Ron Edwards talking about how to run old school games

I just found this very good review of Ron's game Sorcerer. It highlights how the core of the game goes back to The Fantasy Trip, and Wizard and some other game mechanical details I had missed. I especially like how the reviewer praises the initiative system for the kind of free wheeling action D&D was always intended for. Maybe something worth importing? Likewise, the GM advice in Sorcerer is definitely worth checking out, especially for someone of old school bent.

When I got my copy of the new Sorcerer books, I found the annotated edition a bit hard to read, as the flow of the text being interrupted by the annotations. This review, and the fact I got my copy of Ron's new game Circle of Hands, made me want to take it down and read it some more. Maybe I might even play it.

Playing in Tekumel, with Fate

I have been quite curious about Tekumel a while now. More and more Tekumel texts have assembled on my sagging shelves, and I have decided to take a dive into the deep end and run a game in the new year. Bethorm arrived and I blogged about my impressions. Having read a bit more in it I'm now pretty clear I wont run that game. It's a bit too fiddly for me. But, the game system I have been using lately, Fate, might do the trick.

Fate is a very different game. Different from almost all other traditional games I've been playing for all these years. Trying to adapt Fate for Tekumel I've found one of the reasons for that. If you were to become enamoured by Savage Worlds or GURPS and wanted to convert your old game to that new system, is would mainly be a question about how to map the different systems to each other. Magic works in one way in the original system, and then the question is how to make the target magic system to behave that way. Fate is different. I have found that when I started to do a "generic" conversion it felt a bit rough in places. It turns out that the game you want to play will strongly influence how you do it.

My first idea for a Tekumel game centred around a clan house. I figured it would be easiest to keep the game within one clan, within one location and centre is around interaction between clan siblings.

It turned out to be harder than I thought to model this by figuring out how to make the rules for the usual cabal of magic-user, cleric and fighters. I dived deep into the intricacies of Tekumel metaphysics and magic and suddenly I had a game where magic way more complicated than anything else in the game. But, magic was not intended as the big focus of the game! I found out it is very easy to use the so called "Fate fractal" to take that literally and recursively deep into a tailspin of complexity.

That was when I realized what I wrote above, the game you want to play will strongly influence how you do it. Fate is a game system that change depending on how you handle it. Once again I had been fooled. Once again the strangeness of it all had exposed how I had approached the game I was planning with an approach that the rules was something I brought to the game, not something that adapted to the game. I wonder if I will ever feel comfortable with that!

Now I have a set of Fate rule guidelines for a Tekumelian game, and once I have written it all down from my handwritten notes I will put them up for perusal.

Running a game for kids

Tonight I ran a game for our daughter, two of her friends and our son. My wife also played, so give the kids some kind of help when floundering. It was interesting to say the least.

The game, Morwhayle, is a game from the same guys who created the newest Mutant game, that will be published by Modiphius in the UK. It's based on the novels and comics by Peter Bergting. It's designed with new players in mind, and I think it's an interesting game in of itself.

First off I think the idea of using dice pools, adding dice for Abilities, Gear and Hindrances (rated from d4 to d12) and so on is a very good way to visualize the world for the players. With newbies, that is a great way to get them to pick up on the rules faster. It felt like Aspects in Fate, but with less jargon and with more dice to choose from. Also, I liked how the game took hints from Apocalypse World (the most talked about game I have not yet played) and let character creation be done wholly by just picking stuff of the sheet. Slick and modern game design.

Most importantly, how did it go? Well, they seemed to like it and when I talked with our daughter after the game, she mentioned how she was going to test another archetype next game. Hooked!

What most amazed me was that the youngest player was the one who quickest grasped the idea of playing a role, and talking in character!

But, being a GM for kids, isn't it hard? Well, it's different that running a game for adults, I tell you that! For starters, kids have a much harder time sitting still around a table for multiple hours. I strongly recommend you include a break or two, with snacks. They also took the game much more into the real world than adults do. I mean, how often do your players crawl under the game table when their characters are hiding from zombies? But, I think there are benefits for you as a GM as well. You have to keep it moving and if you don't give every player something to do, they will just leave the table! I thought I ran a pretty simple story, but be prepared to face extreme cases of the truth of the Three Clue Rule. There should be lots of hints, and lot of options for how to proceed.

All in all, I think the session was not only fun for us adults, to be able to hang out and play a game with our kids. But also a learning experience about what it takes to make a game session run well. Adults may be more used to take control of their situation, but they can be just as paralyzed in the face of decision and you should always be ready for that.

Best thing in the end is I think we will do this again, and I look forward to it.

Running Tianxia - the session that brainfaded

Last Wednesday I was supposed to be running my somewhat weekly Tianxia game. This time I canceled the game, since not only were attendance a bit spotty, but the main reason was I was totally out of ideas. Now the question rears up, should a total brain fade on the GM's part be reason enough to cancel a game night? Can you not just plow on, or is it indicative of something being done wrong?

