Total Party Kill

Kapcon 21 - Part 2

2012-01-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

In Rounds 3, 4 and 5 I ran the Love of Money, a recent Esoterrorists release. In December I was looking around for a published scenario to run as a second Kapcon offering and picked this after a skim read – in retrospect it wasn’t the best game to take to a time limited ‘con. Firstly Esoterrorists is a complex setting, I lost 35 minutes to establishing the setting and system alone. Secondly the pre-generated characters were very detailed (3 full pages of text). I don’t think they were overly complex (with one exception) but they were, perhaps, over written. As an existing team of investigators who have established relationships, who find themselves in a bad spot, there was probably more detail then I think could easily be absorbed in ‘con conditions.

Finally, the plot, which had several cool scenes, was overly complex, and unnecessarily convoluted. It prompted the players to think it was even more convoluted then it was, which chewed up a lot of time. Finally, investigative games are a tough ask in a ‘con. Players inevitably engage with the investigation more thoroughly than is anticipated by the scenario, and even in a fairly tight setup where the clues are guaranteed – like Love of Money – there is a fair bit of doubt and second-guessing which slows the scenario down.

After the playtest, I had taken steps to address some of the problems, and managed to cut the scenario down from 4.5 hours to 3.5, and with a little effort 3.25 hours, although this inevitably truncates the climax, which is a shame as this is a much better scene than the longest scene (the intro). Plus, I prefer to have my games come in on time, for everybody’s sake.

How did it go? Well, the averaged response is good. I think most groups enjoyed the game and had fun. But some games felt like they dragged, and some players played a less active role than I’d have liked, while others were better as the players managed to dig out some characterisation and conflict from the pre-generated characters. As a GM I found running Love of Money really, really hard work, and wished that I had offered Sundown to replace this for 2 of the 3 runs. It wasn’t a bad game, but I don’t think it lived up to my normal Kapcon standards. I think this is entirely my own fault for trying to force a square peg through a round hole, and I’ll certainly look to take some lessons away from it.

In Round 3.5 I was going to simply go and have a drink with some of my regular Cthulhu group to debrief the first day of the ‘con, but that wily salesman and veteran GM, Mike Sands managed to sell me on Psi-Run a game where people with psychic powers and amnesia are hunted down. It sounded cool, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Much like Geiger Counter, this game starts a little rough - from a cold start you have to make a number of character decisions that you might wish you could rethink once you understand how the game works – so subsequent runs would be fun, but it’s tough on the first run-through. Also, like Geiger-Counter, the system seems to not account for a player’s natural desire to have their character ‘succeed’ (which in this context is remaining on the lamb) at the expense of other elements – so on most of the tests we made people didn’t prioritise answering questions about their characters amnesia which prolonged the chase. This is reinforced by the fact that having the chasers get closer affects all the characters - regardless of their circumstances - so there is an additional social pressure not to screw everyone with your decision.

However, unlike Geiger Counter, Mike acted as GM and did a great job of contextualising the chase, setting and the inevitable psychic surges. This helped structure the game to a point where most of the player believed that actually it might be better if the psychic escapees were recaptured, rather than continuing to wreck havoc on the world. In my opinion, the weird mix of complete creative freedom, which is then straitjacketed by an overly dictatorial dice mechanic. All in all, I had a lot of fun playing this, and would recommend it to others in the hands of a GM who loves to improvise.

For Round 6 I ran Piledrivers and Powerbombs for 8 players. In retrospect I think 8 might have been a touch ambitious and I probably should have used a variant of the ‘royal rumble’ party rules. Needless to say I will tinker with it to try and get a slightly more coherent approach for the next outing. It was a really great time, and a great way to have some silly fun to close out the 'con. I’ll cross post my remarks from NZRaG:

Kapcon Summer Slam in round 6 was epic-level insanity - the players were screaming, cheering, jeering, waving hillarious signs, smack-talking and scene framing until they could wrestle and game no more. I salute your ridiculous, magnificent, amazing wrestlers:

- Rainbow Warrior (Sophie)
- Polar Bear (Nick P.)
- Jolly Roger (John B.)
- G.I. Joey (Liam)
- Baseball Boy (don't remember your name, sorry)
- La Cucaracha (Stephanie)
- El Diablo (Andrew M.) *Crossover character from D.O.G.
- Drunken Truckie (Grant)

And, all of their hilarious and tragic nemeses.

You can read my report of Kapcon 20 here and here.

Kapcon 21 - Part 1

2012-01-23T21:43:00.000-08:00

My Kapcon started on Thursday this year, when we playtested Liam’s The Matter Involving the Missing Cats, an adventure for Cat-thulhu, where you play Arkham cats investigating the Mythos. I reprised my role as Pops the (mostly) fearless maine coon, and we soon got to the bottom of the mysterious lights and missing cats, and managed an improbable victory of sorts. I tried to provide some useful feedback, and Liam said the game ran well at Kapcon

I spent most of this Kapcon (5/6 rounds) running games, and these games either ran to time – or slightly over time, so it felt I had less time to talk to folks than in previous years, but it was good to catch up with some people at the drinks beforehand.

Round 1 was Games on Demand. This was my first ever time in the G.O.D room during a round, and I was impressed by the enthusiasm of those proposing games, and the range of games on offer. I elected to play Geiger Counter (although it was a close call over Monster of the Week) as I wanted to try this well regarded survival horror offering as part of my thinking about EPOCH. The game was admirably facilitated by Svend, and we somewhat randomly agreed to play Steampunk adventure in a South American Jungle, with an abandoned research station, ancient temple, and infectious Panther People. It was very much like the opening chapter of The Passage, only with more Victorians:

This was a fun game, and I think the mechanics were very interesting. I liked the idea of a thought dump at the beginning, and was very impressed with the trailer mechanic, but I’m not sure that this, and the inclusion of useful ‘elements’ at different ‘locations’ is sufficient to create a rich or well developed plot when the players are trying to balance a mechanical consideration of their own characters survival against the fluctuating dice pool of the ‘monster’. The game had a rich set-up, but the twists and developments were executed on a much less ambitious scale, as the burden of balancing continuous creativity wore against mechanical considerations and general fatigue. Like many Indy games there is also a constant tension around getting universal buy-in for new ideas, as these will affect all the characters – so a group of like-minded individuals might furiously agree and have a great time, but a group of strangers are more likely to be tentative, and often accept ideas they don’t like for the sake of politeness, and have a less rewarding experience as a result.

For the record, my character, the cruise director of our giant zeppelin cruise ship, Athos Theopopolus, managed to keep things together until the very end, trying to keep the spirits of his Victorian cruise ship passengers high until he discovered the zeppelin had crashed in a freak storm, and the survivors were finally overrun by Panther People.

Round 2 was Sundown, my Western Call of Cthulhu game, and the third time I’d run it. This time I had decided to run a game with all 8 pre-generated characters, as I was fairly sure the simplicity of the scenes and relative dynamics between the group (there are 3 bad-ass loner types) would allow this increased cast.

On the day, one player didn’t show. I radioed for a replacement, but alas, none were forthcoming. The game was actually great – it delivered almost exactly the kind of experience I wanted. While reasonably limited and formulaic in structure (it is a Call of Cthulhu ‘con game), the players did a great job of bringing the characters to life, and ensuring their drama overshadowed, but did not obstruct, the main plot. I thought every player did a great job, and afterwards I was immediately keen to run the game again – which is usually a sign that the game has gone fairly well.

To be continued...

A New EPOCH Begins

2012-01-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

I’ve finally got around to writing a first draft of EPOCH –my experimental horror game. It is a gameof 3 parts. A Skeleton, which provides aframework for open dialogue with players, and which establishes the conceit ofthe horror genre, all driven around the concept of closing the distance betweenplayer and character. Muscle, whichprovides a simple system designed to support and reinforce the skeleton,emphasising player choice, and the traumatic nature of being a character in ahorror setting. Finally the Skin, whichis draws everything together into a single structure, and provides some tips andtricks to help the game try and deliver onits potential.

Today I thought I’d raise the issue of player choice. In EPOCH I decided I wanted the players tohave complete choice over the range of outcomes that will befall theircharacter. There are no charactersheets, no dice, no numbers. Just arange of outcomes to choose from.

I wanted this more naked style of approach to remove some ofplaces where players can hide from horror – the small abstractions and deviceswhich can generate endless distraction – by removing these I hope to encourageplayers to close the distance between player and character for longer periods(I’m tentatively calling these suspense phases). I wanted to emphasise the players choices would entirely dictate thefate of their character – the GM cannot ‘kill’ a character, every death,maiming or psychosis would be entirely the choice of the player. These outcomes are known in advance, the same way an audience knows that most characters in a horror movie won't survive, and indeed many will meet a grisly end - but the specific details of who will survive, and how, remains a mystery.

Obviously this is just a teaser of what I’m working on buildinginto EPOCH. I’ll post more here in duecourse, as I get closer to a finished draft. In the meantime, if you’d like to get an advance draft, or simply shareyour thoughts on this – I’d welcome any input.

Continuing the theme of horror games – I recently picked upDead of Night (2nd ed.) in New York. The blurbmade me think it was going to deliver a game along the lines of EPOCH:

"Dead of Night is the roleplaying game of campfire tales, slasher movies and b-movie horror. It is a game of screaming victims, unstoppable killers and slavering monsters, where the horror movie clichés flow thicker than blood and the only victory is survival.

Dead of Night is designed to be quick and easy to play, with rules that help you tell horror stories without getting in the way of the fun. The rules are simple and straightforward to learn, yet offer all the options and depth to allow you to customise the game however you like."

But I was surprised to find that the creators had concludedthat monsters were the essence of horror movies. That’s not the way I see it – character isking in horror. Without character wecare little for monsters, we lack a connection to this abstract fantasy and,therefore, we find it increasingly difficult to suspend our disbelief. That’s why I am writing EPOCH to put thefocus on character, and to try and really invest the players into thecharacters they create. But Dead ofNight is an interesting take nonetheless – Can you recommend any horror games (oreven non-horror games) that emphasise character?

Gearing Up

2012-01-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

I haven’t had much to post about, as I didn’t actually do any gaming in December, and most of the things I post about come out of gaming experiences. But for the New Year I plan to run more Rogue Trader, finishing “Lure of the Expanse” and possibly doing the “Warpstorm Adventure Trilogy”. The epic Call of Cthulhu campaign for 2012 is looking to be “Beyond the Mountains of Madness” following the popular vote amongst players, probably using a cut down version of my pulp rules for a little extra character longevity on the ice.

Meanwhile Kapcon preparation is also on the agenda for this month – I’m running “Sundown” and the most recent Esoterrorist release “Love of Money” then finishing up with “Kapcon Summer Slam” – so it’ll be cowboys, spooks and wrestlers for me this year. Kapcon needs more games, so if you've got some game, drop them a line and join the fun!

Finally – more interesting than you'd think– Luke talks about balls.

Help A Monster Out…

2011-12-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the season, I thought I’d mention that venerable gaming guru Mike Sands is seeking funding for his Monster of the Week game, so spend a little to support this NZ creative venture and make a monster somewhere very happy for the holidays…

In the New Year I hope to showcase a new range of New Zealand RPG's and scenarios, so if you're working on something I could mention, please let me know.

Individual vs Collective

2011-11-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

When running campaigns, there is often a tension between individual character spotlight time, and the needs of a group to work together and accomplish the broader strokes of the plot. In the simple terms of a traditional game this tension often reflects the difficulty between one player dominating the focus of the GM while others sit idle, and all the players interacting and being involved (to a greater or lesser extent).

As a player I’m not a fan of sitting idle – I do enjoy watching others play, but if the periods of inactivity are too pronounced, then I’ll start thinking of things I’d rather be doing. As a consequence I try and avoid too much downtime for people who play in my games, while trying to balance this against the need to maintain an element of realism for individual characters.

In the two campaigns I’m currently running, I recently noted two, fairly extreme, completely divergent examples.

Rogue Trader
In this game the system actually proscribes the formation of the group. There is one character - a Rogue Trader - who is commander of the spaceship, and who holds a warrant to trade, plunder and profit. The other characters are the executive officers, specialists who each have unique functions to support these aims. The published adventures for Rogue Trader are an interesting mix of challenges which allow each of these characters to shine, while maintaining the overall structure – with the specified aim of all characters seeking to increase the Rogue Trader’s Profit (which they can use to obtain goods and services). It’s an odd mix of capitalism in space, crossed with Pirates of the Caribbean.

The game has gone very well so far – although it’s still early days (4 sessions including an intro adventure with pre-generated characters). The players seem to have embraced their unique roles and advocate, in character, for their individual preferences, effectively accepting the construct of the setup. They must manage their crew and ship, and mutiny remains an ever-present challenge (as the crew number 20,000 NPC’s, the executive officers are perceived as the collective authority – regardless of their individual differences). The play, thus far, may have been influenced by the very colourful nature of the setting (while a little clichéd the pre-written material has been a lot of fun) and their previous player relationships, having spent several months together playing my pulp version of Masks of Nyarlathotep, but it seems that there is a sustainable basis for a solid campaign arc with this arrangement.

Reverie
This is my own superhero campaign which has run for around 12 sessions. After having experienced setbacks I discussed previously in this genre, with divergent character play detracting from collective play in Canberra Mayhem, I had tried to structure a background which bonded the characters together through their superpowers, with the proviso that as the characters had limited recollection of the previous arrangements, they were effectively ‘different people’ now and thus free to take whatever action they wished. I also foreshadowed this, and allowed a degree of influence over the shape of this historical background through using active ‘flashback’ scenes for individuals.

While this game has been fun, it has highlighted the fact that few of the players were willing to sacrifice their individual autonomy to any significant extent in exchange for a collective arrangement. The characters sometimes united to fight common enemies, but this was often not an easy arrangement, and as soon as the danger has passed they return to their own individual concerns. This was most evident in the last session, where the players had agreed out-of-character before the game that they would spend some time in-character discussing their future arrangements. Accordingly, I made sure that there were no major threats to detract from this dicusssion, and no urgent matters which would require the group to split up.

However, what eventuated was a series of unfortunate events which led one character to kill another, and two others to travel overseas. While dramatic, and perhaps appropriate to the style of the game, it seems likey that further play will be fragmentary and continue to involve a significant degree of player downtime.

Conclusions
Obviously two instances do not make a rule – but what I conclude from these examples, is that the balance between individual and group play should ideally be established early, and transparently, as attempting to introduce it later is likely to cause friction between the players perception of the character as an individual, and their willingness to sacrifice a degree of autonomy for the collective.

Equally, it's possible that some players simply prefer a specific style of interaction with a game, and you must carefully consider this when forming a group, or when having having initial discussions about the shape and arranagments of a campaign.

Into the West

2011-11-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

As I’ve mentioned previously, I recently wrote Sundown, a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in the Old West, as my Fright Night offering, and to celebrate the 30the Anniversary of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. This is now available, free to download, via Chaosium or RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.

As you will see from my previous post about the anatomy of Call of Cthulhu adventures, I haven’t managed to steer away from the pitfalls of this kind of old-school offering entirely, in some-part because of the constraints of this scenario as a ‘con offering - although I have tried to flag them, where applicable. Thanks to all the playtesters who made this a memorable game to run.

Feedback welcome.

Fright Night V

2011-10-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m interrupting my post on how I write ‘con games to detail my attendance at Fright Night 5, which happened this past weekend. But fear not solitary subscriber – I have included some detail about my creation of my ‘con scenario below which I will develop further in a subsequent post.

This was the fifth instalment of Fright Night, a one-night horror-con. I was facilitating Fright Night I, out of the country for Fright Nights II & III and posted about Fright Night IV here and here.

Round 1 – Miller’s Children
I signed up to play this game as the blurb sounded interesting, and Donna has often signed up to play in my games, and I thought it was high time to return the favour. I was given the character of Robbie to play, the oldest sibling, and something of a delinquent in a scenario which is very much 'Home Alone', with a magical twist.

I must give full credit to the other players. Ellen was a fantastic Carol - Robbie’s sister whose birthday was ruined. She was suitably annoying and particularly good at embarrassing Robbie. Stephanie did a great job with Krystal – Carol’s friend who had a little crush on Robbie, and constantly feuded with little Jamie (played by the effervescent Mike F.). Their feuding was totally hilarious and threatened to obscure the horror elements. Mike F. also deserves special credit for being disarmingly good at portraying a 7 year old and unexpectedly adding some sentimental sweetness to proceedings.

The scenario was good fun, we enjoyed the setup, although we may have caught Donna out with a few of our wackier ideas. The climax was a little frustrating for me, as I wasn’t in a position to really influence events, but it all ended well (in that we likely wound up in foster care). The scenario ran a little over two hours, so I decided to venture out for coffee and a little fresh air before launching into my game in the second round.

Round 2 – Sundown
This is the game I’ve been writing over the last few weeks. At this juncture I should point out that I decided to write this game as a Cthulhu adventure, which means it should to conform to a couple of conventions I’d probably not apply to a scenario for my own system:

1. There needs to be an investigative component. Cthulhu has always prided itself on offering the dual attractions of both appealing to problem-solvers and horror fans, potentially giving satisfaction on both levels.

2. There should be some reference to the Mythos – usually this is in the form of a Mythos entity encountered in the final scene of the adventure.

3. There should be a way of defeating said Mythos creature, or other villains, which transcends physical force.

4. There should be player handouts of some description.

Of course, you could throw all of these things out the window – but as I had decided to write this adventure as a scenario I’d like to publish, I decided that I’d try and incorporate these ideas to varying degrees, as well as using traditional pre-generated characters with a blurb, rather than employing my contemporary ideas about using framing scenes and objects to allow for greater player buy-in.

With this in mind I wrote up 8 pre-generated characters, folks from Tombstone who ride off in a posse to hunt a man that has committed a terrible murder. I put a bit of effort into creating come character tensions (with the obvious expectation that these may come to nothing if the players chose to ignore them) and then tried to tie as much of the scenario as I could into actual history and events of this era (another common element of Cthulhu scenarios). As this is a ‘con outing, it is actually a fairly traditional railroad – so I also created a couple of floating scenes to allow the players to choose to deviate from the expected path, and then hopefully choose to return to it.

The playtest went fairly well. The inter-character drama proved to be pitched at about the right level. The players seemed to enjoy the climax, and while some complained it seemed a little tough, I think it was an overall success. The playtest revealed several elements that I hadn’t paid enough attention to in the drafting, and I found that by refining these, the game looked a lot better. That said, I knew I couldn’t trust the playtest as these were players I run games for regularly, experienced Cthulhu players who knew the score and conceit of the genre and were willing to embrace it, as well as being fairly comfortable at playing together as a group.

On the night I was down to 4 players. Something I didn’t initially think would be a problem, but as I looked through the pre-generated characters I realised that I had linked them together more thoroughly than I had intended, and that the game would be so much richer if I could beg or borrow another couple of players. Fortunately Marcus was able to oblige me with Hannah and Ants, who were attired as zombie pirates! This was particularly fortuitous as I had arranged individual touch lights for illumination and the zombie make-up looked terrifying in the darkness, lit only dimly from beneath.

Just as we were about to start, Ants told me this was to be Hannah’s first ever tabletop roleplaying experience – and that I’d better not mess it up! Needless to say, I felt the pressure acutely (also, being threatened by a zombie pirate is scary stuff!).

The game went well. I think it was a richer and more dramatic run then the playtest (which is saying something as the playtest was pretty dramatic). The credit for this rests with the players who really embraced their roles. Bryn was fantastic as the bumbling doctor (blame the dice!) and put up with my comedic spotlighting with good humour, while Hannah did a great job as Marion, adding the memorable syphilis needles and ground-up turtle which I’ll definitely include in the published scenario. Scott, Mike and Ants really came through with their conflict, and even found a way to act heroically – which ultimately sealed their fate. I also really enjoyed the characterisation that Stephanie put into the School mistress, who she played almost exactly he way I had envisaged the character. I really enjoyed the game, and felt the story went almost exactly as I had hoped, and interestingly, mirrored the playtest almost exactly in structure and execution.

Now to write it up and get it published somewhere.

For further Fright night coverage see Luke's post here, Mash's post here, or Marcus' post here.

You Got Game?

2011-10-07T00:41:00.000-07:00

It must be 'con season, beacuse there are a lot of really interesting posts around the place about writing 'con games. I particularly enjoyed Jacinta's post about the kind of people you might encounter in your 'con game. This is of particular interest to me because I'm working on some advice about overcoming some of the more common player-initiated problems that can cause games to de-rail. I've also been interested to follow Luke's progress on preparing his own 'con game 'Tears of Vykyris', particularly the idea that he will use 3 images instead of a traditional text blurb. Then there's DrBunnyHops who is detailing her thoughts about 'White Rabbit' a game which mixes sci-fi and parenting which obviously struck a chord with the punters, as all 9 player slots filled up in record time.

I'm about to pick up the pen and have a shot at writing my offering for Fright Night, which I also plan on running at Kapcon. I thought I'd try and detail my own thoughts about this process - albeit in a general rather than specific sense (I'd hate to spoil anything for potential players).

