This is the first time I've done RPGaDay, and it's certainly been an experience. Coming up with creative interpretations of the prompts has been a challenge, and I think I would have preferred the more concrete questions of some earlier years, but I probably got more interesting blog posts out of these prompts.
It's pushed me to actually write something every day, which has definitely been good for me. Writing regularly is a skill I really need when running a campaign, when surprise actions of PCs mean I suddenly need to write new material on fairly short notice. It's also the only way my current collection of half-written scenarios are ever going to get finished.
Along the way I've found some insights into what I do well as a GM and ways I can improve, as well as ways to get better as a player. I've also got some potential inspiration for scenarios (because I clearly need more half-written scenarios in my collection) based on the Forest and Tower posts.
There's also been happy memories of past games,reminding me that no matter what the imposter syndrome might sometimes try to tell me, I've been doing this for a long time and I do it well. I may not have been playing back in the 70s and 80s like certain grognards of my aquaintence, but I am an experienced RPG player and GM.
Experience isn't everything though. Last night I played Call of Cthulhu with a GM who'd never run the game before, and we all had a brilliant time. One of my recent Liminal games included someone playing his first ever RPG, and he did great. The best RPGers I've played with aren't just experienced. They're enthusiastic. Experience might make you better at playing and GMing, but all you need to get started is to really want to do it.
Showing posts with label RPGaDAY2020. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPGaDAY2020. Show all posts
Monday, 31 August 2020
Sunday, 30 August 2020
RPGaDay: Portal
Before I ever played a tabletop RPG, I played one of the all time greatest CRPGs. Planescape: Torment.
Travel in CRPGs can get a bit handwavey, as creating a large gameworld makes for a very boring time getting around it unless you have something like map travel, where you just click on the place you want to go and are instantly there, sometimes at the cost of some money, or acquire increasingly speedy mounts to get around on. None of this is necessary in Planescape: Torment due to setting it in Sigil.
Part of the fun of Sigil was finding and activating the various portals needed to advance the plot. There seem to be various criteria you can use:
That's just what I can think of right now, and of course you can combine more than one of these. Fortunately this is all coming in handy now I'm playing Liminal, which sometimes requires the PCs to find their way into a fae realm. With all this in my head, I barely had to think about how the portal in my adventure was going to work - it was like I already knew.
Once you've come up with a fun portal key, there's the challenge of getting that information across to your players. Given how long the Lord of the Rings example took for them to figure out, I assume the GM thought he'd come up with a really simple puzzle, and was just waiting for one of them to say the right word, getting increasingly frustrated as they didn't, and ultimately asking for someone make a wisdom roll so he could just tell them the answer.
Still, he did try to make it easy, and made sure they got there in the end. It was a good clue, and I would have been facepalming afterwards for not having got it. My husband, on the other hand...
My advice for puzzle portals based on playing D&D with my husband:
Here's an extract from the diary of Calia Nettleglade, my first D&D character, attempting to get through one of my husband's puzzle portals. Bear in mind that at this point we had already got through several traps, puzzles and doors that radiated necromancy so were already a little depleted on spells, hitpoints and ability to wrap our minds around my husband's logic...
Travel in CRPGs can get a bit handwavey, as creating a large gameworld makes for a very boring time getting around it unless you have something like map travel, where you just click on the place you want to go and are instantly there, sometimes at the cost of some money, or acquire increasingly speedy mounts to get around on. None of this is necessary in Planescape: Torment due to setting it in Sigil.
Part of the fun of Sigil was finding and activating the various portals needed to advance the plot. There seem to be various criteria you can use:
- Temporal - requiring you to show up on a set date, or set time of day.
- Celestial - requiring specific events such as a full moon or an eclipse.
- Vocal - requiring saying the correct words. "Speak, friend, and enter."
- Physical - requiring you to carry a certain object.
- Somatic - requiring gestures or movements.
That's just what I can think of right now, and of course you can combine more than one of these. Fortunately this is all coming in handy now I'm playing Liminal, which sometimes requires the PCs to find their way into a fae realm. With all this in my head, I barely had to think about how the portal in my adventure was going to work - it was like I already knew.
Once you've come up with a fun portal key, there's the challenge of getting that information across to your players. Given how long the Lord of the Rings example took for them to figure out, I assume the GM thought he'd come up with a really simple puzzle, and was just waiting for one of them to say the right word, getting increasingly frustrated as they didn't, and ultimately asking for someone make a wisdom roll so he could just tell them the answer.
Still, he did try to make it easy, and made sure they got there in the end. It was a good clue, and I would have been facepalming afterwards for not having got it. My husband, on the other hand...
My advice for puzzle portals based on playing D&D with my husband:
- You don't need multiple layers of complexity in one puzzle. Multiple layers means multiple points of failure, which can lead to exponential levels of difficulty in solving it.
- Allow some kind of dice roll to gain insight into how to solve it. Have a back-up for if everyone fails the dice roll. Spending an hour floundering in frustration is no fun at all.
- Don't impose serious negative consequences for failed attempts. Players who are repeatedly punished for attempting to solve the puzzle are going to want to give up. Imagine how different The Lord of the Rings would have been if every time they'd said the wrong word to the door they'd had to fight the Watcher in the Water?
Here's an extract from the diary of Calia Nettleglade, my first D&D character, attempting to get through one of my husband's puzzle portals. Bear in mind that at this point we had already got through several traps, puzzles and doors that radiated necromancy so were already a little depleted on spells, hitpoints and ability to wrap our minds around my husband's logic...
We came into an octagonal room. In the centre was a column of light. Around it were four motionless figures reaching towards it, the oldest of which had clearly been there around 600 years. And in the middle - the staff!
Gendo and Titch headed in for a closer look, and then shadows came out of the walls. I shot one of them, entirely ineffectually as the arrows went straight through, but Bryson was clearly inspired by his previous success at turning, and after a few "Begone foul fiends!" the room was clear again.
That just left the matter of how we were going to get the staff out. There were four doors in the room, besides the one we'd come in through, and they all had the same picture on them. A five pointed star, with symbols in the points and in between the points, and another five pointed star in the middle. All the symbols and the central star could be pressed.
After much discussion, Sarflex and Bryson identified four of the larger in-between symbols as heaven, dark, spirit and light. They couldn't identify the other one, but Gendo thought it might be either undead or phlegm. I preferred my own interpretations: angel, communism, floaty things, the sun and evil clown, but the others weren't convinced. The smaller symbols were determined to be ice, water, fire, earth and phlegm, although the latter was later revised to air. The undead/phlegm was concluded to actually mean void.
This was all very well, of course, but didn't help us get the staff. What's more, there was a large stone block above the doorway with a certain 'get this wrong and be trapped' look about it, and the second necromancy-radiating door had closed again behind us.
Bryson decided to try pressing the heaven symbol on one door, and then the star. The stone block plummeted, and we were indeed trapped. Bryson tried a different combination of symbols...and shadows came out of the walls.
One walked straight through me. It was a very unpleasant sensation, and I felt much weaker afterwards. I did manage to stab it though, having more luck with my magic dagger, and between two of us we despatched it while Bryson did the shouty thing again. We ran over to attack another one, but in my now weakened state I couldn't do much damage to it, and before we could get rid of it it managed to touch me and drain even more of my strength. As the others destroyed it, I collapsed from the weight of my own equipment.
Of course the others found this hilarious. They were most unresponsive to my requests to 'get this bloody armour off me,' and found all kinds of entertaining uses for an helpless ranger, using me as a pillow, debating cutting my hair, arranging me in humorous positions and so on. (I should note that many of these suggestions came from the supposedly good members of the group.) Then someone happened to recall my 'you're all a bunch of bastards' vision. Funny, that.
I finally made it out of my armour, and was able to actually move a bit. We also made some progress regarding the doors. One item seemed not to fit in from each set of five - ice and spirit. Fortunately everyone agreed that it would be a good idea to get some sleep first (Rod had also been strength drained, but was significantly more mobile than me) and everyone who could prepared omen of peril spells.
The next morning I was feeling marginally better, and four lesser restoration spells later I was able to get dressed and pick up all my stuff. Needless to say, I will not be forgetting the events of the previous night....
By the time I'd fully recovered from the effects of the shadows (if not yet forgiven my companions for using me as a puppet) both Bryson and Sarflex were a bit short of spells, so we decided to rest for another day and I had a good think about both the problem of the doors and the vision from the lake. The latter was not in any way reassuring.
We took it in turns to take a guess at what to do with the doors. A couple of the others had a go, resulting in yet more rounds of shadows showing up. I avoided the first lot, letting the others deal with the problem, and once we had space I went over to the wall to poke at it. Just to check on things. Titch wanted to know why. I thought it was a good idea to keep quiet about it.
After all, if my companions had known I was worried that I was going to turn into a shadow and was checking that I wasn't turning incorporeal, they might have killed me.
I remained resolutely solid, however, and after the last round of shadows I asked if I could have a go. We needed to see the bigger picture, I thought. Maybe there was some significance to what we were being attacked by? They were shadows that chilled people - could they possibly be Dark Ice Spirits?
I cast Omen of Peril, and received word that there would indeed be peril. But I was feeling more confident in my ability to solve the puzzle than my success rate with peril omens, so I decided to ignore it. I pressed the appropriate buttons on one of the doors, and it slid down into the floor leaving a blank wall in its place, as did the one opposite it. And out of the walls came, not shadows, but shiny balls of light.
Not friendly balls of light though, and it took some time to get rid of them as we couldn't count on Bryson to zap them with the power of Zox'Atics this time. Gendo managed to grab one of them and tried to throw it into the column of light. Unfortunately the ball escaped, while Gendo was turned to stone in a sort of slam dunk position. Our sorcerers came in handy, managing to stun or daze several of them.
I could see which way the puzzle was going this time though. Our next combination was Light Heaven Fire, which was wrong (another twelve balls of light to dispatch) but we nailed it the second time with Light Heaven Spirit.
The final doors slid away, the column of light disappeared, and with a flying leap Titch grabbed the staff. Gendo turned back to his normal self, and we legged it.
Saturday, 29 August 2020
RPGaDay: Ride
Riding has never played a big part in our D&D or Pathfinder games, except as a justification for the halflings and gnomes to keep up with everyone else during normal travel. Horses by default are thoroughly impractical, and I can't sum it up any better than Strontygirl did at the Tavern.
The only time anyone's done much riding in game is when playing those classes that have a horse as a feature: Paladins, and in Pathfinder, Cavaliers.