In theory you just show up for a game, explore the hell out of the secondary world and fun things happen, right? Pure sandbox enthusiasts talk about that as the bees knees, but I've never been able to make it happen. Either it's me not being able to make the sandbox enticing enough, or the people I play with just aren't that good at go and make the world their own. Considering the fact we are all busy people, who drink beer and chat during the the game on a weekday night tired after a day's work, I guess the latter is a major part. My limitations I am well familiar with, so I leave them out for this time.

So, what do you do to give the game some structure? Previous sessions I've set up a location with some people in it and written up some goals for them, and then it has just evolved naturally from there. I wrote about that, the plot triads, and how well it worked before. This time I had the location, but just couldn't invent any interesting people for the life of me.

Thus I turn to the game system for a lead. When you play Fate you can be sure of one thing, it's covered by the rules somewhere. It's the most comprehensive rules set I've played so far! Guess what? I have not read chapter 9 of the Fate Core rules yet...

Looking in that chapter I find a handy little list.

Creating A Scenario:

• Find Problems
• Ask Story Questions
• Establish the Opposition
• Set the First Scene

There's one way to start off that first bullet point, start with the aspects. Naturally. Everything is about Aspects in Fate.

This kind of brings home how important it is, and hard, to create good aspects. Now when I sit down and look at them, some of these I should be able to use, shouldn't I?

Always in Trouble, Watch Your Tongue, Unwilling Mentor, Paladin in training, These are sad times, Righteous Anger, Scumbags gets what they deserve, The Good Fight

I know where I want the action to kick off, in the governor's palace. Using that I guess the list above should be able to tell me something about the potential conflicts and opposition.

I wonder if it's because it's so formalized that it feels hard? In the end I still think this will make me a better GM. I usually never think things through like this, and when lightning strikes I am cooking with gas. When there's no lightning it will be a dud. Hopefully this will teach me something.

Old D&D editions and clones - Tunnels & Trolls 1st ed.

Now, some of you might object to that title. Surely T&T is not a clone of D&D, and it surely isn't an old D&D edition!? No, it is not, but it is the first published game inspired by D&D and it fits right in here in the series about how much the old games inspire and engage today.

Those of you who have read or played later editions of T&T should really take a peek at this edition if you get the opportunity! I own the 2013 reprint, which might be available yet. I do not know. Anyway. What's interesting about this game are two things, how it differs from later T&T editions and how it differs from D&D.

I found it interesting that on the first page you get a short summary of how to run a game as a GM, how to play it as a player and even the point of sitting around the table talking get across well. I like it a lot. This little section is actually a fairly good primer of what it's all about. Fun details is that the caller is mentioned, as the "Voicer".

There are many fun small idiosyncrasies in this game, but most of it is in the presentation that is extremely colloquial. Ken even jokes about the illustrations right beside the current paragraph. The rules are fairly easy and smooth and there are not multiple odd subsystems.

I like some of the advice for how to run the game, like the emphasize on house ruling, "this is not my game". It is a hack of another game that grew into its own and it is paying its dues. Then there's the suggestion to put in lot of stuff in the dungeons, since "Nobody likes to mess around in a dull dungeon". Here I think Ken is onto something. The big empty dungeon is something I feel have been overvalued in the OSR conversations. I'm not so sure it was a regular feature of the Old Ways even.  Ken goes on with some other good advice suggesting that all the threats in the dungeon should be avoidable or be possible to nullify by smart players.

Much of the rules is as you'd expect, with the suggestion you start with a horisontal cut away fo your multi level dungeon, and there are rules for reaction rolls and capturing monsters. I also love the fact that there are names to the character levels. A Veteran is someone who has reached 3rd level, by the way. Not first.

Comparing this to modern versions of T&T and there are some differences. Armour is ablative, Saving Rolls are mainly done on Luck and you get XP for gold and deepest dungeon level penetrated.

I would actually gladly pick up those for all editions, liking them a lot. In general, I like this edition a lot. Expanding Saving Rolls into the "meta mechanic" it got later on and I feel you've almost hit the sweet spot for T&T rules. There's a rawness to the rules, but it's brimming with enthusiasm and small snippets of the life in the Phoenix campaign, like how they all have 3-15 characters per player! For me the rules feels like a big smiling invitation to just roll some dice and dive in the deep end. This is another winner. I really want to play this game!

Flavour of the week - converting between gamesystems

In between the Fate game I play in, and my resurging love of BRP, I think about these trends in converting games to your favourite system.

When Savage Worlds debuted I remember seeing threads on rpg.net everyday about how you could "savage" this or that old classic and make it sing again. Savage Worlds was the "flavour of the week" so to speak.

I'm a fan of Savage Worlds, and many games I think really benefit from a "savaging". But, one thing not always taken into account in those happy endorsements are the flavour a game system bring to the table. These days the worse enthusiasm have cooled off Savage Worlds, and now I think it's more often suggested for games that need that special pizzazz and zing that a fast flowing pulp, action game gives you. Needless to say, that's not all settings and games.

Now I get the feel that Fate is the new "flavour of the week". How does it stack up?

