, MWP has said that there is downloadable content coming that includes things like random character creation charts, so that’ll pretty much cut the legs out from my one complaint.)).

But the system is dynamic, and fun, and does the best job I’ve yet seen of making play work like you see on the comic book page. The pick-up-and-play aspect of it is appealing for one-shots and limited campaigns ((You know, kinda like the Event books that are coming down the pipe next. Who’d’a thought, huh?)), and the game does comic book action well enough that I think putting in the extra effort to use it with original characters and in an original universe ((I’ve long had an idea for setting a superhero game in the time of the Irish Red Branch tales…)).

My advice is to buy it if you’re interested in cool comic book superhero games. Just don’t expect it to be like Champions.

Feints & Gambits: Ye Who Have Bullied and Bribed

By | | Dresden Files RPG, Feints & Gambits, What's he playing?
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When last we saw our intrepid heroes, half of them ((Okay, just under half. Three out of seven.)) were in jail after breaking into the GPO and setting a fire. There was some discussion in the time between sessions about what to do about that, and the gang came up with two possible plans.

The first plan to surface was to stage a magical jailbreak, with Mark O’Malley trekking through the Nevernever to the three jails and snatching out their friends. The idea was to find a place on the Nevernever side of things that resonated with “jailness” ((I used the word “durance,” but then, I’m a word-whore.)), so that the three openings would be close together on that side. I pointed out that this would not be in a nice neighbourhood of the Nevernever, and the gang was okay with that.

What they were less sanguine about was that this would turn three of them into hunted fugitives – no matter how trumped up the charges they were originally held on, breaking out of jail pisses the police off, and they will chase you and make your life hell. Because of that, Safire proposed that she instead go see Rogan’s mother, who is a wealthy and powerful woman, and see if this could be resolved without breaking any (more) laws. The group decided that this was the plan to try first, followed by the original plan if things didn’t go well.

So, that’s where things stood at the start of the session. It was another full house, so I had seven characters to track in play, which made things fairly busy.

I started by framing a scene for each of the incarcerated characters. Rogan had decided ((All on her own. Not my idea at all.)) that she – as a were-smilodon – was in heat. I think she had some idea of whiling away a pleasant day or two with the all-female population ((Many Caged Heat references were made.)), but that doesn’t make for exciting play ((Well, I guess for certain values of exciting…)). Instead, her advances touched off a riot in the holding cell, she wound up almost killing another prisoner, and was stuck in restraints.

Meanwhile, Firinne passed me a note saying that she wanted to send a cake to Kate, who was in jail. This cake would contain a rubber file. As none of the players knew what the note said, this led to an interesting and surreal scene, where Kate was hauled into the DI’s office, presented with her “birthday cake,” and told to cut it, revealing the file. The gardai didn’t know what to make of it, and Kate had no idea what was going on, so she was just dropped back in the holding cell to wonder about the incident.

Aleister drew the short straw, having been hauled in by Gene Hunt himself. That meant that Aleister’s scene was an interrogation. There was some banter, some questions, some threats against Aleister, and some threats against Aleister, and some threats against Liam, Aleister’s bar-keeping friend. In retrospect, it might have been better to run this as social conflict than just as a conversation. On the one hand, it would have made the kind of pressure being brought to bear more obvious, but on the other hand, it wouldn’t have shown off Aleister’s cold reserve as well. I guess when the choice is between showing off how bad-ass a PC is versus how bad-ass an NPC is, going with the PC bad-ass is the better choice. Still, I felt this scene didn’t have much interest or life in it. Something to ponder for next time.

We jumped over to Safire then, for her conversation with Rogan’s mother. It went fairly well, and Safire got her to agree to help. Now, I had to decide how effective that help would be. I was torn, here, for a couple of reasons: first, the escape plan was pretty cool and, second, it felt like cheating to just let some NPC swoop in and fix the problem.

Then I remembered that one of the themes in the game is corruption in the system. And the idea of people owing Rogan’s family a favour – and potentially getting drawn in to whatever games they’re playing behind the scenes – was attractive. And then there was how much Gene Hunt would hate that his suspects were snatched away from him by someone with money and the right political connections ((When we created Gene Hunt, the idea was for him to be a potential ally. In all their dealings with him, the group has very nicely shifted him to a suspicious neutral character, and this should be enough to move him into determined enemy territory.)). Given all that, and the fact that the group actually had an idea for what they wanted to do next, it became apparent that the right choice was to let the prisoners out.

And so I let them out.

The next stage of their plan was to get back at the ghost of Padraig Pearse for having set them up in the first place. Mark came up with the idea that he could latch onto the power given Pearse by the True Guinness he had stolen, summon him, check to see if he was a real ghost ((Given Pearse’s history – his spirit trapped by the Fey to judge the Easter Battle every year, strengthened by decades of True Guinness, freed by a necromancer’s death curse, purified by the Martyr Ghost in Kilmainham Gaol – he’s showing more depth, personality, and autonomy than ghosts generally do. This has got the gang a little bit worried that he’s actually the soul of the man himself.)), and then lay a royal beat-down on his spectral butt.

The idea was to use the Guinness Brewery for the site of the ritual, so Mark went and asked Aengous Keogh, the big man who oversaw the brewery ((And is probably not the Dagda at all.)) if they could do that. Aengous said that, if Mark asked him, he would allow it, but that it would come at a cost. Mark asked, and Aengous agreed.

Nate, on the other hand, went to the Warden to make sure that they wouldn’t get in trouble for this ((It pleases me that they are so wary of the Warden.)). He was told that, as long as none of the Laws of Magic were broken, he would turn a blind eye. The truth of the matter is that Pearse’s ghost was getting to be a big enough threat to the mortals that the Warden knew that someone had to do something, and better to let these (expendable, non-wizard, pain-in-the-ass) guys have first crack at it.

So, the group as a whole worked to whip up the necessary things to offset the Lore deficit in the summoning spell, and Kate and Mark cast it together. They got Pearse to the brewery, and Mark soulgazed him – or tried to. There was no contact, making Mark certain that Pearse was just a ghost, and could therefor be kicked with impunity.

Which they proceeded to do.

It wasn’t as easy as they thought it was going to be. Pearse was able to use the eye contact with Mark to mentally shut down his optic nerves, and the ghost stood up to a full-bore blast of fire from Nate. On top of that, a strange figure crashed the party – a tall man in a track suit, ski mask, and sunglasses, swinging around a replica sword. He didn’t stay long, taking off after Pearse was put down for good, but when Rogan tried to follow him, she was shot by an arrow that slowed her down enough for him to get away.