Digging through my old Google+ archive, I found the time my husband mispronounced his character class as 'Chavalier':
The cavalier is a pretty cool class for someone who wants to play the knight in shining armour type without also having to be a paladin, but like the paladin there's always the issue of what do you do with your horse when you're down a dungeon. Do you rule that all the dungeon corridors are big enough to fit a mounted horse down? Less of an issue if you're playing a small race riding a dog, but then you've probably got a strength penalty which means you're not so great at the melee combat that's a key part of being a knight.
While horses in D&D and Pathfinder have their issues, they do at least avoid some of the pitfalls of real horses, who do all kinds of awkward things like reacting in blind terror to a perfectly normal pond that was fine yesterday but is now bad and scary for some mysterious horse reason. Horse training in RPG Fantasyland must be exceptional.
The solution to most horse issues is simple: bicycles.
Sure, in the real world bicycles weren't invented until the 19th century, but it's a fantasy setting and all the required technology exists, so why not? They're smaller than horses, so you should be able to ride one down most dungeons, and if it's a Brompton style folder you can carry it for the bits where it's not practical to ride, or else shove it in a bag of holding. In a world with plentiful bicycles, doubtless a manufacturer will be churning out bags of bicycle holding. They would be optimised for this particular purpose and with a command word that instantly packs away your bicycle making you combat ready - unless of course you're a member of the Chivalric Order of the Double Wheel, in which case you'll be doing all your combat from your bicycle.
Bicycles have practical applications in post-apoc games as well, of course, as a mode of transport that's significantly faster than walking and requires no fuel. Imagine a post-apoc world where the US has completely torn itself fighting over oil, while the Netherlands is now the world power as they've never had to worry about transport. The future's bright. The future's orange.
The only time anyone's done much riding in game is when playing those classes that have a horse as a feature: Paladins, and in Pathfinder, Cavaliers.
Digging through my old Google+ archive, I found the time my husband mispronounced his character class as 'Chavalier':
At first glance, the chavalier might appear to be riding a pony; in fact, he's had his horse lowered. Note the Burberry barding, low profile horseshoes, reclining bucket saddle and sound system: a pixie bard, whose Light spell is also powering the horse's underlighting. The horse itself has been trained to rear up and make revving noises.
The Chavalier's armour includes a custom paint job, body kit, helmet spoiler, Adidas sabatons and tinted visor.
The cavalier is a pretty cool class for someone who wants to play the knight in shining armour type without also having to be a paladin, but like the paladin there's always the issue of what do you do with your horse when you're down a dungeon. Do you rule that all the dungeon corridors are big enough to fit a mounted horse down? Less of an issue if you're playing a small race riding a dog, but then you've probably got a strength penalty which means you're not so great at the melee combat that's a key part of being a knight.
While horses in D&D and Pathfinder have their issues, they do at least avoid some of the pitfalls of real horses, who do all kinds of awkward things like reacting in blind terror to a perfectly normal pond that was fine yesterday but is now bad and scary for some mysterious horse reason. Horse training in RPG Fantasyland must be exceptional.
The solution to most horse issues is simple: bicycles.
Sure, in the real world bicycles weren't invented until the 19th century, but it's a fantasy setting and all the required technology exists, so why not? They're smaller than horses, so you should be able to ride one down most dungeons, and if it's a Brompton style folder you can carry it for the bits where it's not practical to ride, or else shove it in a bag of holding. In a world with plentiful bicycles, doubtless a manufacturer will be churning out bags of bicycle holding. They would be optimised for this particular purpose and with a command word that instantly packs away your bicycle making you combat ready - unless of course you're a member of the Chivalric Order of the Double Wheel, in which case you'll be doing all your combat from your bicycle.
Bicycles have practical applications in post-apoc games as well, of course, as a mode of transport that's significantly faster than walking and requires no fuel. Imagine a post-apoc world where the US has completely torn itself fighting over oil, while the Netherlands is now the world power as they've never had to worry about transport. The future's bright. The future's orange.
Friday, 28 August 2020
RPGaDay: Close
Coming up with the close of an adventure is the part I find hardest. Sometimes I can do a climactic final fight, but sometimes that's not how things are meant to go. To add to the difficulty, I'm currently running campaigns at MK-RPG, which have a set 8-week length, so I have to aim to have the big finale happen on week 8. Sometimes not helped by the players taking more or less time than I expected to complete a given scenario.
One thing I have picked up though, particularly for convention one-shots, is epilogues. Even if the ending of the scenario wasn't particularly dramatic, wrapping it up and asking players for a few words on what their character did next sometimes seems to round things off nicely.
When I run Firefly games I really try to have a good ending scene (and some have succeeded better than others) but either way I finish off by asking the players to come up with a name for the episode. Maybe I should expand this to other games? It certainly works for anything inspired by episodic TV.
One time I am happy with a close is my Delta Green campaign. The game wasn't a great fit for the group, and one player wanted to drop out, so I decided I'd wrap things up the game after he quit. Since by this point in the campaign he was on the verge of turning into a deep one, I decided the final mission would be that he'd been kidnapped by a former member of [Redacted] who was going to use him to expose the Delta Green conspiracy. By the end of the session, the character turning into a deep one had been killed, one character escaped, one was killed in the resulting explosion when they thwarted the plan and one ended up in a Mi-Go brain canister, which was everything he could have wanted. While the group in general didn't jibe with Delta Green the way I'd hoped, that last player got really into his character and I felt I owed him a good finale. I'm glad I managed to deliver.
One thing I have picked up though, particularly for convention one-shots, is epilogues. Even if the ending of the scenario wasn't particularly dramatic, wrapping it up and asking players for a few words on what their character did next sometimes seems to round things off nicely.
When I run Firefly games I really try to have a good ending scene (and some have succeeded better than others) but either way I finish off by asking the players to come up with a name for the episode. Maybe I should expand this to other games? It certainly works for anything inspired by episodic TV.
One time I am happy with a close is my Delta Green campaign. The game wasn't a great fit for the group, and one player wanted to drop out, so I decided I'd wrap things up the game after he quit. Since by this point in the campaign he was on the verge of turning into a deep one, I decided the final mission would be that he'd been kidnapped by a former member of [Redacted] who was going to use him to expose the Delta Green conspiracy. By the end of the session, the character turning into a deep one had been killed, one character escaped, one was killed in the resulting explosion when they thwarted the plan and one ended up in a Mi-Go brain canister, which was everything he could have wanted. While the group in general didn't jibe with Delta Green the way I'd hoped, that last player got really into his character and I felt I owed him a good finale. I'm glad I managed to deliver.
RPGaDay: Favour/Flavour
And here I am without my favourite tale of manipulating PCs into owing a favour because I already used it for Lever...
Wait, there's a different word on the dungeon map graphic to the hex map graphic!
Flavour then. The thing that separates otherwise similar games.
I've been playing Mutant: Year Zero a lot recently. It's my first post-apoc game, and as my write-ups might suggest, I'm loving it. Flavour-wise it's pretty grim and gritty - after all we're living in an abandoned tube station surrounded by the ruins of London in a dying society that's struggling for food and in the grip of violent bosses and fanatic cultists. And I nearly died at the end of the second session.
But at the same time, there's a glimmer of hope. Our characters have a childlike innocence at the same time as their world weariness, and there's an element of building a new home. Our characters dream of finding fame, love and peace.
And then there's my second post-apoc game, PunkApocalyptic. I played a one-shot called 'Two Dead In Shit Town,' and between those two names I knew I was in for something very different to Mutant: Year Zero. Another hint came from the objects we were carrying. While Mutant characters seek out artefacts - useful if poorly understood items from the past - PunkApocalyptic characters carry...well, mine had a diploma from Trump university and another had a bag of assorted sex toys.
In Mutant: Year Zero, our characters struggle against the physical and psychological hardships of life in a post-apocalyptic world. In PunkApocalyptic we struggled against filthy toilets, stinking rotten corpses and houses full of mutant cannibals.
Both are immensely fun games using similar archetypes in similar settings but are so unlike each other because they have such different flavours. And that's something important to get across when pitching a game. Fortunately I'm not running either Mutant: Year Zero or PunkApocalyptic as apparently those take me several paragraphs to describe.
Of the convention scenarios I've been running this year, two are based on other media (Alien and Firefly) so are pretty easy for people to get the flavour of. Liminal needs a bit more explanation, but 'urban fantasy and folk horror, inspired by works like Rivers of London and The Dresden Files' seems to tell people everything they need to know.
Both the Mutant: Year Zero campaign and the PunkApocalyptic one-shot are/were streamed by Chambers of Roleplay and can be found on on YouTube. I'll be running Alien at GrimCon and Liminal at AlbaCon.
Wait, there's a different word on the dungeon map graphic to the hex map graphic!
Flavour then. The thing that separates otherwise similar games.
I've been playing Mutant: Year Zero a lot recently. It's my first post-apoc game, and as my write-ups might suggest, I'm loving it. Flavour-wise it's pretty grim and gritty - after all we're living in an abandoned tube station surrounded by the ruins of London in a dying society that's struggling for food and in the grip of violent bosses and fanatic cultists. And I nearly died at the end of the second session.
But at the same time, there's a glimmer of hope. Our characters have a childlike innocence at the same time as their world weariness, and there's an element of building a new home. Our characters dream of finding fame, love and peace.
And then there's my second post-apoc game, PunkApocalyptic. I played a one-shot called 'Two Dead In Shit Town,' and between those two names I knew I was in for something very different to Mutant: Year Zero. Another hint came from the objects we were carrying. While Mutant characters seek out artefacts - useful if poorly understood items from the past - PunkApocalyptic characters carry...well, mine had a diploma from Trump university and another had a bag of assorted sex toys.
In Mutant: Year Zero, our characters struggle against the physical and psychological hardships of life in a post-apocalyptic world. In PunkApocalyptic we struggled against filthy toilets, stinking rotten corpses and houses full of mutant cannibals.
Both are immensely fun games using similar archetypes in similar settings but are so unlike each other because they have such different flavours. And that's something important to get across when pitching a game. Fortunately I'm not running either Mutant: Year Zero or PunkApocalyptic as apparently those take me several paragraphs to describe.
Of the convention scenarios I've been running this year, two are based on other media (Alien and Firefly) so are pretty easy for people to get the flavour of. Liminal needs a bit more explanation, but 'urban fantasy and folk horror, inspired by works like Rivers of London and The Dresden Files' seems to tell people everything they need to know.
Both the Mutant: Year Zero campaign and the PunkApocalyptic one-shot are/were streamed by Chambers of Roleplay and can be found on on YouTube. I'll be running Alien at GrimCon and Liminal at AlbaCon.