As anyone who have tried Fate knows, it's a game much like the revised 3rd ed of D&D where everything is nailed down. It's a crunchy system, but very abstract and broad reaching, with its capability of turning anything into an Aspect and thus part of the mechanics of the game. If you want a game system that fades into the background, I don't think it's a game system for you, just like I don't think you should use Savage Worlds if you want a simulationist feel to your game.

But, I'm beginning to see why it's very alluring to try to make Fate the base for any kind of game you want to play. It's very elegant to use the "Fate fractal" and let everything be modelled with a High Concept and some more Aspects, some Skills, some Stunts and Stress tracks. You can fairly easily model anything that way. Understanding that makes it easy to quantify anything, and put numbers on it.

The other game that I always think of is BRP. It's trivial to make up a skill list suited to your setting/game and if you need anything to be modelled by the game system, you make a skill or a derived attribute of it. Then you roll your percentiles and Bob's your uncle. You only need to make up a rough probability of something succeeding and that's the whole game system. Basically.

My thinking is that make not all games has to be run in Fate, just like to every game turned out to need to be savaged? Can anything be estimated as a probability written as a percentile, and end up BRP game?

I guess that if you want to you can turn any game into whatever it needs to be. Hero and GURPS were designed to be used for putting numbers on anything, but it takes so much work I'd never work up the energy to even try.

Whatever the feel of BRP is, and however it compares to Fate (I might delve into that at a later date), they have one big thing going for them both. It's really easy to convert things into those systems. My latest reading of Fate conversions have really opened my eyes to how things like that can be done. I'm beginning to see how the Fate Fractal might be the most insidiously genius thing Evil Hat ever created. Even if I arm myself with BRP in one hand, I'll be thinking of that fractal. Make all the cool things an Aspect, and then roll those percentiles!

Wilderness and pursuits

I've found that while a chase is often quite intense in a movie, they are seldom as much fun in a game. But, while that's interesting, today I'll talk about a related subject, namely wilderness pursuits.

If you have a team of PCs pursuing some, say, orcs, how do you make that interesting? In a Pathinder/D&D game it's very easy to reduce it to daily rolls on Tracking/Survival and then it becomes mechanistic and devoid of that interesting suspense a good chase should have. If we flip the coin and make the players being players, it's probably their characters being chased. Still, just making a die roll to avoid being hunted down is just as dull.

This is how I'd make these scenarios interesting. It's a compilation of my own ideas, and some I've collected from blogs and podcasts. This will fiunction both as a list for my readers to be inspired by, and a note to myself for things I have to remember to bring to the table.

Tactics

• Use the terrain - Someone being followed in the wilderness are probably going to make it harder for you to track them. You'd try to look for different terrain, like trying to not just stomp forward over that soft and marshy ground. Not only will you run the possibility of getting stuck, you will leave excellent tracks to follow. Have you ever seen any Western movie about a chase? That's where you'll want to go for inspiration. I know for a fact that riding in a small streak or creek is a classic way to hide your tracks. You'll want to do that.


• Create hindrances - If you are trying to run away, the best way to succeed will be to make the guy following you slow down. One way is to use those tools you use in a dungeon. Dig holes, cover them with vines and branches. Tie up a branch of a tree and put down a tripwire which release it in the faces of your follower. Build traps to spindle, fold and mutilate your tracker.


• Ambush - Sometimes you have to face the fact that you're not getting away. Then it might be prudent to not just stand your ground and await the attack. Instead, plan an ambush! Use cover, hit from afar and run before they collect their wits. 


• Split the party! - One thing which is a big "no, no" is splitting the party. While it might be hard on the GM, it's a sound tactic. Make your follower have to choose which set of tracks to follow. If you combine it with the techniques mentioned above, you might even decimate your opponents while doing it.

GM techniques

There are a few things a GM might do to keep a pursuit scenario in the wilderness feel more tight. Here are a few of those.

• Interludes and personal development - In Savage Worlds there is a mechanic called Interludes, where a player gets a benny for telling a short vignette about their character.  Even if you don't use that game system, why not take the opportunity to ask one of the players if they perhaps tells their friends more about that time back in the days when they sit down by the camp fire at night? They might balk at the idea, but try it out.


• Have a timetable - The best way to make a chase of any kind interesting is to have a timetable. Make sure things happen in the world, and to the people involved in the pursuit at schedules intervals. 


• Bring more guns - Want to rack up the tension? Bring reinforcements! It would be fun if the guys being chased suddenly joined up with friends and could take the hunt to the hunters, right? Bring in those Allies or Enemies if your game system have them.

Those were my collected nuggets of wisdom about chases in the wilderness. Also, don't forget to think about what happens if someone fails that Survival roll...

Empty rooms and slow moving dungeons

You how the players in your game always wakes up when you without hesitation give a name to a NPC, or suddenly mentions the look of a door in the dungeon?

I have been sitting in agony, trying to get a game moving again after I in passing mentioned some details of dungeon room that was in all other respects just empty. Naturally, if there's a description it has to mean something, right?

A suggestion for us all.

When describing a room in a dungeon, always mention one thing of dungeon dressing per room. 