For me 'con games are about memorable scenes. Scenes where the players are fully engaged, living in the skin of their characters, confronted by challenges, with sufficient ownership to actually feel the ramifications of their decisions and interactions. My job (as GM or writer) is to secure that ownership, create the context, and then frame the challenge. Finally I need to be able to troubleshoot, tweak, extend, sharpen or otherwise tailor the scenario as it plays out, so that it delivers the desired experience.

So when I think about the game, I ask what kind of scenes are these? I don't mean specifically what scenes - unless I want to force a railroad I won't get to actually script a complete scene where meaningful encounters occur. That's the realm of directors and authors - but I can get a sense of the kind of events that might lead up to these scenes, the backdrop if you will. However, I also know that no matter how impressive my backdrop (players are never going to be impressed with settings for very long), the real action has to be played out by the characters, so along with a general idea of the scenes I want, I need to think about the protagonsists - the characters - their motivations, ambitions and circumstances.

As an example: in one of my Council of Champion's games there was an extremely memorable scene was aboard a transport plane en route to a lighter-than-air weapons platform controlled by a villain. But that wasn't important. What was important was that the 8-year-old son of two of the heroes had just picked up a firearm (borrowed from a gun-slinging hero) and this caused a massive confrontation between the parents about the kind of life their son should have. It was epic, and went to the heart of the real story - not the villains - but the way that heroes balance real concerns with their dangerous jobs. The responsibility of the team to be role models. The ethics of having a child in a dangerous situation. The very nature of being a superhero in a team with others. I couldn't have scripted that scene, and I couldn't have imagined that it would take place in the belly of a transport aircraft which was entirely unimportant to the plot. But I could decide that the role of the child in the team could be a major catalyst for action. I could shape the characters to be in conflict, and exacerbate this by involving more of the team than just the parents. I could script a plot where the characters were put under relentless pressure, and be ready for it to errupt. The players did the rest.

So, now I have a general idea about some of the scenes, and the characters who want to fill them, I need to do the hard yards. I need to get the characters into a position they can deliver the drama. Characters aren't ready to go from minute one - there's no context - their actions lack meaning. I need to let the characters develop - shape themselves - explore their repsonses and develop a group dynamic. To do this they need details, small challenges, tests, encounters where they can establish these traits. The more of these details I can bring, the more the players have become immersed in their characters, and immersed in the setting. We need a lot of detail, but we only need to apply it when necessary. Colours, smells, metaphors, lot's of descriptive elements and NPC's, people to help the players moderate their characters - benchmark their behaviour.

Next I need to think about how the scenes are going to play out. Players can spend hours just hanging out - but I don't have that kind of time. I've got 3 hours. If I'm running any kind of action, that's going to take time - I need a lot of detail. Each player needs an explicit opportunity to act, probably several, and I need to keep a track of their actions, reinforced through recap and narration, so I need to factor that in. Introduction scenes also take a lot of time - especially if you're encouraging the players to add their own descriptive elements. A first scene of a game often runs for a full hour after all the introductions/setting/rules stuff has been done. So I need to decide the key scenes are. how will the game end? Is it a climax? In which case, what are the scenes that will lead up to that climax? How will I communicate the ascending importance of these scenes? How much ability for I want to allow the players to improvise, or create their own scenes? What about small scenes - travelling, or just passing time. Players need space to breathe and characters need an opportunity to interact with each other.

Now I should have a skeleton. An outline of the scenario I'd like to run/write along with an idea of some of the characters and details that will populate it.

To be continued...

Sullivan on the Mind

2011-09-29T03:01:00.000-07:00

On March 25 I wrote a short introduction to the Sullivan Agency - a fictional agency I created to allow for a cohesive tool to justify the outrageously over-the-top characters the players had created for 'Masks of Nyarlathotep - Pulp Edition', and a way to funnel new characters, supplies and equipment to the characters while investigating mysteries and cults around the world, as well as provide them with a motive to keep going. I wrote:

"Colonel Grady Sullivan (Ret.) set up the Sullivan Agency in 1910 after a distinguished career in the US Army’s 7th Cavalry. Some in Washington noted that Sullivan’s sudden move to the private sector coincided closely with reports of a missing shipment of Mexican gold on the US border, and the subsequent Mexican revolution led by Pancho Villa who had often met with Sullivan in his role as División del Norte - whatever the truth of such rumours, the Sullivan Agency rapidly gained a reputation for employing men who get the job done.

Sullivan recruits professional, highly capable men with a variety of skills and talents. He expects his people to operate independently and make their own decisions to get the job done. The pay is good ($20 per day plus expenses) but the real reason you work for Sullivan is his connections. Sullivan has connections everywhere, and a personal recommendation from the Colonel can see you go far. Sullivan knows all the right people in Washington and London, and often has lunch with the governors and directors of major banks and investment firms. His friends prosper, and his enemies – well it’s best not to get on the wrong side of Grady Sullivan."

Last week Andy M. was in Paris on business, and he sent me the following picture:

Neat!

Out Now

2011-09-27T01:23:00.000-07:00

I’m pleased to say that ‘The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2010’ has now shipped and is available in glorious hardback and tradepaper editions. Inside you will find 33 stories and poems collected from Australia and New Zealand, as well as a genre overview for the year, including awards, novels, anthologies, industry news and a recommended reading list. I'm looking forward to reading the other contributions - you can buy a copy here.

August Update

2011-08-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

It’s been a busy August for me. This despite having a vacation from running Cthulhu, and skipping a session of Reverie due to player absence. So here is a short update of August happenings:

Fright Night
Fright Night, Wellington's one night of horror roleplaying, is looking for GM’s. If you’ve got a great idea for a scenario, drop Marcus a line right now. Time is running out!

As a tribute to the 30th Anniversary of Call of Cthulhu I’ll be running an original game (which I plan on writing up and publishing, in one form or other, later in the year), so I hope to see you there.

Confusion
I recently attended the first 2 rounds of Confusion, a small one-day Wellington ‘con. You can read my report on Confusion 2010 here. This year Fiasco and Monster of the week were popular, and the con featured a pre-booked LARP in Round 3.

Round One – Infinite Porticos
I’ve always loved Elric/Strombringer and enjoyed many of Moorcock’s stories, and while I’ve run a few games of this some years back (indeed it is my preferred fantasy setting next to WFRP)– I always found that knowledge of the setting was a significant obstacle for full participation for other people. Unfortunately this game was over-booked and feel bad that Ivan was ‘voted off’ in the early elimination (actually, he fell on his sword) but that’s never a good way to start a ‘con.

In this game I was allocated a slave pit-fighter character, and did my best to bring a degree of bravado and pragmatism to the game without derailing things. The setup was solid, although perhaps a little linear. Marcus later told us this was intended as an ice-breaker for a campaign – a way of introducing and bonding a new party of heroes with diverse backgrounds – and in this role I think it is a strong offering. Marcus did a great job with the NPC’s and I have provided him with my feedback on the scenario (from a playtest perspective) as I understand he soon plans to publish it online.

Round Two - Invasive Procedures
I had decided to run the new adventure for Fear Itself titled Invasive Procedures. There were a lot of elements I liked about this scenario, and I had done my best to anticipate how some handouts and props might enhance the experience (and thus lift some of the load from my GM’ing performance).

The beauty, and major drawback, of this scenario is that it puts the players in a very un-empowered position (I give nothing away to say they are patients in a hospital with limited mobility). This might be fine with a crew of players who all really enjoy rich character experiences, and will embrace the powerlessness of the character – but when you are running at a ‘con for people you don’t know (or rarely run games for) there is a danger that one, or all of the players, may get rapidly alienated and dissatisfied by what they may perceive as a frivolous, or unfair, constraint. Needless to say this tension increases dramatically through the course of the scenario.

Before I ran the game I had an open conversation with the players about this element and asked if they’d be willing to work with this element of the scenario, to generate a more memorable experience (an element of EPOCH). I was very gratified when they agreed, and we began. The scenario itself ran well – thanks largely to the efforts of the players who all did a really impressive job of embracing the setup and characters. I improvised a few elements on the spot – the mannerisms of the NPC’s, opening and closing the curtains in the room to give a feeling of time passing etc.

I found the scenario itself not especially easy to navigate, which meant I was sometimes left scrambling to find things, and I think that that tension of powerlessness is perhaps stretched too far with the full scope of the scenario – I can easily see the players becoming unhappy if the GM is not extremely careful about the setup and execution. However, I think there were some really great elements, which played out exactly as I had hoped and with the right kind of effect.

As a further experiment into some of the techniques I want to incorporate into EPOCH I think the game was a strong success, and reinforced my thoughts about the kind of system that a game needs to deliver on the key points of my horror manifesto. I should say, however, I don’t think any of the players were actually scared at any point, but there were some strong character/player responses.

You can read other reviews of Confusion from Jenni and Marcus.

5 Tips for Running Horror 'Con Games

2011-07-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

Marcus is gearing up to run the next installment of Fright Night, and asked if I'd be interested in providing some advice on horror games. Looking at my previous entries, I am dismayed to see I haven't spent a lot of time on this subject, so without further ado I present my 5 tips for running Horror ‘con games:

1. Bring the description. As a GM you are the eyes and ears of the players. They depend on you, both for explicit and implicit queues about what is important, and to enhance and aid their visualisation. It is therefore critical that you spend as much effort as possible on your descriptions. As a general rule, there’s no such thing as too much detail. Layer it on. What does a place look like? What does it smell and sound like: what does it feel like? Many horror games take normality and add a fantastical element – be it monster, magic or madness. In order for the players to understand the full impact of this transition, they must first have a clear idea of the baseline. Draw on familiar tropes, or your own experiences – port this detail into your game. Establish the places and people of your setting clearly – it’s easy to get flustered or distracted when running a game. Try and take a conscious effort to stop, gather your thoughts, and then deliberately add details and descriptive elements. Ideally prepare maps or crib notes before a game to help with this– not necessarily to show the players, but so that you can be clear about the lie of the land, relative distances, specific details or even words that you might use. A few carefully chosen words can have a remarkable impact – even if the players don’t let on at the time.

2. Character is King. The essence of horror is the impact on the character. Try watching a horror movie halfway through, and you’ll likely be bemused rather than fearful or fascinated by the characters predicament. Context is everything, and if we have no reason to care about the characters – why should we care what happens to them? This problem is exacerbated by the nature of a horror ‘con. If you’re giving a player a disposable character for three hours, and at the end of that time they know they’ll walk away and, most likely, never think about the character again – what reasons does the player have not to treat the character recklessly? There is no easy answer to this problem. What you really want is for the players to agree to give their best efforts to ‘buy in’ to a character. You can do this explicitly – by asking the players to agree to this before the game, or using other techniques, like really ramping up enthusiasm, or descriptive elements (see above) and hope that the player is willing to ‘buy in’ of their own volition.

Ultimately, my view on the solution is more detailed than I have the space here to present, so here are some basic suggestions. Don't provide too much detail or be overly perscriptive with characters. Make sure you have considered your scenario from the players viewpoint. Try and let the players have the ability to embellish or add to their characters – encourage this. If your scenario is tailored to a genre (e.g. survival horror) communicate this explicitly so the players can get into the spirit of the thing. Always try and give the characters a reason to interact with one another, and the space to do so. Try and come up with roleplaying challenges of minor as well as major order to allow them to own the character (e.g. a grumpy motel clerk, a motorist in distress, someone who’s having a worse day than the characters). Try and leave enough room with for a chracter to fit almost any kind of player, and make sure the characters are linked in a way that leaves no-one out or marginalised.

Try and anticipate likely character actions - if they're confronted by something unnatural, scary, or dangerous they are likely to try and get weapons or flee. Or both. Make sure you've catered for this - ideally in such a way that the players don't feel railroaded or forced in their decision making. If you're going to have authority characters (e.g. cops) be prepared for a player to take this seriously, and assert authority - but don't count on it. Your players are likely to be smart, and well versed in the genre of the game you're running, and they'll be looking for clues all the time as to what the plot of the game is. Good characters, which are designed to support player 'buy-in' will hopefully keep the focus on the drama, and the horror and limit meta-gaming.

3. Pace it right. The pace of a game is important. Like a movie, you want to have a tempo that feels natural, and works to accentuate tense scenes, and allow for lighter moments as well. If you don’t make an effort to structure the pacing of your game, you may find these elements bleed into one another with undesirable consequences. I suggest starting slow, this is where the bulk of your descriptive workload lies. Let the players have some time and space to get into the skin of their characters. If you want to start “In media res” then you still need this space, but it comes later. Then, start moving the game in the direction you want.

Ideally you’ll want to have the pace build – the tension increase. Then perhaps a lull before another build in tension. If you’re using music or sound effects you can use these to give explicit queues to the players. If not, you may have to do the heavy lifting yourself, by increasing the cadence of your narration, the type of language you use or even the volume of your voice. Perhaps stand up to emphasise that this is an important scene. Maybe even mime the key elements, or even take the game in a semi-LARP direction.

If you’re going to use combat, even in the abstract sense then be sure to spend some effort bringing it to life for the players. Again, the more preparation you do, the better your game will be. If there’s some chance of someone being shot, you might want to look up real-life gunshot wounds, and be ready to bring some visceral detail to proceedings. Finally, give some thought to how you want the game to conclude. Is it a free-for-all with all the players involved, will there be a climactic final confrontation, or does it end unexpectedly? You might not want to script it too carefully, but having an idea about the way your game might end, and the experience you want to leave the players with, will help you during the rest to the facilitation. Finally pacing is important for real time. Keep track of the time as much as possible so you don’t run over your allotted slot – ideally you’ll have some optional material to add or jettison in order to fit the game to the time.

4. Don’t be a slave to system. Fairly simple this one - make sure any system you pick will work for the kind of game you want to run. I strongly suggest thinking about the kind of game you want to run first, then selecting a system which will support that vision – rather than picking a system then thinking up an adventure. Ideally you should be the master of any system you use, and be prepared to deal with questions and people who like to engage with systems. My rule is that it should be simple enough to be easily understood by all participants within 5 minutes, and ideally be well supported by game materials (perhaps double side the character sheets with a simple rules summary?). With the rise of electronic publishing there are thousands of systems out there, don’t be afraid to seek out something new.

5.Do the work. You can run great games on the fly. But you can’t trust to that – well you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The work starts with writing a great blurb that will attract the kind of players who want to share the kind of game you want to deliver. Spend some time and get a blurb that really captures the essence of the game, and levels a little with the players about what kind of experience they can expect (as players). Then take the time to playtest. A good game can become a great game through a strong playtest – especially if you playtest with people you don’t know or who are willing to give frank and constructive criticism. Every minute of a 'con game is precious, and you need to be sure each scene is fit for purpose - and frankly, by the time you're at this stage, you're no longer impartial. A second pair of eyes can help, and especially help you see things through the players eyes. Just be prepared to listen - and even probe for more detail, even if it's a little painful.

Finally spend the effort you need to be really ready for the game. The other points should give you some idea about what kind of thing I mean. In addition, it’s important that you have the plot – and the PC options – ready to explain to the players once the game is complete. People like to know the details, and they like to have ‘real’ choices in a game. To feel like the outcome of the game is a foregone conclusion can be disappointing to some players – so be ready to level with the players about the game, and how their choices made it a richer experience.

Masks

2011-07-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finished running the epic Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for Call of Cthulhu. It’s not the first time I’ve run it – in fact it’s the third time – but it’s the first time in more than a decade I’ve revisited this Cthulhu classic, and I thought I’d share my approach and reflections.
I describe Masks as the James Bond Call of Cthulhu campaign. It features half a dozen exotic locales, improbable villains, deadly threats, all based around a fairly tenuous plot. In short – it is a blockbuster with all the good and bad that entails. The problem with this setup is the lethality of the campaign as written – I usually end up with a box full of character sheets donated by all the players whose characters have died or gone insane during the course of the campaign. Such a high character turnover can have negative impacts, stretching the already weak continuity of the chapters, diminishing player investment in characters, or even initiating ‘the Indiana Jones effect’.

To be fair to Masks, you have to consider the context of the campaign. It was written in 1984, when the gaming world was dominated by modules featuring monsters, treasure and dungeons. It added investigation, glamour and unusual encounters to this framework, even allowing the players to determine the order in which they resolved the chapters of the campaign. Since it's first edition it's had a whole chapter added along with a plethora of entertaining side adventures. Nevertheless, while innovative for its time, the campaign still has its fair share of linear plots, railroads and dungeons. In short - Masks is an imaginative classic that set the benchmark for all subsequent Cthulhu campaigns and continues to attract new Keepers, despite suffering from most of the pitfalls of old-school games. Judging by posts on the Yogsothoth forum there is pretty much at least one Masks campaign happening at any given time, someplace in the world – probably a lot more than that. The oft discussed fan-written Masks Companion has been years in the development and will apparently weigh in at more than twice the size of Masks.

As a GM, when facing the fairly harsh setup of Masks, you have three choices: play it straight and butcher a lot of PC’s; pull your punches and effectively run a watered down version of the game; or, change the game setup to support the campaign style. This run I chose the last option. I wanted more-or-less one set of characters to run through the campaign. I wanted to keep the continuity and play a style of game that supported the tenuous leads and unremitting, escalating and overwhelming danger of the campaign. So I designed the Pulp Cthulhu rules to support this style of game.

Players received an open cheque to create their characters – I wanted over-the-top characters and was willing to consider anything. Most players received a special advantage based on whatever background they came up with, all had the option of starting with Cthulhu Mythos and spells and everyone started with 1D3 Fate Points. Each fate point could be spent to avoid a catastrophic wound, reduce the impact of temporary insanity or gain 2D6 sanity points between chapters with an appropriate narration. In addition each Fate Point would generate a fortune point each session, which could be used to re-roll any failed skill check or automatically pass a luck roll. Characters gained 1 Fate Point for each chapter of Masks they completed.

Because I expected the characters would be a lot tougher I also introduced the major wound rule from Basic Roleplaying, which meant serious injuries would have consequences both in terms of stats and story for the characters, despite their hardy natures. And this system worked very well – we had a sorry collection of severed noses, horrific burns, major muscle damage and scars by the end to add plenty of colour to the characters journey.

All in all, it was immense fun. I greatly enjoyed the characters and the game, and loved traversing the familiar terrain of his campaign through a setup and system that better supported the game than in my previous outings. Many thanks to all the players who helped bring this game to life.

Campaign Statistics
Sessions Played: 16
Chapters: 7
Number of Players: 7
Number of Characters: 8 (plus Bullit the dog)
Total Fate Points Expended: 39
Fate Points Expended in Final Session: 12
Character Deaths: 0

EDIT: You can check out a players perspective of this campaign over at Andy's excellent blog.

The Evolution of Superheroes

2011-06-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a little quiet here of late, mostly due to venting my thoughts about gaming on Australian roleplaying boards in the great “system vs systemless ‘con game debate” that I seem to become enmeshed in annually. I’m not sure there’s much point in posting here about it, as I doubt folks reading this blog will care overly much about the issue.

Instead, I thought I’d document my process of setting up Reverie, a Superhero game I’ve now run a few sessions of, as an example of my current thinking about campaigns.

By way of introduction, I’ve been running superhero games on and off for a while now, but usually as short run games. My Council of Champions ‘con outings have been a lot of fun over the years – I designed a cast of powerful, famous, established superheroes with fairly complex relationships, and then let each group tackle the villanous challenge in their own ways, in as much of a sandbox style as possible. At the time these games represented what I thought were the best element of ‘con gaming. The ability to play complex characters, each with sufficient drama (incorporating both comedy and tragedy) to provide a satisfying interactions with the other PC’s and goals to drive them, as well as a powerful array of superpowers and the opportunity to devise unique and individual solutions to each challenge the game threw up.

Nowadays I see this style of character establishment as overly detailed and prescriptive – too brittle to be fit for purpose in a ‘con environment where I want to achieve 100% player activation. There is a danger the players feel they are being dictated to, and don’t ‘buy in’ sufficiently into the game space, or feel overwhelmed or confused by the complexity of the back-story. But, it was a useful exploration, and probably rates as the most consistently successful series of ‘con games I’ve run.

Next I ran ‘Potential’ a 3 part mini-series featuring a group of troubled youths who are experimented on whilst in juvenile detention, and develop superpowers. There were a lot of elements I was fairly proud of in this game, but it reinforced to me that a good origins story, which reveals meaning and purpose to seemingly random things like the development of superpowers, can really add to the depth of a game. I also borrowed an idea from Morgue, surveying the players about the kind of powers they wanted their characters to develop – without being specific – so I could reveal the powers during game-play. Ultimately, however, the anchors holding the group together were probably not sufficient to hold together the diverse and socially troubled kids the players developed meaning the 3 session limit was probably necessary without overly contriving the setup.

Then, in Australia I ran a year-long supers campaign ‘Mayhem’ using the M&M Paragons setup, with a lot of my own material. Again I surveyed for powers, but I also gave the players a second survey about the style of game they wanted to play, the level of system crunch, and a list of elements which they rated as either liking or disliking (robots, aliens, time-travel, realism etc.) This time I also designed a cohesive element to bind the players together more thoroughly, tied to the plot.

