First off, let me just say I like criticals. The thrill of seeing the dice indicating that something wonderful/awful is going to happen is like no other. The drawback of course is to have to find those critical tables, rolling another die and all that which slow down the game. Maybe there is another way?
This fine post is one solution, where the damage is rolled off one small table and the game effects are narrated. Well, if you don't like those newfangled big words, made up on the spot.
Let's take that one step further in the player empower direction. If you do sand boxing, player initiative rules, right?
Let's assume you roll d20 to attack, and that low is good. Then, on a roll of 1, turn to the player that just rolled a critical success and ask them. "You just did something awesome. Let's hear what it was?" Likewise, when someone rolls a 20, ask them. "Now you have messed up. Let's hear how it went wrong." Players agency, right? As experience have shown that nobody is as brutal when describing a fumble as someone who inflict it on themselves.
Showing posts with label Narrative Control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Narrative Control. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Filling in the boring parts
When I posted about empty dungeons, Joshua had an interesting idea in the comments.
Pair this with the idea of Saturday Night Specials in the dungeon, and the new school idea of shared narrative power and I think we have a winner. Everyone get a chance to look cool, and those who crave detailed crawling can narrate it as much as they like, even to the extent of pulling in other characters and making rolls.
Personally I never managed to make wilderness travel very fun. It's either a few rolls on survival skills or something improvised if there are no skills around, and then it's done. Neither suspense nor a feeling of trekking in the beautiful and dangerous outdoors. Next time I'm letting they players talk instead.
You can have interesting rooms be miles apart, as long as you're willing to let the players traverse those miles without playing out each 10' square in between. Tell them how long it takes and the resources consumed, and dial it back in when it's time for the next important decision.This reminded me of something I heard on the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast. Robin talked about how he did when his players were just passing through some terrain, like those miles mentioned above. He suggested you ask the players how they did pass through that terrain. They got to narrate, and establish colour for their character and the question is never if they are going to make it through those miles, but how it looks. He also suggested you could have them roll for it, but ot to invalidate their narration, but to see how much resources they used up.
Pair this with the idea of Saturday Night Specials in the dungeon, and the new school idea of shared narrative power and I think we have a winner. Everyone get a chance to look cool, and those who crave detailed crawling can narrate it as much as they like, even to the extent of pulling in other characters and making rolls.
Personally I never managed to make wilderness travel very fun. It's either a few rolls on survival skills or something improvised if there are no skills around, and then it's done. Neither suspense nor a feeling of trekking in the beautiful and dangerous outdoors. Next time I'm letting they players talk instead.
Friday, January 18, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The idea of Interludes
I have been very much into the idea if running Savage Worlds for a week or so. It's a game that manages to look kind of plain when read, but everyone I've heard of who have run it have come away raving fans. We'll see if I can manage to actually try it out one of these days.
One of the things that easily makes you a Savage fan is the support Pinnacle give their games. Recently they released the Deluxe edition of SW, and guess what? They posted the major rules differences in a couple pdfs on their web pages, for free! At least it makes me want to go out and buy the new book, just because!
The thing I wanted to bring up today is the new rules for something called Interludes which is a quite neat thing I think could be imported into any game. Go check it out and see what you think. For you who like to stay around, here's when I tell you how it can be worked into any game. This is how I'd do it.
When you have any kind of pause in the action in your game, shuffle a deck of cards and have a player at random draw a card. The next time you do it, choose anyone one. Now, what the player who drew a card does, is she tells a short flashback or similar story which develops the back story and fleshes out the psychology or her character. It doesn't have to be long, but it has to show some new aspect of her personality, or an old one explained in a new light.
The suit of the card decide what the theme of the vignette is.
How about that? The rules from Pinnacle are slightly different, but I liked the idea enough to post my own take on it. I think this can be used just as well with pretentious new school games of the Story Game kind as well as neck beard grumpy old schooler games where you make it all up and roll some bones. Heck! Roll some dice when telling the story if it helps you decide what happened! I like the idea, any way you slice it.
One of the things that easily makes you a Savage fan is the support Pinnacle give their games. Recently they released the Deluxe edition of SW, and guess what? They posted the major rules differences in a couple pdfs on their web pages, for free! At least it makes me want to go out and buy the new book, just because!
The thing I wanted to bring up today is the new rules for something called Interludes which is a quite neat thing I think could be imported into any game. Go check it out and see what you think. For you who like to stay around, here's when I tell you how it can be worked into any game. This is how I'd do it.
When you have any kind of pause in the action in your game, shuffle a deck of cards and have a player at random draw a card. The next time you do it, choose anyone one. Now, what the player who drew a card does, is she tells a short flashback or similar story which develops the back story and fleshes out the psychology or her character. It doesn't have to be long, but it has to show some new aspect of her personality, or an old one explained in a new light.