If there's one item, smell or oddity in each room, they will have to consider it all.

Should this lead to games where everything is examined for 15 minutes and the players insist on rolling some ability to find the clue, then just drop a piano on them. Yeah, in a dungeon. Go ahead.

Making Star Wars feel like Star Wars

After thinking about how some science fiction novels differ from my sf gaming, and how a simple western can be told very differently, my attention turns to Star Wars.

If you've read what I've posted here lately, you might recall that I was thinking of running a session of D6 Star Wars for the kids. I've taken out my rulebook, and read the basic mechancs, the combat and now also the GM advice chapter.

In the latter, the text tries to tell you how to transfer the experience of watching the Star Wars movies (back then there was only three) from the medium of film, into the medium of a rpg. That is, just the migration I was struggling with before. Some things have struck me as interesting in this part of the book. I'll summarize some of the advice in the GM chapter, and write some of my impressions from those. I'd say there are two big things they concentrate on. The first one is mood, tone and feel in general and the second one is rules. There are also some advice on presentation, which I found extra interesting.

In order to make the game feel like a SW movie, they suggest you make sure to do like in the movies. There are droids in the movies, make sure there are droids in your game. There are aliens in the movies, so make sure there are aliens in your game. They even cite some scenes that showcase some of those things, and urge the reader to try to capture that same "wow" feeling you got when you saw it in the films. These are the trappings, and tropes, which makes it "it". I totally see how that can work. Imagine a game about Middle Earth without hobbits, and you miss out on some of the most iconic things about Middle Earth. So, bring lots.


How all those are used is also mentioned. There is a specific way to tell a story in Star Wars. Scenes are introduced in the middle of the action, the pace is quick and the canvas is broad and the scope is epic. Also, there is a story. I'd say that the wandering murder hobo is far removed from the feel of Star Wars. While the idea of tropes makes sense, I think this is quite key in order to make a property that is not originally made for rpgs work. In a film there is a structure to the telling of the tale, and you probably need to at least simulate that or give the feel of it to make if feel right. Maybe here is where my sf stories in games and the ones I read about differ.

Then there are the presentation. I found it quite interesting to read that they suggested the introduction to an adventure be a short script the players read out/act out before they jump feet first into the first scene. I wonder, did anyone take that and ran with it? I've never heard of it, but it's an intriguing idea. The idea to use establishing shots and cut scenes, where the GM basically presents the narrative like a film does it, is cool and quite different from most rpgs. In the book they even suggest you narrate things the PCs can't see or know, to build tension and structure to the narrative. This I have actually tried myself in a Star Wars game me and a few friends did at a convention many years ago. It worked nicely, I think. Maybe this is what's needed to make it feel cinematic, in the truest sense of the word.

Lastly then, the rules. Most of us who have been around are aware of the idea of utilizing the rules to support or hinder a style of play. Three things I found interesting is this section. First off the book emphasize the need to avoid anti-climax. This is paired with the suggestion that failure is good. I think this is probably a good way to get that free flowing feeling of "keep the action fast" they advocate. Sure, you might have failed your roll, but that just mean we have some new dramatic tension for the next wild stunt coming up. But, of course, this is where rpgs in general differ from other media. It almost never happen in a book or a film that a protagonist fails. If they fail they often get another chance or the next scene adds something that changes the conditions. Still, it pays to remember it. Then there's the last thing, mentioned more than once. Fudge the rules. This is not a game where they suggest that "the dice fall as they may", and I think that in order to make it feel like Star Wars, they are right.

Compare this to how things work in Dramasystem, or Gumshoe where Robin D Laws has designed systems according to resource management for the player to get "screen time" and be able to shine. In WEG Star Wars they go so far as to mention the "illusion of free will", and I think it ties in with the suggestion to fudge the dice rolls. I have fairly limited experience with both Robin's designs and the D6 system, even though I have played them. But, I to the feeling of being, "in there" and participating far more when I rolled dice. Rolling dice and the GM fudging things so they do not contradict the dice, but also don't follow it slavishly, made for a fun game. Actually I think it makes for a funnier game than the two systems mentioned above by Robin D Laws. I think I will get back to this. It might only be me.

I think here are some really core points for translating the narrative from one medium like film to a rpg. Many times I've heard that this GM advice chapter is one of the best written, and I think it is indeed really good. I'm not sure all of them can be used to make True Grit into and awesome rpg session, but some might do.

I really need to make this Star Wars game for the kids happen, because now I'm really pumped up about this game!

More thoughts on the impact of a story

In my former post on the matter, I mused about how different the impact a really good science fiction novel had on me, compared to a game session. Thinking a bit more on that, I think that maybe I have confused what makes the different art forms work. I know that often when I hear Robin D Laws talk about game design, or when I read some of his newer games, I feel he is often talking about how to model this or that narrative from film or tv. It often makes me cringe, since I feel that he seems to be mixing water and oil.