While this did prove more successful in providing a basis for the group to work together, the players (who did not really know each other before the game) designed characters whose individual plot interests often superseded the group action, meaning the characters frequently split, and gameplay suffered some pacing issues as I tried to juggle equal screen-time, and cater to individual stories. The crunch level of the system also proved challenging over a longer span game, as some players strongly engaged with the system, while others actively disliked it. I also tried casting a player as a supervillain – the idea was that the player wouldn’t go to most games but would be kept appraised of key plot elements remotely, send me what they wanted their character to do in response, and show up to key sessions for epic battles as appropriate. In practise however, the style of the game was a lot less over-the-top than I’d envisaged, and the supervillain player ended up playing most sessions, adding to the diversity of the game, but also adding to the load of individual scenes.

After Kapcon this year, and the enjoyable experience of running the 4th instalment of my Council of Champions game I thought I’d give it another shot. With Reverie I sent the two surveys I’d used previously (with some editing) and included a third to establish some basic character details which I’d use to include the initial plot.

As with Mayhem I wanted to create a sandbox experience, so the characters could choose almost any course of action, and be ready to plug an appropriate scene or encounter. But I also used the origins story to bring the group together in a way that would lead them to work together. Fortunately, this group was much more willing to embrace the group dynamic, probably due to their fairly extensive roleplaying experience. The group has also really engaged with making the characters their own – adding detail and even creating fictional Facebook accounts to interact outside the game space. I feel very privileged to have players willing to make that effort.

I've ditched M&M in favour of BASH Ultimate Edition - BASH does a good job of providing a simplified superhero system, but the math stemming from combat is still undersirable - it's probably on a par with the Difficult Check damage calculation in M&M, but I'd still like an even better fit...

In Reverie the origins story forms a major part of the plot, and I’ve tried to create something complex enough that the players will be interested to investigate and speculate about, but hopefully not so convoluted they give up (it’s a delicate balance). To do this I’ve used elements of the players own creation, balanced against a range of day-to-day concerns for the characters, and sufficient immediate danger to spur super-heroics. Because of the skill of the players, this is often more like conducting the game, than facilitating it – each instrument knows its part and adds to the overall harmony seamlessly.

What remains to be seen is how the game will evolve, because ultimately, once the detail of the origins story is laid bare, the players will need to take a more active ownership of the game. I only hope the second phase will be as enjoyable as the first phase has been.

State of Play

2011-05-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to? Here's a quick update:

Running: Masks of Nyarlathotep – Pulp Edition (Call of Cthulhu/BRP)
This campaign just reached the half way stage after 8 sessions and it’s been a blast. The fate and fortune points system I introduced have really worked well. The fortune points (which allow skill re-rolls) allow the players to really make sure they have all the leads they need, and add a new and interesting tactical dimension to Cthulhu combat, while still not spoiling the simple and straightforward vibe that’s the hallmark of BRP rules. Fate points have let the characters tackle the campaign head-on and really embrace a pulp style of play, which I think is necessary for such an old-school campaign. So far I think I’ve claimed at least 6 fate points, which would otherwise be 6 dead characters. I’ve also found the BRP rules I’ve added to Cthulhu (rumoured to be part of the next edition) have further empowered the players, while also adding some neat narrative details. I’m looking forward to seeing how the next half of the campaign plays out!

Running: Reverie (BASH Ultimate Edition)
This supers mini-series is in its infancy, but the first episode was huge fun, and I’m confident in sustaining this level of enjoyment. I find running supers games both fun and rewarding, and I’ve honed my style of origins stories to a good level which makes adding a strong character focus an implicit element of the game. I’ve developed quite a lot of plot for the game, but have been careful to thread this right through character backgrounds and will work hard to keep the focus on character driven drama which the group seems to enjoy. The stakes for me are higher with this game because it features a lot more of my own ideas then the pre-generated scenarios I usually run, so I usually feel both more nervous beforehand, and feel a greater sense of reward if things go well.

Playing: Gotham High (PDQ)
This has been an interesting experience and I took it on to try something different. I’m not a huge fan of the setting or system, but developing the characters has been entertaining, and the other players have been great fun.

Not Mentioned: I’ve temporarily halted running Kingsport Tales to focus on running Masks in a streamlined way. I’d really like to get back to Kingsport Tales soon, but I’m also enjoying the change of pace in Masks, so I guess it’s a case of not having cake and being able to eat it too. I also have suspended my involvement in the long-running D&D 4e campaign I had been playing due to ‘creative differences’ with the GM.

Looking Ahead: I’d like to run games at both Confusion and Fright Night, although so far I’m not sure what I’ll choose to run. Rogue Trader is also on my list of games I’d like to try running.

A Day of Games

2011-05-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I attended my first Day of Games (DOG) organised by the local legend Sophie Melchior. DOG is a small to mid-size, mostly indie games ‘con, where people bring games which require little or no preparation, and offer to run them over three rounds, with the most popular games (as voted by the audience) being selected to be run. I brought along Piledrivers and Powerbombs, a simple wrestling game as my contribution. What follows are my reflections on both the games and the systems I played.

Round One – Piledrivers and Powerbombs: Chokeslam of Darkness Edition

The Game: This was enormous fun, I had a full load of 6 players, and they set about creating wrestlers with silly gimmicks, and their enemy wrestlers with glee. Sophie featured as the evil NPC General Manager of the league and everyone got into the spirit of things rapidly. I was hugely impressed with everyone’s contribution, and I think that despite the disparate levels of knowledge or love for professional wrestling, and different gaming experience levels, everyone really came to the party in this game. It was massive fun and we managed to run through two complete match-cards with pre and post match scenes in the time allotted. I was particularly pleased by the willingness of the players to jump into the guest commentary roles when their own characters were not involved in a scene to really keep the flow going. The game and characters could have easily managed another hour in my opinion. Wrestlers created included:

Leeroy Harlem – Avenger of the disadvantaged street children, and his nemesis Max Power, a wealthy developer.

Man of Science – Educator and quoter of all things Darwin and Dawkins, opposed by his nemesis, bible-toting Father O’Mallet.

The Rainbow Warrior – Environmental activist and her fearsome hulking nemesis, the HAZMAT suit clad, Industrial By-Product.

El Hombre Lobo – The howling luchador known for abrupt ring entrances, and his nemesis the fearsome Shadow Man accompanied to the ring by his sexy zombies.

El Diablo – Another luchador who stands for the underprivledged opposed by the evil Developer and his bulldozer of destruction!

Last, but by no means least, Ronald Ray-Gun – Presidential wrestler with a tefelon smile and scantily clad Secret Service bodyguards opposed by the twisted head of the United Nations, the Secretary General.

The System: P&P is a neat system, it uses really simple techniques and a easily understood system to represent the different parts of the game. The real genius of the system is the use of pre and post match scenes to allow character developments and storytelling, while also delivering a mechanical advantage. It flowed smoothly and easily.

As a critique I would say that there needs to be better guidance for the players during the initial creation phase to help if they get stuck – the NPC gimmick and finisher tables are useful, but could be better tailored for this purpose. The pre and post match scenes are a little too similar and should have better demarcated points of uniqueness. There also needs to be a mechanic for linking subsequent match cards including rules to aid with the use of the GM to mess with the wrestlers and the commentary needs to be officially turned over to the players while different match types should have some optional special rules (e.g. in a cage match anyone who draws a face card takes a point of sellage in addition to the normal rules reflecting a collision with the metal) and finally, the actual wrestling itself needs another phase. The idea of drawing a hand then having an option to fold is nice. There should also be a chance to ‘raise’ drawing on the poker theme, to increase the tension and allow for the players to engage better, and more strategically, with the fight.

Round Two – Dread (D&D scenario)

I was actually ‘volunteered’ for this game by Alasdair, but I had been wanting to try Dread for ages, so was interested to see how it runs. Paul was offering a D&D version of Dread so I thought I might as well give it a shot.

The Game: I’m not a huge dungeon crawl fan so found motivation for this game a little tough, compounded by the need to fill in a questionnaire at the beginning of the game. However, my fellow players, and their characters were fairly motivational, so I created Old Ali a wizened demon worshipping wizard and together we ventured into the depths of the Dragon God’s dungeon and slew the beast with the loss of two of our number (including Old Ali). The game was solid and finished with an hour to spare, so Paul broke out Fiasco. I opted to wander off for a coffee and catch up with some folks instead, resulting in some interesting discussions about the nature of horror games at ‘cons.

The System: The Jenga Tower is a strong idea, and it does a remarkable job of increasing the tension. My main criticism is that the method of engagement with the tower encourages players to not engage with the scenario - if taking actions forces me to draw from the tower and imperils my character - then I’ll try and find ways to avoid taking action directly or even simply avoid engagement with the scenario. Now, obviously it is desirable that players do not play this way, but the reality is that some do, and any game that relies on ‘like minded players’ has an inherent weakness. My view is that any system should actively support the player’s engagement with the game, and be aligned with the aims of the scenario – Dread seems to fail this test to some extent. I also don’t like the character questionnaire used to help shape the character. I appreciate the technique and I like what it is trying to accomplish, but I personally think such a crude device to accomplish these aims alienates and excludes a segment of gamers who don’t like to be put on the spot, or don’t engage well with written material in a ‘con setting.

Round Three – Fiasco (London Underworld Setting)

Fiasco is another game I’ve wanted to try for ages. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Fiasco of late, so although I was a little disappointed I couldn’t get sufficient wrestlers for another run of P&P, I was happy to join Mike’s game of Fiasco.

The Game: I pushed for the London Underworld setting as I love Guy Ritchie’s irreverent movies of this genre. Fortunately I was persuasive and we began the setup phase of the game. It turned out that I was playing ‘Fancy’ Frank Farley an ex-con who had a frankfurter stand, was trying to scam a cat welfare lady and had a shared love interest with Alasdair’s character. So began our caper, which was enormous fun and had me in stitches through most of the game. Having involved any number of underworld factions I thought our game was pretty wild – until, that is, we had a visit from the crew of Jenni’s ‘clothes optional' Harry Potter Fiasco game. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable time, and although things didn’t work out too well for ‘Fancy’ Frank, I had a blast.

The System: The genius of Fiasco is clearly adding structure, in a fairly traditional way, to the beginning and ending of the game. The creators seem to have cleverly identified that these areas are often the most important, and by helping to shape them while also allowing a degree of player autonomy, it makes the prospect of the game falling flat, or lacking motivation, much reduced. I’m not really sure about how the dice are allocated during the game, we pretty much ran with a story (okay, I might have occasionally hijacked the story in places) and the formal structure of the set-up or resolve mechanic seemed unnecessary given we were all on the same page. I suppose, however, that if players are less together on what they’d like to have happen this might be a bigger factor. As a newbie to the game I found the complexity and sheer volume of dice a little overwhelming, and I think that a strongly systems-focussed player might have struggled to ‘trust’ the game sufficiently to allow it to progress smoothly. On subsequent play, however, this seems unlikely to remain an issue.

So, a fun day with some really enjoyable games. My thanks to Sophie for organising a great Day of Games.

Fast and Furious

2011-04-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d post a couple of thoughts of my views on running action sequences in a game. I think action can be a powerful tool, and a great way to bond PC’s and pump out some intense collaborative material which can really help to flavour the characters. I’ve seen combat run in a protracted way, like a wargame, and I’ve seen it run as a fully adversarial experience – I think both extremes are missed opportunities, so here are my tips on how to give the action sequence the kind of punch it needs.

1. Fast, fast, fast. Most fights in roleplaying games take place in seconds, so it’s important to try and convey the frantic intensity of this experience. Stay standing while you run action, even move around a little to get the blood pumping. Use an initiative track so you can hurry from player to player and urge the players to make decisions as quickly as possible to emphasise brevity.

2. Describe, repeat, then take another angle. For some reason I’ve found that 3 is the magic number of times it takes for people to strongly visualise an action sequence. Take this example from my recent Masks game:

Player 1:” I strike the cultist for 7 points of damage with my sword.”
GM to player 1: “The cultist turns to run, then you ram the sword through his back as he’s in the doorway and kill him”
GM, to player 2: “You reach the doorway and are confronted by a frantic looking man, suddenly the glinting end of a blade appears in the centre of his chest and you are showered in gore.”
GM to everyone: “Down the corridor a woman has her key out to unlock her door, holding a bag of groceries. At the sound of the commotion, she looks down the corridor and sees the cultist impaled on a sword – for a moment her eyes meet the eyes of [player 2’s character] whose face is now covered in blood, then she screams and drops her groceries.”

You don’t need to use this technique for every action, but it will help for major or significant actions within the combat, and reduce the chance that players haven’t understood or heard what has happened.

3. Emphasise the gore. Violence is terrible and has consequences. Be ready to describe horrific injuries and their impact on NPC’s or even PC’s. Making the hit point loss into a tangible injury helps to emphasise the reality, and the stakes for the PC’s and also helps to de-glorify combat. If you’re not used to this sort of thing consider importing a simplified critical table from another game system.

4. Make sure the PC’s know you’re on their side, then root for the bad guys. This is a neat adversarial technique, which can help bond a group. Simply put, the players need to trust you not to actually be trying to kill their characters – if there is some doubt emphasise that the bad guys are surprised, inefficient or otherwise human -they are not tools of the GM but other characters, just as fallible as the PC’s. Then root for them. Act disappointed every time they miss, celebrate when they hit. It is a little confrontational, but in my experience the players usually get into the spirit of things rapidly – just so long as they trust you won’t skew the results in your favour. Another good technique is to roll everything in the open, ideally telling the players beforehand what the chance of a hit is.

5. Don’t let the fight get away on you. Ideally nothing should happen in the combat that you aren’t ready for. If you’re rolling in the open, then you should have some plan about what happens if you are very lucky, or the PC’s aren’t. Character death should (in my opinion) always be on the table, but a smart GM makes sure that the likelihood of such an outcome is both considered, and prepared for before rolling the dice.

Year's Best

2011-04-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

Back in late 2009, I was invited to submit a short story for "A Foreign Country" a collection of speculative fiction by Random Static Press which was published last year. I hadn't written a short story since high-school, but I'm always up for a challenge, particularly if solicited directly, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm pleased to say my piece -Night Shift - has subsequently been included in 'The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010' anthology by Ticenderoga Publications. Their press release follows below:

"Ticonderoga Publications is walking on sunshine to announce the contents for its inaugural Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror anthology. Editors Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene have produced a list of 33 excellent tales by some of Australia's biggest names as well as some emerging writers. The anthology collects 150,000 words of the best stories published last year from the Antipodes.

"We're pleased with the number of fabulous stories that were published in 2010 that we had to choose from,” Liz Grzyb said.

"You could hold this anthology up against any international collection - Australians rock for diverse voices, imagination, and compelling writing," Talie Helene added.

The stories are (alphabetically by writer):

RJ Astruc: "Johnny and Babushka"

Peter M Ball: "L'esprit de L'escalier"

Alan Baxter: "The King's Accord"

Jenny Blackford: "Mirror"

Gitte Christensen: "A Sweet Story"

Matthew Chrulew: "Schubert By Candlelight"

Bill Congreve: "Ghia Likes Food"

Rjurik Davidson: "Lovers In Caeli-Amur"

Felicity Dowker: "After the Jump"

Dale Elvy: "Night Shift"

Jason Fischer: "The School Bus"

Dirk Flinthart: "Walker"

Bob Franklin: "Children's Story"

Christopher Green: "Where We Go To Be Made Lighter"

Paul Haines: "High Tide At Hot Water Beach"

Lisa L. Hannett: "Soil From My Fingers"

Stephen Irwin: "Hive"

Gary Kemble: "Feast Or Famine"

Pete Kempshall: "Brave Face"

Tessa Kum: "Acception"

Martin Livings: "Home"

Maxine McArthur: "A Pearling Tale"

Kirstyn McDermott: "She Said"

Andrew McKiernan: "The Memory Of Water"

Ben Peek: "White Crocodile Jazz"

Simon Petrie: "Dark Rendezvous"

Lezli Robyn: "Anne-droid of Green Gables"

Angela Rega: "Slow Cookin' "

Angela Slatter: "The Bone Mother"

Angela Slatter & Lisa L Hannett: "The February Dragon"

Grant Stone: "Wood"

Kaaron Warren: "That Girl"

Janeen Webb: "Manifest Destiny"

In addition to the above incredible tales, the volume will include a review of 2010 and a list of recommended stories. The anthology is scheduled for publication in June 2011. The anthology will be available in hardcover, ebook and trade editions and may be pre-ordered at indie books online."

Campaign Stakes

2011-04-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

Campaigns are tricky things. If you want a strong plot, or focus on investigation – whether that be investigating a murder, or exploring a dungeon environment – the question of character motivation is likely to arise. Often, due to the nature of organising a campaign, not enough attention is applied by the GM in communicating the kind of game they want to run in advance, and this can lead PC ‘motivation’ problems down the track.

What I have observed is that without this level of meta-communication, once the campaign has begun the players believe that the character perspectives are what should drive the action, and are often unwilling to commit to anything offline until the proposition is put to them 'in character' and usually - unless someone is really willing to try and bend others to their will - this inevitably results in half baked participation or limited agreement to any given point. Simply put: why should the characters risk anything (their lives, reputations or relationships) without a very good reason?

The problem is that the reasons that the GM thinks are good (it’s supposed to be a game about mystery/adventuring), are not sufficient to satisfy the players. Many games have an overriding assumption that the PC’s will want to participate in a dangerous activity, such as exploring a haunted house, or delving into a dungeon, but if the players have invested effort in their characters to make them seem more ‘real’ and have genuine aims and relationships with the world – such an action, not well justified to the character, may shatter a players perception of game reality. Meanwhile, on the other side of the table the GM is confused because the players seem to be refusing to engage in the core activity of the game (exploring mysteries/dungeons etc.).

My solution? Character buy-in is developed through in-game stakes. Characters need to begin with, or to have developed stakes in the game world, which they use to drive ambitions and aims, which in turn, levers participation in scenarios. Character developed stakes are critical to establishing the character, and taking the pressure off the GM to be responsible for everything. The GM has to allow the players to develop in-game stakes, and allow these stakes to be a partial focus of the game – then use these stakes, without destroying or co-opting them, to become the motivation for participation in the central plot the GM wants to explore. In other words, the GM is essentially ‘sharing’ the central plot of the game with the characters, which serves the dual purpose of allowing greater PC buy-in, and sharing responsibility for a fun game amongst the group.

Or, the GM needs to be up-front that the campaign requires the kind of characters that the players might see as ‘unrealistic’ or one dimensional and seek to develop some shared fun from this premise. If the game is about action and risk-taking, bring in the movie tropes, and use cinematic techniques to bring this to life for the players.

I’ve adopted the first approach with Kingsport Tales, allowing for detailed characters with developed back-stories that fuel their involvement in the Mythos, and used the second approach for Masks of Nyarlathotep Pulp Edition, highlighting that the game is a James Bond style action extravaganza. So far both games are delivering different, but equally good, levels of fun.

Call of Cthulhu

2011-03-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Call of Cthulhu is one of my favourite RPG’s of all time. For me it hits the right balance between horror and suspense, between character focus and realism, system simplicity and enough crunch to be satisfying. But even I have to admit –the grim reputation of the game aside – the anatomy of a standard Call of Cthulhu adventure leaves much to be desired.

The adventure normally starts with a hook, often these are derivative or poorly thought out. There is an underlying assumption that the PC’s will choose to investigate a mystery despite their better judgement. Modern scenarios make better use of in media res to lever the action, but the difficulty remains - if you let players generate their own characters, how do you involve them without either railroading, or shattering player reality? Why do these characters continue to work together? There is a fine balance between the collective suspension of disbelief, and getting a viable group of characters to work together.

Next, the investigation phase. Old-School investigation games are like contrived intelligence tests. The players must ‘investigate’ following clues to get closer to the source of the mystery. If they don’t think of something, then they may miss out on a vital clue, and thus either get stalled, or be unprepared for the final scene. Often scenarios incorporate author assumptions that are flat-out unrealistic or unlikely, making further work for the GM. Options do exist in the game for the GM to prompt action, but these may well spoil the GM’s sense of reality. In addition, the ultimate result of such investigation hinges on some kind of successful skill test – a mechanical and luck driven intervention – in order to secure the information.

Obviously it’s in the GM’s interests for the PC’s to obtain the clues they need, but if such clues are made readily available, you once again risk the shared collective suspension of disbelief. Games like Trail of Cthulhu have highlighted this problem and made strong inroads on this aspect of the game, but the fact remains that making the investigation phase both challenging and rewarding without being boring or contrived requires considerable experience and skill and a high degree of flexibility on the part of the GM.

Finally, the conclusion – usually a confrontation with some action and probably some kind of strange monster. Again, the plausible ‘excuses’ the characters might have for venturing into the basement/secret chamber/old warehouse, and risking life and limb are probably thin at best. Considering the brutal nature of combat, and the imperviousness of many Mythos beasts, and the potential for losing a character to sudden temporary insanity - it’s likely to be a sticky end for some or all of the characters. If run straight, such a conclusion might be disheartening, un-empowering and feel like the work leading up to the climax was a waste of time. An experienced GM can work to make such a conclusion exciting, dangerous and meaningful, but I’ve come to realise that you’ve really got to have experienced Call of Cthulhu as a player first, in order to understand this fine balance.