Wednesday, 26 August 2020
RPGaDay: Strange
One of the great things about RPG conventions is the opportunity to try strange games - strange in that they're new to me (although obviously some of them turn out to be the other kind of strange as well.)
The latest one was The Cthulhu Hack, which I played at Virtually Expo. While I have played it once before at Concrete Cow, that was several years ago and the game was also very much not your traditional Cthulhu investigation. This one was, so I could really see how The Cthulhu Hack works. Unsurprisingly, very well. I'm not a fan of huge skill lists, so not having one was definitely a bonus for me. The resource dice are good too - no worries about whether you're going to find a clue, only if finding said clue will deplete your resources. The only thing I really wasn't sold on was calling them Smokes and Flashlights. I couldn't make these very specific nouns match up with the abstract concepts they're supposed to represent. That's a minor niggle though. I would definitely play again, and I do love the wipable characters sheets available for it.
I've got two more strange games coming up at AlbaCon - City of Mist, and Broken Shield. The former I'm aware of, as it was recommended to me as something similar in tone to the Birds of Prey movie. I'm hoping for low power superheroes in a world that's both dark and colourful. The latter I know almost nothing about, beyond that it involves a futuristic London, and I'm looking forward to finding out what it's all about.
The strangest game (weird strange as well as unfamiliar strange) I've played at a convention is probably Seco Creek Vigilance Committee, which is unlike any other game I've ever played. A game of justice, law and revenge, with no dice, only resources and abilities. Each character has their own agenda, which is likely to clash with both other players and the situation at hand. It was a memorable experience obviously, since I'm writing about it now, but ultimately I didn't really jibe with the mechanics. An interesting, creative game, but not for me.
A whole different kind of weird strange happened when I signed up to play We Are Detective, a game run by James Mullen using Inspectres. It was based on the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency TV show, and involved Peruvian hedgehog coffee being smuggled in mannequins, and that was the least weird part. I remember balloons, and another character's ability to produce a kitten from his pockets at will. That day I saw two forces of weird collide, in the form of GM and player, and the resulting fallout in the form of one of the strangest games I've ever played.
A fun thing about seeking out strange games at conventions is getting to play game from the future! I played Blue Planet: Recontact at Concrete Cow about a year and a half ago. Apparently it's still being worked on, and I hope they're getting somewhere, as I really enjoyed being a sentient gorilla on a water planet, and want to play some more. At Tales from Dreaming Spires I played a game called Sainted London, which was set in a bizarre alternative Victorian London. A game so new it hasn't even hit Kickstarter yet.
Not all my experiences of trying out strange games have been great, but the vast majority have been brilliant experiences. A convention one-shot is one of the cheapest ways to try out something new, especially in these times of exclusively online gaming where travel and venue hire have ceased to be a thing. At worst, you've only lost a few hours and at best you've got a new favourite game.
The latest one was The Cthulhu Hack, which I played at Virtually Expo. While I have played it once before at Concrete Cow, that was several years ago and the game was also very much not your traditional Cthulhu investigation. This one was, so I could really see how The Cthulhu Hack works. Unsurprisingly, very well. I'm not a fan of huge skill lists, so not having one was definitely a bonus for me. The resource dice are good too - no worries about whether you're going to find a clue, only if finding said clue will deplete your resources. The only thing I really wasn't sold on was calling them Smokes and Flashlights. I couldn't make these very specific nouns match up with the abstract concepts they're supposed to represent. That's a minor niggle though. I would definitely play again, and I do love the wipable characters sheets available for it.
I've got two more strange games coming up at AlbaCon - City of Mist, and Broken Shield. The former I'm aware of, as it was recommended to me as something similar in tone to the Birds of Prey movie. I'm hoping for low power superheroes in a world that's both dark and colourful. The latter I know almost nothing about, beyond that it involves a futuristic London, and I'm looking forward to finding out what it's all about.
The strangest game (weird strange as well as unfamiliar strange) I've played at a convention is probably Seco Creek Vigilance Committee, which is unlike any other game I've ever played. A game of justice, law and revenge, with no dice, only resources and abilities. Each character has their own agenda, which is likely to clash with both other players and the situation at hand. It was a memorable experience obviously, since I'm writing about it now, but ultimately I didn't really jibe with the mechanics. An interesting, creative game, but not for me.
A whole different kind of weird strange happened when I signed up to play We Are Detective, a game run by James Mullen using Inspectres. It was based on the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency TV show, and involved Peruvian hedgehog coffee being smuggled in mannequins, and that was the least weird part. I remember balloons, and another character's ability to produce a kitten from his pockets at will. That day I saw two forces of weird collide, in the form of GM and player, and the resulting fallout in the form of one of the strangest games I've ever played.
A fun thing about seeking out strange games at conventions is getting to play game from the future! I played Blue Planet: Recontact at Concrete Cow about a year and a half ago. Apparently it's still being worked on, and I hope they're getting somewhere, as I really enjoyed being a sentient gorilla on a water planet, and want to play some more. At Tales from Dreaming Spires I played a game called Sainted London, which was set in a bizarre alternative Victorian London. A game so new it hasn't even hit Kickstarter yet.
Not all my experiences of trying out strange games have been great, but the vast majority have been brilliant experiences. A convention one-shot is one of the cheapest ways to try out something new, especially in these times of exclusively online gaming where travel and venue hire have ceased to be a thing. At worst, you've only lost a few hours and at best you've got a new favourite game.
Tuesday, 25 August 2020
RPGaDay: Lever
Lever? Really?
Sighs.
Consults dictionary.
"Something you use, often unfairly, to try to persuade someone to do what you want."
One of the many fun things about urban fantasy is the fae, who have all kinds of unfair methods of persuasion. One of them is their ability to make binding deals, often involving giving a gift which comes with some serious strings attached. Genre savvy players don't make these easy to set up. One plot we ran at a LARP involved fae, and it never really took off due to the players' immense reluctance to even talk to the fae, let alone make any kind of deal.
I managed it once though.
In my Dresden Files game I had the players encounter a group of svartalfar. The PC party were all supernatural, including a changeling, so the svartalfar knew they were likely to be somewhat genre savvy regarding the fae. Getting the PCs to do what they wanted was going to be a challenge.
It began with a gift. Something very desirable to the PC it was offered to, and accompanied by an assurance that it was a gift, offered freely and without obligation. The fae in this setting can't lie, only twist the truth, and this gift really was a gift.
The motivation, of course, was to get the PCs to think positively of the svartalfar and to create a sense of obligation, in much the same way as the free pens given away by companies selling over-50s life insurance.
The gift was followed by a request. This time it was a deal, but one laid out clearly. It described exactly what they wanted from the PCs (find the cause of a series of deaths) and what they would do in return (forge one weapon for the PCs, to be selected from a choice of three available options).
This was an entirely honest deal, and the svartalfar's primary motivation was to find out what killed some of their team. No tricks, no deception. But again, it served to influence the PC's attitude towards the svartalfar. They are fae, they make binding deals like any other similarly powerful fae, but they've played fair with the PCs throughout.
So with this positive relationship established, the svartalfar dropped round for a visit...
The players had just had a big fight with a black court vampire, during which they'd learned that a) just because said vampire was a puny minion called Brian, didn't mean he wasn't one of the most formidable foes they'd encountered so far and b) that black court vampires can use their voice as a lever to force people into doing what they want.
"Chris, invite me into the house."
Chris opens a window. "Brian, come in."
The svartalfar looked at the house's completely wrecked frontage with horror and pity.
"Would you like us to fix that up for you?"
"Yes please."
Gotcha.
When the svartalfar called in that favour it was nothing they wouldn't have agreed to do even without supernatural leverage. But the fact I managed to pull this off on a group of genre savvy players still makes me smile.
Sighs.
Consults dictionary.
"Something you use, often unfairly, to try to persuade someone to do what you want."
One of the many fun things about urban fantasy is the fae, who have all kinds of unfair methods of persuasion. One of them is their ability to make binding deals, often involving giving a gift which comes with some serious strings attached. Genre savvy players don't make these easy to set up. One plot we ran at a LARP involved fae, and it never really took off due to the players' immense reluctance to even talk to the fae, let alone make any kind of deal.
I managed it once though.
In my Dresden Files game I had the players encounter a group of svartalfar. The PC party were all supernatural, including a changeling, so the svartalfar knew they were likely to be somewhat genre savvy regarding the fae. Getting the PCs to do what they wanted was going to be a challenge.
It began with a gift. Something very desirable to the PC it was offered to, and accompanied by an assurance that it was a gift, offered freely and without obligation. The fae in this setting can't lie, only twist the truth, and this gift really was a gift.
The motivation, of course, was to get the PCs to think positively of the svartalfar and to create a sense of obligation, in much the same way as the free pens given away by companies selling over-50s life insurance.
The gift was followed by a request. This time it was a deal, but one laid out clearly. It described exactly what they wanted from the PCs (find the cause of a series of deaths) and what they would do in return (forge one weapon for the PCs, to be selected from a choice of three available options).
This was an entirely honest deal, and the svartalfar's primary motivation was to find out what killed some of their team. No tricks, no deception. But again, it served to influence the PC's attitude towards the svartalfar. They are fae, they make binding deals like any other similarly powerful fae, but they've played fair with the PCs throughout.
So with this positive relationship established, the svartalfar dropped round for a visit...
The players had just had a big fight with a black court vampire, during which they'd learned that a) just because said vampire was a puny minion called Brian, didn't mean he wasn't one of the most formidable foes they'd encountered so far and b) that black court vampires can use their voice as a lever to force people into doing what they want.
"Chris, invite me into the house."
Chris opens a window. "Brian, come in."
The svartalfar looked at the house's completely wrecked frontage with horror and pity.
"Would you like us to fix that up for you?"
"Yes please."
Gotcha.
When the svartalfar called in that favour it was nothing they wouldn't have agreed to do even without supernatural leverage. But the fact I managed to pull this off on a group of genre savvy players still makes me smile.
RPGaDay: Humour
I can't imagine RPGs without laughter. I don't think I've ever actually played a game that was intended to be humorous though.
The most I've laughed in RPGs is probably while playing Cyberpunk 2020. Partly it's because CP2020 is such an incredibly 80s version of the future that there's some inherent comedy from all the mis-matches between that and the real 2020. The first CP2020 campaign I played happened because someone in the group found their old copy and I was charmed by the zeerust. You can buy a cyber eye with a built in digital camera - but it can only hold 24 images, presumably because the standard 35mm film cartridges used by compact cameras in the 1980s held 24 images.