Having thought about it, I am wondering if I was doing the same. Maybe a novel and a rpg game are two different arts, producing two very different expressions which really don't translate from one to the other. Staggering insight, I know. I have read "novelizations" of games and it usually reads quite terrible. Maybe the idea to transfer a well structured narrative in a novel into a co-created narrative of a game session is just as terrible. You can do it, but more often than not the players are then just along for the ride, and the payoff still isn't that great.

Then there's the movies. In True Grit by the Cohen's, there are some scenes which utilize the screen space marvellously well. They basically make the most of a medium which is visual. A RPG session on the other hand is verbal. A book also is verbal, and I think that fooled me into thinking they are thus related. But, spoken words and written words are very different. So different that translating from one to the other sometimes does makes you hurt.

What could we then do? Anything?

I'm thinking about the Star Wars rpg. For me that means the WEG d6 based game, and I have no problem with any other Star Wars game, but that's what I've read. Yeah, I'm showing my age. In that game there was a lot of advice on how to run a game that felt like the movies did. It might surprise you, but back then there was only three movies. Weird, eh? Where was I? Oh, gamemaster advice. Yes, the advice was about the feel of the movies, not the qualities that made the movies film, their visual impact. No, it was the pacing and the turns and twists of capture and breaking free again to chase down the next plot point. Those qualities you can actually translate into a rpg.

It will probably take me forever, but my next challenge will be to try to find the feel of Karl Schroeder's Permanence and see if there is anything there that can be translated, in feel. At least it helps to know what you're looking for.

Non-Antagonistic play - DM vs Players the other way

I was listening to the Narrative Control Podcast, and they talked about how to generated interesting conflicts in a game. Basically, regardless if you believe the game master's job is to create a story for the player characters to participate in, or creating interesting situations for the players to create a story from, you will still need conflicts.

This reminded me of the old question of to what extent you should have any element of antagonistic play, i.e. to what extent the GM should make it hard for the players. Note, not the characters. The thing is, some players might take it like it's targeted towards them, even when the figure in the cross hairs is their characters. Now, let's assume "interesting" conflicts means something that makes it hard for the player character.

The neat little trick mentioned on the podcast was attributed to Rob Donoghue, and I thought it was quite neat.So, the idea was to not attack the PC, since some players will take it personally and attack back! Instead, attack what the PC is invested in. I thought that was quite cool. Among the really smart game masters this might be yesterday's news, but to me this was something new worth pondering. If in the emergent play one character has started to be involved in something like a mercantile organization, or a church, you put them in dire straights and see what happens.

My experience with the kind of players that might take troubles for their characters like a personal affront is luckily something I have been spared. I have not had that much experience with a wide open sandbox either (I always had the dungeon walls limiting the player choice somewhat), so now I'm catching up and learning the tricks. I think Rob is onto something good. I will try to use this a bit more consciously in the future.

Persuading people for fun and profit - redux

I listened to an episode of the Happy Jacks RPG Podcast when they talked about how to convince another PC, while still keeping that free will. I liked the idea voiced there and decided to put it up here for keeping.

When you want to persuade another PC, make you roll for whatever ability or skill you use. If you succeed, now ask the player of that character what they might be convinced by, and what buttons pressed might give them the idea to change their minds. Now role play out the scene, with that newly gained knowledge from the meta level.

You might not convince them in the end, but you gained something from having a character that was more socially experienced or convincing than you are. Also, nobody was robbed of their free will be a roll of a die.

I might work out.

Personal horror

A few days ago once again sat down behind my Trail of Cthulhu screen as the Keeper of Arcane Lore. Once again we travelled back to New Orleans in 1929, as imagined by Kevin Ross. This time, people went mad.

I'm beginning to appreciate the way this scenario is put together. The tome The King in Yellow is the key for it, and today the characters found the book, and read it. Telling them what they found made me realize how the whole of the scenario is modelled on and structured by that book. But, the big thing I wanted to talk about was how that book affected the characters, and the players.

Kevin Ross has provided the Keeper with a short summary of the physical characteristics of the tome, and a quite detailed summary of the content of the text, and how it affect the reader. Combining this with how Ken Hite suggested Hastur as a viral meme, I managed to portray the reading experience of the tome in a way that I had never tried or experienced before. I'll get into some details.

I have not read Chambers, but this book might follow his story. I don't know.

So, the setting is a city and the characters are a royal family fighting over succession. A stranger arrives, in a Pallid Mask, and he bears the Yellow Sign. He proclaims the coming of the King in Yellow and at the ball he is the only one not who has not removed his mask, and then it is revealed that he has none. Somehow the city is then replaced with Carcosa and the city is now situated by the lake Hali and everyone goes mad.

So, how does this related to the scenario, and how did I use it? In the scenario, it's Mardi Gras and everyone is dressed up and there's a masquerade ball at the end of the scenario. As you can see, the idea of masks is a common theme, as is the idea of a ball. But, the question of identity and duplicity is also important.

When the first character read the tome, she lost 5 SAN at once and I decided that her feeling of identity had started to slip, and that the idea of personal belonging became kind of hazy, cleptomania struck her as quite logical. Also, she at once started to wear a mask.