Now the ghost of Padraig Pearse is no more. And Aengous seems to have left the brewery, which is no longer producing True Guinness. And there’s someone else out there who may have been allied with Pearse and has bad fashion sense.

We’re moving into end-game territory, now. Not deep into it, but enough that the threads that will lead to the end are all in my head ((This is a filthy lie, of course. I see the big threads, but things change when the players get involved.)), and I’ve got an idea of where we’re going.

It should be a fun ride.

 

Minneapolis Marvel

By | | Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, What's he playing?
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Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Launch Party

I’ll be running a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Launch Party on Saturday, March 3, 2012, at Imagine Games and Hobbies, starting at 1:00 pm. If you’re interested in trying the game, you can sign up at the store.

It may have escaped your notice ((This is sarcasm.)), but I’m a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to games ((My group has coined the phrase “game-whore” specifically to describe me.)). So, when Cam Banks announced that he was going to be running a launch party for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying at The Source in Minneapolis, it seemed like a good idea to plan a road trip ((I’ll be honest. The launch party was more an excuse for a road trip than a reason for it. I’d been meaning to head down to Minneapolis for a weekend for some time, mainly to visit The Source, which is an amazing comic and game shop.)). I pestered my friends until one agreed to come with me, and off we went.

We left in the mid-afternoon on Friday, and made it down to Minneapolis around 11:00. Next morning, we started with breakfast at Hell’s Kitchen ((Food was very good. Home-made peanut butter was amazing.)), then walked around the downtown area ((It was very cold. But downtown Minneapolis has some very attractive buildings.)), hung out in Barnes & Noble, grabbed some lunch, and headed out to The Source to be there early.

The launch party started at 2:00, so we had about an hour to browse the dense and tempting shelves of the store. I have to say, this is THE place to go for hard-to-find, out-of-print games. And their graphic novel selection is overwhelming.

So, game time rolled around, and we wound up with two tables of gamers. I was at Cam’s table with my friend, three local gamers, and Cam’s nine-year-old son ((I have to say, the nine-year-old’s unbridled excitement and enjoyment was really pretty cool to have at the table. It’s also a good indication that, while the system has some neat complexities hidden in it, it’s not a complicated system to play.)). Our team wound up being Black Widow, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Captain America, Daredevil, and Spider-Man ((That was me.)).

I’m not going to talk too much about the adventure – it’s the first act of the Breakout mini-event included in the basic game, and is being sent out with the launch party packages, so I want to avoid spoilers. That said, here are some interesting moments from the game:

  • Cap gathering up a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to help him out, then losing most of them to something nasty in the dark.
  • Black Widow quelling a mob with a little creative threatening.
  • Ms. Marvel saving a helicopter from crashing into the river, then using it as a weapon.
  • Daredevil and a villain in a tug-of-war over Foggy Nelson, with Daredevil taking emotional stress.
  • Iron Man and a villain trading energy blasts back and forth.
  • Spider-Man making a bad roll, getting in trouble, and gaining a fistful of Plot Points, because that’s how Spider-Man’s life goes.

The game was fun. It went kind of slow, because Cam was the only one at the table familiar with the rules, but I can see it moving quickly and, more importantly, flowing well after a bit of a learning curve. The action scene was full of interesting things going on, and not all of them were staged by the Watcher ((Which is what the GM is called in this game.)).

The core mechanic is familiar to people who have played other Cortex Plus games, like Smallville or Leverage. You assemble a dice pool and roll against someone else’s ((Usually the Watcher.)) dice pool. There are a few little quirks to the system, like choosing an effect die and using your Plot Points, that add a bit of tactical thinking to the mechanics, but it’s all pretty straightforward.

The thing that really stood out in my mind – and afterwards in conversation with my friend – was that the game is built to create the kinds of superhero moments that you see in comics almost automatically. This is because, in assembling your dice pool, you are making decisions about how your character is trying to achieve his or her intent, bringing in different aspects of character, different powers, and different skills. So, mechanically, it makes a difference whether Spidey is sling-shotting himself at a villain with his webs or just straight-up punching the bad guy. And, narratively, the dice you pick to roll give you a good idea of what exactly you’re doing in the scene.

What it comes down to is that playing Spider-Man feels like playing Spider-Man, both from a mechanics and a flavour point of view. And this, I think, is a huge strength for the game.

There’s a lot of smart design work that underlays that feeling ((I’m not going to get into a lot of specifics, here. I’ve only played one session, and haven’t actually had a chance to read the rules, yet, so all I can do is talk about the little bit I’ve seen. A lot of that is lacking context, so I’m going for generalities to avoid giving the wrong impression of things.)). The way dice categories are broken down, for example, are exceedingly clever, modeling different types of characters very well using a single system, and providing a clear, sensible structure for assembling dice pools. The experience point system encourages character arcs over defeating villains. The turn sequence favours thinking of the team and planning the next move and using team-up, fastball-special-style tactics. The ability to add and remove things from the environment through either Plot Points or character actions makes for fluid, creative, exciting combats.

All in all, it may ((I only say “may” because it was a small taste of the game, and without having read the rules, I can’t be sure how much of the good stuff is in the game, and how much was the result of Cam’s GMing.)) be the best super-hero system I’ve played in.

After the game, we managed to get a table at Solera for tapas ((The food was very good. The dates were amazing. The service was absolutely phenomenal.)). Then back to the hotel for sleep, and into the car for the trip home.

So, that’s the story of our road trip to Minneapolis to play Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to read the complete game, and to run my own launch party on March 3.

Thanks to Cam for the great time playing this game, and thanks to the rest of the players in Minneapolis for being so friendly and welcoming.

**EDIT**

I forgot to mention that I also got a chance to meet Jeremy Keller there, art director for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and author of Technoir (among other things), and tell him how much I liked his game. He, in turn, said some nice things about my blog. So, thanks, Jeremy!

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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This latest session of the Storm Point game was a little different. First of all, one of the players has left the game after many years ((Bye, Pedro! Thanks for playing!)), so the group is down to five. Second, we had a request to wrap up extra early, so I didn’t have much time to stretch things out. Given both those things, I decided to take a bit of a chance to see how things would fall out if I tried something the group wasn’t expecting.

As you may have gleaned from these posts, the group for this game is very much of the beer-and-pretzels, kick-in-the-door-and-get-’em style of play. We use the game primarily as a way to socialize with each other, and attentions are such that we play a pretty bare-bones flavour of 4E – we have combats, and we have the scenes that move you between combats. I try to weave enough of a story that the group genuinely cares about what they’re doing when they get into a fight, but not much more than that ((This is different from other groups and other games I run. It’s just the style that fits the needs of the Storm Point game best.)).