Further humour in CP2020 came from the other people in the games. Anyone who's been reading my game write-ups (with the exception of the MYZ games) will be familiar with the bunch of reprobates I call a home group. I was not there for the game that saw the invention of the pheromone-releasing devices that became known as 'jizz grenades' but merely heard about it afterwards. Imagine, if you will, that you're an NPC in Night City, working in some secure facility. Suddenly, in rushes a cyberware-laden intruder, and before you can react he pulls out a grenade and throws it at you! But fumbles, and drops at his own feet. And then...yeah. And then he throws another one, with the same result. Finally he leaves in embarrassment.
Then there was the game where we were playing members of a band called Doomcow. My character was the lead singer, a gorgeous, charismatic idiot with such a poor INT skill that the medtech was better at writing songs than her despite having put no points at all into composition. She wandered through Night City, doing her best to live the sex and drugs and rock and roll lifestyle she wanted while utterly oblivious to most of the horrible things happening around her. Only when I look back at the game do I realise what terrible, terrible things we did.
Something as simple as bad handwriting can lead to humour. For quite a while Doomcow were carrying around an object which according to the handwritten notes was a 'bro tube'. By the time we figured out that it was supposed to read 'bio tube' we'd already written a hit single called Bro Tube.
Critical hits and fumbles also brought the humour. CP2020 uses a d10 system, so criticals happen a lot, and in the case of critical hits, roll on. We also had a house rule that if you get a critical, whether a hit or a fumble, you and anyone who saw it happen gain improvement points equal to the level of the critical. So one day at band practice, my character sang so well that the rest of the band spontaneously learned to sing.
I forget what the circumstances were that lead to us needing to make a quick getaway in the tour bus. My character didn't have the drive skill, but with 10 in dexterity (the max starting score) she felt reasonably confident. Of course I rolled a one. Exactly how she managed to flip a full size tour bus end over end and set the fuel tank on fire, we will never know, but I certainly appreciated my earlier decision to pay the extra to make her clothes fireproof.
In another game, we had answered the door to a group of religious zealots who wanted to steal our NPC netrunner. A gunfight broke out, in which one PC shot another PC, my character shot yet another PC and herself, and nobody on either side managed to hit anyone on the other side. The enemy left, embarrassed and confused. We did all learn a lot about how to do shooting that day, starting with that it works better if you point the guns at the enemy.
I don't think we've ever played CP2020 in quite the spirit it was intended, but we've certainly had a lot of laughs.
The most I've laughed in RPGs is probably while playing Cyberpunk 2020. Partly it's because CP2020 is such an incredibly 80s version of the future that there's some inherent comedy from all the mis-matches between that and the real 2020. The first CP2020 campaign I played happened because someone in the group found their old copy and I was charmed by the zeerust. You can buy a cyber eye with a built in digital camera - but it can only hold 24 images, presumably because the standard 35mm film cartridges used by compact cameras in the 1980s held 24 images.
Further humour in CP2020 came from the other people in the games. Anyone who's been reading my game write-ups (with the exception of the MYZ games) will be familiar with the bunch of reprobates I call a home group. I was not there for the game that saw the invention of the pheromone-releasing devices that became known as 'jizz grenades' but merely heard about it afterwards. Imagine, if you will, that you're an NPC in Night City, working in some secure facility. Suddenly, in rushes a cyberware-laden intruder, and before you can react he pulls out a grenade and throws it at you! But fumbles, and drops at his own feet. And then...yeah. And then he throws another one, with the same result. Finally he leaves in embarrassment.
Then there was the game where we were playing members of a band called Doomcow. My character was the lead singer, a gorgeous, charismatic idiot with such a poor INT skill that the medtech was better at writing songs than her despite having put no points at all into composition. She wandered through Night City, doing her best to live the sex and drugs and rock and roll lifestyle she wanted while utterly oblivious to most of the horrible things happening around her. Only when I look back at the game do I realise what terrible, terrible things we did.
Something as simple as bad handwriting can lead to humour. For quite a while Doomcow were carrying around an object which according to the handwritten notes was a 'bro tube'. By the time we figured out that it was supposed to read 'bio tube' we'd already written a hit single called Bro Tube.
Critical hits and fumbles also brought the humour. CP2020 uses a d10 system, so criticals happen a lot, and in the case of critical hits, roll on. We also had a house rule that if you get a critical, whether a hit or a fumble, you and anyone who saw it happen gain improvement points equal to the level of the critical. So one day at band practice, my character sang so well that the rest of the band spontaneously learned to sing.
I forget what the circumstances were that lead to us needing to make a quick getaway in the tour bus. My character didn't have the drive skill, but with 10 in dexterity (the max starting score) she felt reasonably confident. Of course I rolled a one. Exactly how she managed to flip a full size tour bus end over end and set the fuel tank on fire, we will never know, but I certainly appreciated my earlier decision to pay the extra to make her clothes fireproof.
In another game, we had answered the door to a group of religious zealots who wanted to steal our NPC netrunner. A gunfight broke out, in which one PC shot another PC, my character shot yet another PC and herself, and nobody on either side managed to hit anyone on the other side. The enemy left, embarrassed and confused. We did all learn a lot about how to do shooting that day, starting with that it works better if you point the guns at the enemy.
I don't think we've ever played CP2020 in quite the spirit it was intended, but we've certainly had a lot of laughs.
Monday, 24 August 2020
RPGaDay: Edge
Edgelords: just say no.
I've mentioned before that codes of conduct are a useful edgelord repellent. I've literally seen someone say that he wouldn't attend a convention because the website said you shouldn't have pregens who are all straight white men unless the scenario requires it.
X-cards: another potential edgelord repellent. I've played games with an x-card at the table. I've never seen one actually get used. Unsurprisingly, the kind of GM who's happy to have an x-card on the table is also the kind of GM who either doesn't have edgy content in their game or else provides a content warning so people can choose not to play.
As a horror gaming enthusiast I'm inevitably going to end up playing some edgy games, but edgy doesn't have to cross over into edgelord. I've played a few games of Kult, but in each game the GM was aiming to shock and distress the characters, not the players.
Conversely, it's entirely possible to be a massive edgelord without any horror content at all. I won't name names, as the last thing I want is to attract their attention. You probably already know who I mean. Any game that seems to have been written under the assumption that only men are going to be playing it falls in this category.
The worst thing about RPG Twitter is that I'm getting to learn about a number of edgelords that would otherwise not have crossed my radar. (Alas, some of them I'd already encountered elsewhere.) The best thing about it is knowing that there's also a community of awesome people who see them for what they are.
I've mentioned before that codes of conduct are a useful edgelord repellent. I've literally seen someone say that he wouldn't attend a convention because the website said you shouldn't have pregens who are all straight white men unless the scenario requires it.
X-cards: another potential edgelord repellent. I've played games with an x-card at the table. I've never seen one actually get used. Unsurprisingly, the kind of GM who's happy to have an x-card on the table is also the kind of GM who either doesn't have edgy content in their game or else provides a content warning so people can choose not to play.
As a horror gaming enthusiast I'm inevitably going to end up playing some edgy games, but edgy doesn't have to cross over into edgelord. I've played a few games of Kult, but in each game the GM was aiming to shock and distress the characters, not the players.
Conversely, it's entirely possible to be a massive edgelord without any horror content at all. I won't name names, as the last thing I want is to attract their attention. You probably already know who I mean. Any game that seems to have been written under the assumption that only men are going to be playing it falls in this category.
The worst thing about RPG Twitter is that I'm getting to learn about a number of edgelords that would otherwise not have crossed my radar. (Alas, some of them I'd already encountered elsewhere.) The best thing about it is knowing that there's also a community of awesome people who see them for what they are.
RPGaDay: Rare
I'm a day late because I spent most of yesterday having fun at UK Games Expo (more to follow).
You know what's really rare? Me playing a vampire in an RPG.
Mostly that's because there's one obvious big-name game world where people play vampires, and as regular readers might have noticed, I'm not a big fan of the World of Darkness. I've played one campaign of Vampire: The Requiem, which was the worst gaming experience of my life. Given that I never particularly wanted to play any version of Vampire in the first place, you'd better believe I've stayed the hell away from Vampire, and vampires, ever since.
Until last night.
Liminal does vampires right. Liminal vampires aren't romantic leads, and they sure as hell don't sparkle. Liminal vampires are old-school soulless monsters, and are all the better for it. So what you can play in Liminal isn't actually a vampire but a dhampir: someone for whom the process of becoming a vampire was not complete. And you get a fair bit of flexibility in how you play them - various vampiric drawbacks are optional, as are vampiric powers. You can build them according to whichever mythology you find fun rather than being tied into one specific ruleset.
So when I came to create pre-gens for the convention scenario I'm currently running, I decided to include a dhampir in the mix. And when Bud of Bud's RPG Review asked us to make characters to playtest his scenario, for the first time ever I thought I might actually have fun playing a dhampir.
---
There was one thing Ophelia Crawford wanted, and that was do something good with her life. It started out with doing first aid courses and ultimately becoming a paramedic in the Motorcycle Response Unit. The salary wasn't important to her; her family was wealthy enough that she wasn't likely to find herself worrying about money. Knowing she was helping people was what mattered.
The night it all went wrong began with what seemed like a perfectly normal emergency call. Several patients, all rather pale, but she assumed it was a goth club. Until she finished her work, and was about to head back to the bike, and was informed that she'd done such a good job that they wanted to keep her.
She was too heavily drugged to remember most of the transformation ritual, but was still alert enough to notice when a giant wolf burst into the room, tearing one vampire to pieces and sending the others running. And the bit after that where a group of police officers showed up and didn't seem to think there was anything weird about her story but left her a business card and assured her it would all be kept quiet.
She didn't know what to expect, having only just found out that vampires were real, but it wasn't long before she realised she'd changed. While she could hide her eyes with sunglasses, and it wasn't like she had to eat garlic, life as she knew it was over. She quit her job and moved out of the city into a house in the countryside, planning on being alone until she worked out if she could ever be around people again.
That lasted for about half an hour, when it became rapidly obvious that the chicken coop at the end of the garden was occupied not by chickens but by a changeling by the name of Jim Chiminy. There was some initial friction as he appeared to have absolutely no sense of boundaries, particularly those that separated her house from anywhere else, but when he started ranting about a series of urban fantasy novels, she finally found herself listening to him. And then sharing her own opinions of certain other urban fantasy novels that had contained very inaccurate portrayals of vampires.