The second character read the book, and lost slightly less SAN. That character was most strongly affected by the duplicity of cities, places and time. I described how time and place suddenly had no meaning, and how the one turned into the other just like the city in the book had turned into Carcose. It had always been Carcosa.

The third reader had notes from the others, and here I emphasized the labyrinthine qualities of the text, and how plot lines twisted into each other, and how the pages seemed to be out of order. The main thing to freak that character out was how the literary qualities was as mutable as the reality in the story was.

What I did was I gave all the players different views of what they had read, and how it affected them differently. I had great help of the summary of the text, and could use different parts of it for retelling and rephrase things to freak the character out. Many times when you play CoC, you find a tome, read it and dock some points of SAN and now you have learned occult knowledge and are slightly more crazy. I found that actually have something to present to the players was important, and one of them even noted the fact that they all got something different from the experience. Suddenly the otherworldly qualities of the cthulhu mythos became tangible, or more real. It drove home the idea that you could actually be affected by reading a text. It became personal.

I think the first time I came across the idea of personal horror, was in the World of Darkness games, like Vampire. In those games you play the monster, and thus it's personal. I became bored when I realized that it was just a super hero game dressed in black leather and lace. Call of Cthulhu on the other hand is often criticized for being slightly too cerebral and too focused on the indescribable. I think the criticism is often well founded, but maybe focusing on the personal experience of something like a text could be a way to make it more personal, and make the player connect to the character to some extent. The themes in the setting, and the weird qualities of the text reinforced each other. By underlining the shifting nature of reality in the text, the shifting nature of the reality in the game was kind of implied. Since it was different for each character and it became more personal, isolated and possibly even hinting at the utmost loneliness of all character in the face of the mythos. Can you say "existentialism"?

It was a good session.

Thinking more on my last CoC game

I have been thinking some more of my reactions to the latest CoC session. There was a time in the beginning of the session where the players where basically flailing about. They even said right out to me that they did not know what to do. It made me start to think I had to do something, and after some futzing around things did start to move again. Not in the "right" direction, it did start to move again. It did also manage to move in a direction that the characters did intersect with the major NPCs and the things that were going on, but that was another thing.

So, today I was catching up on some old email. I am, and have been for years, a subscriber to the Roleplaying Tips newletter from Johnn Four. Usually it contains at least some new nugget to use in a upcoming game, or something to file away in that GM folder of tricks.  This issue I had lying around had as a main feature a piece by some guy called James and he wrote something which made me think. Take a look at this:

  It is not the referee's job during a session to provide
  excitement for his playing group. His job is to administer
  the setting and resolve character actions. If the characters
  are taking no action and are not interacting with the
  setting, then the referee has literally nothing to do. The
  players are wasting his time.

What about that? Do you agree?

Often when I play RPGs, I'm the referee. That means that, potentially, I will more often than anyone else have "nothing to do". That sounds boring.

Now, I think many of you dear readers are well aware of the tenets of the so called "old ways". The games master is supposed to make rulings, present the players with meaningful choices and let the dice fall where they may. I can dig that. Well, I can dig that when I run fantasy, but I also dislike not having anything to do. I am there to play a game as well, after all. So, what to do, and why did I specifically mentioned running a fantasy game?

When I run a game of standard, or not so standard, fantasy I usually make shit up all the time. I once had a few NPCs have a totally unrelated fight in the background of a city while my players where debating what to do. Afterwards I got praise for that, since it made the game world feel real. Not everything revolved around the characters and their quest. That is where I think I can do the sandbox thing. I have enough experience to make up odd or mundane things for a fantasy setting. If the players are not entertaining me, I can entertain myself and maybe they follow along that path none of us knew existed.

Let's compare that with Call of Cthulhu. In CoC, there's usually a conspiracy or plot going on. Someone is going to grab an occult macguffin unless the players intervene, or someone is trying to summon some extra terrestial horror, and following some clues the characters might be able to figure that out and choose to stop them. Let's bring back that part about being bored.

In my last session of CoC, I was bored. I could try to steer the players back to the plot, basically railroading of some kind or another. That was never my intention. While it might be a slightly less dramatic way to end, a fizzle is an end as well. No, my problem was not that I needed to have my players go and actually talk to any of those named NPCs I had given them names and addresses to. No, they could do that or not, but if they did not they would miss some of the clues to the plot. I have ended scenarios before without players understanding things, so that was ok. What was not ok was that I wanted to throw in some things for the players do to, because I wanted something to do.

This is where I think I slightly disagree with Jim Raggi. I think the GM do need to think about providing excitement for his group of players. Not in order to "steer the game back" to whatever it is you usually steer them towards. No, I think you need to provide some excitement for your players when they are not providing any excitement for you! Otherwise you wont be getting any, and there was probably another individual in your life you could share some excitement with instead.

So, what do you do when you want to make a session wake up again? I love random encounter tables, and like I said I have enough experience in fantasy to be able to play with the troupes. When running a game in the US in 1929 I am lacking the troupes. Maybe what I need are random encounter tables? Or maybe I just do what Chandler is supposed to have done, have someone charge in with a gun and let's see what happens...