This session, though, I decided to send up a test balloon to see if they’d be open to something with a little more complication to it. I figured that, if it worked, I could make some changes to the campaign to fill it out a bit. If it didn’t, well, we had a short session to suffer through.

I started the evening talking about the effects of the heroes taking out crime boss Channah the previous session, and letting the players talk a bit about how their characters were fitting into Belys. Then I had Bitaryut the Blind, whom they had met at their feast a few weeks back ((And whom they don’t trust. At all. He’s a fortuneteller, and they know I have a deck of many things from The Madness at Gardmore Abbey, so they’re just waiting for him to make them draw a card.)), ask them for some help. According to Bitaryut, the scion of one of the genasi families who rule Belys had been disowned by his parents based on information provided by Bitaryut. In revenge, this genasi had stolen Bitaryut’s scrying crystal.

Bitaryut was somewhat reluctant to come out with a lot of details about what this genasi had done that got him disowned, hinting that there were children involved, but not going into specifics. He was able to provide the location of the thief, and offered the group a favour as a reward for returning his crystal. When pressed, he provided some backstory on the family and the thief they were chasing – they were a family who had manufactured war machines in the war which had destroyed the Empire of Nerath, and the thief was holed up in the old war machine foundry outside the city.

So, our heroes schlepped out to the old foundry and found the genasi and a bunch of war machines that he had managed to repair. And this is when things started to go a different direction.

I had managed to instill enough doubt in Bitaryut’s honesty that, for once, the gang didn’t shout, “Get ’em!” and charge. They actually ((If I sound somewhat incredulous, it’s only because I’ve been gaming with these guys for many years.)) tried talking. After a little while and some tentative maneuvering, they got a different side of the story Bitaryut had told them ((Well, not really told them. More like hinted at and implied.)). In this version, the thief was a victim of politics and Bitaryut’s machinations, and he had stolen the scrying crystal both as revenge and as a stake now that he had to leave Belys.

It was an interesting and gratifying moment for me. I had statted everything up for a fight if it came to that ((It usually does, after all.)), but I was very interested in seeing the players take a different tactic. I ran the whole thing as a conversation, with very few rolls – no one tried to intimidate anyone, and I think there was one Insight check to see if he was lying, but everything else came down to straight roleplaying.

In the end, the group convinced the thief to trade them back the scrying crystal in return for a teleport to Storm Point and an introduction to the leaders of the town. Their idea is that he, with his war machines and the texts he’s discovered on repairing and manufacturing them, may be a valuable addition to their old hometown. There was a little bit of threatening here, of the “We’ll kill you if you mess with our town” style, but generally it went without a hitch.

And, of course, I awarded them full XP for solving the problem without resorting to violence.

So, why did I do it this way?

As I’ve said, this campaign tends to focus on creatures to fight and challenges to overcome ((Said challenges usually involving fighting creatures.)). Part of the reason for that is the dynamic and attention span of our group, as I noted above, and part of it is that combat is the thing that D&D 4E does best. I’ve been reading the little bit of information being released about D&D Next, and it’s been causing me to re-evaluate some of the things I’m doing in my current D&D game.

It occurred to me that I was being lazy. I had tried some more elaborate storylines earlier in the campaign, and they had quickly got lost or ignored, so I stopped working on them, instead putting all my prep time into coming up with interesting combat encounters, along with just a few linking elements. And the group seemed to like that.

But we were feeding into each others’ assumptions. I assumed that they weren’t interested in anything besides combat, and they assumed that all I was interested in giving them in this game system was combat. The playtest reports from D&D Next talk about how much freedom of action there is in the game ((Understanding, of course, that this is very early days, and the game is in active development. Judgment must be reserved until the final product is available. But it looks really promising.)), and how it emphasizes interaction and exploration as well as combat.

Hell, it inspired me. I figured I’d throw some options in, and we’d see how things went.

What do I take away from this? Just because the game is working doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be improved if I change things up a bit. I can be a bit daring and, it seems, my players will follow. And that’s awesome.

I’ve got to think about how to keep this up in the game. I count it as a great success.

Let’s See What Happens, Part Six: Give Your Head A Shake

By | | What's he playing?
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It’s been a long wait, but we’re getting close to the end of this series. After this article, I’ve got one more to write on the subject of emergent campaign storylines.

So far ((You’ve probably figured this out by now, but I use this stock sentence to link back to the rest of the series.)), I’ve given an overview of my method, and I’ve talked about the Secrets Deck, sandboxes, watching your players’ eyes, and making connections. Now, it’s time to give your head a shake.

What I’m talking about here is looking at what you’ve done with a critical eye. Really, you should be doing this all throughout the process ((And I hit it pretty heavy in the Making Connections post)), but I also find it useful to build in a step where you explicitly evaluate the storyline and what you’ve done with it.

The Walt Disney Method

I mentioned back in the overview that I use something called the Walt Disney Method ((Those of you in the corporate world my find this method very similar to Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats method. As far as I can tell, de Bono basically took the Walt Disney Method and expanded and tweaked it specifically for use in corporations. I find the extra hats/phases to be just so much clutter, and prefer the simpler, cleaner Walt Disney Method.)) for this stage. I notice that the site I linked to that explains the method is no longer there, so I’m going to explain it a little bit here, and then I’m going to talk about how I’ve tweaked it specifically for use in designing game storylines.

The method is named after Walt Disney ((No, really?)), who reputedly used it as a way to design his rides and theme parks, as well as for his cartoons. It’s composed of three different phases, each of which tackles a very specific part of the design and implementation process. In practice, Disney is said to have had different offices for each phase, and would work exclusively on that phase in the appropriate office.

Now, the key here is that, when working on one phase, you work only on that phase, and you work through them in order. You may go through several cycles, but don’t backtrack or skip a phase. Just work through to the end and then jump back to the beginning.

Phase One: The Dreamer

The Dreamer is the finder-of-the-cool, the haver-of-ideas. In this phase, you dream big, looking for the coolest ideas you can come up with. This phase usually happens in the stages where you’re just beginning to pull ideas together and decide where things are going to go. It’s a brainstorming phase, so there are no judgements or evaluations made just yet. You want to envision something awesome – ideally, several awesome things – and you’ll worry about how to make them fit and work later.

Take notes here. Write down your ideas, and put them aside. Keep going until you’ve got enough great ideas, or until it’s not fun anymore.

Phase Two: The Engineer

The Engineer is the practical one, the rules-monkey of the gaming circle. In this phase, you look at the ideas you generated in the previous phase, and you figure out how you would make them work.

Look at that sentence again, because it’s the key to this stage. You figure out how you would make them work. Not if you can make them work. Look at each idea, and come up with a method that will work.