And then, inevitably, the debrief – what was really going on? Why was it occurring and what could the investigators have done about it? Often frustrating, and an aspect of the game that really reinforces the old-school values of Cthulhu – the players encountered the plot, like some kind of giant, fast moving river, and were rapidly swept to the end, without really understanding what was happening or why. Sometimes these revelations are illuminating, but I always feel that they’d be so much better if they could be drawn out during the game, rather than afterwards.

I don’t want you to think I’m picking on Call of Cthulhu – many other games suffer from these kinds of issues, but what I conclude from this analysis is that most Call of Cthulhu games, if run as written, leave a lot to be desired, and have the potential to actually spoil the enjoyment of the players. To shape the adventure into the flexible and adaptive form it needs to be in order to negate such issues, requires a considerable degree of experience and skill. I guess, for my money, the problem is that this kind of consideration and discussion is not something that forms a core part of the game, and is certainly not an aspect of most published adventures.

One Year Old Today

2011-03-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today TPK turns one!

Over the last 12 months 45 posts have been made here including reviews of games, actual play reports, ‘con reports, promoting published materials and my own musings on the nature of gaming, and how it can be improved. A total of 178 comments have been made to challenge, support, edify or inform these posts. Thanks to everyone who has been a part of the discussion, or even just idly skimmed the material.

The most viewed post? Oddly, One Night as A SuperVillain – Part 2, weighing in at 147 views, with Kapcon 20 - Part 2 the runner up with 107 views. In total so far TPK has had around 3,500 page views.

My favourite posts have been those about the nature of gaming, particularly in a 'con setting:

Ante Up

Out of the Box

The Art of the Pitch
Player Activation

The GM Toolkit

So looking ahead, what for the next 12 months? Well it’d be a brave person to predict this blog will continue at the same pace, but my gaming goals for the next year are:

- Continue to run my Kingsport Tales campaign.
- Run Masks of Nyarlathotep – Pulp Edition.
- Run a Rogue Trader mini-series.
- Run a Superhero mini-series.
- Attend upcoming Wellington tabletop roleplaying conventions.
- Write and publish EPOCH
- Write and submit a scenario for Fear Itself
- Write and submit another scenario for ICONS
- Write and submit a monograph or scenario for Call of Cthulhu

What about you?

Be A Hero

2011-03-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

Last week I wrote an adventure for ICONS – Adamant Entertainment’s Superhero Roleplaying system. This wasn’t something I’d planned, or even considered, before doing it - I’ve played just one ICONS adventure, and never written up a supers adventure before. However, during the e-mails about setting up the RPGNow Bundle, Gareth-Michael Skarka suggested that we produce a “Be a Hero” New Zealand ICONS adventure with proceeds going to Christchurch earthquake relief – an idea I thought was fantastic!

On Wednesday the 23rd I visited Morgue for a brainstorming session, and left his place with a draft outline. We wanted something over the top (4-colour) which dealt with New Zealand in a way that was authentic and respectful, and also fitted within the genre. The feedback from Gareth was that our draft outline was a little ambitious for the time available. So, on Thursday I sat down and wrote the first draft, condensing the action to a single region and two scenes. Morgue kicked into high-gear on Friday fleshing out the characters and providing system details, then it was on to Cam for editing and the Adamant team for art and layout.

Our finished product, The Aotearoa Gambit is now available from RPGNow and DriveThruRpg, with all proceeds going to real New Zealand heroes who were in the thick of the Christchurch Earthquake response – St. John’s. Thanks to Morgue, Cam Banks, Dan Houser and Gareth-Michael Skarka for making this happen.

BE A HERO
Adamant Entertainment is proud to present an adventure for ICONS: Superpowered Roleplaying produced especially as a charity fundraiser for St. John New Zealand.

St. John New Zealand are volunteer first responders and health care providers, currently operating the remaining welfare centre currently operating in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake. This 25-page ICONS adventure was written and edited by New Zealanders Dale Elvy, Morgan Davie and Cam Banks, who join Adamant Entertainment in donating all proceeds from this product, in perpetuity, to St John New Zealand.

The Aotearoa Gambit is a fast-paced adventure which takes place in New Zealand (Aotearoa) and after some initial scene setting, presents the players with 3 possible encounters, which they can choose to resolve in any order. Each encounter is structured to have possible alternate solutions, other than brute force, and also to increase in difficulty if not resolved immediately, making some tough choices for the heroes. These encounters should ultimately lead to a final scene which features a showdown with the main villain – an encounter which will determine the fate of an entire nation!

Thank You

2011-03-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

The RPGNow and DriveThruRPG Earthquake Relief bundle to support the New Zealand Red Cross raised US$46,125, buying just over NZ$60,000! This is a spectacular and special thing for our community of imagineers. Although Morgue has downplayed his role, I think he deserves a special vote of thanks for helping to organise this, as do Gregor Hutton, Malcolm Craig, Paul at Contested Ground Studios and Gareth-Michael Skarka. The willingness to help and goodwill on display during the e-mails to get this up and running, was humbling.

Most of all I'd like to pay tribute to all the publishers that helped make this happen - especially Kiwi publishers like Jenni and Red-Brick. Finally, this entire effort is due to the amazing efforts of Matt McElroy at Onebookshelf.com, and of course, eveyone who purchased the bundle.

Gareth, Morgue and I have been working on another RPG effort to support some of the first responders to the Christchurch earthquake - more about that soon.

Christchurch Red Cross Earthquake Relief - RPG Bundle

2011-02-23T12:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the efforts of Matt at RPGNow, Morgue, and others you can now buy a bundle of RPG products for US$20 to support the Red Cross earthquake relief effort in Christchurch. A number of NZ writers have contributed their products for this worthy cause - please buy this bundle and add your support.

The GM Toolkit

2011-02-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about player activation, the idea that GM’s often need to do more in a ‘con game to ‘activate’ their players, in order to bring about more engagement and improve the overall game experience for everyone. That’s all well and good – but how do you actually do it?

I should clarify that when I talk about activation, I’m talking about players who would like to engage with a game more fully, but don’t for whatever reason. Not player’s who deliberately obstruct, challenge or proactively frustrate the GM – this I call ‘blocking’ and is an entirely different dynamic and has an entirely different solution, in my opinion.

Luke suggests 3 possible options; have fun, make friends with your players, love your PC’s. I think these are all good suggestions, and are techniques I use often. My note of caution about such methods comes from two sources - first, it’s sometimes hard to start a game with this level of enthusiasm (unless you’re Luke), and round one, after a late night, such an approach may not be sustainable. You sometimes need to build the fun slowly and draw off the energy of the other players. Secondly, by the GM taking such an active role, often you carry the game on your shoulders, meaning if your energy ebbs, so does the game, and it’s hard to know (while you’re doing it) whether players are actively engaging, or just being carried along for the ride. Ultimately, they may not find it as much fun as you do because they feel their agency has been diminished.

Here are some of my suggestions; I’d be very interested in hearing your own thoughts and opinions:

1. Be open about what you want and what you’re trying to achieve. Do this before the game (and preferably in the blurb) to be clear about your expectations and the kind of game you want to run.

2. Communicate the style, and provide some tools for player narration by using film techniques – describe the opening scenes as a director might (a dusty road, the camera pans up to windswept tussock and a clear blue sky, in the distance a man is trudging wearily toward the camera...). Tapping into such common ground should empower the player to use similar descriptive elements, even if they've never GM'd before.

3. Have pre-generated characters that support this. I found that providing some very basic detail, drawing on well established tropes and clichés, while leaving much of the rest to the player allowed for creative freedom, while not throwing the player in at the deep end. Give them something to build on, but too much detail often feels like a straightjacket.

4. Encourage individual scene framing. This adds to the idea that the players have a strong level of autonomy of their own character. You must help facilitate the scene, but if you start with some detailed description –then encourage the player to add some detail about their character indirectly at first (I like to use the opening sequence of the movie Sahara – the camera is panning over a desk, what’s on it? Is it neat or messy? What kind of pictures on the wall? etc.), then go back to the description – then more character detail, then start to force some decisions. A telephone rings – who is calling? A pizza is delivered, what sort of pizza? Did the character order it, or is it a mistake? A collector approaches the character in the streets, how do they react? Each choice helps the player solidify the character in their mind. Ideally each of these early interactions should involve NPC’s who are subservient to the character, minor parts in the movie, so the PC is clearly the focus and has the authority in each case.

5. Be sure to allow time for the player to process each of these elements. Not everybody grasps things in the same way and we all process information differently. If you communicate the idea that the players need to help frame a scene – talk about something else for a bit – and allow them time to think about it, and form ideas. People will feel less put on the spot. Last week in Australia I ran a game, communicated this idea, and before running the character intro scenes one of the players had time to make some notes, which actually led to a much more powerful, meaningful scene.

6. Kill the system. At this early stage the system just gets in the way. Players will often like to engage with mechanics, so they can optimize their play, prepare for challenges and get the best results. Unless this is the kind of game you want (see point 1 about being open) this is just going to lead to questions, and tie up player attention with mechanical crunch, which is likely to distract from the detail necessary to build a stronger character bond. I think we need system, but we need it to support this style of game, not detract from it. This is part of a deeper discussion about the kind of system we need for this kind of game.

Player Activation

2011-02-07T14:04:00.000-08:00

Following some discussions of players and their impact on ‘con games with Mash, I was struck by Grandexperiment’s claim that he’d “never had a bad player experience at a Kapcon”. Clearly he and I may have different expectations and ideas about what makes a ‘bad’ experience, however, in the past I’ve certainly been guilty of blaming players when a session has felt flat or uninspired. As I work through some of the ideas around EPOCH I realise that player engagement must be a critical element of any successful horror game – the question is, what are the tools a GM needs to have readily available to help make this happen?

A brief detour back to 2009 when I ran a game at a university games day in Canberra. The roleplaying club needed to get a certain number of student members in order to qualify for funding for the year, so they has advertised widely and were offering a free pizza lunch as an incentive. I had decided to run a M&M supers scenario (the Proteus Plot) with my own mechanic for character creation which involved a degree of assisted narrative control; principally this allowed the players to tailor their own superhero characters and have shared authority over their ‘super team’ (I tried this again at Confusion 8). In this game I had 3 players who had never played a roleplaying game before - ever. They were there for the pizza. And yet these folks jumped into the shared narrative process. With a little prompting and scene setting from me, they deftly crafted characters, NPC’s and back stories, some better than the experienced roleplayers at the table. In fact, after the game got underway I forgot they were rookies until they tried to use narrative control to favourably influence the system mechanics for their characters.

What I took out of this experience was that, with the right tools and setup, people – irrespective of their experience - naturally engage with characters in a way that we’ve come to think of as ‘good’ play. So why, then, do we sometimes feel a convention game falls flat?

In a one-shot 3 hour roleplaying game, neither the premise nor the pre-generated characters are likely to create deliver a strong empathetic bond with a player. Compounded by the absurdity of the game premise, camouflaged by a system that restricts player interface in the interests of 'balance' and loaded with social inhibitors about expressing yourself before strangers; it's no surprise that some games become periods of tedium punctuated by occasional humour or farce at the expense of atmosphere.

I now believe that what we have to do is 'facilitate' the game in such a way that players can’t help but be 'activated'. That means we actually have to find ways to engage with them that allow them to feel comfortable - and for some people that's not going to be easy. If we keep a strong GM fiat, rules focus or adversarial approach, players have to decide to risk something in order to engage fully with the game, and many just won't. Because for some people a mediocre or even a crappy game is better than no game at all.

New Zealand RPG's Represent!

2011-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

Just taking a moment to celebrate some of the fine New Zealand roleplaying games that have recently been published. First up The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon by Jenni in which four players play teenage best friends. Two human, two supernatural…somethings. One human falls in love with one supernatural and it’s basically a hilarious emo pastiche of Twilight and similar books/movies/TV shows. Buy it from Lulu here.

Next up is Al Shir-Ma, A 66 player LARP co-authored by yours truly. Al Shir-Ma is a Live Roleplaying scenario set in a fantasy world loosely based on the 1001 Arabian Nights. The players take the roles of important people in the town, the court, leading merchants, prominent townsfolk, and assorted visitors and travellers. There are strong threads of political intrigue, magic, romance, duplicity and revenge running throughout the game. Available from RPGNow, drop me a line if you'd like a review copy.
Here's a scenario I can highly recommend having had a really great time play-testing it for the Morgue. A diabolical contest is underway, and the unwitting heroes are all that stand between the villains and the ultimate prize! Can the heroes withstand being drawn into … The Mastermind Affair? Written for the highly entertaining ICONS supers system and availble now at RPGNow. Then it's on to The Black Hart of Camelot by Ryan Paddy which is a live roleplaying scenario for 24 players set in the legendary age of King Arthur, bringing together the lords and ladies of the tales for a gathering that will shape the fate of the Kingdom of Britain. Get it from RPG Now.
Finally, you have to check out Monophobia. Almost a decade in development, Monophobia is a collection of Call of Cthulhu adventures for lone Investigators (and a willing Keeper). Written by Mark Chiddicks and Marcus Bone, two veteran Call of Cthulhu Keepers. Get it from the Unbound Book now.
So get out there and support some great Kiwi titles!

Al Shir-Ma

2011-01-28T00:30:00.000-08:00

In 2010 co-wrote the Kapcon LARP, Al Shir-Ma with two remarkable, talented, writers. How can I summarise 8 months of hard work, thousands of e-mails, dozens of meetings, all leading up to a 3-hour game on one Saturday evening in January? I’m not sure there’s anything that I could say that would do the experience justice. So I’ll make some general remarks instead.

I was pretty nervous going into writing this LARP. I had only ever played one Kapcon LARP, Breakout Day, 10 years ago and wasn’t really a huge fan of live action games. However, with Sophie and Ellen on board I soon became increasingly confident that we could deliver something of quality for Kapcon.

I had started with a survey (no surprises there) to check the assumptions underpinning Kapcon’s LARP. People were pretty strong on factions and complex social plots, which was no surprise, but what was of interest was that just under half of respondents believed they had not had adequate participation in the major or important plot at past Kapcon’s. There was also some support for a strategic component to plot or scheme over.

I also talked to a few wise heads from the past, and picked their brains about what makes a good game, which included advice about the writing process, staging, and generally making things go smoothly.

We had our first LARP meeting on the 13th of March 2010, in a car-park, and that was when we decided that we wanted to have a whole faction of people ‘return’ to the game, a major plot which featured a dozen characters, and which would impact a majority of the other characters.

Over the months the game took shape. Ideas became factions, factions became index cards, and index cards became characters. I think our overriding aim was to create characters which would be interesting, fit within the context of the Arabian Nights, but defy stereotypes as much as possible. To that end, we didn’t write any ‘evil’ characters. We wrote plenty who were flawed, selfish and arrogant, but we didn’t want anything that was absolute; The Vizier was (contrary to genre) a good man trying to do what was best for the town, Sinbad was a blowhard whose death and salvation walked beside him, the Djinni were a people wronged - asked to save the people who had banished them.

Early on I had wanted the water crisis to form an element of a grand strategy (complete with maps and boards) but we eventually abandoned this idea in favour of a political conflict around water, and another around the succession. Given how busy people were with the return of the Djinni, and everything else they had going on, I think this was probably the right decision. We also wanted people to find their own solutions to the characters dilemmas. I didn’t want anyone to feel like they were being led to an answer – the accomplishment of goals had to be as player driven as possible, even when players had opposing goals.

I’d just like to briefly pay tribute to the other writers. Sophie had a strong vision for the Djinni from the beginning – they became her children, and I think she can feel proud of the richness of the game, the depth of character relationships, and much of the drama that made the game so good. Ellen was a writing machine, she hit the ground running, and brought the Court and the town to life, effortlessly spinning a web of romance, intrigue and conflict which was the backbone of much of the town. And some of our best work was all of us writing together – a team effort.

We also had enormous support to dress the set from talented, passionate LARP’ers. Thanks to these folks the town, fountain, court and caravan sarai grew from shadowy ideas an impressive, tangible reality. I really think it speaks highly of the Wellington gaming community that there are people who are both passionate and generous with their time and resources, willing to spend effort to help make a game great for everyone.

The leadup to the game, and the night itself were a blur for me. There were so many small things to do. So many ideas that we’d put aside as easy tasks to be completed later, which suddenly were needed yesterday. The setup was suddenly on us, then the ‘con itself. And yet I was confident that the game would be great, because I knew how solid a product we’d constructed. And I think it delivered, although I saw perhaps only a tenth of proceedings, as I checked people in, snapped pictures, answered questions and led people to the afterlife.

Not to leave you with the impression it was all a smooth ride. We didn’t always agree (although we always worked it through). Real life concerns were a factor for us all at one point or another – but that tends to happen when you spend a significant period of time on one project, and we copped some flak about some of our casting decisions.

But, all things considered, it was well worth it. For me, writing the LARP was chaotic, stressful, time consuming and utterly fantastic. I wish the Kapcon 21 team well.

Copies of Al Shir-Ma will be available next week.

Kapcon 20 - Part 2

2011-01-25T04:12:00.000-08:00

Because I have a bit to say about the LARP, I think I’ll leave that to the next post. So, continuing my Kapcon adventures on Sunday:

Round 4
I was running ‘The Thursday Crisis’ the fourth instalment of my ‘Council of Champions’ superhero games. This series is one of my all-time favourite things to run, and I knew that I had 3 strong players (Norm, Jenni and Nick) to reprise their respective roles from previous adventures, so I was confident that it would be a lot of fun. However, round 4 can be difficult. Many people are sleepy or tired from the LARP, and my third instalment of the series hadn’t been a smash-hit (I call it my ‘Batman and Robin’ installment) so there was a little anxiety. I also hadn’t had quite enough time to prep, so I had to swap out systems at the last minute and re-use old character sheets (as the LARP ate my last ream of paper). To cap matters off one player was sick, but I wasn’t told that until I went looking for them at the admin desk.

I needn’t have worried. I ‘borrowed’ Nasia from the desk to make up the numbers and got my players jumping around (literally) before hitting them with a Jerry Springer style talk show opening. It was great fun, and had me in fits of laughter as per usual, and was the highlight of the ’con for me (outside the LARP). All the players did a terrific job, and I really felt that the game brought it – for everyone. Oddly, when this series of games go well the players applaud at the end (it happened when I ran the first instalment in Canberra last year as well) so you know that people had a good time. Awesome fun

Round 5
Due to a scheduling error not only did I not get my first or second round choices, I wasn’t allocated to any game for round 5. It turned out I wasn’t the only one, and so I took the opportunity to jump into the game I would have signed up for in round 1 if I wasn’t otherwise busy, Purgatory 13 – Descent to Abraxus. I’ve co-Gm’ed with Zak before and I know how he rolls, so I was fairly sure it’d be a good time. I also managed to form a posse with some other good folks with mad skillz to come and join the fun; Sophie, Luke and Morgue.

Three words sum up this game: Old School Mayhem.

The GM’s challenged us at the beginning. They had killed 44 PC’s and were aiming to achieve 100 kills for the ‘con. Then they made me a team captain. Awesome. I picked an elite squad and we got down to business. It took a while for my first character to die, as I really played up her humility trait, but after that it was time to buckle up and enjoy the ride. There were so many insane, and memorable moments – The soccer hooligans, the cannibals, Danny my nailgun killer, having lots of characters get shot in the head by Sophie’s characters with the same gun. It was a great time and it really helped blow the cobwebs out.

I burnt through a lot of characters, trying to put a unique spin on each where possible (it wasn’t always possible) but still, the character sheets flowed. After we were done, and the dust had settled, we’d accounted for a total of 81 character deaths (Danny took out 10 all by himself until Zak dropped a lift on him) giving them a total of 125 character deaths for the ‘con. It was like a roller coaster ride, and if I’d had the energy, I’d have gone again!

Round 6
After that, I was pretty tapped for energy, but I managed to get down and help with the LARP pack-up. Once again, big thanks are due to the folks who helped out. That wiped me out and after a few last snatched conversations, I headed home, satisfied that Kapcon had delivered another great instalment.

Kapcon 20 - Part 1

2011-01-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

Friday
Kapcon began for me on Friday morning with the LARP setup. Sophie led the charge, arriving at 8:30am and worked like a machine all day to help get things set up which was pretty impressive all by itself. We were ably aided by several others, and the end result was far better than I had imagined possible. I hadn’t really helped out at a Kapcon setup before, and I think the effort helped me realise that there’s a fair amount of work to get through (even just setting up the ‘con, let alone the LARP) so I’ve resolved to do more to help next year if possible.

Then it was on to the drinks. I caught up with some folks, and then, after I’d had a few, Marcus cornered Mash and I with an audio recorder to talk about Fright Night. We were joined, at various intervals, by other gaming luminaries and other interested bystanders, so It’s quite likely a lot of what I said was complete twaddle, but I distantly recall some interesting conversation about the nature of horror gaming and its audience.

Then it was back home to do more prep for my round 1 game, which I felt woefully unready for, and the LARP, which I did not.

Round 1
For round 1 I was running ‘Calling the King’ the second part of the Curse of the Yellow Sign series by John Wick. I had offered it in February 2010 because Idiot had been talking enthusiastically about wanting to play it (he didn’t play) and I had specified to Kapcon that I needed a 50:50 gender split in players to run the game, which didn’t happen either. To be clear I have seen some great gender-bending character play, it was just that this scenario had a character driven, highly emotional setup, and I felt it was necessary to match the gender of players to characters to do the game justice.