The suit of the card decide what the theme of the vignette is.
Hearts - some kind of love or romantic angle
Clubs - some kind of violence of physical conflict
Diamonds - some kind of relation to possessions and material riches
Spades - some kind of spiritual or religious angle
How about that? The rules from Pinnacle are slightly different, but I liked the idea enough to post my own take on it. I think this can be used just as well with pretentious new school games of the Story Game kind as well as neck beard grumpy old schooler games where you make it all up and roll some bones. Heck! Roll some dice when telling the story if it helps you decide what happened! I like the idea, any way you slice it.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Shadow of Pavis
So have I finally joined the ranks of Gloranthaphiles who have fought their way out of the Big Rubble. Last Wednesday, a day that had sucked from when I got out of bed, ended well with our brave adventurers escaping with their lives, and nothing much more.
Way back when RuneQuest was the game of choice for gloranthan gaming, everyone were gaming in the plains of Prax and in the city of Pavis. Far later everyone shifted their focus to Dragon Pass, but latecomers like me never got to experience Prax. Now I have at least addressed that.
There was a time when whatever somebody posted about on Big Purple, the recommendation was to use Savage Worlds instead. The darling before that had been The Shadow of Yesterday. I have the former, but have never played it. The latter I had become very curious about, due to the above mentioned recommendations. Now we had a setting and a system, we all just waited for the lovechild of that union.
After character generation, we started off in media res, but not in the midst of the adventure. After the adventure, having a drink and retelling our adventure!
We had a very peculiar setup. Our GM knew little of Glorantha, the other player nothing, and I know far too many odd little details thanks to my extensive collection. How do that work, do you ask? Well, you just set up a dramatic and appropriate scene based on general knowledge, and when an NPC asks "Tell me more of how that happened!", you as a player with more setting knowledge can step in and add to the background. It was an interesting way to involve the players. There's often talk about player skill, and I found that having the GM set up a tight spot and then as a player have free reins to develop that situation, both by solving the immediate problem and by fleshing out the setting, was an interesting usage of just player skill.
Our brave adventurers was on an expedition into the Big Rubble, which is a dungeon which can contain anything. We ran into some weird plantmen, i.e. elves, which scared us witless. Exchange of gifts according to some ancient agreement with the Pavis cult took place, as we invented that ritual on the spot. After being amazed by a levitating rock, chewed some narcotic leaves and stolen our gift from the elves, our thief managed to loose it in a cesspit. The local occupation force did not detain us, since we had after all our troubles no treasures to tax.
I think the lessons of this session was how a backward narrative with a swapping of tall tales in an inn worked quite fine to set up short and challenging set pieces for us both to solve and embellish. It was a good way to develop both the setting, story and characters without heavy prep, massive reading assignment on the setting and a nice way to keep the session contained and restrained both in time and space. Really good for a one shot.
We didn't exercise the game system that much, but The Shadow of Yesterday didn't get in the way, and the possibility to tailor the abilities you get XP for was interesting. I might write more on the game system at a later time.
Way back when RuneQuest was the game of choice for gloranthan gaming, everyone were gaming in the plains of Prax and in the city of Pavis. Far later everyone shifted their focus to Dragon Pass, but latecomers like me never got to experience Prax. Now I have at least addressed that.
There was a time when whatever somebody posted about on Big Purple, the recommendation was to use Savage Worlds instead. The darling before that had been The Shadow of Yesterday. I have the former, but have never played it. The latter I had become very curious about, due to the above mentioned recommendations. Now we had a setting and a system, we all just waited for the lovechild of that union.
After character generation, we started off in media res, but not in the midst of the adventure. After the adventure, having a drink and retelling our adventure!
We had a very peculiar setup. Our GM knew little of Glorantha, the other player nothing, and I know far too many odd little details thanks to my extensive collection. How do that work, do you ask? Well, you just set up a dramatic and appropriate scene based on general knowledge, and when an NPC asks "Tell me more of how that happened!", you as a player with more setting knowledge can step in and add to the background. It was an interesting way to involve the players. There's often talk about player skill, and I found that having the GM set up a tight spot and then as a player have free reins to develop that situation, both by solving the immediate problem and by fleshing out the setting, was an interesting usage of just player skill.
Our brave adventurers was on an expedition into the Big Rubble, which is a dungeon which can contain anything. We ran into some weird plantmen, i.e. elves, which scared us witless. Exchange of gifts according to some ancient agreement with the Pavis cult took place, as we invented that ritual on the spot. After being amazed by a levitating rock, chewed some narcotic leaves and stolen our gift from the elves, our thief managed to loose it in a cesspit. The local occupation force did not detain us, since we had after all our troubles no treasures to tax.