Gamemastering Call of Cthullhu - pacing

Today I was once again behind the screen as Keeper of Arcane Lore. I'm collecting experience, and this was my sixth time as a Keeper! While running this session I experienced something I wanted to talk about.

I have been running games now for almost 25 years, and I think I have a pretty good grasp on how to behave in many different situations. Are the players looking excited? Are they laughing? Do that guy over there look like he is getting bored? I think I have those things nailed down when I stomp around in my familiar fantasy grounds. Especially the problem of pacing is something I usually know how to handle.

Today they players sat down trying to continue from having explored a warehouse of a suspected cult and having had to retreat with one member of the party K.O.'d. What now? From my point of view it was pretty obvious what to do in a Call of Cthulhu game. You visit every named NPC and talk to them to track down ever scrap of knowledge, since knowledge is the most important thing in this game. Right?

Naturally, my players did not do that.

After some very intelligent and smart use of backstory, connections and leveraging Credit Rating, one of my players found a masonic brother and started to talk. Since he was the D.A. I thought that this was a guy who knew stuff, and had resources. I had him mention a few things and be friendly. That and some interest from the players in one of the named NPC and they had finally gotten the idea that talking to people was good, and digging around for people in the know was fruitful. Finally.

Now the P.I. in the party decided to go sneak into the posh mansion of one of the key NPCS. In broad daylight. In an area where I specifically mentioned police patrols being regular and observant. Guess who got to spend a night in jail?

So. What would I have done? Well. I don't understand why they didn't start to talk to all the people on the list they had gotten from their main contact? I would have visited each and every NPC, in alphabetical order! After the session some of the players even voiced the opinion that it felt like it was a bit hard to find the clues. I even play with GUMSHOE inspired rules, so they will find core clues, and they know it. At least I have mentioned it. Interesting.

You do know about the three clue rule, right? Go read that essay if you haven't.

Now, if this had been a fantasy game I would have rolled for a random encounter. I love the idea of a random encounter. The random encounter could provide a conveniently dropped clue, to make it an even three, or just something to do so that after the encounter someone had a new idea.

What do you do when there's a lull in the action in an investigative game? You can't really push the players toward the next clue. It would be bad form, and boring. Also, in order to entertain them while waiting for the penny to drop, do you let wandering kobolds show up and pick a fight? I guess not. I think there are, after more than 20 years, still some things this old dog has to learn.

Prepping Call of Cthulhu

I am going to be the Keeper of Arcane Lore again this Saturday, and now it's prepping time. As usual it's complex. In a scenario where investigation is common, you need to have lot of information available. Not only give the characters enough rope to hang themselves by, but also enough information for the players to to feel it is a real work they are interacting with. I find this is slightly different than a game like D&D or T&T.

The idea of making the game world seem real involves sound. When our Keeper ran us through the Beyond the Mountain of Madness campaign, he made good use of sound. Ambient sound like engine sound, arctic winds or the lapping of waves can go a long way to make the players feel involved, which is something I try to do when running CoC. The coming scenario, Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? (from Chaosium's Great Old Ones) will be set in New Orleans. Guess what kind of sounds I'll need? I don't even like jazz music...

You know what? Right now I'm contemplating how to introduce more yellow objects into our living room, just as "background noise". I wonder why CoC always makes people go that extra mile?

It would be fun to hear if any of my readers have done something like that, or if you have run TMHYStYS?

Lists, always lists - this is how I roll

What the heck, I give in. It's fun with lists

1. Ability scores generation method? 3d6, in order
2. How are death and dying handled? PC dies at 0
3. What about raising the dead? Sure, but I'd like a cap on it, financial or something like System Shock roll. Implementation would be depending on campaign world.
4. How are replacement PCs handled? Maybe they belong the the adventurer's guild, maybe they meet in a bar? Depend on the character.
5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else? I like it individually
6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work? Yeah, I like those. Best way is to narrate something problematic (good or bad) at a roll of max/min.
7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet? Sure, that's why you wear them, right?
8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly? If you do something stupid, people will get hurt.
9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything? I'm not running a super hero game, 'nuff said.
10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no? Depends. Well, yeah.
11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death? Probably, yes.
12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked? I'd like them in theory, but have not yet tried Lotfp, so I have rarely had the energy to bother.
13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time? In T&T, it happens on the spot, other old school games I'd say you need to get back to civilization.
14. What do I get experience for? Acting in the game. Explore, kill, loot and making us laugh.
15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination? Mainly description, but supplemented with rolls.
16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work? There are people to hire if the players care. Morale is like a save, when something bad happens they might run.
17. How do I identify magic items? The Omnipotent Eye
18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions? Sure, potions are for sale. It wont be cheap.
19. Can I create magic items? When and how? No. Well, yes, but I might give them drawbacks that you will have to take or leave it.
20. What about splitting the party? Do you want to split the party? Go ahead.

Another take on how to influence characters, PC and NPC

I just found this quite interesting blog post. It ties into those posts of mine about using social interaction to influence PCs. Maybe if you can't change the player character, change the world.