So I had a choice of pulling the game, or trying to re-write it. I chose the later and tried to re-write the characters to fit a new story, but badly overestimated my available time. I used similar gimmicks to those suggested by the scenario, which involved handing a fair bit of control over to the players. Given my relative lack of prep I was hoping to compensate with a little atmosphere and description. My plans to darken the room were thwarted, however, by a glass wall and the rambunctious noise of the game next door somewhat overshadowed proceedings.

Nevertheless, I thought the game was reasonably solid, although not fantastic. It certainly did a fair job of capturing the feel of ‘House on Haunted Hill’ and the players were very good about taking ownership of their characters and some narrative duties both before and after death. I suspect Mash- who played Simon Carter may have expected more from the game (and not unreasonably so given the talk on this blog over the last 12 months) and I’ll await his conclusions with interest.

Round 2
I had signed up for Marcus’ Si...gn...al using the Fear Itself system. I was cast as Adam the not-too-bright mechanic who was ‘horny’ most of the time. Liam, who was cast as his older woman love interest spent most of the game being pissed off at him, and Adam’s Joey-esque antics did not go down well with the rest of the PC campers either. Good times.

Danger in one setting was replaced with even more danger in another, although neither I nor Liam could justify ‘arming up’ to seek out the danger like the other PC’s, and so poor Adam met his end when he finally thought he’d gotten some quality time with his woman, but got the business end of a screwdriver instead. I liked the setup and way the characters were built, although I think I'd ultimately have liked more NPC interactions and normality before things got crazy. A solid game.

Round 3
I signed up to play Siege Mentality II with Idiot, because like Sophie, the idea of a game which could end anytime we left the room appealed from a pre-LARP point of view. It was actually a great time, despite the simplicity of the setup. I was playing Red, the nurse and Christian who valued all human life and was concerned for the welfare of his soul if he became a zombie. Red’s only trigger was an anger he felt toward those who he saw as parasites. He also had drawn the ‘true survivor’ ability which meant if he were forced out into the zombies he would actually survive and lead the others to think it was safe, but he did not know this ‘in character’.

Accordingly I decided that Red would view the room as a new Ark and he worked hard to calm tensions so everyone would make it through the storm. Sophie deserves a special mention for playing Bull the trucker with an explosive temper who was fairly terrifying. I suggested all manner of things from naps, to charades and even Christian roleplaying to pass the time. I identified the trouble-makers and tried to give them something to focus on to help diffuse tensions. We still lost people, but because Red was an expert marksman (also drawn at random), was the only one left with medical skills, and tried to be very friendly, he was not really targeted for eviction.

It wasn’t until we almost reached the two hour mark that Red’s temper was provoked, and his notion of the Ark shattered, by being man-handled, a suicide, and the attempted escape of the claustrophobic. Then he flipped out and tried to get rid of the ‘parasite’ (who was helpless and crying) only to be subdued and restrained until the end of the game. It was an interesting game, and a good amount of fun, although I wonder if the GM having more levers to amplify the tension, or even an NPC might not have tweaked things a little.

To be continued....

A Break in the Weather

2011-01-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

There’s been a little bit of a gap in transmission here for several reasons:

1. Real world pressures getting more real.
2. The sudden death of my laptop its hard drive.
3. The holiday season
4. Kapcon prep

Needless to say, among the things I lost on my laptop was a post which talked more thoroughly about my gaming in 2010. Rather than try and recreate it, I’ll simply touch on the key conclusion. 2010 was a year where I met and gamed with lots of folks I had never met before, and I learned a lot, and found it a hugely rich and rewarding time. Not every game I played or ran fired perfectly, but overall there were a huge number of great games that I participated in during the year, and some new friendships made that serve to remind me of the great benefits of this hobby – bringing folks together for a creative enterprise.

Stay tuned for my Kapcon 20 report...

A Roleplaying Year in Review - Kingsport Tales

2010-12-09T03:49:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the final session of my Kingsport Tales campaign for 2010. Kingsport Tales is an ongoing fortnightly, character driven, 1920’s Call of Cthulhu campaign set in and around Lovecraft’s mist-shrouded, fictional fishing town of Kingsport. It’s been a really enjoyable campaign thus far, with a fairly gentle pace, interspersed with some periods of frantic action. Tonight an enemy from the very first adventure of the campaign tried to take his revenge by setting a vampire on the characters during a train journey to Chicago. It was a satisfying resolution to what I’d rank as one of my best Call of Cthulhu campaigns to date. I have a lot of affection for the characters, and love that they continue to flourish despite not pulling any punches with the entities they’ve encountered (damn your magic Professor Bishop!) so far the campaign has included the following scenarios:

- Malice Everlasting
- Freak Show
- Dreams and Fancies
- The Strange High House in the Mist
- Dead in the Water
- Escape from Innsmouth
- The Raid on Innsmouth
- The Death of Cormac O’Tool (Feat. Pickman’s Model)
- Blood on the Tracks (Feat. The Revenge of the Warlock Matthew Chandler)

CAMPAIGN STATS 2010
Players who have participated in Kingsport Tales = 7
Long-term characters created = 9
Long-term characters killed in the Waking World = 1
Long-term characters killed in the Dreamlands = 0
Characters permanently insane = 0
Elder Gods encountered = 3
Great Old Ones encountered = 1
Love interests encountered = 2

Looking ahead to 2011 I hope to run a few more adventures in and around Kingsport, before propelling the characters into the epic Mountains of Madness campaign.

The Art of the Pitch

2010-12-02T17:04:00.001-08:00

Following on from my basic rules for a ‘con scenario, I’d like to spend a little time writing about the art of the pitch. That’s to say; the blurb – a short paragraph or two, which you write to try and lure players to sign up for your game, choosing it over many other interesting-sounding options, electing to come and spend 3 hours or so, exploring the fruits of your imagination.

Mash rightly points out in the comments of the previous post that while my ‘rules’ for a ‘con scenario may be fairly transparent (if contested) for a GM. As a player, how would you ever know that you’re going to get a game which actually delivers on those points?

It’s a fair point, and in many cases you don’t. I actually think that writing a pitch is much harder work than it might seem at first, and that a decent number of GM’s don’t pay it too much attention; I mean, if you’re like me, then sometimes you’re writing a pitch months before you actually write the game as a kind of placeholder to denote your participation in the event. You try and make it seem like something you’d like to play in, and hope that there are enough other people out there with similar tastes. And yet, it’s not unheard of for games to not get enough interest to be run. I know I’ve often been uninspired when trawling through a collection of pitches, and even decided to skip a round entirely. And yet, at the same time, I’ve had some great fun playing games I probably wouldn’t have signed up for on the basis of the blurb…

The aim here is to create something akin the trailer for a movie, or dust-jacket blurb for a novel. Text so compelling that the reader always finishes reading it, then wonders; “I wonder what that will be like? It sounds so cool I need to try it!” Short, punchy, high on ideas and strongly evocative, yet with sufficient integrity to not alienate the discerning.

Obviously, even a good pitch won’t convince everyone. Some people just don’t like some things. And word-of-mouth and reputation can be a much greater factor in the popularity of a game (just like for other media) but ultimately a good pitch should, at the very least, get you a full game for at least one or more sessions.

Again; I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m any kind of expert on writing a great pitch, nor that my taste is the same as everyone elses, but here are my requirements for a good pitch:

Well written. To quote my earlier point, for me this means the writing should be “Short, punchy, high on ideas and strongly evocative, yet with enough integrity to not alienate the discerning”
Not clichéd. Gamers are very aware of clichés and tropes in genre; what does the game offer that is unique, how does it twist boring clichés, or avoid them entirely?
Not overwhelming or overly complex; I don’t want to have to work hard to read a blurb, or work to understand complex concepts or settings. I’m going to be worried that any game that seems to technical or grandiose is simply an excuse for the GM to show how clever he/she is.
Doesn’t draw on too much established material – this is probably more personal than something I’d expect everybody to follow, but I’d probably not sign up for a Star Wars game because I know I don’t have much understanding or care for the complexity of the setting, and this would likely annoy the players who did and possibly mean that the game would have to slow down to explain things to me. I don’t suggest you shouldn’t use established high concept settings (Buffy, Star Wars, Dresden Files, Anime etc.) but I do suggest that in doing so you may limit the pool of potential players and may end up with a challenging mix of rabid fans and people who just signed up on the spur of the moment, and don’t really care too much about the details.
Speaks to me as a player. I want the GM to sell me the game, then level with me about how he or she expects it to work. If I’m going to have to learn a system, I want to know that. If I’m going to get some degree of freedom and autonomy, that’d be nice to know as well. I don’t think you need to spell everything out, but you should try and mitigate any surprises – and obviously you should be catering for the player who knows nothing about anything as a starter.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about what makes a good pitch. What do you think?

Out Of The Box

2010-11-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

And now for a few more words on ‘con scenarios. It used to be that it was very difficult to find the kind of published scenario that I would run at a roleplaying convention. Principally this was because of my requirements:

The scenario must be wholly based in the ‘real’ world or play on tropes and settings that are so clearly established in film or fiction that my audience will have NO issues adjusting regardless of their prior knowledge.
The scenario must feature pre-generated characters with enough ‘issues’ and interpersonal relationships that they can adequately fill down-time and lulls between actions. Issues must be sufficiently dramatic that characters can demonstrate their ‘roleplaying abilities’ getting to grips with them.
The scenario must contain a mix of build-up scenes and action scenes of sufficient intensity and length that they fit within a 3 hour time constraint, regardless of player actions.
The scenario must contain the prospect for success and failure, clearly established, in a way that can be examined and analysed by players in the wrap-up.
The scenario must use a system which can be learnt by ANYONE in less than 5 minutes, or be able to be abridged to this level.

Nowadays I’d probably expect more from a scenario, but for the last decade or so, I struggled to find published scenarios that fit this description without significant editing. So, mostly I invented my own and borrowed elements from here and there. Sometimes I’d use a scene from a good adventure, othertimes most of the adventure, but I’d have to make the pre-generated characters, which was a whole lot of work in itself.

I generally steered way from investigation based scenarios, as these could easily lead to players not finding the clue in the available time, taking up a false lead, or ultimately, to me having to fudge providing the clues.

However, I’ve noticed in recent years that there are not just a few, but many, published scenarios, which would now meet my old criteria. Notably “My Little Sister Wants You To Suffer” from Cthulhu Britannica, which I’ve now run 7 times, and which is IMHO probably one of the best ‘con scenarios out there. There are others, like Terrors From Beyond, or the Curse of the Yellow Sign series by John Wick. In addition the Gumshoe system has now put investigation scenarios back on the table for me in this format. And there are many more…

I’m not saying that everyone should run a published scenario at a 'con; just that I’m very glad that the market now seems to be delivering works which are better suited to the sorts of ‘con games that I, for one, like to run and play in.

What do we get?

2010-11-11T03:12:00.000-08:00

This post has been a while coming. Not because it’s especially profound, but because writing jobs for the Kapcon 20 LARP have been eating my time (in a good way).

Today’s subject is campaigns. It’s been something I’ve been musing for a while now – the difference between the one-off or short run games versus the longer term campaign. Part of what made me want to consider this was this topic on the Canberra Roleplaying Meet-Up boards. Partially it was because my long-running D&D campaign GM said to me the other day that his entire aim in running a campaign; all he wanted – was to create enough mystery and interest in his players that they came back for more. Particular session-to-session enjoyment was not the driving consideration. Partially it was this very flattering post by Mash where I’m referred to as ‘the GMing Stig’ which is exactly the kind of thing that’ll make me entirely insufferable. And finally, it was because I’ve really been enjoying my Kingsport Call of Cthulhu campaign, which is now going on one year old.

So, my question out of this jumble of thoughts is; what do we, the GM’s want to get out of a campaign?

I think we can all agree that campaigns are a huge investment of time and energy, and that like all relationships they have their ups and downs. Sometimes the downs are so severe that we just want to quit. In the WFRP campaign that Mash recollects with such kindness, I suspended the game for almost a month and came very close to calling it off. Why? Because the game that I wanted to run wasn't the game that the players wanted to play. They didn’t want to have their characters snared by the (often fairly woeful) plot hooks set up by the Paths of the Damned campaign. They wanted to adventure in the Old World, and they wanted the story to come to them. If they were to investigate leads, they wanted some compelling reasons – in character – to do so. I had never had players refuse to investigate a plot before, and I felt that the rug had been pulled out from under me.

Ultimately I decided that my WFRP players were right, and I was wrong. The story should come to them. They should have compelling reasons to act, and if this wasn't within the scope of the scenario then it was down to me to create and introduce these elements. This provided me with ample opportunity to level in-game consequences and trials to really develop the character beyond the mere scope of the scenario. When I did that, I found that the more we learned about these characters, the more complex and real they were, the richer they became, and the more meaningful the action was when it came.

It may sound straightforward, but it was a watershed moment for me. And it works well in every setting I’ve tried it. I used the same technique to run an 18 month Mutants and Masterminds campaign in Canberra, and it’s the same technique I’m using for my Kingsport Tales campaign. One year on in Kingsport we know that Professor Bishop is so timid that he’d rather sleep outside on a park bench, than risk a confrontation with his landlady for coming home after hours. We know that Dr. Holden will allow himself be set up on dates with women in which he has no interest, to keep up appearances and not excite the Kingsport grapevine. We know that Karl the fisherman is so haunted by his escape from Innsmouth that he sold his fishing boat and lives in a filthy squat. And we know a whole lot more besides…

So, back to the question – what do we GM’s want to get out of a campaign? I’m not sure I’m satisfied with just eliciting a sense of mystery and trying to lure the players back to find out more. I’m not sure that simply allowing players to explore my game-world, and marvel at it’s complexity is enough either. I’m not even sure that telling stories, solving mysteries and completing scenarios cuts it any more either. I want more*. I want to actually share a story with my players. I want them to own it, and I’m willing to let them shape events and have enough control to do that justice, because I know the story will be so much stronger, so much richer, if we have collaborated to tell compelling tales about characters we all care about.

*Intended more as a general statement of intent, or manifesto, rather than a literal plea for more.

Fright Night IV - Part 2

2010-10-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

Fright Night playtests and gaming continued:

(Spoiler Warning) Mash ran The Hand That Feeds, a western game with supernatural elements, featuring a cast of werewolves and demons. I was cast as Clem, a ruthless bandit, accompanied by my do-gooder brother played by Paul in the playtest as a Puritan. I was taken aback when the first encounter of the game revealed the town to be unbelievably wholesome (or so it appeared) and faced the hard choice of continuing to hunt the demon, or just try and sucker folks out of as much money as possible. Mash’s character questionnaire, complete with a snip and swap section was neat, although I think that the ambition had outpaced the mechanics as several players seemed confused by what they had received at the end (I had no such problem). I totally support the idea, and have a similar thing envisaged for EPOCH, but I’m not convinced I want to start the game with the players filling in paperwork.

Given the fairly moral nature of our party I was expecting to cause some waves by playing Clem as a real bandit, so to not ruffle too many feathers I went out of my way to try and have him be less ruthless than he might have been (his interrogation of hapless townsfolk was positively genteel by Hollywood western standards). Nevertheless I fell afoul of the party morals after Clem shot a woman (in the leg) who had previously been possessed by the demon. No one would listen to Clem’s assertions she was still possessed (the players had read between the lines of the GM’s description) so I was immensely satisfied when Clem turned out to be right, at which point Clem went his own way. Predictably the other character’s strategy of trying to talk people into doing what they wanted fell through and Clem did the inevitable and used the rather suspect dynamite listed on his character sheet, which regrettably killed most of the party. The game ended with a great final scene with Clem and a small child he had ‘rescued’ leaving the decimated town accompanied by Clem’s brother who was (unknown to us) now possessed by the demon.

It was a fun game, but I could see that Mash was really wanting to explore some dark themes, and to do so with characters who were deeply conflicted. An ambitious undertaking, but potentially a very rewarding exercise if you can pull it off. Again most of the suggestions made were around some of the details, rather than anything central to the plot or ideas.

(Spoiler Warning) In round two of Fright Night I played in Scott’s LARP All Saints’ Eve. I had been cast as Kurt Carter, a wealthy control freak who had recently lost his wife to cancer, and whose daughter had been abducted not long before. On top of that he had brought a gun to a Halloween party. My take was that Kurt was a man on the edge, a tragic figure who sees his life falling apart before his eyes, but is too weak and selfish to do anything to really stop it, and hides his pain and helplessness behind an obsessive need for order and coldness toward the world. Ants played Kurt’s son Jeremy, an 11 year old pyromancer who obeyed his father while under scrutiny but rebelled as soon as he was away from him. Jenni played his friend-from-the-streets, Arial, who Kurt didn't approve of. Clearly Kurt was going to be put into a tough emotional position, and I suspected that he would be expected to lead the action at some point.

The party started badly for Kurt, as we were trapped in a room without external communication. The control-freak was suddenly deprived of control. The unfortunate target of Kurt’s displeasure was Mandy the maid (played by Donna) who really took the brunt of Kurt’s self loathing passive aggression through the night. Largely this was compounded by her raising the matter of Kurt’s missing daughter early on while touching Jeremy. As it turned out, she was a bad egg, although Kurt was acting out of prejudice rather than any serious evidence.

Mandy wasn’t the only one to feel Kurt’s cold wrath, and Jeremy and Arial got a fair bit, with Kurt eventually alienating his son to the point he was ready to run away. Only the elder Cunningham (played by Jackie) really bothered to try and see through Kurt’s quiet aggression, and ultimately she was the only one who stood up to him, and forced him to back down (despite others having the ability to kill him with various powers).

The game ended rapidly after a really slow build up. Kurt, goaded by ghosts, convinced Jeremy to pretend he was having a fit as a distraction, so that he could question Mandy at gunpoint away from the others. From there, things accelerated until there was the discovery of the body of Kurt’s daughter (really creepy) and a knife point stand off as Kurt confronted Mandy, Jeremy was threatened and Arial moved to defend him. Finally Will, played by Glenn saved the day, and freed us.

It was a tough, draining and fairly unpleasant experience being Kurt. Toward the end I had to disengage somewhat, because I just didn’t want to go too far into Kurt’s grief. As we wrapped up I felt pretty bad about how mean I had been to the others, but I did find it to be a memorable and compelling outing.

Fright Night IV - Part 1

2010-10-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Fright Night IV, a one night, two-round, horror roleplaying ‘con. I’ve previously posted about the origins of Fright Night. The fourth installment caused me a little stress, with some switching and changing of games early on, and then 3 last minute player absences. Despite these small problems, the ‘con overall seemed to run smoothly, with all games being run to time.

I was fortunate this year to play in a total of 4 Fright Night games, 3 in playtest, and one on the night itself. I’ll post some brief thoughts on these below, but please heed the SPOILER WARNING for Splinter of Corruption, Did you hear the one..?, The Hand that Feeds and All Saints’ Eve.

(Spoiler Warning) Splinter of Corruption was run by Doug, who adapted an existing Dark Heresy introductory scenario into something more to his tastes. At its core this was a really solid scenario, a straight sci-fi horror exploration and investigation which reminded me a lot of Sophie’s ‘Still to Come’ from Kapcon 19. The characters added a nice 40k element, particularly the explosive collars and floating electronic skull servitors. I found it a fun outing, which enthused me for the sci-fi horror genre, and ultimately there were only some superficial suggestions made along the lines of tidying the investigation track and final sequence, and developing some time-keeping protocols. Doug’s use of miniatures really added a nice, unique element to the game, but unfortunately this was not included in the final run due to time constraints.

(Spoiler Warning) Did you hear the one..? was Sophie’s latest horror offering. Again it presented a straightforward horror setup – people gathering to spend the night in a haunted house. I was given the role of ‘believer’ and created Gill, a paranormal obsessed tech-head with a deficit of social skills who I loosely based on Milton Waddams from Office Space. Glenn played my nemesis, the slightly less socially awkward skeptic, and I spent a good long time sniping with him. Due to the semi-LARP nature of the game it was very visceral, and more than a little challenging for me. I think it worked really well, and the way it ran and concluded was very neat and well executed. Suggestions made afterwards turned it from a good game into a really great game in my view, as notes were replaced by a whispering GM and a co-GM was added to play the critical NPC. In my view this game has most strongly achieved the aim of a genuinely scary horror game in a ‘con setting, and as such is worthy of considerable kudos.

To be continued...

Ante-Up

2010-10-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve been busy playing a good number of games of late. Particularly playtesting Fright Night scenarios (look here for more detailed thoughts after the ‘con this weekend). In addition, I’ve been having fun playing some rock-n-roll D&D and a little Delta Green.

The latter has reemphasized to me the importance of securing player buy-in for a game. The problem with Delta Green, and many other Cthulhu outings is that it requires the characters to engage with the scenario set-up in a way that is, perhaps, unrealistic for their characters (if Fox Mulder’s sister had not been abducted by aliens, would he really have investigated X-Files with a passion?). So, if the characters are played as real people, without agenda or other emotional baggage, why would they risk their lives and careers for obscure and difficult investigations into the strange and paranormal? Even seeing something unusual or frightening seems an improbable spur to such irrational behavior. If player realism is shattered, the consequences for a game can be profound.