This is another brainstorming phase, albeit a more focused one, so again it’s important not to judge what you come up with ((Beyond the necessary evaluation of whether or not the method meets the minimum criteria of making the idea work, that is.)), and it’s vitally important not to toss out any ideas yet. We’re generating ideas, here, not discarding them.

Phase Three: The Critic

The Critic is a fun-killing bastard, but an absolutely vital one. This is the phase where you look at what you’ve produced in the previous phases and wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?”

There are some questions you need to ask yourself when designing a campaign arc:

  1. Does this arc make sense? Does it follow logically from the actions of the characters? Does it fit into the world? Are there any breaks in the logic that need to be spackled over?
  2. Does any of this require the antagonists to be idiots? Would it pass the Evil Overlord List test? Are the flaws of the NPCs realistic, consistent flaws? Are there any NPCs who don’t fit the needs of the arc properly?
  3. If I were playing this arc, how would I short circuit it? Is there a spell/tech toy/superpower/lucky charm that would inviolate the whole thing? Are the challenges suitable to the PCs’ abilities? Are there any points along the way where a clever player could jump right to the endgame? Do I mind that happening?
  4. Can the characters succeed? Are the clues clear enough? Do they have – or can they get – the tools they need to win? Am I willing to give them the victory? ((This is an important, and easy to overlook question. Sometimes, we just fall in love with our NPCs or plots or monsters or whatever. You gotta be ready to let your characters win, even if that means the end of your favourite creation of the game. Just make sure they earn it, and make it a cool event.)) Will they feel like they’ve won? ((Another important and often overlooked question. Sure, twist endings can be fun, but there needs to be a sense of victory, otherwise it’s just a hose-job. You never want to end a storyline with a hose-job; start with the hose-job, and the characters will be invested in getting the guys who hosed them. But end with the hose-job, and all you get is a group of people wondering why they wasted their time.))
  5. Is this going to be fun? Will the players enjoy it? Will you enjoy it? Does it go on too long? Not long enough? Are there any dead beats in it, or is every situation geared to produce something interesting and fun?

This is the phase where you ask those questions. You’re looking for problems, here, so be honest about what you see. You don’t need to solve the problems right here – that’s what the next cycle through the method is for – but you need to see where they are.

This is also the phase where you might discard some ((Maybe all. Hopefully not. But maybe.)) of the ideas from the previous phases. If an idea has so many problems with it that it needs to be tossed, here’s where you do it. You may also see that one of the ideas you’re working on here is so much more solid than the rest that you decide to discard the others. That’s fine, too, though you may want to see if you can find a way to fit them together.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Once you’ve finished with the Critic phase, start again at the Dreamer phase. This time, focus on fixing the problems you marked in the Critic phase. Dreamer comes up with a cool idea that would fix the problem, Engineer figures out how to do it, and Critic evaluates the result. Round again. It’s an iterative process, with each pass through the method building on and refining the stuff that’s come before. Continue doing this until your idea is polished and flawless ((Well, that’s the idea, anyway.)).

When Do I Do This?

When you get some practice with this method, you’ll find your creativity starting to fall into the pattern fairly quickly – idea, execution, evaluation, idea, execution, evaluation, etc. What starts as a very rigid, formalized structure can become the default and unconscious method of processing ideas.

What I’m trying to say is that this method is useful throughout the entire process I’ve outlined for emergent campaign storylines. It really shines in the Making Connections phase, but I use it anywhere I’m trying to come up with something interesting and fun. And with practice, it comes very quickly, cycling through Dreamer, Engineer, and Critic in the space of a single, musing moment.

So pick a point in your process and apply this method. Do it a few times, trying it out in different places, and get comfortable with it. You’ll find it reinforces itself, getting faster and easier all the time, and producing improved results.

I Thought This Post Was About Critical Thinking

Okay. Yeah. For a post about critical evaluation of your campaign arc, I spend a lot of time talking about coming up with ideas and elaborating on them, and only a little bit about assessing your story arc with a critical eye. Of the method I’m proposing, only one phase in three is that critical thinking bit, and the other two phases are things that people tend to do very naturally.

See, spotting problems is not difficult ((If you need proof of this, read comments on the Internet.)). We do it very readily. Just not with our own ideas. What this method does is two-fold: first, it builds in a step when you do that critical assessment after coming up with the ideas; second, it gives you the means to address those problems in a useful way.

Without the Critic phase, this process doesn’t do anything more than you would get just brainstorming and statting up your ideas. So, you evaluate and spot the problems. Then – and this is vital – you use the same brainstorming and statting skills to address the problems. And then you look for more problems.

Critical evaluation of your ideas doesn’t help you on its own. You need to do something about it. That’s why the iterative nature of the Walt Disney Method is important. All the components work together in a cyclical, iterative process to produce, refine, and stress-test your ideas, leading to solid campaign arcs that work.

That’s the magic of Walt Disney.

 

It’s been a long haul on this series, but there’s only one more post to go. I hope to have that up within the month. In the meantime, give the Walt Disney Method a try. I think you’ll be surprised at how it opens up productive creativity in your game. I know it’s really helped mine.

 

From the Armitage Files: Sacrifice

By | | GUMSHOE, The Armitage Files, What's he playing?
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**Potential Spoilers**

The Armitage Files is an improvised campaign structure. It uses a number of stock pieces, such as NPCs, organizations, and locations, that are strung together by individual GMs to fit player action. The adventures I create with it may or may not match any other GM’s version of the campaign. That means that reading these posts may or may not offer spoilers for other game groups.

**You Have Been Warned**

Last Saturday night was the first Armitage Files game in about two months. I try to run my games with a session every three weeks, but we’re all busy people, and the holiday season tends to be difficult to schedule. So, obviously, it’s been a while, but we’ve got back to it.

In the week leading up to Saturday’s game, I asked the gang what they wanted to investigate this session, so that I would have a chance to do some prep work before the game. At the end of the last session, they had blown up a mine full of… strange creatures, and narrowly escaped the Donlands-Fuschack gang.

The group decided to continue with this investigation, trying to figure out how the fortune teller back in Emigrant fit into all of this. So, I went back to my original notes ((By which I mean my scribbled diagrams. Of course, I had forgotten what all my shorthand meant by this time.)) from the first time they visited Emigrant and fleshed things out so that there was something interesting for them to investigate.

As has become something of a tradition, we got together fairly early in the evening to dine on some very nice Indian food and talk a bit before starting the game. When we were ready to begin, we discovered that Moon was pretty badly hurt from the last session. As we were picking things up pretty much from where we had left off, the investigators decided that, before confronting the evil ((Allegedly.)) fortune teller, they should head back to a big city to let Moon spend some time in the hospital.