Interesting.

What's important in D&D3 - what I (apparently) thought back then

I took out my D&D3 books yesterday, since I made a new character. I also found that I had put small coloured tabs on some sections of the book, like you can see below:

What was it that I found crucial to find when I played this edition every week? Let's take a look.

PHB
Equipment
This is nothing odd. This is the go to list once you get back from the dungeon and want to stock up on something. I also clearly remember that I often used it as a gauge to invent costs for oddities the characters wanted to get
 

Miscellaneous Actions
Beyond that innocuous phrase lies the biggest turd of the 3rd ed. The tables lists which actions are a Standard Action, Full-Round and Free Actions. While you can see where they came from when designing that, the fact that you had a table covering a whole page delineating which was was indicates it quickly got unwieldy. I've been told the revised edition even added a few classes of actions. I think there are two good ways to design things like that. Either roll a die, or say that you can each turn do three things like attack, dodge or Something Else(tm). Another thing this table was used for, was to list which of these actions provoked Attacks of Opportunity. Oh, how I hate those. In theory a great idea, but it forces you to use a battlemap and slows down play as there are constant interrupts from AoO. Can you do them well? I'm not sure. If you, e.g., let everyone take a "parting shot", you discourage a fluid field of combat, even if you can Dodge out of it. I'm not sure it's a good idea at all.

Index
When 3rd ed was released, they did like TSR did for 1st ed. they released the books in different years, and there was a small summary in the back of the PHB of magic items and monsters so you could play with just the PHB. In theory, a good idea. That do sound like a often repeated phrase when talking about 3rd ed, doesn't it? I had a tab on the page where the index started, since you could just start flipping from the back cover. Always include an index in your rule book, and if you have an appendix, but if before the index. Ok?

DMG
Treasure
This is the tables for generating treasure. You can roll to find how much is coins, magic items, jewels and how many tapestries sewn with gold thread. I used this a few times, more than once, actually. But, I have a vague recollection of the numbers being screwy in some way. Also, on this page is the big brain fart, expected wealth per level. Bollocks, I say!

Tables
Quick reference tables for just about everything. In theory this was a good idea (ahem), but I don't think I ever looked at this, since I was always flipping through the books to find something else and then the tables was always nearby anyway.

XP
This is one part where I felt 3rd ed. was inventive in a way I could appreciate. You match up the party average level against a rating for the encounter and see how much of a hindrance it is for that party, and you get XP accordingly. I liked the idea of a measly bunch of 2nd level dudes killing a dragon and scoring big, while the name level knight got nothing for killing kobolds. It felt like a more elegant solution than having different amount of XP per monster and it did take into account the mixed party levels. Neat math, simply. Nothing said you had to match party level and monster rating...

EL
Encounter Levels and Challenge Ratings. This is another thing which in some circles have caught a lot of flak. I like it. Even if you think that the dangers are there, and not scaled to you, I still think it's good to know as a DM of what to expect. I have no idea wiping out a party with a jumbo monster if they are too stupid to run, but I'd like it to happen because I planned it, not because I had no idea of what I was doing! I'm not very good at crunching the math and understanding what happens if I add another gnoll, or decide to reinforce them with a hill giant. Just look at a table and you have some idea. Nothing forces you to scale things to the party level...

Slime molds & fungi
So why did I put a label here? Because those monsters/threats are icky, gooey and very classic? Nothings screams dungeon as a patch of mould. Interestingly enough, there's also a table with spells found in magic traps on that page. I'm not sure if I ever used that. Quite a difference if you roll on that table and get a 2 or a 63. The chest wasn't trapped with an Alarm, it was Power word, Kill. Great!

NPC traits
In theory... well. This is a table I never used. I think I just made it up on the spot, or had NPCs be dispensers of information or there to be killed. Advanced, eh? I like the idea of tables like that, though.

I think in all that it's clear that I like random tables, and that the big EL, CR, XP scheme talked to me. Frankly, it's one of the things I think T&T is missing. I am not happy to be reminded of AoO, but who is?

A really good piece of advice on game mastering

Al over at Beyond The Black Gate posted something really good that I just had to share, in the hope somebody reads it that hadn't otherwise. I'll quote the juicy bits.

Lets say, for instance, the party is battling trolls. One of the players, in the midst of combat, wishes to light a torch and start burning troll bits to stop a defeated troll from regenerating back up into the fray. In a "DM vs. Players" scenario, the DM would most likely be inclined to favor getting "his" troll back into action to whup up on the PCs some more, and tell the player its going to take a couple of rounds to light the torch, a couple more rounds to effectively burn troll bits, and all the while suffering the undefended attacks by the remaining trolls.

Unfortunately, what this DM is actually doing is punishing creative play. "Get back to unimaginatively rolling 'to hit' and damage", he might as well say, "or you're going to get pounded on."

Read that again. While it might be tempting to squash that irritating player, god knows I have done it myself!, it is really crucial not to. 

That's some really good advice there for how to be a better DM/GM/whatever.

Say yes!