And now she had a friend; one who knew what she was (at least she presumed that's what the 'wild garlic leaves in the salad' incident had been about) but who didn't seem to be afraid of her. And if he didn't think she was a monster, maybe she didn't have to be one?
The house filled up fast after that, when the police who'd rescued her from the vampires decided they wanted her supporting one of their officers and he brought what she could only assume were some of his past arrests with her. Her place of quiet solitude was now filled with noise and chaos, not all of it caused by Jim. But she'd always wanted to do something good with her life, and keeping this lot alive was giving her life meaning once more.
And if that meant dealing with a weird fairy who kept changing people's Amazon orders to buy more toasters and trying on all her clothes, then so be it.
---
A rare character for me, but one I'd really like to play again. And credit to Doc Griffiths who is the person responsible for Jim Chiminy, without who Ophelia's life would have been so much less weird.
You know what's really rare? Me playing a vampire in an RPG.
Mostly that's because there's one obvious big-name game world where people play vampires, and as regular readers might have noticed, I'm not a big fan of the World of Darkness. I've played one campaign of Vampire: The Requiem, which was the worst gaming experience of my life. Given that I never particularly wanted to play any version of Vampire in the first place, you'd better believe I've stayed the hell away from Vampire, and vampires, ever since.
Until last night.
Liminal does vampires right. Liminal vampires aren't romantic leads, and they sure as hell don't sparkle. Liminal vampires are old-school soulless monsters, and are all the better for it. So what you can play in Liminal isn't actually a vampire but a dhampir: someone for whom the process of becoming a vampire was not complete. And you get a fair bit of flexibility in how you play them - various vampiric drawbacks are optional, as are vampiric powers. You can build them according to whichever mythology you find fun rather than being tied into one specific ruleset.
So when I came to create pre-gens for the convention scenario I'm currently running, I decided to include a dhampir in the mix. And when Bud of Bud's RPG Review asked us to make characters to playtest his scenario, for the first time ever I thought I might actually have fun playing a dhampir.
---
There was one thing Ophelia Crawford wanted, and that was do something good with her life. It started out with doing first aid courses and ultimately becoming a paramedic in the Motorcycle Response Unit. The salary wasn't important to her; her family was wealthy enough that she wasn't likely to find herself worrying about money. Knowing she was helping people was what mattered.
The night it all went wrong began with what seemed like a perfectly normal emergency call. Several patients, all rather pale, but she assumed it was a goth club. Until she finished her work, and was about to head back to the bike, and was informed that she'd done such a good job that they wanted to keep her.
She was too heavily drugged to remember most of the transformation ritual, but was still alert enough to notice when a giant wolf burst into the room, tearing one vampire to pieces and sending the others running. And the bit after that where a group of police officers showed up and didn't seem to think there was anything weird about her story but left her a business card and assured her it would all be kept quiet.
She didn't know what to expect, having only just found out that vampires were real, but it wasn't long before she realised she'd changed. While she could hide her eyes with sunglasses, and it wasn't like she had to eat garlic, life as she knew it was over. She quit her job and moved out of the city into a house in the countryside, planning on being alone until she worked out if she could ever be around people again.
That lasted for about half an hour, when it became rapidly obvious that the chicken coop at the end of the garden was occupied not by chickens but by a changeling by the name of Jim Chiminy. There was some initial friction as he appeared to have absolutely no sense of boundaries, particularly those that separated her house from anywhere else, but when he started ranting about a series of urban fantasy novels, she finally found herself listening to him. And then sharing her own opinions of certain other urban fantasy novels that had contained very inaccurate portrayals of vampires.
And now she had a friend; one who knew what she was (at least she presumed that's what the 'wild garlic leaves in the salad' incident had been about) but who didn't seem to be afraid of her. And if he didn't think she was a monster, maybe she didn't have to be one?
The house filled up fast after that, when the police who'd rescued her from the vampires decided they wanted her supporting one of their officers and he brought what she could only assume were some of his past arrests with her. Her place of quiet solitude was now filled with noise and chaos, not all of it caused by Jim. But she'd always wanted to do something good with her life, and keeping this lot alive was giving her life meaning once more.
And if that meant dealing with a weird fairy who kept changing people's Amazon orders to buy more toasters and trying on all her clothes, then so be it.
---
A rare character for me, but one I'd really like to play again. And credit to Doc Griffiths who is the person responsible for Jim Chiminy, without who Ophelia's life would have been so much less weird.
Friday, 21 August 2020
RPGaDay: Push
I'm running Alien tonight, so I guess I'm going to talk push mechanics.
Most of the games I've played don't have them, so I first encountered the idea in Coriolis. The idea that if you didn't like the result of your dice roll you could just roll again was a tough one to get used to. In Coriolis, pushing a roll means the GM gets a darkness point that they can use to make things difficult at a later point. They function rather like the destiny points in FFG Star Wars from the GM's end. Thematically I like it a lot - you're asking the Icons for help now but you'll have to pay for it later. It does rather put pressure on the GM to make use of them, although at the same time it's quite a scary prospect knowing the GM has a giant pile of darkness that could be unleashed at any moment.
Since then I've played a few more of Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine games, and what really impressed me is that the push mechanic is different depending on what game you're playing, and serves to support the theme of the game.
The original Mutant: Year Zero has a lot going on dice-wise, but pushing a roll means you risk (or if you've already rolled badly, guarantee) either temporary stat damage or gear damage. It really emphasises what a dangerous world this is; your equipment is built from scrap and could disintegrate at any moment, while the most resilient of bodies and minds can easily be brought down if pushed too far.
At the other end of the scale is Tales From The Loop. This world is scary and upsetting, and as a kid, these are the things that are a threat to you, hindering you in everything you do. But ultimately you're going to survive, because that's what kids do.
But my favourite is Alien.
Unlike most YZE games where pushing is likely to result in you having fewer dice to spend on future rolls, in Alien you get more. Each time you push, your stress increases by 1, and each point of stress adds to your dice pool. Stress gives you an edge, as the adrenaline pumping through your system makes you stronger, faster and sharper.
The trade-off is that as your stress level goes up, so does your risk of panic, and the likely severity of that panic. High stress means your chances of shooting that monster are much higher, but so are the chances that instead of the short controlled bursts you were supposed to be using, you empty your entire magazine into the thing while screaming your head off.
The end result is tension in every dice roll, as success or failure takes second stage to control or panic. And that's why it's my favourite push mechanic - because it's both supportive of the game's mood and themes, and so thoroughly tied into the game mechanics as a whole.
Most of the games I've played don't have them, so I first encountered the idea in Coriolis. The idea that if you didn't like the result of your dice roll you could just roll again was a tough one to get used to. In Coriolis, pushing a roll means the GM gets a darkness point that they can use to make things difficult at a later point. They function rather like the destiny points in FFG Star Wars from the GM's end. Thematically I like it a lot - you're asking the Icons for help now but you'll have to pay for it later. It does rather put pressure on the GM to make use of them, although at the same time it's quite a scary prospect knowing the GM has a giant pile of darkness that could be unleashed at any moment.
Since then I've played a few more of Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine games, and what really impressed me is that the push mechanic is different depending on what game you're playing, and serves to support the theme of the game.
The original Mutant: Year Zero has a lot going on dice-wise, but pushing a roll means you risk (or if you've already rolled badly, guarantee) either temporary stat damage or gear damage. It really emphasises what a dangerous world this is; your equipment is built from scrap and could disintegrate at any moment, while the most resilient of bodies and minds can easily be brought down if pushed too far.
At the other end of the scale is Tales From The Loop. This world is scary and upsetting, and as a kid, these are the things that are a threat to you, hindering you in everything you do. But ultimately you're going to survive, because that's what kids do.
But my favourite is Alien.
Unlike most YZE games where pushing is likely to result in you having fewer dice to spend on future rolls, in Alien you get more. Each time you push, your stress increases by 1, and each point of stress adds to your dice pool. Stress gives you an edge, as the adrenaline pumping through your system makes you stronger, faster and sharper.
The trade-off is that as your stress level goes up, so does your risk of panic, and the likely severity of that panic. High stress means your chances of shooting that monster are much higher, but so are the chances that instead of the short controlled bursts you were supposed to be using, you empty your entire magazine into the thing while screaming your head off.
The end result is tension in every dice roll, as success or failure takes second stage to control or panic. And that's why it's my favourite push mechanic - because it's both supportive of the game's mood and themes, and so thoroughly tied into the game mechanics as a whole.
Thursday, 20 August 2020
RPGaDay: Investigate
Investigations are pretty much my favourite thing to run in an RPG. Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green are generally based around investigation, and of course it's the entire point of the Gumshoe system, but my favourite game for actually running them is Liminal, because it makes dealing with failed rolls fun.
In Liminal, if someone is searching a room for a clue I want them to find, I'll have them roll Awareness. If they succeed, all good. If they don't, then while simple failure is an option in Liminal (and the one that's used for a lot of rolls), if I really want them to find the thing there are options.
"As you pick up the book you need, a pile of other books falls to the floor with a series of loud thuds. You hear voices and running footsteps from upstairs."
"As you reach into the hiding place your hand closes around something sharp. You retrieve both the caltrop and the now rather bloodstained document you were looking for."
"After a long and exhausting search, you finally locate the hidden drawer. When you look up, you realise that the sun has set."
I think what I find fun about writing and running an investigation is the structure. My current convention scenario, Mother Said I Never Should, is based around investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. My scenario notes consist of two things:
My previous convention staple, On The Drift (a Firefly adventure for Scum and Villainy) isn't specifically an investigation - it's about the PCs getting control of an abandoned ship. However, it can become an investigation, depending on how interested the PCs are in how exactly the ship came to be in its current state. I have a pretty similar set of notes, in that I have the sequence of events that led to the situation, plus a set of clues. They're a bit easier to find than in the Liminal scenario - mostly just a case of looking in the right room - so rather than the different ways a clue can be discovered I just have a note of what's in each room of the spaceship.
Since this isn't an investigation-focused game, it's entirely possible for the players to decide they don't care what happened and go and do something else (and it's happened, and I'm prepared for that too.) But it's a lot of fun for a group who do want to play it that way.
The nice thing about writing an RPG investigation is that unlike writing fiction where you need subtle clues that take a brilliant detective to figure out but a reader can identify on a second reading, you can go for much clearer clues. And with a game with supernatural elements, you don't have to worry about why the police missed all this stuff, because the police are operating under a different set of assumptions to the PCs (e.g. the culprit is human size, solid, visible and subject to the laws of physics.)