While Moon was convalescing ((With a revolver hidden in the hollowed-out Bible by his bedside.)), Roxy and Solis did a little more digging on background for the fortune teller, finding nothing of any use. When Moon was back in fighting trim, they bought a shotgun and some dynamite, and went back to Emigrant.

They parked the car about a quarter mile outside of town, down the railroad tracks so they could follow them back and not get lost if they were in a hurry ((What are the odds of that happening with this group?)). They then crept into town, to the fortune teller’s shop, and broke in to the back.

Their first concern when breaking into her shop – the upstairs of which was also her home – was finding a pair of men’s boots in the mudroom in back. They did a cursory examination of the kitchen and the shop’s back room ((Strangely – to me, anyway – they didn’t actually do any more than peek into the front room of the shop.)), finding nothing of real interest ((Though I think Roxy lifted her Tarot deck. Am I remembering that correctly, folks?)). Solis was able to identify the range of patent medicines on the shelves, and even a fair bit of the herbal remedies, and determined that they were nothing out of the ordinary for a rural practitioner who billed herself as an apothecary.

They crept upstairs, through the little sitting room, and into the bedroom, where they found the fortune teller lying on the bed. This caused a few moments of panic, especially when it looked as if she wasn’t breathing, but just lying fully dressed on top of the bed clothes with her eyes open. Solis finally plucked up the nerve to examine her more closely, and was quite shocked to find that she appeared to be no more than clothes and skin draped over a padded armature.

Everyone got very nervous at that point, and Solis was going to make a closer examination, but at that point, she blinked, and everyone decided to get the hell away from her. Cue the mad scramble down the stairs. They paused to take a closer look in the kitchen, and found that it had no food in it, and no sign of having had food in it any time recent. They poked about a bit, looking for a cellar door ((I don’t know why, but they were obsessed with finding a cellar. It all started with Roxy saying she wanted a peek in the fortune teller’s basement, and it was off and running. She tried explaining that it was just a figure of speech, that she didn’t know if the fortune teller had a basement, but everything seemed to start to revolve around how to get into this non-existent root cellar.)) until Moon realized that, in this style of house, there was probably no cellar. There would, however,  be crawlspaces both under the house and between the first and second floor.

So, of course, everyone ran back outside to look under the house. At this point, I just gave up and went with it.

They got the little wood lattice gate off the entry to the crawlspace and saw a number of oilcloth-wrapped bundles inside. Roxy volunteered to go in a haul one out, and it proved to be a bundle of siding boards. A second bundle turned out to be bricks. The players looked at me curiously for a bit, then said, “I don’t get it. What do these mean?” And I said, “These mean that there were left-over building materials that she’s storing safely in case the house needs repairs. That’s the kind of thing people keep in crawlspaces.”

They tried to figure out if I was lying for a little bit, then shrugged and Solis crawled in to make a better examination of the space. He found a mounded section of the earth floor, and used his knife to try and dig it up. The knife blade went through about an inch or so of loose dirt and then hit a piece of wood.

That’s when the tcho-tchos pushed aside the planks that were hiding their tunnel and leaped on Solis ((For this bit, I took the player into the kitchen, so that the other players were kept in the dark about what was happening.)). There were three of them, and one grabbed each of Solis’s arms, while the third – who had drenched his shirt in poison ((I like tcho-tcho poison. It does whatever I need it to do, and the little guys aren’t afraid to put in on everything!)) – wrapped his arms and legs around Solis’s head. The good doctor struggled gamely, but was pulled into the tunnel and only managed to get out a muffled yelp before the poison shirt rendered him unconscious.

At this point, I had to start juggling scene cuts to give everyone a chance to do stuff and be involved in what was going on. Some of the time-frame got a little skewed, but it worked in play, so I count it as a win. Of course, I can’t remember exactly when I cut between characters, so I’m just going to go character-by-character through their stories.

Moon immediately crawled under the house, and down the tunnel in pursuit of Solis. I decided to give the gang a chance to rescue Solis – in a suitably challenging and cinematic finale – so the tunnel ran under the street down a few buildings to a warehouse. Moon made his way there, shooting the tcho-tcho that had been left to ambush him, and popped up through a trapdoor ((I had briefly considered making this come up in another crawlspace, but that just felt too mean.)) into the warehouse.

Roxy, waiting by the fortune teller’s house, heard a car on the street and hid. It turned out to be the doctor they had previously met. He came into the back yard and started calling for the characters. This struck Roxy as suspicious enough that she struck the doctor with a brick ((See what I done there?)). Twice. And then stood and watched as he gasped to death on the sidewalk. Then she heard Moon’s gunshot, and ran down the street, finding the warehouse, and picking the lock on the front door to burst into the room.

Solis, meanwhile, had regained consciousness stripped naked and tied to the immense belly of a giant statue of an elephant-headed man. Yep, their old pal Chaugnar Faugn. Surrounding him were a dozen or two tcho-tchos, also naked, except for elephant-like masks. Some of these had the weird, fluid limbs of the things Moon and Roxy had faced down in the mine. Leading them was a large man wearing nothing but a full head mask that was a large version of the little crystal snow-man heads that they had learned was the effect of Chaugnar Faugn’s attention. This happy fellow started cutting on Solis, who managed a heroic Athletics roll to break the ropes tying him to the idol.

Which is when everyone else arrived.

Roxy managed to get the door open just in time to see Moon shoot down one of the kerosene lamps providing light in the building. The high priest ((Of course that’s what he was. Didn’t I mention the full-head mask?)) started chanting to put the flames out, and the tcho-tchos started swarming Moon and Solis. Solis tried to run for the door, but he was still suffering from the hallucinatory effects of the poison. Moon, worried that the high priest was going to put out the flames, threw a stick of dynamite into them.

Moon fully expected to die, along with the tcho-tchos and the priest. He thought it would be a valiant rescue of Solis, sacrificing his life to end this threat and save his friend. Unfortunately, Solis blew his Fleeing roll, and had already been roughed up a fair bit. I checked the damage on a stick of dynamite, and rolled it on the table in front of everyone.

Moon survived. Solis was brought to exactly -12, and was dead.

So were the tcho-tchos and the high priest and the statue and the walls. Roxy was hurt, but she and Moon managed to get Solis’s body back to the car and out of town.

Now, I hadn’t planned on killing anybody that night. In fact, I tend to go out of my way to make sure that there are chances for the PCs to escape and survive – it just means losing, sometimes. That said, this is a horror game, and the mortality of player characters is an important trope. If there’s no chance of losing, there’s no tension and no horror. So, I let the die fall and determine the outcome fairly and openly.