I think the lessons of this session was how a backward narrative with a swapping of tall tales in an inn worked quite fine to set up short and challenging set pieces for us both to solve and embellish. It was a good way to develop both the setting, story and characters without heavy prep, massive reading assignment on the setting and a nice way to keep the session contained and restrained both in time and space. Really good for a one shot.
We didn't exercise the game system that much, but The Shadow of Yesterday didn't get in the way, and the possibility to tailor the abilities you get XP for was interesting. I might write more on the game system at a later time.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Never split the group! Maybe you should...
I have had the fortune to be invited to a Unknown Armies game. The gamemaster is one of my dear readers, and he have done some quite cool things with the set-up for the game I wanted to talk about.
As everyone who have wondered about ecology in the dungeon, or "naturalism", knows there are a few things you just can't explain or have make sense without some major thinking ahead. Personally I lean far enough into the gonzo side of things, but if you want it all to make sense, one thing to watch out for it why the party adventure together.
In Call of Cthulhu there is one attempt to create a narrative structure, Delta Green. It's quite successfull. In our UA game we have The Band.
The band is called Unpeace, and was the greatest of them all. Well, it was riding the wave of death metal, mixing in some symphonic influences and a healthy dose of showmanship. After releasing one album the band was dissolved, but it's legacy and memory is very much alive. Now there will be a documentary, and a lot of memories are being brought to the surface. Naturally the player characters are the members of this band.
So, what's so cool about this?
Well. One thing I find interesting is how our game master have handled the fact that all PCs have a gigantic ego and loves to be in the spotlight all the time. Considering that, I think the solution is both neat and obvious when you think of it. We all met at a bar to talk to the film crew, and when the bar fight erupted and somebody's wife calls them to pick up the kids, we went in our different directions.
We split the party. It just made sense.
Now, to just idle and do nothing is the main cause for boredom when splitting the party, so naturally you have to keep the individual segments short and too the point. There is another trick in the bag, though. Since we have all played a few of those new fangled forge style games, we are quite confortable with the idea of shared narrative. This is used to good effect.
When my character, high on cocaine, runs into an alley after having hit somebody with his car, he finds somebody. The GM just said to me it was, I think, someone whom I had been missing lately. I could have said it was one of the other PCs, and suddenly the player sitting by my side would have been in that scene. Naturally, the other players could chip in their suggestions as well. I thought that was cool. While nothing really revolutionary, it was a good example of how the ideas of kibitzing and shared narrative can help make the split party less of a problem.
Let's think more of how the narrative structure helped the game along.
We all knew, from the first short conversations with some NPCs that we had arranged to start filming tomorrow. Thus we had a structure to the game, and could goof off until we were bored and it was tomorrow.
That also made it easy to split the party, running off doing wild things, since we could all participate to some extent.
I have often muttered about how the holy grail of sandboxing demands pro-active players. In this case we all knew that we had a Story, the film. If we wanted something to happen, we could just do something related to the film, like fight about whether we should play some songs, if we should film individually or as a group. I foresee lots of opportunities when the GM as the crew asks us about filming a scene about when "Frank fell off the stage". Guess if the possibilities of shared narrative are going to be utilized then!
To have an organization that gives you missions is one good way to keep the party together. Having some shared history like the Band creates natural conflicts, and some natural allies. Having the film being done is a good way to drag the PCs together again if we split up. Having the ability to chip in helps everyone to be involved. I think this set-up is great.
Can this be done in your vanilla D&D style fantasy game? Well, there's always the DragonQuest solution, with the Guild of Adventurers and their contract [sic!] spelled out in the rules!
As everyone who have wondered about ecology in the dungeon, or "naturalism", knows there are a few things you just can't explain or have make sense without some major thinking ahead. Personally I lean far enough into the gonzo side of things, but if you want it all to make sense, one thing to watch out for it why the party adventure together.
In Call of Cthulhu there is one attempt to create a narrative structure, Delta Green. It's quite successfull. In our UA game we have The Band.
The band is called Unpeace, and was the greatest of them all. Well, it was riding the wave of death metal, mixing in some symphonic influences and a healthy dose of showmanship. After releasing one album the band was dissolved, but it's legacy and memory is very much alive. Now there will be a documentary, and a lot of memories are being brought to the surface. Naturally the player characters are the members of this band.
So, what's so cool about this?
Well. One thing I find interesting is how our game master have handled the fact that all PCs have a gigantic ego and loves to be in the spotlight all the time. Considering that, I think the solution is both neat and obvious when you think of it. We all met at a bar to talk to the film crew, and when the bar fight erupted and somebody's wife calls them to pick up the kids, we went in our different directions.
We split the party. It just made sense.