The short answer is that the GM must get the players on board before the game. Explain and discuss the nature of the game he or she wants to run, seek input and advice, and then work with the players to integrate their characters into the plot in a way that will allow them to engage with it in a consistent and meaningful way.

It’s easy to say, but its much harder to actually implement, especially when there are so many other things that need to be prepared, read and considered to run a game. I loose track of the Cthulhu scenarios I’ve read that simply assume the players will dutifully follow the plot, irrespective of dangers and consequences for their characters, and while I can understand how this can happen – writing a detailed and authentic scenario with a unique flavor is very demanding – there really ought to be more attention paid to developing skills and introducing techniques to bridge this difficult chasm.

Epic Finale

2010-09-30T04:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight we concluded the Raid on Innsmouth. 18 different scenes over 4 epic sessions, featuring 36 different characters; 1 Coastguard Cutter, 2 Patrol Boats, 1 Submarine, a truck with a snow-plough and a cast of Marines, Coast-Guardsmen, Submariners, Treasury Agents, mobsters and regular investigators. It was a lot of work to prepare, and even more to deliver. Some of the epic scenes taxed my descriptive skills pretty heavily, and the sheer level of violence was like nothing I’ve run in Cthulhu, outside Masks of Nyarlathotep. Overall it was a lot of fun; completely different to the regular Kingsport game, and a hard thing to top, but at the very least, I think I did the scenario justice. The next thing to consider will be running a published campaign, although I’ll need to be careful to pick something that caters to both the slow atmospheric burn that some of my players prefer, and some bursts of frantic action that others enjoy.

On Spetember 9 I provided a brief players perspective review of 'Burning Stars' from Terrors From Beyond where I said "I am assured that all will be revealed in the conclusion, so reserve final judgement for now." Well, in fairness this scenario delivered a humdinger of a twist. Something so clever I've never seen it done before in a roleplaying game which takes my opinion of this scenario from 2/5 to 4.5/5. Despite this awesomeness, there were some elements which let down the playability of the scenario and it could do with a fair bit of tuning to really deliver on its awesome twist. Still, great stuff!

One Night as a Supervillain - Part 2

2010-09-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

The night had begun well. I delivered my Best-Man speech, playing up on the idea that Thunderbird was a womanizer who hadn’t liked Kelly (the bride) from the beginning. I followed two heart-warming speeches from the groom and maid of honour, and could tell I had struck the right note when, as I sat down, there was a dejected, gloomy atmosphere amongst the wedding party. Then Jack (aka Thunderbird) went mingling with the guests, and to my delight made a number of jokes about how he could have sealed up the supposed victims of his organ harvesting with his ‘lazer gaze’.

Kelly, meanwhile, was sitting dejectedly on the stair with the remaining bridal party. Now I asked the ‘wait staff’ to deliver my note and folder to ‘Shadow’. I was testing Shadow to see if she was still capable of dark deeds, and the note instructed her to deliver the attached folder to the bride. The folder contained embarrassing pictures of the groom at a strip club, drunk and singing from the stag night (not the most incriminating - but it was what I had to work with, and I thought it might just tip the balance on her unhappiness with him). Shadow (aka Gwen) did so, and I was pleased.

Next my note was delivered to Kara, the cyborg who had defended Thunderbird from my malicious tabloid accusations, thus earning her a place in my plans. I sent her a note (supposedly from one of the magicians present) telling her that she had a virus in her system which would cause her to kill everyone present unless she delivered $5 million to the magician. To my delight she did, although I believe that the magician didn’t take the money. I had also sent a love note, supposedly from Kara, to one of the police detectives professing a desire to ‘interface’. This turned out to have broader ramifications than I had anticipated.

About this time Loki talked me (and Puck) into separating the wolf spirit from the superhero Fenris under the guise of a group wedding photo. I helped out, as it seemed likely to spread some mischief, and then made myself scarce as I didn’t want to be incriminated in the subsequent aftermath (there was quite a bit, and I did use this opportunity to voice my suspicions about ‘Lew’ the building manager aka Loki effectively double-crossing him).

I made sure to check in with Detective Bud Stone at regular intervals, to amplify the increasingly bizarre threats to the party (and world) and discuss the nature of Chaos Gods. Good times.

Now I made good on another of my objectives and spoke with ‘Shadow’ aka Gwen revealing that I was actually Coyote. Jackie had sent me some very cool fiction around how conflicted Gwen was before the game, before she knew my identity. Gwen had apparently just been dumped, and I tried to seize the moment to remind her how much fun being bad could be… It was the first of several encounters, where I tried, but ultimately failed, to talk her into coming to the dark side – but to be fair, it’s pretty hard to compete with an Angel cop.

About this time Loki told me that we had unwittingly brought about Ragnarok, by our releasing the wolf spirit. I told him that as it was his plan to cut the spirit free, it was down to him to fix things, and to my surprise, and his credit – he actually did, even though it alerted the party-goers to his identity and ultimately brought about his demise. At one time it seemed that we might need a willing human sacrifice to save the day, so I tried very hard to hint that only a true hero aka Thunderbird might be willing to make the supreme sacrifice, but alas he wasn’t biting and apparently another method was found. I did manage to arrange some media mischief, after I convinced Thunderbird to save some folks caught up in the wake of the devouring wolf.

The party was getting pretty wild now, with magical rituals galore, and I was getting nervous that I’d be rumbled soon, so I triggered my pièce de résistance, an arrest warrant for the groom’s father, Harry. I had taken pains to use a different envelope and format to the other letters, in case someone got wise to the sender, and hoped that Harry would be lead out in handcuffs, much to the distress of the groom. Unfortunately all the parties were very mature, and no immediate arrest was made. I even alerted to bridal party, lest they miss it, but alas it was not until the end of the night that this scene was played out, after Coyote had left.

Now things were getting downright hostile at the party. Puck was destroyed, and Loki fled, to return for a brief showdown – the ‘omnipotent’ gods were going down like flies. Gwen urged me to leave, and given that the newly reincarnated Galahad and Merlin were actively searching for me, not to mention her Angel cop boyfriend, Coyote did just that, leaving Justin Mallone with a killer hangover and no memory of what had happened.

In review; it was a brilliant game and great fun. Jenni and Paul did a fantastic job, especially as I learn about the other plots that were taking place. I am a little disappointed that I failed in my primary goal of messing with Thunderbird, as his own account seems to indicate that a love triangle caused him much more grief than all my efforts combined. I’m also torn as to whether I should have revealed myself, and faced Thunderbird down, forcing him to destroy Justin. But leaving the party when I did, just felt right for the Coyote.

One Night as a Supervillain - Part 1

2010-09-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I attended the Super Reception, a one-night superhero LARP created by Paul and Jenni. I played the part of Justin Mallone, the Best Man, soldier and government liaison to the League of Heroes. Of course, I was also Coyote, a Native American trickster-god who was the arch nemesis of the groom (Thunderbird). I had capriciously possessed Mallone, in order to humiliate Thunderbird, at the stag night before the wedding, and cause trouble at the reception.

That was pretty much the brief. I was told I had nearly unlimited power, and that two other chaos gods (Loki and Puck) would also be attending undercover, presumably each with their own agenda. I was given a little information about the Grooms family (parents Harry and Melissa) and also told that Coyote’s old flame Shadow would also be attending, but that she had turned over a new leaf, although might be up for some fun.

Clearly I didn’t want to ruin the game for the other players by doing anything too spectacular, but equally, it seemed that to achieve my goals I would need to spoil the reception for the newlyweds. If my identity was discovered too soon, it seemed likely that Thunderbird and the other heroes would likely attack, and at the very least, I’d need to leave the party (and thus the game). I was also told that I was ‘looking forward’ to my Best-Man speech.

It seemed the best way to cause havoc would be to have the bride and groom distrustful, even perhaps at each other’s throats. So with that premise, I started by creating a number of fictional tabloid stories in the lead-up to the wedding. I didn’t actually have any information about the contemporary Thunderbird, so I just assumed he was like Superman, and made up a story about how he might have been implicated in a black market organ trading racket (based on real-life civic corruption). Then, as I wanted to start Kelly distrusting his integrity, I framed him for a Tiger Woods style scandal story.

For the night itself, I pre-prepared a number of messages, almost all lies, to be delivered by the wait staff (GM’s). That way I could watch the messages being delivered, and then try and amplify their impact as Mallone (I even sent one to myself to avoid suspicion). I targeted the bride, and the grooms family with a message that Coyote had possessed the groom and planned to do terrible things to the bride later that night. When this was delivered I even arranged for the groom to be ‘tested’ for possession by a magician guest, who confirmed that he was possessed (Thunderbird is also a Native-American spirit), but I tried to make the most of this diagnosis, hoping someone might attack or imprison the groom. Sadly no-one wanted to take action.

To be continued...

September-a-thon

2010-09-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

This week was a busy week in gaming for me:

Monday: Playtest of Splinter of Corruption. This game reminded me just how much I love some aspects of sci-fi horror. It’s a really solid scenario, with some truly great gimmicks to help reinforce the tension. I played with a crew of relative strangers (bar one) and I think Doug got a really thorough test. There are some things to be tweaked and tidied, but overall it should be great for Fright Night. It inspired me enough to pull out my copy of Rogue Trader and think about whether I might be able to squeeze in another Kapcon game.

Tuesday: D&D Campaign. My character’s troublemaking has finally led to some consequences for the group and we spent the first half of the session treading carefully around some strong views (both in and out-of-character) about how the characters should be interacting with the environment. Then, to our genuine surprise, a fairly powerful creature showed up and tried to kill us. A pretty epic fight ensued.

Wednesday: Kapcon LARP meeting.

Thursday: The Burning Stars. A new Call of Cthulhu adventure from Terrors of Beyond with a creepy premise which involves the investigators waking in a Haiti military hospital with no memories. Unfortunately the pre-generated characters seem too light on detail to really let the players understand the initial setup and buy-in; flashbacks might have helped. In my view there also seems to be more railroading than is necessary for a good scenario. I am assured that all will be revealed in the conclusion, so reserve final judgement for now.

D&D 4th Edition - Updated Review

2010-08-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

Back on March 11 I posted my initial thoughts on 4th ed. D&D and concluded by saying: "I should clarify that it is early days of playing 4E and that I may yet become more attached to this sleek, plastic thing that’s eaten my old mongrel."

So, I’ve been playing D&D 4th Edition for almost 9 months now, which works out to around 35 or so sessions, or around 140 hours! In that time I’ve had three characters die, and advanced a character from 1st through to 7th level. I have to say it has been fun. Below are some of my thoughts on the game, specifically where it differs from previous editions. I’m not a big fan of D&D as a system, but it does deliver some sustainable and consistent fun.

Classes: I’ve come to accept the new class structures, although it does seem that the more recent PhB’s and option books go out of their way to try and blur the original distinctions between them, harking back to the inevitable power creep of the multitude of 3.5 books. I’ve never liked the idea that a party character composition should be dictated by the rules, but in this 4th ed. seems little different to previous editions, with a balanced party achieving better results.

Combat: Still takes ages. Much like 3.5 there are a lot of rules to check, double check and re-check every turn as almost every power has a unique twist. I accept that this is not going to be the same for all groups, but I think that it is somewhat inevitable in a group of people who are tired after a day at work, but still determined to derive the full benefit for their characters. On the plus side, this checking is usually fairly straightforward as the details are (hopefully) printed on the cards, and most people only have one attack to make. On the downside, feats don’t print in that format in the electronic system and are increasingly important elements for characters, making for some ugly overlapping rules which must be checked and clarified. While some basic moves like attacks of opportunity, bull-rushes and grapples have been tidied up, they remain fairly arduous and cumbersome. On the plus side, healing, surges and bloodied rules are neat. On the downside the multitude of new conditions can be confusing, necessitating yet more rules checking each turn, not to mention the ongoing nature of saving throws and contingent damage etc. Also resting time, and the technical distinction between short and longer rests seems incredibly regimented and unnatural. On the up-side I believe it is much easier for GM’s to prep combat encounters, which should be good for all concerned, and I do like the way that the attack powers all spur descriptiveness from the players.

Skill Challenges: In my opinion these are still not very intuitive, and the narrowed range of skills is frequently confusing. I’ve never liked players trying to use rules as a crutch to describe their characters actions, but as the skill-challenge mechanic seems to be GM driven, I’m not sure how you could set one up as a player unless you’re willing to do this. Simply put, I think to work properly and in the way intended, skill challenges should be prepped by the GM almost like a combat encounter, which is probably a fairly unrealistic expectation, given the traditional approach to D&D games of a lot of groups.

Magic Items: The change to balance these and bring them into the system makes me realize just how much I used to depend on my equipment to get me out of tough spots; particularly higher level scrolls. Now encounters lack that element, I know the basic range of damage my character can deal, and simply must try and optimize things to ensure that it is delivered to the right place at the right time. It seems a lot more mechanical and requires a lot less creative thinking in my opinion.

Down-Time: Following on from this is my major disappointment with the difference between prior editions and 4th Edition. I really liked some of the logistical problems we used to face. How to cross a hostile river, how to enter a sealed barrow or how to disguise and pilot a ship between ports, braving storms, monsters and pirates. The old range of spells and items really gave us some neat options to do some creative and interesting things. From the humble rope trick through to minute mansions and pocket dimensions, there was a lot of variety. Now I agree that despite all these great tricks, you’d usually end up in a fight, and given the current system is built for this eventuality, perhaps it just cuts to the chase. But it really does feel like the game is missing a great and important element.

So, in summary, I do like 4th ed. particularly the way that it makes the player experience both slicker and more flavourful and makes GM prep easier. The game seems to work best for players using the character creator, but there are several elements that are poorly resolved in the output, making things unnecessarily complicated. I miss the grand old magic options of previous editions, even though I accept it probably made things unbalanced. Yes, some classes were disproportionately better under those rules at different levels, but as I remember it, few high-level characters that didn’t have a splash of at least one other class or prestige options/kit under their belts. Obviously WotC are blurring the clear lines of their system by releasing even more supplements, with more options and new rules, but that’s been a hallmark of D&D for as long as I’ve played it…

Dispatches from the front

2010-08-24T05:46:00.000-07:00

Gaming updates:

D&D continues apace. The game has hit a nice groove at the moment, with our group finally having a more equal mix of controllers, strikers and defenders, and thus we have found the recent fights a good deal easier. More tactical options means that we now each have a unique niche that we do well, and we can attempt to tailor our skills to the enemies and environment. Most recently we were ambushed by a group of ghouls, then, a short time later by an Ettin supported by a dozen or so bugbears and took care of business with relative ease. On a campaign footing the many factions of enemies seem to be jockeying for position, attacking one another and the human encampments to capitalize on perceived weaknesses. My own character continues to be a poorly behaved semi-sociopath now dubbed ‘darksoul’ by the monsters, so I must be doing something right!

I recently ran part 2 of the Raid on Innsmouth. It was suitably epic with a bloodbath aboard the coastguard vessels and madness on a submarine, a refinery shootout and then some close encounters with a couple of the bigger scale cthulhu monsters. Only 5 of the 36 characters in play have been killed thus far, but part 3 promises even more epic action, so it should be some good fun. I haven’t run Call of Cthulhu on this kind of a scale for a long time and am a little concerned it might be hard to readjust to the slower and more atmospheric and detailed approach that is normally how Kingsport Tales runs.

Looking ahead; I’m excited about the launch of A Foreign Country this week, the Super Reception in September and getting into training for the Chuck Norris Memorial Hard Man RPG Challenge!

In the thick of it

2010-08-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

As you may be aware, a GM withdrawal from Fright Night has left me suddenly filling the gap, which while a little stressful, might prove a great opportunity to put EPOCH into action – making a lie of my many and various excuses as to why I can’t get to this anytime soon. Thus, I have committed to run Captivating Jasper for Fright Night.

Of course, this isn’t really the first time I’ll be trying some of these techniques. I’ve been observing and using elements all over the place, from Morgue’s early Aliens games, through to my own recent games at Confusion 8, both of which were tests for some of the techniques I think might work.

I see EPOCH, in addition to having some simple tools to build the right kind of mood, as a more organized and considered approach to horror roleplaying. Reading through the list of Horror Techniques posted on Yog-Sothoth, I was struck by the fact that these techniques are not really enough in-and-of themselves. They tell less than half the story. They are like jokes for a stand-up comedian, or slight-of-hand for a magician. Useful elements, often used poorly and in isolation, but really only very small parts of a greater performance. Without an approach and mindset toward horror, supported by the right kind of tools, these will be little more than interesting quirks or amusements for the players.

Morgue recently made mention of a time mechanic in a very interesting post on Gametime. He wondered if “a horror game could benefit from a ticking clock in the actual room, demanding answers from the players within a certain number of seconds every time. Time pressure makes people nervous.” I have attempted to use this kind of device before at ‘con games (namely in Kapcon offerings Pressure Positive and The High Price of Spandex) and found that while a neat idea, it actually requires a considerable degree of adherence and discipline by the GM to make it ‘real’ in any sense for the players and have a chance to evoke the right kind of atmosphere. That’s not to say it couldn’t be done, just that I think it would need a high degree of forethought, preparation and in-room focus to work – which can be very challenging in a ‘con environment for fairly obvious reasons.

In any event, I plan to write up my first pass at EPOCH and publish it here for comment in due course, so stay tuned…

Mrs Peabody Investigates

2010-08-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

Some games I have recently played -

A Restoration of Evil: A two part game that featured the aforementioned Mrs Peabody, masterfully played by Brady. Mrs Peabody is a nearly unstoppable force of nature, an elderly dilettante with a small dog, and a penchant for using her many contacts in New York society, and scolding anyone who tried to obstruct her investigations. The adventure began when my character (a third rate stage magician known as The Great Andini) and my roommate (a prohibition era bartender) decided to establish the New York Skeptics Society and placed an ad in the Times, only to find Mrs Peabody on our doorstep. Before we knew what had happened we were being whisked around New York in the back of Mrs Peabody’s large chauffer driven car (the dog rides in front), investigating a series of bizarre murders around the decaying Red Hook. Ultimately, we were surprised that the New York Skeptics Society survived (although is now considerably less skeptical) despite the loss of nearly a dozen of New York’s finest in a raid on the horror we uncovered. A grand time.

Bad Moon Rising: A two part adventure, featuring the previously described frustrating investigation phase, concluding with a climax that was equal parts epic and bizarre and surreal. My private investigator survived in body only, alas, his intellect remains trapped in the far future. The sheer degree of narrative strangeness puts this squarely amongst the most challenging Cthulhu scenario’s to GM.

Not So Quiet: A great little one-off Trail of Cthulhu playtest, run by Andrew, set in the Great War. The pre-generated characters were great, although keeping them involved in the investigation was unnecessarily hard work for the GM. My suspicions about the wickedness proved to be wrong, the real menace was far more nuanced and wrenching than anticipated. I had fun and gave as much feedback as I could.

D&D 4e: The weekly game in the ruined magical city continues with our characters having nearly reached 7th level. I have been keeping things interesting between epic fights by inappropriate use of a philter of love and trying to convey how an emotionally crippled character deals with the effects. One of the characters has been turned to stone, and we’ve had several ‘trial’ spots filled by new players. Good fun.

Confusion 8

2010-08-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

So this Saturday past I attended Confusion 8 a relaxed one day roleplaying ‘con. For various reasons I had offered to run 2 games, which I initially had cause to regret. First, I somehow managed to get sick on Friday night; I had a fever and only managed a handful of sleep hours. Also, the weather on Saturday morning was not exactly hospitable. Just to top things off I was having a lot of trouble getting my head around Castle Bravo, and felt woefully unprepared for it.

However, I had pledged to run games and take Fright Night registrations, and was still capable of functioning, albeit with diminished capacity, so I braved the rain and headed to the ‘con for the first round where I was to run Mutants and Masterminds.

Round One – Running the Proteus Plot
This is a fairly straightforward published scenario with a neat twist. To keep things interesting I had made some additions to put a lot of focus on the characters, which are created using templates and some randomly assigned elements, then fleshed out a little using some light collaborative method. It’s a bit challenging because I really ask each player to work with me and flesh out some initial scenes, requiring some up-front engagement and creativity - A big ask first thing in the morning.

As it happened, I had the maximum load of 6 players sign up for the game, which wasn’t ideal for this style of game and in light of my diminished capacity. On the plus side they were all talented and experienced players with love for the genre. On the downside, the collaborative hero creation process was a little rocky for some, but I did find that we got a cast of really great characters who really added more interest and depth to a simple plot. The Supers created included:
- The Spirit of Justice, a billionaire body-builder with a troubled marriage
- The Crown Prince, an elderly dad with a utility belt of 1980's gadgets
- Rain, a wealthy party girl turned dark avenger with a predilection for gun violence
- Crisis, a time travelling bad-ass loner with electricity powers and a stray cat
- Edge, a psychic investigator with a crummy day job and a rocket powered skateboard
- Beast/Simon, a man and monster fused together with a helping of anger issues

It was, for me, the fun romp that I had envisaged and I think every player got some decent spotlight time, and had a measure of fun. I don’t know if it hit everyone’s buttons, as there wasn’t a huge amount of investigation, combat, relationships or grand ideas, which I know some people really dig. I was fading a little toward the end, so was not really able to push for an epic cinematic ending of the type I think supers ‘con outings deserve, but all things considered, it was a fun game for me.