Conclusion: I should write more investigation scenarios. I know how to structure them, I enjoy running them, and based on the feedback I'm getting, people enjoy playing them. And I'm part way there already, with my 'in progress' folder containing a partly written Alien scenario with the working title CSI: Weyland Yutani.
In Liminal, if someone is searching a room for a clue I want them to find, I'll have them roll Awareness. If they succeed, all good. If they don't, then while simple failure is an option in Liminal (and the one that's used for a lot of rolls), if I really want them to find the thing there are options.
"As you pick up the book you need, a pile of other books falls to the floor with a series of loud thuds. You hear voices and running footsteps from upstairs."
"As you reach into the hiding place your hand closes around something sharp. You retrieve both the caltrop and the now rather bloodstained document you were looking for."
"After a long and exhausting search, you finally locate the hidden drawer. When you look up, you realise that the sun has set."
I think what I find fun about writing and running an investigation is the structure. My current convention scenario, Mother Said I Never Should, is based around investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. My scenario notes consist of two things:
- The sequence of events that lead up to the current situation.
- A set of clues and the different ways they can be discovered.
My previous convention staple, On The Drift (a Firefly adventure for Scum and Villainy) isn't specifically an investigation - it's about the PCs getting control of an abandoned ship. However, it can become an investigation, depending on how interested the PCs are in how exactly the ship came to be in its current state. I have a pretty similar set of notes, in that I have the sequence of events that led to the situation, plus a set of clues. They're a bit easier to find than in the Liminal scenario - mostly just a case of looking in the right room - so rather than the different ways a clue can be discovered I just have a note of what's in each room of the spaceship.
Since this isn't an investigation-focused game, it's entirely possible for the players to decide they don't care what happened and go and do something else (and it's happened, and I'm prepared for that too.) But it's a lot of fun for a group who do want to play it that way.
The nice thing about writing an RPG investigation is that unlike writing fiction where you need subtle clues that take a brilliant detective to figure out but a reader can identify on a second reading, you can go for much clearer clues. And with a game with supernatural elements, you don't have to worry about why the police missed all this stuff, because the police are operating under a different set of assumptions to the PCs (e.g. the culprit is human size, solid, visible and subject to the laws of physics.)
Conclusion: I should write more investigation scenarios. I know how to structure them, I enjoy running them, and based on the feedback I'm getting, people enjoy playing them. And I'm part way there already, with my 'in progress' folder containing a partly written Alien scenario with the working title CSI: Weyland Yutani.
Wednesday, 19 August 2020
RPGaDay: Tower
Wizards' towers are a staple of fantasyland scenery of course, but I mostly run modern games set in something resembling the real world. Doesn't mean I can't have a tower though.
This magnificent erection is the National Lift Tower in Northampton. It was built as a lift testing tower and is 127.5m tall. It regularly appears in any game played by my home group in a modern day setting. It's been a weapons platform in D20 Modern (aka the Northampton Supergun), a horrific mouth-filled monstrosity in Don't Rest Your Head, and a hilarious place to put a stolen dinosaur skeleton if you happen to be Puck in The Dresden Files.
I'm currently running a modern day game (Liminal) so it's probably time to think about the tower again.
Starting at the bottom, the tower is built on the site of an abbey, the remains of which still exist underneath the surrounding housing estate. There was also a cemetary where around 300 burials were excavated prior to the housing estate being built. Potential there for a ghost realm in the form of the old medieval abbey, or its later use as a mansion after the dissolution of the monasteries.
It would make a good site for a geomantic node. Perhaps the lifts are somehow connected to it? It's one of only two lift testing towers in Europe so perhaps there's a reason this specific site was chosen. Whatever rituals the Augustinian canons and later the Giffard family performed here are long forgotten, and the height of the tower ensures dangerous energies are kept away from those of us on the ground.
The place has potential for a modern day Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green game. A corpse found at the bottom of the tower, having apparently fallen from the top, would certainly start an investigation off with a bang. (Or, as I'm reliably informed, a splash.) What's that tower really for? If the lifts all move up and down in a certain pattern, does it start to resonate?
It's jokingly referred to as 'Northampton Lighthouse'. The local paper ran an April Fool's joke about it being used as a mooring station for airships. But what if it wasn't a joke? Who's to say it isn't really a beacon for something beyond our reality.
M R James had an ash tree as the home for a witch and her horrific minions. We already know the place was used for burials, and you could fit a lot of giant spiders inside those lift shafts. Just imagine them boiling out of the top and pouring down the sides...
Come to think of it, I'd rather not.
This magnificent erection is the National Lift Tower in Northampton. It was built as a lift testing tower and is 127.5m tall. It regularly appears in any game played by my home group in a modern day setting. It's been a weapons platform in D20 Modern (aka the Northampton Supergun), a horrific mouth-filled monstrosity in Don't Rest Your Head, and a hilarious place to put a stolen dinosaur skeleton if you happen to be Puck in The Dresden Files.
I'm currently running a modern day game (Liminal) so it's probably time to think about the tower again.
Starting at the bottom, the tower is built on the site of an abbey, the remains of which still exist underneath the surrounding housing estate. There was also a cemetary where around 300 burials were excavated prior to the housing estate being built. Potential there for a ghost realm in the form of the old medieval abbey, or its later use as a mansion after the dissolution of the monasteries.
It would make a good site for a geomantic node. Perhaps the lifts are somehow connected to it? It's one of only two lift testing towers in Europe so perhaps there's a reason this specific site was chosen. Whatever rituals the Augustinian canons and later the Giffard family performed here are long forgotten, and the height of the tower ensures dangerous energies are kept away from those of us on the ground.
The place has potential for a modern day Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green game. A corpse found at the bottom of the tower, having apparently fallen from the top, would certainly start an investigation off with a bang. (Or, as I'm reliably informed, a splash.) What's that tower really for? If the lifts all move up and down in a certain pattern, does it start to resonate?
It's jokingly referred to as 'Northampton Lighthouse'. The local paper ran an April Fool's joke about it being used as a mooring station for airships. But what if it wasn't a joke? Who's to say it isn't really a beacon for something beyond our reality.
M R James had an ash tree as the home for a witch and her horrific minions. We already know the place was used for burials, and you could fit a lot of giant spiders inside those lift shafts. Just imagine them boiling out of the top and pouring down the sides...
Come to think of it, I'd rather not.
Tuesday, 18 August 2020
RPGaDay: Meet
To continue last night's theme of in-person conventions, since I wrote it very late and it's still on my mind, conventions are both a great and terrible way to meet people.
They're great beause all the things that can make socialising difficult are gone. Everyone there is going to be a fan of RPGs, so no worries about finding things to talk about. I'll definitely have people to talk to, because I'll be in a game and any competent GM will ensure that everybody gets involved. Conventions let me ignore the fact that I'm a shy introvert and go out and have fun and meet lots of people.
They're terrible because I have no idea who most of those people are.
I'm not good with faces to begin with, and to make matters worse...well, I wouldn't be able to find my way to a convention by following the trail of nerds if RPG convention-goers didn't have a certain look about them. Even if I meet someone who looks familiar, knowing how my brain processes faces means I'm often not sure if I have met them before or if they just look similar to someone I've met.
Then there's names, and I really appreciate conventions that supply name badges, as that removes at least part of the name problem. What it doesn't do is change the fact that basically everyone at RPG conventions is called Chris, Paul or Andrew. And then to further confuse matters, we immediately get into a game where nobody is using their real name anyway, so even if I do remember a name it's 50:50 whether it's their own or the character they played.
My chances of remembering someone are significantly higher if their name or appearance is significantly outside the norm (although I can't always put a name to a face). Otherwise it can take a lot of conventions for me to be able to identify someone on sight.
What I won't forget, however, is the fun we had together. So if you see me at a convention, whether in person or virtual, and I don't seem to recognise you, remind me of the game we played. Because even if I can't remember your name or your face, I'll absolutely remember you.
They're great beause all the things that can make socialising difficult are gone. Everyone there is going to be a fan of RPGs, so no worries about finding things to talk about. I'll definitely have people to talk to, because I'll be in a game and any competent GM will ensure that everybody gets involved. Conventions let me ignore the fact that I'm a shy introvert and go out and have fun and meet lots of people.
They're terrible because I have no idea who most of those people are.
I'm not good with faces to begin with, and to make matters worse...well, I wouldn't be able to find my way to a convention by following the trail of nerds if RPG convention-goers didn't have a certain look about them. Even if I meet someone who looks familiar, knowing how my brain processes faces means I'm often not sure if I have met them before or if they just look similar to someone I've met.
Then there's names, and I really appreciate conventions that supply name badges, as that removes at least part of the name problem. What it doesn't do is change the fact that basically everyone at RPG conventions is called Chris, Paul or Andrew. And then to further confuse matters, we immediately get into a game where nobody is using their real name anyway, so even if I do remember a name it's 50:50 whether it's their own or the character they played.
My chances of remembering someone are significantly higher if their name or appearance is significantly outside the norm (although I can't always put a name to a face). Otherwise it can take a lot of conventions for me to be able to identify someone on sight.
What I won't forget, however, is the fun we had together. So if you see me at a convention, whether in person or virtual, and I don't seem to recognise you, remind me of the game we played. Because even if I can't remember your name or your face, I'll absolutely remember you.
RPGaDay: Comfort
I miss in-person conventions, so I'm thinking about what makes me, a shy introvert, feel comfortable about going to an in-person convention.
Familiarity is a big one. The conventions I'm most likely to go to are ones I've been to before. I have the logistics sorted out. I know how to get there, where to park for a reasonable price, and how to find the venue. (It's usually possible to find a convention just by following a trail of nerds, but I try not to be dependent on that.) I know what the tea and coffee situation is, and where I can get lunch. I know how the convention itself works, particularly game sign-up. And I know some of the faces I'm going to see.
Familiar faces are also something that make me more comfortable with trying a new convention. Spaghetti ConJunction was an easy sell having run into Simon and Pookie plenty of times at Concrete Cow. I've spent enough time talking and gaming online with the Manchester crowd that I'd be quite happy going to any of the conventions up there if it wasn't for the fairly horrendous journey.
And travel is a big one, of course. Concrete Cow is a short drive for me. Spaghetti ConJunction is further, but still reasonable for a day trip. I'm absolutely more open to trying something new if it isn't going to require an overnight stay. So far the only convention I've stayed over for was the Dudley Bug Ball, and that's because I knew I'd be able to spend any free time hanging out with Gill Pearce.