We ended the session a little early. The last thing we did in play was to hold Solis’s funeral. I wanted to make sure that the event was memorable, and to send off a good character with the kind of finale he had earned. I asked ((That’s a lie. I demanded.)) each of the other players to deliver a short, in-character eulogy of Solis, and I provided one by Prof. Armitage to round things out.

Then we called an end to gaming and helped create the new investigator.

Oh, and I told them the outcome of their investigation. Russel Fuschack was killed a few days later trying to rob a bank on his own, without his partner. Half the population of Emigrant, Montana was found dead. Again, the players asked me what that meant, and I just shrugged. I know what it means, but I’m not giving away any information on this one. They may decide to follow it up.

So, that was the first PC death in my Armitage Files game. All-in-all, it worked out, though I’m going to miss Dr. August Solis. He was a fun guy to torment.

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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The last session wrapped up the Channah storyline in the Storm Point game, which was good, but the most valuable part of the game – for me, anyway – was the discussion we had about the direction of the game from here on. That discussion happened at the beginning of the evening, but I’m not going to talk about it until the end of this post.

So, Channah.

Armed with the glyphs for Channah’s teleport circle, our heroes went out and purchased a copy of the linked portal ritual ((Easy to do in Belys; the city is full of magic, wizards, and various fun arcane things.)) and the materials they needed to conduct the ritual. They spent some time making sure they had a plan ((Their usual plan is, “Get ’em!” This plan was essentially, “We all ready? Okay. Now, get ’em!”)), and then teleported in to Channah’s hideout.

I was a little torn in setting up this evening’s encounters. On the one hand, I wanted to wrap things up this session, and our group is slow with combat ((There are a number of reasons for it, and some things that we could do to speed it up, but it comes down to the fact that this is a bunch of friends who don’t see each other that much anymore. One of the big distractions is our socializing and catching up, and I don’t want to lose that. So, we have slow combats, and I’ve made my peace with it.)) – multiple full encounters meant that we would not finish this evening. On the other hand, it strained my sense of verisimilitude to have the group pop into the big main fight, kill the bad guy, and go home.

I addressed this with minions. After all, when you’re sneaking through the bad guy’s hideout, the incidental guard patrols should mainly be a threat because they can give the alarm, not because they might kill you. So, the party arrived in the cellar store room with the teleport circle to find that Channah, knowing he’s got some folks gunning ((Swording for him? Nah, that just doesn’t work.)) for him, had set a guard.

They were, as I hinted, minions, so the gang took them out pretty quickly, but some bad rolls meant that one was able to give the alarm. There was only one door out of the room, so our heroes barred stood guard on that while they looked through the piles of boxes and barrels in the room. I tried to make it clear that the stuff was mundane supplies, but that just seemed to make them more suspicious, so they took the time to actually search everything.

At which point it occurred to me that there was this teleport circle in the middle of the room, and Channah knew how to use it. So, while everyone was either poking through barrels of flour or watching the door, a full squad ((Still minions.)) teleported in behind them and got the drop on them. They mowed down this (larger) group of guards in good time, and realized that, every minute they were spending down here was one more minute Channah had to get ready.

So, out they went, and up the stairs, into the killing ground Channah had set up. I had planned the map to be fairly open to begin with, but with tables, chairs, and the like that allowed for the defenders to set up some defenses if they had a couple of minutes to prepare, which they did. The fight was tough, with some of the party’s tactics turning against them ((Notably blade barrier. The party used this to great effect, but then Milo got tossed into it, and it left a bit of a mark. He survived, though.)). I ran into another dilemma during the battle, though.

Channah, unbeknownst to the party, was an oni mage. He usually appeared as a very, very old eladrin, and would appear and disappear using his invisibility, popping up to blast the party with some of his area attacks before vanishing again. Toward the end of the battle, I realized that it would be child’s play for Channah to just turn invisible and run off, carrying on his vendetta against the characters. I considered doing this, having him disappear for now, but come back as a recurring villain.

Then I remembered Jemmy Fish, and realized that wouldn’t work. The group would hunt him down to the exclusion of doing anything else. Ever.

So, rather than doing the better-part-of-valour, live-to-fight-another-day thing, I kept Channah there to end this. I got some good reactions when he unveiled his true form and began laying about with his massive sword ((Heh.)), and his hidden lamp-oil explosion meant that the last part of the fight was in a burning building, but the gang had thinned out his defenders enough that they were able to concentrate on him, so he went down fairly quickly ((Well, he did. The entire session ran waaaaay over time, despite the things I tried doing to speed it up when I realized what sort of time-frame we were looking at.)).

Next session, I’ll need to have something new for my players. Actually, what I’ll have to do is have a few options ready, so they can pick which direction they’re going to go.

Anyway. About that discussion I mentioned at the start of the post.

The previous session, I had mentioned that there was a moment when it looked like the group wanted to end the campaign and start a new one. In retrospect, I realized that we had been running this game for three years ((With a brief hiatus for Gammatoba.)), and it wasn’t a bad idea to take the group’s temperature and see if they wanted the game to continue, or if they were interested in a change. I started the conversation going with the following question on the Storm Point forum:

Okay, gang, last session I (facetiously) put forward a proposed campaign change, wherein you fellows become crime lords in Belys, the campaign ends, and we pick up twenty years later at first level, with you being the oppressed masses out to bring down the massive oppressors. (See what I done there?) Though I meant it as a threat, it is a viable campaign, and it seemed to capture the imaginations of some of you.

So, in light of that, I’m asking the group as a whole what you want to do. Here are the options:

  • Continue with this campaign. We’ve just made it to Paragon Tier. Let’s see if we can make it to Epic Tier and become gods!
  • Become crime lords and reboot. I like the world, but am bored with this character or storyline. The new one sounds better.
  • Let’s try a completely new campaign. This has been fun, but I want the new hotness. Let’s try Dark Sun, or Eberron, or something else. We’ll have to have a talk to pick one.
  • Let’s try a totally different game. D&D has been fun, but I’d like to try a different game system. Cthulhu, or space detectives, or superheroes, or something else cool. Again, we’ll have to have a talk to pick one.
  • Screw you guys. I’m going home. It’s been fun, but I’m going to bow out of the game.

Feel free to discuss below. I am willing to roll with any of the above options, and my feelings will not be hurt if you choose something else. I’m leaving the poll active for one week, but what I’m really interested in is the conversation on the topic leading up to the votes. Revoting is allowed if the discussion changes your mind.

Have at it.