Round Two – Playing Apocalypse World
I missed out on the signup having chatted to people, then trying to take more notes for Castle Bravo while I ate lunch, so I arrived in Apocalypse World by default. On the plus side Mike (the GM) was really enthusiastic about the game and setting, and there a number experienced veteran players at the table who I enjoy gaming with.

I was nominated to be the Hard Holder, which was the gang leader in a Mad Max (2) style world. Accordingly I modeled my character, Calibre, after Lord Humungus, and took a fairly brutal approach to gang management theory. Unfortunately the dice betrayed me at several crucial moments, my captive escaped, some of my bodyguards tried to kill me, my ruse to uncover traitors failed and during an epic battle my gang turned on me and handed me over to the enemy gang and I was seriously injured (okay I can actually only blame one of those on the dice).

Thus, Calibre spent the later stages of the game confined to a hospital bed, being tended and often sedated by our ‘Angel’ or medic when she disagreed with my ideas. In all fairness, the real roleplaying hammer fell on Mash’s character Spice, who was the hottest guy in our gang, and also the unlikely vehicle of our salvation from a more monstrous foe.

It was a really fun game, despite my characters incapacitation, and I must give kudos to Mike for a great setup and execution while also allowing us an effective ‘sandbox’ approach to the game. The only real downside was that one of our number played a character that was really very creepy, even by Mad Max standards and was effectively ostracized by our characters, effectively cutting him out of the main action. I felt even worse when my character executed his character at the end for a perceived assassination attempt.

Also, my Calibre voice, really tore up my throat in a way that left me concerned about whether I’d be able to last out Castle Bravo.

Round Three – Running Castle Bravo
As I have alluded to, I was concerned about making sure I understood this scenario adequately. It is written as a series of increasingly bizarre events leading to an epic crisis point. This is set against nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll during the 1950’s. It was also my first experience at running Trail of Cthulhu (although I had previously run other GUMSHOE games). I had a full house again (6 players) which again, was not really ideal for the mood and pacing of the scenario – but them’s the breaks in the big show.

It was also the last slot of the ‘con, and a late one at that. We kicked off close to 6pm and I could see many of the players were wilting fast.

Overall, it went surprisingly well from my perspective (perhaps because I had so much anxiety about the detail). I think I managed to convey the creepy and bizarre against a backdrop of ever more dire circumstances. Most of my efforts were centered around the major NPC, which worked out fairly well. Despite their tiredness the players all engaged with the elements well, and worked with me to really push things along - particular kudos to Henry one of the few unfamiliar faces at the table who engaged really well with the plot and his PC.

On the downside, because this is a ‘purist’ scenario the players are left without the real opportunity for ‘victory’ and really have to settle for a much less decisive outcome. Also some of the more important information that is imparted to the players at the beginning didn’t really come out until the end, which meant I had to push things along in a more direct way than I’d prefer. Whether or not it’s reasonable to expect the PC’s to dump this info in a single scene, as envisaged by the scenario, is perhaps more of a question. Also providing some real detail and ambiance to the setting of the aircraft carrier was something I don’t think I really executed well.

In either event we made it without anyone falling asleep, or me losing my voice entirely, so I’ll call it a win.

Be Prepared

2010-08-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I ran the first part of the Raid on Innsmouth. It’s a scenario for which I have some fondness, having run it several times more than a decade ago, but as I geared up to run it again, I wondered just how much attention I had paid to the scenario the first time around.

It’s a neat outing. There are six objectives, each a unique scenario with a series of ‘supporting characters’ and for each objective there are three parts. You switch frequently between each objective, as the actions of the raiders in other parts may change the circumstances of current objectives.

I like the idea, and the ability for one set of characters to take actions that impact on other sets of characters. But it’s pretty hard work. To compound the problem each of the 6 objectives has 6 pre-generated characters which can be used by the players. Again it’s a nice idea in concept; a player should be able to play several different marines, a sailor, a submariner and a treasury agent, in addition to their own character who is acting as a civilian advisor. Unfortunately the book does not make this simple, by printing the character sheets and info in a way that could just be copied and distributed. Instead they put the character information into the text, omitting base skills and often lapping over pages, making any quick attempt to copy and distribute characters impossible. So, it took me many hours to prepare the 36 pre-generated characters. This necessarily ate into the time I would normally spend preparing the actual scenario.

Then the actual game itself was pretty challenging. Run as written it’s fairly mechanical for a Cthulhu scenario with a lot more gunplay than an ordinary outing, which necessarily bogs things down a bit. On top of that there are a range of special weapons and equipment, and several NPC’s I need to keep animated, while also running the combat. I also found suddenly switching to a new group of characters to be a difficult process, and not especially smooth.

Thus far we have only managed to play 1 part of 3 objectives in about 3 hours, but I am reasonably sure that things will speed up as we go on. I guess I’d conclude by saying that the Raid on Innsmouth is an unrepentantly old-school Cthulhu outing, which really puts a Keeper through the wringer if run as written.

While I’m on game-prep, I really need to spend some more time making sure I’m ready for The Proteus Plot and Castle Bravo which I’d like to run at Confusion tomorrow, assuming I can actually find enough players.

Fright Night

2010-07-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007, with the arrival of the eminent Marcus Bone, I suddenly realized that there might actually be enough horror loving GM’s in Wellington-town to run a mini-convention. To confirm these suspicions I ran a poll on NZRag and found that there was probably enough support for such an undertaking; although several people were clear that they were not interested in horror-themed roleplaying.

In my head this was to be a Cthulhu-con, with perhaps a smattering of other games. After all; it seemed evident to me that Call of Cthulhu is simply the best horror game out there, and is rich with published scenarios for precisely this kind of outing. Of course, my own personal bias had meant that I was entirely detached from the reality of the Wellington gaming community. Other than me, nobody pitched a Cthulhu game, and instead we had a wide variety of other styles and genre of games, which were met with enthusiasm by the ‘con attendees.

However, I know some people don’t enjoy horror games. Usually this is driven by a dislike of the premise of horror (splatter seems to dominate Hollywood horror flicks), compounded by second-hand stories of gleeful TPK’s, where the GM ruthlessly wiped out the characters - because that’s ‘horror’. My own belief is that horror games (and movies) can be considerably more nuanced than that; but how to convince people not only that this is true, but also lure them to the ‘con one Saturday night in October, and convince them to pay for the pleasure?

To try and be clear about what kind of game experience you could expect at the ‘con I borrowed a system from popular Canadian horror film festival, where the movies were scored in categories such as ‘strange, splatter, scare and suspense’ and also borrowed the film classification ratings.

The first Fright Night just scraped together enough players to fill all the available slots, and break even. It was a stressful time, largely because we had one GM pull out on the day and I hastily had to run a replacement game (Simply Red from Call of Cthulhu’s Blood Brothers 2) in its place. In the intervening years while I’ve been out of the country, Alaisdair has done a great job of running the ‘con, and introducing the kind of things that are now more popular in the community, like LARP’s and so forth.

Now it’s time to start drumming up players for Fright Night once again. Please register and help to keep this fiesty little ‘con going!

That Old Innsmouth Magic

2010-07-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

This week I picked up my Kingsport Tales campaign after a several month absence. I find it a fun, and sometimes a challenging game to run, mostly because I try and allow the characters as much autonomy as I can manage. In practice that means I try and hook the characters individually, bringing clues from the scenario to their attention through their stated interests and occupations and hoping that the players will work with me to involve their characters in the story. I usually have one shot back-up characters (police and the like) available for players who don’t involve their own characters in the climax.

It’s an approach that requires a fair bit of effort from me, and that always stokes my anxiety about other player downtime, as the characters often don’t interact with each other for long periods. I try hard to not force anything on them, to keep things moving and try and weave things together as the session goes on. Predictably, as I get more tired, this breaks down to an extent.

One manifestation of this occurred in the last session. I’ve always said that the characters can go anywhere they please within the setting. Already this has lead me to merge two adventures when they suddenly decided, in the midst of one scenario about dreams, to explore the strange high house in the mist.

On this occasion, boats had been going missing around Kingsport. The characters interrogated superstitious fishermen, who offered a wild series of conjectures including the possibility that those folk from Innsmouth were somehow involved (there is a history of bad blood between Kingsport and Innsmouth in the setting). This was actually a red herring, but the characters decided that it sounded plausible enough for a trip to Innsmouth.

Queue some frantic re-tooling from me. Now, in retrospect I should have allowed them to experience some Innsmouth creepiness, but ultimately been frustrated and returned to other avenues of investigation. Instead I treated them to my full-on Escape from Innsmouth treatment designed for ‘cons, largely because this was my first reaction.

I had fun and while the actual escape section was slightly truncated and a little bogged down with some crunch because I allowed the characters to go into the town heavily armed, and several tried to fight their way out - I think it ultimately worked out okay. Two long-term characters are now prisoners, to be potentially rescued in the next installment where I plan to run the re-tooled and extended ‘Raid on Innsmouth’ which looks to be a lot of fun.

So, I stand by my decision - but can’t help but feel that I really should have been better prepared for the session...

Horror Game Manifesto

2010-07-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

I believe it is possible to run a truly scary game at a roleplaying convention irrespective of the environment.

I've been on about this for a while now, so I think it's time to try and tie in the things I've written about this, as a first step in trying to actually put together a game which delivers on this aspiration.

The principle framework will focus on:

-Player buy-in and empathy (through a degree of shared narration)
-Visual and audio aids (not in a major way - just to cover learning bases)
-GM ground rules and time out zones
-Table discipline
-System reduction
-Shared Character development
-Identifiable setting
-Identifiable sitations and choices
-Distance closing techniques
-Disruptive player techniques
-Increasing the stakes with (almost) every successive scene

I will attempt to detail my thinking, and the way I tackle this as I move toward the Experimental Paradigm Of Contemporary Horror (EPOCH).

Not Just a Number

2010-07-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Luke’s comments about my ongoing D&D game, contrasting them with his own experiences, have made me pick up a proposition I made elsewhere a while ago, and reconsider it. Namely; is the GM’s style and personality a far greater determinant of a player’s game experience than system or setting?

My D&D 4e game may use all the bells and whistles of 4e (power cards, action points, milestones etc.) but, fundamentally, the game experience for me is very similar to 3.5, 3e and 2e, because the GM’s influence on the game, his NPC’s, the setting, and the types of encounters that he runs (epic) have always been pretty much the same. Yes, I think about my PC in different ways, and we have different tactical options (more immediate and less strategic IMHO) in this edition, but for me at least, that isn’t a massively significant element.

I then consider my own experience. I recently completed An Eye for an Eye, an intro scenario for my WFRP 3e players. It’s a fairly straightforward scenario with an investigation sandwiched between two fights. Now, I suspect that the investigation component wouldn’t be radically different then if I were running Call of Cthulhu, there are NPC’s who must be questioned and clues obtained. Yes, the setting is different (The Old World rather than New England), but I’m not sure that it’d really be a significant difference to the players experience of the encounter.

Then we get to the combat. As the GM I found it to be a fairly challenging time, the PC’s eliminated the initial bad guys in record time (the Waywatcher shot and killed 3 in a single action), but then had an extremely tough time with the subsequent foes. I found that running this part of the fight was very hard work, as there was quite a lot of system to get my head around. I need to make sure that the PC’s are using their actions correctly, and that they include the bad guys ‘defence’ value in their dice pool each time, apply any fatigue or delays that result from their roll, allocate damage if the attack hits and then be able to narrate the action. Then, for the bad guy’s actions I need to select an action, place charge counters if necessary, build a dice pool, queue a PC defence - and factor it into the pool, roll and assess if the attack hits, and then see if anything else is triggered by the result, attribute any wounds and critical and narrate the action. And I need to do that for each bad guy. At the end of the game I was exhausted.

All that work, made the fight feel very different for me than a similar type of Cthulhu encounter. Indeed it felt very different from most other kinds of combat’s I’ve run, but I wonder if the players found the experience to be significantly different from other games? If so, I wonder if once we’ve played more, and are more comfortable with the system, if it will still seem significantly different from a Cthulhu encounter…

In short, I’m coming to believe that the system and setting of a game may seem like a significant element for a GM, even the most significant element, but from a player’s viewpoint, I wonder if the same is true. GM style, ability and personality seem like they must be a far greater influence, and I’m not sure these change dramatically from game to game.

Miniature Combatants in Epic Battles

2010-07-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight we finished what has been a 3 session combat in our D&D game. That’s 3 game sessions of 3 or so hours; so around 9 total play hours, to represent a little over 2 minutes of game time! Okay, so for D&D you might say that’s par for the course – after all, some folks might argue that it’s a really tactical wargame with roleplaying elements. Certainly this game has been a tactical fiesta with the Giant Toad eating several of the party, spitting them out, then eating them again, while other enemies drag us into water or beat us down from unusual angles.

Nevertheless, I find it a little mind boggling. Being a fan of old-school games I have run plenty of epic fights in my time. For example; Masks of Nyarlathotep, which I’ve run several times now, is laden with them. And recently I’ve taken the next logical step, and invested in miniatures, primarily for Cthulhu, but also for Supers and other games I might run.

A part of me feels a little dishonest for doing so, because I do subscribe to the argument that a GM should be able to adequately narrate a combat, keep things flowing and both empower the players, and add a lot of flavor in the process without needing props. In the past a map, with relative locations usually sufficed. After all, this is roleplaying, not wargaming (don’t get me wrong – I wargame as well, but prefer to keep these hobbies separate).

I recently put this into practice in my Kingsport Tales, in a situation where the characters were investigating an old house, which contained a basement, secret corridor and blasphemous temple chamber. I did this principally because I find that often, players can become confused about their relative position, the position of other characters, NPC’s and even room layout. By putting everything in miniature, and letting players only move their own miniatures, everyone can see sight lines, and should have a clear understanding of relative positions. I also used this system (using tokens rather than miniatures) in my 6 different runs of My Little Sister Wants You To Suffer from Cthulhu Britannica and found that it worked very well. It's also a handy antidote to the player who asks for information about a room, then, after triggering an associated encounter will argue they couldn't possibly have done so, as they had described their character as remaining outside the whole time.

Nonetheless, after this epic D&D marathon game, which I found unnecessarily complex and sometimes frustrating, I do find myself questioning whether miniatures and their ilk really add to games which prize story elements, and which downplay combat. What do you think?

-For the record our D&D party ‘survived’ and were not TPK’d, and might even be considered victorious, but only through the heavy use of story elements tied to our mysterious backgrounds and introduced by the GM as the characters were killed.

Visit a Foreign Country

2010-07-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not about roleplaying, but it does feature the work of roleplayers.

A Foreign Country is a new, New Zealand Speculative Fiction anthology being released shortly, featuring a story by yours truly, and work by Wellington roleplayer, Kapcon don, and award-winning scenario designer Matt Cowens. It's open for pre-orders now, and for a small press, these kind of orders are pretty important. I'd sure like to see more of these kind of ventures in the future so that other writers can spin tales, so please support New Zealand fiction:

"The future is here! A Foreign Country, Random Static's new anthology of New Zealand Speculative Fiction, is now available for pre-order. Featuring work by best-selling author Juliet Marillier, poet, musician, and writer Bill Direen, several Sir Julius Vogel Award winners, prominent writers, and talented newcomers, this is an unmissable volume of imaginative and compelling short stories.

Strange creatures are loose in Miramar, desperate survivors cling to the remains of a submerged country, humanity’s descendants seek to regain what they’ve lost, and the residents of Gisborne reluctantly serve alien masters. The visions of New Zealand - and beyond - painted in this collection of short stories are both instantly recognisable, and nothing like the place we know.

A Foreign Country brings together the work of established authors and fresh voices to showcase the range of stories produced by New Zealand's growing community of speculative fiction writers. Humorous, disturbing, intriguing, cautionary, and ultimately hopeful, these tales tell of worlds where the boundaries between human and animal are blurred, babies are not what they seem, desperate measures are in place to ward off disaster, and flying standby can be a big mistake.

The anthology includes stories by:

•Philip Armstrong
•Richard Barnes
•Claire Brunette
•Anna Caro
•Matt Cowens
•Bill Direen
•Dale Elvy
•J.C. Hart
•Paul Haines
•Miriam Hurst
•Tim Jones
•Susan Kornfeld
•Juliet Marillier
•Lee Murray
•James Norcliffe
•Ripley Patton
•Simon Petrie
•Brian Priestley
•Marama Salsano
•Lee Sentes
•Janine Sowerby
•Douglas A. Van Belle"

These are the Games of Our Lives - Part Three

2010-07-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Running: Call of Cthulhu - Final Flight

I ran this Pagan scenario as a one-off session the other week. I found it was laden with good detail, but almost completely undone by a poor layout. It’s a simple adventure involving a plane flight and then an aftermath of about the same length. It’s a nice idea, but the scenario as written involves a dozen NPC fellow passengers, including cabin crew and a major villain. This was pretty challenging, and while the scenario thoughtfully provided me with a matrix of their stat’s it didn’t do the same for their personality elements or motivations, making it a pretty hair-raising experience.

Then the second part of the scenario really needs some work, tying in the fairly cool elements sketched out in the scenario into a comprehensive story. IMHO, add in a story tree of possible actions and responses, options for setting it somewhere else at another time, and some colourful and fun pre-generated characters and you’d have a really excellent ‘con game. As it stands it was fun, but unnecessarily hard work.

Running: WFRP 3e

So, I’ve been intimidated by the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay since I purchased it. For those who don’t know, the game is played using a collection of cards, with relevant rules printed on them rather than having a rulebook as reference, and uses ‘special’ dice. I had played a game with Luke over Kapcon weekend, and wasn’t convinced that the game really did anything that 2e couldn’t do better, or that the special dice and card represented a worthwhile addition, given the associated mechanical hassle. However, having spent a decent chunk of money on it, I finally got up the courage to give it a run.

I ran it as written, rather than creating pre-gen’s like Luke did, as I don’t especially like reading rules in my free time, so was keen to learn with the players as we went (although obviously I did do some pre-reading).

The character creation session was extremely daunting. Players can spend their points on virtually any combination of statistic, wealth, or pick from a range of ‘action’ and ‘talent’ cards. By throwing it open like this, the players really need to read almost every card they might pick from in order to select the best value-for-points for their characters. Because they hadn’t played, this also meant that I needed to explain the rules as they went, so they had some idea of the relative merits of each selection. A huge job, made easier by the fact that the players, despite being a little overwhelmed, really engaged with the game.

Characters made, we then had just enough time for the into involving some brief roleplaying and a combat (I was determined to get the combat in so that the players could see how their choices worked in practice). It actually went very smoothly, and I was pleasantly surprised. The fight was flavourful and challenging, but I think ultimately a lot more empowering for the PC’s than a 2e equivalent would have been (at entry level that’d be rounds of everyone missing their targets).

I hope to get the next session under our belts next week. I am a little concerned as two of the players picked (and randomly chose) the Waywatcher and Swordmaster careers, which seems to make them pretty kick-ass in combat, when compared to the Gambler and Rat-Catcher. Story wise, appropriate, but I remember how incensed my 2e players were that some characters were better at combat than others – the idea that other characters are better in social situations, didn’t hold much sway. I’m also not convinced about abstract movement in combats where there are multiple attackers, nor do I find the monsters easy to run when there are many of them – however, time will tell if these kinks work themselves out.

These are the Games of Our Lives - Part Two

2010-07-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Playing: Cthulhu

In addition to the ongoing D&D saga, I’ve been playing a little Cthulhu as well. I playtested Liam’s Cthulhu Invictus scenario “Chaos in Rome” which I understand he entered in a recent Chaosium competition. It was not what I was expecting, and despite my initial reservations about Cthulhu Invictus, it was good fun.

Regrettably for Liam, we played on the setup (an upper class Roman family at each other’s throats after the mysterious death of the patriarch) and this culminated in my spoilt momma’s boy character conspiring to poison his brother (played by Mark as a particularly nasty piece of work), then after that failed, hiring some footpads to ambush him. Both attempts were ably thwarted by Igor’s centurion. The problem was that after all that excitement, and by the time we found the lurking menace, the resulting action was necessarily truncated by time pressure, leaving several character’s suddenly dead.

I’m also playing in Liam’s run of “Bad Moon Rising” a classic Cthulhu adventure from ‘The Great Old One’s’. After a full session of abortive investigation, we have arrived at the heart of the scenario, albeit in a way which makes me question if all our attempts at investigation were really needed (and find that I agree with the GUMSHOE manifesto more and more). To Liam’s credit a lot of the older Cthulhu scenarios require considerable shoe-horning to run as intended.

Finally, I’m looking forward to playing in Andrew M’s playtest of a forthcoming Trail of Cthulhu scenario. I’ve been wanting to run Trail for ages, but find that there is more than enough regular Cthulhu I also want to run, without having to learn, and teach, a new system. Hopefully Andrew can do the heavy lifting on that account for me…

These are the Games of Our Lives - Part One

2010-07-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I updated; but I was reminded today that a couple of people take a look at what’s here so I suppose I should update my current roleplaying goings on:

Playing: D&D 4e

As you may recall this D&D 4e game was set in the ruined city sealed by magic, and overrun by demons. We currently seem likely headed for another TPK after a two session combat. In short, to earn our keep in the ‘good’ human faction we were asked to clear a tower which was overrun by froglockes (bullywugs). We were told that there were around thirty of so of the enemy, although they spawned rapidly. Scouting we ambushed a party of around 20 or so young ones (almost all minions). Then we attacked the tower itself (it’s more of a complex multi-level fortress) doing battle on an outer courtyard wall. We battled several giant dire toads guarding the door, and then entered a melee with 30 or so froglockes (all brutes).