Now, to just idle and do nothing is the main cause for boredom when splitting the party, so naturally you have to keep the individual segments short and too the point. There is another trick in the bag, though. Since we have all played a few of those new fangled forge style games, we are quite confortable with the idea of shared narrative. This is used to good effect.
When my character, high on cocaine, runs into an alley after having hit somebody with his car, he finds somebody. The GM just said to me it was, I think, someone whom I had been missing lately. I could have said it was one of the other PCs, and suddenly the player sitting by my side would have been in that scene. Naturally, the other players could chip in their suggestions as well. I thought that was cool. While nothing really revolutionary, it was a good example of how the ideas of kibitzing and shared narrative can help make the split party less of a problem.
Let's think more of how the narrative structure helped the game along.
We all knew, from the first short conversations with some NPCs that we had arranged to start filming tomorrow. Thus we had a structure to the game, and could goof off until we were bored and it was tomorrow.
That also made it easy to split the party, running off doing wild things, since we could all participate to some extent.
I have often muttered about how the holy grail of sandboxing demands pro-active players. In this case we all knew that we had a Story, the film. If we wanted something to happen, we could just do something related to the film, like fight about whether we should play some songs, if we should film individually or as a group. I foresee lots of opportunities when the GM as the crew asks us about filming a scene about when "Frank fell off the stage". Guess if the possibilities of shared narrative are going to be utilized then!
To have an organization that gives you missions is one good way to keep the party together. Having some shared history like the Band creates natural conflicts, and some natural allies. Having the film being done is a good way to drag the PCs together again if we split up. Having the ability to chip in helps everyone to be involved. I think this set-up is great.
Can this be done in your vanilla D&D style fantasy game? Well, there's always the DragonQuest solution, with the Guild of Adventurers and their contract [sic!] spelled out in the rules!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The issue of "game balance"
Even though I haven't published much here lately, I have managed to play some sessions. A friend of mine have started a game based on the Buffy game. Personally I think the tv series suck, big time, but I usually don't say no when I get invited to a game. The system is pretty basic and the thing which make it special are Drama Points, and the division between Heroes and White Hats. The latter are something like the Companions in Ars Magica.
Drama points can be used to introduce a "plot twist" which endow the player with some narrative control, and you can also use them to get a bonus to a roll, if you declare it before rolling. Basically it's a way for the player to tell the game master what's interesting, and a way to shine when you think it would be cool.
Those of you who have read some of the indie games from the Forge know how narrative control is a very common theme. Licenced properties have been seen in the rpg business before, but I imagine that C.J. Carella (who designed the Buffy game) decided to use this kind of mechanic because the Forge style have entered a greater common consciousness of how to design games. Some of these ideas I like, some I don't like.
The fact that some characters are more powerful and important than others rub me the wrong way. While I don't feel "game balance" is all that it's made out to be, I still think something is fishy about the way the unbalance is done in this game. Since the Buffy game is modelled on the tv show, it follows that there is a story about the heroes in the game, and that the white hats are there to help the story along. I makes me think of the metaplot sledgehammer so often wielded in the games from White Wolf. Is this me secretly longing for "game balance" when I am in the weaker position and realizing it is not as fun being less powerful? Or, is it a tendency in this game to portray a setting where the initiative is not supposed to come from the players but from the GM acting as director for the Heroes? I don't know, actually. I would love to hear more people with "old school sensibilities" play different games and report on their feelings.
Edit: I have been silent for too long, I forgot to post a title...
Drama points can be used to introduce a "plot twist" which endow the player with some narrative control, and you can also use them to get a bonus to a roll, if you declare it before rolling. Basically it's a way for the player to tell the game master what's interesting, and a way to shine when you think it would be cool.
Those of you who have read some of the indie games from the Forge know how narrative control is a very common theme. Licenced properties have been seen in the rpg business before, but I imagine that C.J. Carella (who designed the Buffy game) decided to use this kind of mechanic because the Forge style have entered a greater common consciousness of how to design games. Some of these ideas I like, some I don't like.
The fact that some characters are more powerful and important than others rub me the wrong way. While I don't feel "game balance" is all that it's made out to be, I still think something is fishy about the way the unbalance is done in this game. Since the Buffy game is modelled on the tv show, it follows that there is a story about the heroes in the game, and that the white hats are there to help the story along. I makes me think of the metaplot sledgehammer so often wielded in the games from White Wolf. Is this me secretly longing for "game balance" when I am in the weaker position and realizing it is not as fun being less powerful? Or, is it a tendency in this game to portray a setting where the initiative is not supposed to come from the players but from the GM acting as director for the Heroes? I don't know, actually. I would love to hear more people with "old school sensibilities" play different games and report on their feelings.
Edit: I have been silent for too long, I forgot to post a title...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Andreas Davour. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Blogger.