The vote was pretty overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the current characters, but I wanted to get a better feel for how people were feeling about the game as a whole, and what they wanted to see as we went forward. The talk revolved around the fact that, three years into the game, the group had just reached 11th level.

The upshot is that the group would like to take the characters all the way to 30th level, but don’t want to spend another six years getting there. We talked about varying the progression rate in different ways, and the one that seemed to click for everyone was a technique I had used to good effect back when I was running Broken Chains – campaign downtime.

Campaign downtime means that we run regular sessions, with regular XP, and then, every so often, I say, “Okay, downtime. You’ve got two years. Give me a paragraph or two on our forum about what you do in that time, and level your character up three levels.” This allows the campaign to progress with the in-game stuff being highlights of the characters’ careers, while the out-of-game stuff allows them to flesh out backstory and provides passage of time in the game ((As an aside, it always strains credulity for me to run a game and realize that characters have gone from 1st level to 20th level in a matter of months, because they go out adventuring every day. If the world were really that challenging and deadly, everyone would be epic level by the time they were adults – or all the people would be dead. Just sayin’.)).

The other thing we talked about was how the game was going to end. The upshot of that conversation is that I need to start using some of the stuff I’ve been talking about in my posts on emergent campaign storylines to pull together a focus for the rest of the campaign.

Now, one of the players wasn’t at the game, and wasn’t able to contribute to the conversation because of that, but I think we’ll have Milo’s buy-in on this. And it gives me some concrete things to do over the next little while to move the game forward in a way that I think everyone will like.

So, win.

The New Centurions, Issue #15: The New Blitz

By | | New Centurions, What's he playing?
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Last Friday was the latest session of the New Centurions game run by my friend, Clint. Our last session had ended with the White Tower ((The main tower of the Tower of London, the one you see in all the pictures.)) exploding. We started this session a little bit before that, giving us a chance to talk more with the local heroes, exchange information about the Methuselah effect, and generally get some questions answered.

Then, of course, the Tower blew up.

Actually, what it looked like was that a powerful blast of multi-coloured fire erupted from beneath the tower, tearing up through the interior, and slowly ((Well, slower than an actual explosion, anyway.)) eroding the outer walls and tossing the debris high into the air. The fire didn’t radiate heat normally – it was easy to approach to a certain distance, and then the temperature ramped up sharply, as if the inverse-square law was out of whack.

When we determined that we couldn’t get close enough to the Tower to do any good there, we got to the top of the walls and looked out at the city. It had gone completely dark; even the little bits of electricity that we had witnessed since our arrival were gone. Then we started seeing lights in the city, and realized that they were bits of the Tower debris falling into the streets, burning with the same multi-coloured fire.

We decided to split up ((Sort of. Paladin’s player wasn’t able to make the game, and Queen Celeste’s player was playing a different character (Death Nell) while Queen Celeste is doing some off-screen stuff for her character’s advancement.)), with Paladin heading off with a magic-using type called Wicked, and Death Nell coming with Falkata, Widowmaker, and S.P.E.C.-T.E.R. S.P.E.C.-T.E.R. was able to use his predictive algorithms to plot out the locations of the hot spots, and we set off to deal with them.

At the site, we found that the fragment had smashed some buildings, setting some minor fires, and was throwing off tendrils of mystic energy. It had also transformed some of the citizens into twisted, stunted creatures, who fled as we approached. It turns out that that was only so they could get the big creatures to come and thump us.

A little bit of experimentation ((That is, some desperate maneuvers in the battle that didn’t have the results we had hoped for.)) revealed that water could not extinguish the magical “flames,” that non-living things could not touch the Tower fragment, that the tendrils and the areas they created were very dangerous to be in, and that throwing the big creatures onto the Tower fragment caused them to turn into even bigger creatures ((That one’s on me, guys. Sorry about that.)).

The fight turned out to be surprisingly challenging, not so much because our foes were tough, but because the environment had interesting threats that we had to deal with, and we were unable to directly address the root cause of the problem; i.e., the Tower fragment. See, S.P.E.C.-T.E.R. couldn’t touch it, and hitting it with a weapon did no good, and none of the living players wanted to try to touch it after seeing what it did to the creatures. Widomaker was able to contain it in a forcefield, which cut it’s influence off from the surrounding area, but as she can only make one forcefield at a time, that was a temporary solution at best.

In the end, we built a bit of a cage over the fragment using the wrought iron fences in front of the townhouses, and ran off to the next trouble site.

And that’s where we left things.

Learning from History

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, What's he playing?
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So, today Wizards of the Coast announced the new iteration of Dungeons & Dragons ((Note that they’re not calling it 5th Edition, but pretty much everyone else is right now.)). Of course, you know that, because that’s pretty much all that gamers are talking about on the Internet today.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the new edition. Every new edition of D&D has, to my mind, added something new and valuable to the D&D gaming experience, even if it’s left behind some things of value from previous editions, and I expect that this edition is going to be no different. It’s going to do some things right, and it’s going to miss the boat on some things. That said, the stated design goal of making an edition that is accessible and open to fans of all editions ((A noble goal. I just don’t know how realistic it is.)) points to the folks over at WotC recognizing that there are things of value that have been left behind in the previous years, and looking to correct that.

So. Cautiously optimistic, as I said. But as we wind down 4E ((I have no intention of jumping ship over to 5E right away unless it shows massive improvements over 4E AND can accommodate my ongoing campaign without the need for extensive revision of characters.)), there are some things that I really hope the design and development folks over at WotC have learned from the 4E experience:

  • Value external playtester feedback. The various articles note how external playtester feedback was pretty much ignored in the development of 4E. This is a mistake, because it’s the external testers who will tell you what the game actually plays like at the table. Internal playtesters are great – and necessary – but they’ve often been steeped in the development process, and are coming to the game with a very narrow set of expectations. External playtesters have a much broader range of expectations ((i.e., they have not drunk the company kool-aid.)), and are better representative of the target audience. But that’s a no-brainer, right? WotC says it’s going to listen more to playtesters this time around. Let’s hope they follow through.
  • Deliver what you promise. What I’m talking about here specifically is the horrible mess the online tools for 4E are. Sure, the character builder and the compendium are pretty good, but I still use the downloadable version of the monster builder, because the web-based one doesn’t have half of the functionality I need for tweaking monsters. And the virtual game table is only now really becoming available. And all the other adventure tools are… well, just not there. These are all really disappointing to someone who is paying for DDI every year, and finding himself using exactly one tool. So, you know, keep an eye on promises and the fulfillment thereof.
  • It’s not all about the combats. 4E is a very focused, finely tuned ruleset, developed to make exciting, cinematic combats. And then you throw in some stuff to give the characters a reason for going from one combat to another. There really isn’t a lot out there to support play outside of combat – there’s just enough to allow the characters to find their way to the next fight. This is a large part of what makes the game feel very much like a video game ((I don’t know that it does that much, but that’s one of the primary complaints I hear.)), and sends people looking for other things to play. All ((Well, not all, but certainly most.)) of the complexity and support for the game lies in the combat system, which emphasizes a very particular style of play. Broadening some of that complexity and emphasis would broaden the audience for the game and win back market share, I think.
  • Look close to home for innovation. It’s obvious that the 4E developers looked long and hard at board games, card games, and video games when designing 4E, and that’s a good thing. But it seems to me that there are a lot of exciting new game designs out there in RPG-land, too, and looking at some of the indie ((Whatever that really means.)) RPGs and story games could provide a lot of ideas and insights into how to support non-combat actions, and how to speed up combats as well. Which is something I think D&D needs.
  • Build in an entry strategy from the get-go. Start with the Essentials line, and then add the complexity. Don’t come in half-way ((Or three-quarters of the way, in this case.)) through with the beginner set. I think this one is a no-brainer, but just putting it out there. That way, you don’t have to rely on the current fans – who may or may not make the edition switch – to build the market. You can capture the new gamers hitting the scene, and maybe even pull in the old-school fans who have poo-poohed the complexity of modern editions.
  • Remember that the rules are a tool set. The rules are not the game. The game is what happens at the table. WotC is not the dispenser of truth about how to play the game, they are the providers of the rules, and the DM and players get to mangle them as they see fit. The groups are going to house-rule stuff, and twist stuff, and home-brew stuff, and just plain get stuff wrong, and that’s great, as long as they have fun. Concentrate on providing them a tool kit they can use to build their own coolness in-game, rather than a hard-and-fast, rigidly defined game experience. Leave room for the players and DMs to inject themselves into every level of gameplay and – as far as possible – support the different types of play experience. I know, that last bit is tough – be all things to all people – but it’s a valuable goal.

Those are the big lessons I hope WotC takes forward into this new iteration. Beyond that, I have my own pet peeves that I hope get eliminated and sacred cows that I hope get supported or returned to play.

There is, of course, going to be some public outcry about the whole thing – it’s another cash grab ((C’mon, guys. WotC is a business, and of course they want to make money. That does not preclude them also wanting to make the best game they can. After all, that will net them more money, right?)), they’re ruining my favourite edition, they won’t listen to the fans enough, they will listen to the fans too much, it’s too much like game X, it’s not enough like game X, the whole thing is going to crash and burn, etc.

For my part, I’m cautiously optimistic, based on past experience. Let’s see if WotC can indeed produce a D&D game that is all things to all fans.

I’d be happy if they succeeded.

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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I’m still a couple of posts behind, and it’s been several weeks since this game, so this is going to be another short-but-hopefully-sweet post. I really needed to get it up tonight because we’re playing the next session tomorrow.

Yeah. I’m bad.

So, at the last session, our heroes were pursuing the bagman for Channah, a local crime boss, through the sewers of Belys, in order to have a frank and open exchange of opinions about why the boys from Storm Point wouldn’t be paying any protection money. There was some discussion about what would happen after that point, with one of the players putting forward a strong preference for taking over Channah’s rackets.

Now, at this point, I spoke up. I told the players that I didn’t want to run a game ((I’m a firm believer that the GM gets to have fun running a game. If he or she isn’t, why do it? Thus, if it’s a game I don’t want to run, then I’m within my rights to just not run it.))where they were the villains. The ((Somewhat predictable, really.)) response was that most of the characters were Unaligned as far as alignment went, and that this would be okay. I countered with the statement that anyone running a criminal enterprise that involved protection rackets, prostitution, theft, drugs, and possibly slavery was a de facto villain, regardless of what the alignment said on their character sheets.

As my big guns in this argument, I launched into the following little rant ((This is, of course, not verbatim. But it captures the rhetoric and the content pretty well.)) to convince them that becoming crime lords was off the table.

Look. I know I generally give you guys a lot of freedom to decide what happens in the game, and what your characters do, and what their goals are. But I have to tell you, I have zero interest in running an Evil game and – no matter how you dress it up – that’s what becoming crime bosses in a big city is. I’ve run my share of Evil games back in high school, and I am not interested in running any more.

In fact, if you insist on going down this path, I will end this campaign. I will let you become the crime lords, but then the game ends, and I start a new 1st-level campaign where you all play ((And this is where the car left the road. Not even skid marks. It’s like the driver pointed the car at the cliff and stood on the accelerator. Obviously a suicide run.)) the oppressed, exploited, downtrodden citizens who have spent the last twenty years under the thumbs of the Storm Point Gang, and the game will be all about killing your old characters and freeing the citizens from their oppression.

I should have known that my little speech was not having the desired effect when I noticed that everyone was quiet and listening to me ((I never get everyone paying attention to me at once! Never!)), not arguing. When I finished, there was silence for a few moments, then Dan said, “That would be awesome!” And Erik looked at me and said, “I realize you were trying to convince us that this was a bad idea, and I agreed with you, but you just talked me around to the other point of view. I want to play in that campaign!”

Chris just looked at me and sadly shook his big, bushy head.

At which point, I abandoned any sort of reasoned argument or persuasion and just said, “No. Not doing it.”

Now, though, I’m rethinking the whole idea. That could, indeed, make a pretty rocking campaign. On the other hand, we just spent three years getting everyone up to Paragon tier, and we’ve all got a lot invested in the game. I think we need to have a real conversation about this ((Probably not tomorrow, though; one of the players is unable to make the game.)); if the players want to play in that new campaign instead of the current one, I think that’s doable.

Anyway.

When we got down to playing, the heroes tracked the bagman to a trapdoor leading up into a warehouse down by the river docks. They triggered an alarm bell when they went up, and found themselves facing a couple orcs, a few ogres, and a war troll ((FIRE or ACID.)). The fight dragged a bit because of all the brutes, but the good guys managed to prevail, and captured the bagman for interrogation.

Under their gentle questioning, they managed to get the bagman to agree to help them get to Channah. In exchange for the glyph key to Channah’s teleport circle, the party would let the bagman take over Channah’s territory – with the party being exempt from protection fees, of course.

So, tomorrow’s session is going to see the assault on Channah’s stronghold. The fights so far have all been below character level for the party, which may have been giving them an inflated sense of their own badassery, but the stuff I’m throwing at them tomorrow is going to be significantly tougher. That’s a little tidbit of a warning for any of my players who happen to read my blog before the game tomorrow.

Should be fun.