North Star at the Garrison was supposed to be my first venture into full weekend pre-booked conventions, but of course 2020 happened.
What all of these conventions have in common is size. None of them are particularly big, with sizes ranging from around thirty to around seventy. I'll cheerfully go to this kind of event, but big conventions don't appeal in the same way. I'm pretty nervous about running a game at UK Games Expo this weekend, and I only signed up for that because it's virtual. I haven't signed up for any other games at it either. I avoided GenCon entirely, despite it being virtual too. Right now, small conventions are more comfortable for me. Perhaps once we're playing in person again and I can start doing more events, that might start to change. There's this one in a holiday camp that everyone seems to think is amazing...
I like to know there's a code of conduct. I don't think I've ever seen one have to be used, but as a female gamer, knowing that if something does go wrong there's a procedure to deal with it is very reassuring. Codes of conduct also serve to dissuade a certain type of gamer from showing up, and we're all better off without an infestation of edgelords.
A lot of the hurdles in getting me to a convention can be overcome with a decent internet presence. A website doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated. If it's got a photo of the venue, information on nearby car parks, descriptions of where lunch can be obtained, and a code of conduct, it's already well on the way to convincing me to show up.
And next year, it's going to be a particularly easy sell.
Familiarity is a big one. The conventions I'm most likely to go to are ones I've been to before. I have the logistics sorted out. I know how to get there, where to park for a reasonable price, and how to find the venue. (It's usually possible to find a convention just by following a trail of nerds, but I try not to be dependent on that.) I know what the tea and coffee situation is, and where I can get lunch. I know how the convention itself works, particularly game sign-up. And I know some of the faces I'm going to see.
Familiar faces are also something that make me more comfortable with trying a new convention. Spaghetti ConJunction was an easy sell having run into Simon and Pookie plenty of times at Concrete Cow. I've spent enough time talking and gaming online with the Manchester crowd that I'd be quite happy going to any of the conventions up there if it wasn't for the fairly horrendous journey.
And travel is a big one, of course. Concrete Cow is a short drive for me. Spaghetti ConJunction is further, but still reasonable for a day trip. I'm absolutely more open to trying something new if it isn't going to require an overnight stay. So far the only convention I've stayed over for was the Dudley Bug Ball, and that's because I knew I'd be able to spend any free time hanging out with Gill Pearce.
North Star at the Garrison was supposed to be my first venture into full weekend pre-booked conventions, but of course 2020 happened.
What all of these conventions have in common is size. None of them are particularly big, with sizes ranging from around thirty to around seventy. I'll cheerfully go to this kind of event, but big conventions don't appeal in the same way. I'm pretty nervous about running a game at UK Games Expo this weekend, and I only signed up for that because it's virtual. I haven't signed up for any other games at it either. I avoided GenCon entirely, despite it being virtual too. Right now, small conventions are more comfortable for me. Perhaps once we're playing in person again and I can start doing more events, that might start to change. There's this one in a holiday camp that everyone seems to think is amazing...
I like to know there's a code of conduct. I don't think I've ever seen one have to be used, but as a female gamer, knowing that if something does go wrong there's a procedure to deal with it is very reassuring. Codes of conduct also serve to dissuade a certain type of gamer from showing up, and we're all better off without an infestation of edgelords.
A lot of the hurdles in getting me to a convention can be overcome with a decent internet presence. A website doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated. If it's got a photo of the venue, information on nearby car parks, descriptions of where lunch can be obtained, and a code of conduct, it's already well on the way to convincing me to show up.
And next year, it's going to be a particularly easy sell.
Sunday, 16 August 2020
RPGaDay: Dramatic
I love drama in RPGs. My two favourite LARPs are the really immersive ones where my characters are feeling everything so I have to feel it along with them. I remember last October when such events were still possible, and my character got the dual whammy of being responsible for the intense pain another character was in, while simultaneously having the revelation that she was also responsible for the terrible thing that had happened to him in the past. This brought on a sudden flood of tears, and later on some counselling from another character to reassure her that she wasn't the same person who did those terrible things and could choose a better way now. It's my strongest memory in an already memorable game (which is ironically one where all the player characters are amnesiacs.)
However, while I can cry on cue at a sufficiently dramatic LARP, I find it a lot harder to bring the drama in tabletop RPGs. I think self-consciousness is a big part of it. When I'm at a LARP, wearing my costume and carrying my foam and latex weapons, it's like I'm over a hurdle. The person everyone is looking at is my character, not me. But in tabletop, that's my face everyone is looking at, and I feel very strange getting all emotional.
For some reason, it's easier when I'm GMing. My current convention scenario involves several NPCs in high stress situations, and depending on how the PCs push them there's the potential for some major dramatic outbursts. Why I feel more comfortable roleplaying these NPCs than my own characters, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because they're specifically there for the players' entertainment?
A lot of this RPGaDay stuff has been giving me food for thought on the subject of GMing. This time it's given me something to think about regarding upping my game as a player. If I can do it at LARP and I can do it as a GM, there's no reason I shouldn't get better at it as a player.
However, while I can cry on cue at a sufficiently dramatic LARP, I find it a lot harder to bring the drama in tabletop RPGs. I think self-consciousness is a big part of it. When I'm at a LARP, wearing my costume and carrying my foam and latex weapons, it's like I'm over a hurdle. The person everyone is looking at is my character, not me. But in tabletop, that's my face everyone is looking at, and I feel very strange getting all emotional.
For some reason, it's easier when I'm GMing. My current convention scenario involves several NPCs in high stress situations, and depending on how the PCs push them there's the potential for some major dramatic outbursts. Why I feel more comfortable roleplaying these NPCs than my own characters, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because they're specifically there for the players' entertainment?
A lot of this RPGaDay stuff has been giving me food for thought on the subject of GMing. This time it's given me something to think about regarding upping my game as a player. If I can do it at LARP and I can do it as a GM, there's no reason I shouldn't get better at it as a player.
Saturday, 15 August 2020
RPGaDay: Frame
Something that I've learned from RPGaDay is how much our frame of reference shapes the way we look at things.
Forests, for example. I wrote about forests from my own frame of reference. I live in Britain, so to me, forests are largely tourist destinations, shaped by their industrial history. It's hard to get truly lost in a British forest - worse case scenario you pick a direction and stick to it and you'll be out in a few hours, tops. Probably less as you're likely to run into a village, or at the very least a road, long before that. Britain's biggest forest is Galloway Forest in Scotland, at just under 300 square miles, and it's riddled with trails and peppered with tiny villages, and even at it's most remote you're never more than a day's walk from a major road. And Galloway Forest is three times the size of England's biggest forest, the New Forest.
The presence of humans is stamped all over British forests, and that affects how I see them. American forests, on the other hand...
Google tells me the largest forest in the USA is Tongass National Forest in Alaska. It's about 90 times the size of Galloway Forest, and about 0.5 times the size of England. Looking at it on Google Maps, it looks like logging and tourism has barely nibbled at its edges. It's wild in a way I can't even begin to imagine. You could walk for days in that forest, and even then you'd be more likely to find the sea than a road. And, of course, unlike a British forest there are probably bears in it. And wolves. And moose.
Frames of reference are something I'm having to be more aware of when playing RPGs online, since I'm now frequently playing with people from other countries. The scenario I'm currently running is based around Bournville in Birmingham, and while most Brits will have some idea what kind of a place Birmingham is, and instantly associate Bournville with the Cadbury chocolate factory, that's not always immediately obvious to people who didn't grow up here.
Even without the geographic differences, different frames of reference are likely to show up. Age is a big one, as I realised last night when half the PCs were singing a song from 1979 that I'd never heard because it's older than I am. (I know some 70s music, of course, but the song wasn't the kind of music my parents were into, so didn't feature in their vinyl collection.) Gender is another. A recently kickstarted game, Troubleshooters, takes a lot of inspiration from Tintin. I barely know anything about Tintin, because those comics are part of a genre of adventure stories that were written both about and for boys. I've never read them, for the same reason that most of the people I game with have never read Barbie comics.
And then there's things like the Same Page Tool, the purpose of which seems to be making sure everyone is looking at the game from the same frame of reference. That does require at least one person to be aware of the game's frame of reference, which was not a thing when we played The Sprawl. Attempting to play a PBTA game through the frame of Cyberpunk 2020's extreme simulationism was...well, I had a great time, but ultimately the game only lasted three sessions because trying to play it that way just didn't work.
On a more meta note, it's been fascinating to see how different people have approached the prompt words for RPGsDay through their own frame of reference.
Forests, for example. I wrote about forests from my own frame of reference. I live in Britain, so to me, forests are largely tourist destinations, shaped by their industrial history. It's hard to get truly lost in a British forest - worse case scenario you pick a direction and stick to it and you'll be out in a few hours, tops. Probably less as you're likely to run into a village, or at the very least a road, long before that. Britain's biggest forest is Galloway Forest in Scotland, at just under 300 square miles, and it's riddled with trails and peppered with tiny villages, and even at it's most remote you're never more than a day's walk from a major road. And Galloway Forest is three times the size of England's biggest forest, the New Forest.
The presence of humans is stamped all over British forests, and that affects how I see them. American forests, on the other hand...
Google tells me the largest forest in the USA is Tongass National Forest in Alaska. It's about 90 times the size of Galloway Forest, and about 0.5 times the size of England. Looking at it on Google Maps, it looks like logging and tourism has barely nibbled at its edges. It's wild in a way I can't even begin to imagine. You could walk for days in that forest, and even then you'd be more likely to find the sea than a road. And, of course, unlike a British forest there are probably bears in it. And wolves. And moose.
Frames of reference are something I'm having to be more aware of when playing RPGs online, since I'm now frequently playing with people from other countries. The scenario I'm currently running is based around Bournville in Birmingham, and while most Brits will have some idea what kind of a place Birmingham is, and instantly associate Bournville with the Cadbury chocolate factory, that's not always immediately obvious to people who didn't grow up here.
Even without the geographic differences, different frames of reference are likely to show up. Age is a big one, as I realised last night when half the PCs were singing a song from 1979 that I'd never heard because it's older than I am. (I know some 70s music, of course, but the song wasn't the kind of music my parents were into, so didn't feature in their vinyl collection.) Gender is another. A recently kickstarted game, Troubleshooters, takes a lot of inspiration from Tintin. I barely know anything about Tintin, because those comics are part of a genre of adventure stories that were written both about and for boys. I've never read them, for the same reason that most of the people I game with have never read Barbie comics.
And then there's things like the Same Page Tool, the purpose of which seems to be making sure everyone is looking at the game from the same frame of reference. That does require at least one person to be aware of the game's frame of reference, which was not a thing when we played The Sprawl. Attempting to play a PBTA game through the frame of Cyberpunk 2020's extreme simulationism was...well, I had a great time, but ultimately the game only lasted three sessions because trying to play it that way just didn't work.
On a more meta note, it's been fascinating to see how different people have approached the prompt words for RPGsDay through their own frame of reference.
Friday, 14 August 2020
RPGaDay: Banner
This will be my 163rd blog post under the Savage Spiel banner.
When I started this blog, just under a year ago, it was because I was posting a bunch of RPG related stuff on Facebook and thought a blog would be a better venue for it. Much as I loathe the phrase 'personal brand' (I work for the kind of company that runs training courses for staff members on how to develop your personal brand) it felt like the thing to do.
Picking a name was tough. I knew I'd also be creating a Twitter account to go with it, so I wanted a name I could also use there. Pretty much every variant on the theme of 'savage gamer' was already taken. I reached out to Facebook for help and got a bunch of suggestions, none of which I used, although one I particularly liked was 'savage words'. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't even particularly like Savage Worlds, let alone talk about it, I would have gone with that. And that was what gave me the idea of Savage Spiel.
I like that it's alliterative, and I like that it has a dual meaning. In English, a spiel is a long outpouring of words, which seemed entirely appropriate for a blog. And in German, it means game or play (hence the SPIEL board gaming event in Essen, Germany.)
It has had a strange side effect, however, in that since lockdown, I've been mistaken for a German roughly once a month. (It seems to have stopped now, but August's not over yet.) As it happens I do speak German. Not fluently, but enough to get by if I go on holiday there again. And I do talk about LARP, which is way bigger in Germany than it is in the UK, so I guess it's plausible if you've never heard my voice...
Anyway. I've hung up my virtual banner. What do I want people to associate with it?
1. Interesting things to say.
2. Entertaining game write-ups.
3. Quality convention games.
4. Fun RPG supplements/adventures.
I think I'm doing reasonably well on the first three. The last one...well, I need to get on and finish some stuff.
The one other thing I'm considering is a new graphic. My current icon is a chibified version of one of my LARP characters, so does technically depict me, just not in any outfit someone outside of that game would recognise. I'm thinking of commissioning a new one with me actually looking like me.
And that concludes my thoroughly self-indulgent and barely RPG related thoughts on the word 'banner'.
When I started this blog, just under a year ago, it was because I was posting a bunch of RPG related stuff on Facebook and thought a blog would be a better venue for it. Much as I loathe the phrase 'personal brand' (I work for the kind of company that runs training courses for staff members on how to develop your personal brand) it felt like the thing to do.
Picking a name was tough. I knew I'd also be creating a Twitter account to go with it, so I wanted a name I could also use there. Pretty much every variant on the theme of 'savage gamer' was already taken. I reached out to Facebook for help and got a bunch of suggestions, none of which I used, although one I particularly liked was 'savage words'. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't even particularly like Savage Worlds, let alone talk about it, I would have gone with that. And that was what gave me the idea of Savage Spiel.
I like that it's alliterative, and I like that it has a dual meaning. In English, a spiel is a long outpouring of words, which seemed entirely appropriate for a blog. And in German, it means game or play (hence the SPIEL board gaming event in Essen, Germany.)
It has had a strange side effect, however, in that since lockdown, I've been mistaken for a German roughly once a month. (It seems to have stopped now, but August's not over yet.) As it happens I do speak German. Not fluently, but enough to get by if I go on holiday there again. And I do talk about LARP, which is way bigger in Germany than it is in the UK, so I guess it's plausible if you've never heard my voice...
Anyway. I've hung up my virtual banner. What do I want people to associate with it?
1. Interesting things to say.
2. Entertaining game write-ups.
3. Quality convention games.
4. Fun RPG supplements/adventures.
I think I'm doing reasonably well on the first three. The last one...well, I need to get on and finish some stuff.
The one other thing I'm considering is a new graphic. My current icon is a chibified version of one of my LARP characters, so does technically depict me, just not in any outfit someone outside of that game would recognise. I'm thinking of commissioning a new one with me actually looking like me.
And that concludes my thoroughly self-indulgent and barely RPG related thoughts on the word 'banner'.
Thursday, 13 August 2020
RPGaDay: Rest
I was wondering what to write about for this one, as all I could think of was the concept of long and short rests from D&D 5e, and as someone who rarely plays D&D 5e I don't really have any opinions on that..
And then Simon Burley nailed it.
Taking breaks is something I'm trying to improve on as a GM, although it's going slowly. It's not a thing we do in the home group. People just wander off to the loo and the coffee machine as required with no actual breaks other than a short pause when the takeaway order arrives and we spend some time passing boxes around the table.
It's only recently, now that I've started regularly running convention games, as well as a campaign at MK-RPG, that I've had to start remembering about breaks. In a three-hour session, you need at least one break around halfway through. In a longer session you might need two. This applies just as much to online games as it does to in-person games. Maybe more so, especially if you don't have cameras on and can't see if people are still there.
The problem is that once I'm immersed in running the game I tend to forget about pretty much everything else. Generally I'm reminded by one of the players requesting a pause, at which point I call for a five minute break, but I really need to start doing it without being reminded.
Alien is the game where I have the least trouble with this. The three act structure serves to remind me to take a break when we come to the end of each act and I have to change everyone's secret agendas. It's a fixed point in-game, so I'm not going to forget about it. Which suggests that I should do the same thing for all my convention scenarios. I know what the main plot beats are and roughly when things are going to happen, so if I add into my notes, 'when the players reach location X, we take a break' I'm significantly more likely to remember than if I'm merely depending on noticing the time.
This is a bit trickier for campaign play, when it's a lot harder for me to predict how long things are going to take, but I'm doing enough conventions that I'm getting practice, and with practice I should get better at remembering to check the time.
And then Simon Burley nailed it.
#RPGADAY2020 - 13 - REST - “Shall we take a short comfort break there?” Important words at a con. More important is to finish your Saturday night games by midnight if you’re committed to playing a game Sunday morning. Playing on into the wee small hours doesn’t make you clever. pic.twitter.com/4vh24C27UN— Simon Burley (@squadronuk) August 13, 2020
Taking breaks is something I'm trying to improve on as a GM, although it's going slowly. It's not a thing we do in the home group. People just wander off to the loo and the coffee machine as required with no actual breaks other than a short pause when the takeaway order arrives and we spend some time passing boxes around the table.
It's only recently, now that I've started regularly running convention games, as well as a campaign at MK-RPG, that I've had to start remembering about breaks. In a three-hour session, you need at least one break around halfway through. In a longer session you might need two. This applies just as much to online games as it does to in-person games. Maybe more so, especially if you don't have cameras on and can't see if people are still there.
The problem is that once I'm immersed in running the game I tend to forget about pretty much everything else. Generally I'm reminded by one of the players requesting a pause, at which point I call for a five minute break, but I really need to start doing it without being reminded.
Alien is the game where I have the least trouble with this. The three act structure serves to remind me to take a break when we come to the end of each act and I have to change everyone's secret agendas. It's a fixed point in-game, so I'm not going to forget about it. Which suggests that I should do the same thing for all my convention scenarios. I know what the main plot beats are and roughly when things are going to happen, so if I add into my notes, 'when the players reach location X, we take a break' I'm significantly more likely to remember than if I'm merely depending on noticing the time.
This is a bit trickier for campaign play, when it's a lot harder for me to predict how long things are going to take, but I'm doing enough conventions that I'm getting practice, and with practice I should get better at remembering to check the time.
Wednesday, 12 August 2020
RPGaDay: Message
I don't often do the passing secret messages thing in my games, partly because it's a hassle. My GMing bag has index cards in, which I occasionally use, but writing legible messages means I have to pause the game briefly, which I don't like. Taking someone away from the table for a quick chat is just as inconvenient.
Gaming online has changed all that. Playing a game on Discord means sending a private message to another player is easy, and I type a lot faster than I write. Better still, it's not as obvious to the rest of the players that I'm sending them, as they can't see me physically writing on a card or taking someone aside, plus the game can keep going at the same time.
When I use secret messages, it's generally to create an atmosphere of unease. There's a bit in one of my scenarios where a PC is exposed to a drug. Other party members normally know it's happened, but I will often put the more specific effects in a secret message, giving that player a chance to roleplay some weird stuff while the rest of the players are trying to work out what's real.
They're also pretty important in a game like Alien (cinematic mode) where all the players have secrets and agendas that may conflict with other players. While in theory we should all be able to ignore OOC knowledge, in practice I think I would have found it a lot harder to play if I hadn't been able to secretly let the GM know that what I'm claiming to be doing is not at all what I'm actually doing.
I've played two Alien scenarios (Hope's Last Day and Chariot of the Gods) and have managed to kill the same guy's characters three times. Sorry Andy.
While in general I like everything out on the table so nobody misses out on anything, I think secret messages have their place in horror and horror-adjacent scenarios. So I guess those index cards are staying in the bag. But I'm thinking that for certain scenarios where I already know what secret messages I'm likely to need, I could speed things up a lot by printing them out in advance.
Gaming online has changed all that. Playing a game on Discord means sending a private message to another player is easy, and I type a lot faster than I write. Better still, it's not as obvious to the rest of the players that I'm sending them, as they can't see me physically writing on a card or taking someone aside, plus the game can keep going at the same time.
When I use secret messages, it's generally to create an atmosphere of unease. There's a bit in one of my scenarios where a PC is exposed to a drug. Other party members normally know it's happened, but I will often put the more specific effects in a secret message, giving that player a chance to roleplay some weird stuff while the rest of the players are trying to work out what's real.
They're also pretty important in a game like Alien (cinematic mode) where all the players have secrets and agendas that may conflict with other players. While in theory we should all be able to ignore OOC knowledge, in practice I think I would have found it a lot harder to play if I hadn't been able to secretly let the GM know that what I'm claiming to be doing is not at all what I'm actually doing.
I've played two Alien scenarios (Hope's Last Day and Chariot of the Gods) and have managed to kill the same guy's characters three times. Sorry Andy.
While in general I like everything out on the table so nobody misses out on anything, I think secret messages have their place in horror and horror-adjacent scenarios. So I guess those index cards are staying in the bag. But I'm thinking that for certain scenarios where I already know what secret messages I'm likely to need, I could speed things up a lot by printing them out in advance.
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