Late in the fight a froglocke that was part human, and part water elemental , joined in and did some big hits, before teleporting away. We won the combat, but found ourselves defeated by the stout, barred doors of the fortress, so hurried to a garden which seemed strangely free of froglocke corruption. We encountered ghostly soldiers who offered to escort us to the ‘mess’ to rest. This was a door into the tower, which when opened was a large chamber entirely filled with froglockes and a huge giant dire toad. Queue a huge fight. We have so far dispatched 50 of the froglockes (most of them) and bloodied the toad, but are still grappling with the remaining elite guard and have expended pretty much all our resources.

At this point 3 of the water-elemental, part frogs arrive and put the hurt on my character (200 hit points worth of damage in 3 rounds – the only way I’ve survived to date is by virtue of Andrew’s specialist healing cleric who is now in a bad way as well). So I suspect it’ll be new character time shortly. Overall, it seems a little frustrating that we faced such a tough ask as an initial mission, and that the ‘friendly’ npc intelligence was so far out. Both of these gripes can be explained in story terms, but I feel would be a hard ask in game terms.

I must face some blame, because I was the catalyst of pressing on into the tower without a full rest, when I think one or two of the others had level-ups pending and needed to restore daily powers. I stand by my decision, because it was driven by roleplaying elements, rather than tactical considerations, but then that’s what happened the last time we were TPK’d…

A Door in your Mind

2010-06-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

So, the other day in my regular D&D game, our group of hardy adventurers were on their way to dispatch an outpost of one of the many factions which inhabit the ruined city, when we happened across a door. Not just any door mind, a giant door with a huge skull above it. And when I say happened across, I mean that we sensed the door, through some grand plot stuff, and detoured to discover it. As soon as we saw it, I cynically wagered another player that we would eventually open it, despite the obvious omens and the fact that we had another job underway. Needless to say, despite the many, many efforts of the other player to prevent such an occurrence and nearly thirty minutes of play, the door was opened by another character.

When running games I’ve always found that a door, trapdoor, or a deep hole, can easily occupy several hours of gameplay as players bicker, discuss and hypothesise what might lurk beyond. Often the imagined scenarios are far grander than the reality, and it is hard to not re-write the game to reflect the nice ideas floated. Inevitably, no real consensus will be reached and one player (usually the one who has become most bored) will simply announce their character will open the door/descend into the hole to the outward exasperation, but secret delight, of the others. This period can be extended by adding more detail, such as a sound or smell which is hard to place coming from beyond, or inscriptions or pictograms on the portal.

The door/hole was, for me, often an unexpected and unwanted sink of time during a scenario, however, I have come to appreciate how they can also be a very useful device. A method of exploiting and drawing out existing character divisions, or, when used with some degree of time pressure, an exciting challenge, or simply a chance to think about, and prepare responses to unanticipated in-game events from earlier in the session. All in all, I have come to appreciate the value of a good mysterious portal.

A Player's Tale

2010-05-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

This week I spent a fair bit of time playing in some different RPG’s. Here’s a brief snapshot of the week that was;

On Monday I helped playtest Morgue’s forthcoming superhero adventure for the ICONS system. I had previously created a character by rolling superpowers randomly (love that old-school, V&V feel) and decided on the basis of rolling plant control, animal control and the ability to excrete toxins that I would be the ‘Green Man’ and environmental avenger and super-hippy. It was a pretty wild time, and I must give nods to my fellow heroes for having some great laughs. Our team was entirely dysfunctional with two fairly straight characters (Slade played by Norman and Salamandress played by Jenni) and two kind of lame, oddballs (Robo-Zard was played by James and was particularly memorable for his stalker style antics involving Salamandress) and me of course.

Other than a fondness for the characters, I was reminded just how much a GM has to try and continuously reinforce the role of the game world’s reality and provide some kind of basis for normalcy in an old school supers outing. It can be a continuous and exhausting process depending on the power level of the Supers and the creativeness of the players. Perhaps it’s the difference between a campaign, or long-term game over a short run, but If anything, I think that it reinforced that I prefer super games which deal with origin stories and bring a focus on ‘real-world’ pressures on super characters, over short run, four colour adventures.

On Tuesday I played my ‘Brutal Scoundrel’ in my regular D&D campaign. It’s been several sessions since the TPK and I like the other PC’s, but it seems that we might have to change party roles around and introduce new characters soon in order to replace our ‘healing role’ which was left vacant after a player left the game. We continue to explore a gigantic city cast out of time and magically sealed, overrun by demons, fey, frog-locks, bugbears and many other assorted nasties. The number of factions involved has made me concerned that we may once again find ourselves betrayed and TPK’d but I guess time will tell.

Last week we were ambushed by bugbears who referred to us as 'noobs', which I guess is true, but certainly made me feel like it was a very long road ahead. Without any bushcraft capabilities, and obviously being at the low end of the power scale in this setting (or else it'll be a short campaign) I pondered whether there was any point in trying clever strategies or trying to do anything but blindly walk into one encounter after another and hope that we can beat it. After all, everything else in the setting is likely more powerful and more in tune with the local environment than we are, so unless the GM is willing to give our ideas and plans a credence that defies the perscription of our level, he or she is unlikely to let us gain any real advantage over the NPC's.

We have our first actual serious, non-combat, interaction with NPC’s next week and it's possible the group will shatter and fragment when given the opportunity to find different motivations . I think that from this game I took away the need to use pace appropriately in order to try to reveal a story of this scope.

On Thursday I played Dr. Ivan Borkovsky, a Czech Archeologist on expedition to Meso-America in 1914, in Call of Cthulhu. We spent almost the entire session making characters (well, talking about making characters and other things) and finding our way to an ominous and largely undiscovered ancient, overgrown Mayan city. Fortunately my fellow explorers were sufficiently outlandish in their antics that my Dr. Borkovsky was actually fairly buttoned down, despite my outrageous accent (I guess that balances out my Green Man mischief on Monday). The group is heavily armed, but on the basis of the scenario build-up so far, I fear that Dr. Borkovsky is unlikely to live long enough to publish his paper on the lost city…

Who's Bad? - Part Two

2010-04-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

So in my original post I tried to illustrate what I have observed as a potential problem in some old-school style games; the idea that sometimes the villain becomes too powerful, as a result of the GM conflating their own knowledge of the PC’s actions, with the notion that the main villain should be more powerful and intelligent than the GM would be in a similar circumstance, leading to a very high degree of difficulty for the PC's possible victory.

To the mailbag, Mash asked: “Looking at your example: if the PCs don't really understand how powerful the villain is, then is there scope to downgrade him without creating a continuity error with what they do actually know?”

I think there surely is, my point on this topic is that the GM is not willfully nor consciously doing this. It is a problem that creeps in, often undetected except in the final throes of conflict after a TPK. Let me go to an example:

I have primarily experienced this in older D&D games, where the villain’s level was a predictor of his or her relative powers, and as such, far exceeded that of the any given PC (as a way of equalizing the cumulative power of all of the PC’s fighting the villain at the same time). However, the actual manifestation of this was that as PC’s, we encountered the villain’s hench-people and defeated them without really understanding much of the why’s and wherefore’s of the situation. The consequence of that action would be terrible and extremely powerful revenge visited upon us, usually through a pre-prepared ambush, which would often defeat or kill the PC’s.

The result from the player’s perspective was a degree of confusion: ‘why did we just get our asses kicked? That sucked!’ and the response from the GM would often be ‘that’s the consequence of meddling in the villain’s schemes, you guys should have been smarter’ and also ‘had your characters actually survived, you might have learnt your lesson’. This might be a 'fair' outcome from the GM's perspective, but because we didn't ever undertsand all the variables involved we couldn't assess the fairness, only the fun-ness, and it was not 'fun' (for me at least).

To be fair I have run a similar situation myself; several instances of Delta Green come to mind, where the villains in question were a race of sentient insect fungus from space. Possessing advanced technology they are able to easily spy upon the PC’s without detection, and while their motives and actions should be appropriately abstract in terms of plot, I had difficulty in having them overlook the PC’s plans for violence or disruption of their plans. I tried to give some clues of this infiltration, but what occurred in the most recent game of Delta Green I ran was that the players acted hastily (in the context of the government agents they were playing, not in terms of some tired gamers around a table) and enacted a raid that was a spectacular failure due to the villains having made preparations along the lines of the Branch Dividian in Waco (one of the villains listed ambitions was to cause the federal authorities significant embarrassment to back off future operations). I’m not sure the players enjoyed the experience, and we didn’t play Delta Green again.

Which brings me to the next point of discussion. If the GM might sometimes attribute additional intelligence, perception or power to the villain’s interaction with the game-world, then who exactly are the PC’s?

To illustrate this point with an example, a friend of mine recently complained that despite having a high Charisma score in his recent D&D game, the GM often belittled his attempts to elicit information or charm NPC’s because the GM did not find the player’s strategy for achieving this to be successful, irrespective of the characters ability. He was equally miffed that the other PC’s did not treat his character in a manner that befitted the natural charm and charisma that his character should exhibit in the game-world. His argument was that the PC’s and NPC’s should all act as though his character was the extremely charismatic and charming individual the system said he was, largely irrespective of his own personality at the table.

Obviously the same argument can be leveled at investigation games, where the PC’s are playing expert and professional investigators, yet the players are often stumped in situations that their characters would not be (enter the GUMSHOE debate).

I know that when I run a game I try and keep a mental picture of each character distinct from the player, and try to overlay one with the other when they interface with NPC’s, but I suspect I’m not always successful in doing this.

To be continued again...

Who's Bad? - Part One

2010-04-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

I have observed, over the years, the power creep of creeps. Or, to be more specific, how hard can be for GM’s to distance themselves from their villains. It’s a problem I can understand only too well. When you create an adventure or dungeon or campaign, you usually arrange for there to be an adversary for the players, a villain, or in special cases even a super-villain (being an especially successful villain). This NPC is vested with dastardly schemes, and likely a range of accomplices/underlings/hench-people that can be deployed to achieve these ends. Often the villain’s actions which do not involve the PC’s directly are unscripted, left to the imagination of the GM, as this NPC interacts with the game world through his or her imagination alone initially.

Naturally, during the course of the game, the PC’s will encounter some aspect of the villain’s plan, either by accident or intent, and inevitably confront underlings or allies in a manner which will either thwart, or otherwise inconvenience the villain’s schemes. It is, therefore, only natural that the villain will take measures to stop/eliminate or distract the PC’s once they become aware of them. It’s pretty much the plot of any bulk-standard Hollywood action flick right? So far, so good?

Here’s where it gets tricky. The GM has watched events unfold, probably with a smug look, as PC’s bicker and blunder their way through plots (by which I mean quality roleplaying of course!). The GM is aware of just how lucky they have been to this point, whereas the NPC villain may only be aware of something going awry with a plan, or the sudden death of a minion in a very remote way. Can the GM adequately separate his or her own knowledge and intellect from that of the villain?

The problem is that most villains are extremely successful operators within the game-world. Where players have fluked or blundered their way through encounters and survived often by luck (or the use of GM fiat), villains have risen to their position through force of personality, ruthlessness and cunning. They are wealthy and powerful in a way that is remarkable. In most cases, they are more successful in these ways than the GM, so it is somewhat natural for a GM to justify superior reasoning and capability to the villain.

What does this mean? Well, sometimes it means that no matter how clever or well thought out the actions of the PC’s the villain will be neither surprised nor prone to sudden defeat. It sometimes means that the villains will lways achieve their major aims because they can tap into the game-world better than the PC’s. It also can mean that the villain will rarely suffer a major defeat or die in a non-epic way. It might even lead to the GM berrating or belittling the PC's due to perceived shortcomings, when their actions are compared with the villain's.

It might even have serious consequences for a game, but is there anything we can actually do to combat this phenomena?

To be continued…

Total Buzz Kill? - Part Two

2010-03-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

The next TPK was more painful, and involved a fair bit of subsequent player discussion and navel gazing. This game, let’s call it Game 2, is an ultra-traditional D&D game using 4th Edition, including pretty much every supplement, a horde of miniatures, and players who exclusively play D&D – and some who have done so for several decades.

In Game 2, we were at the beginning of what, by all accounts, was to be an extensive campaign, involving much preparation and thought on the part of the GM. We had generated our own characters and had them injected, almost at random, into the adventure. Regrettably, neither players nor characters had much communication about our end goals, and this was to prove our undoing.

After 6 sessions of exploration of a wilderness environment and associated town (including a mini-dungeon) we asked for, and were given, a task by the local lord. This was to investigate the increased instance of attacks on the road leading to the town, and report back what was going on. Subsequent investigation revealed that; while there had been attacks on the road previously, these had recently escalated in terms of violence, coinciding with a powerful magical flux we had previously experienced.

We wandered out to investigate, and were attacked. We defeated our would-be ambushers and took one captive. After a session of interrogation we established that the local eco-system had been upset when spell-casting Bugbears had moved into a local keep, moving out the incumbent hobgoblins, who had in turn displaced the local goblins, which had in turn caused trouble with a tribe of Kobolds. The Bugbears were primarily responsible for attacking travelers on the road, and all the other factional races wanted them dealt with. We negotiated with the bugbears, and scouted the keep, noting the extremely difficult nature of any frontal assault.

Now, here’s where we came unstuck. As it turned out, the characters had very different reasons for taking this job. One character wanted to get paid by the lord and was ready to go back to town. Another wanted to find a way home, and several were of the view that we had not adequately obtained an accurate picture of the environment. My own character was a do-gooder Paladin who was aiming to resolve the issue with a minimum of bloodshed, and was keen to arrange some level of negotiation before employing force or giving the local lord an excuse to do the same.

The players weren’t exactly on the same page either. My filthy hobo paladin of the god of the homeless wasn’t winning me any friends with the party, who thought I was failing to act as a suitable negotiator and utilise my high charisma score. Our priest wasn’t big on voluntarily healing people, and the others had some issues as well. It’s fair to say that players who had an eye on ‘party roles’ as set out in the book were increasingly displeased with our failure to fulfill our anticipated roles to maximize our potential.

What transpired was that, we believed that the Hobgoblins would support us while it looked like we were going to tackle their enemies the Bugbears. Mistake. Two characters who had scouting abilities (rogue and ranger) went to do some further scouting while the rest went to speak with the kobolds in the hope they might reveal a secret entrance to the fortress.

The bugbears played along, then once they had the scouts alone, killed them one at a time with overwhelming force. When the rest of the group returned they supplied a poison wineskin, but when that failed, attacked us in force, killing us after a dozen or so rounds of massed combat. It should be noted that this fight wasn’t a walk-over and we did manage to drop the bugbear chieftain before being defeated.

So, did we set ourselves up for this outcome? The Dungeon Masters Guide provides the following advice:

“Let the characters face the consequences of their stupid actions, but make sure you give enough cues for the players to recognize stupid actions, and give the players every opportunity to take back rash decisions.” – DMG 4th Ed, p30

I’m not a big fan of the language, but that aside, had we engaged in rash or stupid actions? I cannot second guess the GM but it felt to me like he/she was sensing the frustration of certain elements of the group at our un-tactical approach and rather than be direct out of game, and discuss the kind of game he/she wanted to facilitate, he/she instead set a steep grading curve and let the chips fall where they may. As he/she said afterwards, had we actually managed to survive the bugbear ambush, we might have been spurred to find this kind of change in-character.

As it was, only one of us elected to keep the same character for the next session (beginning as captives), and the game took a brief hiatus. The GM may justify the encounter on the basis that we acted ‘stupidly’ in a dangerous tactical environment, and our defeat was the result of our own decisions (had we not split up we might have survived the ambush), which ties in nicely with another gem of advice from the DMG:

“The best way to avoid hard feelings connected to character death is to be fair and to make sure the players know you’re being fair.” – DMG 4th Ed, p30

To my mind, we had already twisted our characters disparate motivations to pander to the GM’s set-up, and the actions of the bugbears did not seem especially rational. However, beyond that, it raises the question of what the GM should be trying to achieve. Is it a ‘fair’ outcome, or a fun one?

As a postscript; subsequent sessions of the campaign have seen a considerable degree of GM innovation (considering the context) and attempts to provide interesting and unifying motivations for PC's. More than half the party has succumbed to the ‘Indiana Jones effect’ aligning new character motivations and min/maxing to guarantee every possible advantage in what is clearly largely an exercise in absurd tactical simulation. So perhaps the TPK served a useful purpose, along the lines of: what doesn't break up a gaming group, only makes it stronger...

The Indiana Jones Effect

2010-03-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

After some spirited discussion with the Grand Experiment about the merits of 4th Edition D&D in the comments of my first post, I need to pause for thought before posting the second part of my TPK post, which is about a D&D campaign.

In the interim, I’d like to briefly mention a phenomena which I’ve observed, largely in Call of Cthulhu games. Most players new to Cthulhu start the game with a quirky or interesting PC. An artist or author, professor or doctor – characters drawn, for the most part, from real life. These characters do well in the initial phase of the game, and are often successful investigators. However, while 85% of a Cthulhu game will be about investigation and character play, there usually comes a time when there is a confrontation, combat or even a monster to face.

When these worthy starting characters succumb to oblivion (hopefully not on their first outing), the next character will, most likely, bear a strong resemblance to Lucas’ Indiana Jones. A tough, whip toting, brawler who can handle most weapons, and would love nothing better than to roughhouse with cultists in the heart of their temple – and also probably knows his/her way around a library.

An entirely natural reaction to the death of a first character due to a failure of physical prowess.

But, of course, Call of Cthulhu is not kind to such innovation. A tougher character, willing to take risks and even be provocative, often meets the full might of the Mythos head on, and much like a meeting with a freight train, the results aren’t pretty.

The third character is then often a compromise. The player will take all the elements of the first kind of character, but make a small concession to violence in the form of an increased dodge or weapon skill – hopefully justified by character backstory.

I mention this phenomena not to pass judgement, just to observe that no matter our intentions when running games, and framing encounters, people will often view things on their own terms, and for some that means that character death, however noble, is a failure.

Total Buzz Kill? - Part One

2010-03-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

So, over the last month I’ve been on the receiving end of two Total Party Kills (TPK’s) in two very traditional roleplaying games. They both left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, and I’m trying to determine if that’s anything more than my own hypocrisy at work. I present my thoughts in two parts, each using a different system and game example.

The first, let’s call it Game 1, was a traditional Call of Cthulhu adventure. A one-shot multi session game, and the TPK was basically akin to the final exam. Had we, the players, been rigorous in our investigations, we would have discovered the vital clue, which would have enabled us to dispatch the villain by attacking her super-weakness. As it was, we were playing rather eccentric dilettante characters, looking into the mystery of a missing friend, and as such, we weren’t especially diligent. We did enough investigation to discover our friend’s fate, and identify a likely culprit and spent several enjoyable sessions exploring and investigating. We had an encounter which revealed that supernatural powers were at play and our physical resources would be stretched to combat these forces. So we armed ourselves as heavily as possible and stormed the breach.

Unfortunately it turned out that the villain was utterly indestructible by normal physical means, so despite being decapitated and suffering various other indignities at our hands, the villain dispatched us one by one, either personally, or by use of minions. Even fleeing proved of no use, as the final characters were slain in the streets. Because we had failed to glean the key clue, we were doomed.

Now, you might say – well that’s just Call of Cthulhu right? You knew your character was going to die or go insane long before the first dice were rolled. It’s the nature of the beast.

To which I’d say; no. That’s not Call of Cthulhu. At least not the way I run it, and I don’t think that’s the kind of thing that the creators intended either:

“When investigators die, it is not enough that they die bravely if they die too soon. Keep the scale of violence low, the pace of play moderate, and provide time to recover. If the investigators insist on pressing forward into certain death, the keeper with integrity may not long resist, but the keeper who chides players into combats soon discourages players." – Call of Cthulhu Core Rules, 5.5ed (p142)

Now, there has been some debate from the fine minds over at Gametime about this. People have argued that if Cthulhu were serious about this kind of thing, they’d have built it into the system. Perhaps, but to me that’s like creating a rule to stop people acting like a dick – it’s implicit in the idea of roleplaying with others. The game must use social conventions, shared understanding and trust, not rules, to establish a benchmark for any aspect of the game.

However, I note that clearly the extended Keeper’s Lore section of later editions of Call of Cthulhu is sort of a band-aid to fix some of the common problems people have had, including the prevalence of death and insanity needlessly inflicted on characters by GM’s. And it’s true that this kind of thing is more common in a ‘one-off’ scenario.

I put this down to the disposable nature of the characters and the perceived benefit of ‘raising the stakes’ to try and shortcut player buy-in normally established over many sessions. To my mind the jury is still out on whether this is the most successful method to achieve these ends.

But, back to Game 1. The game had set a pass/fail criteria, which involved high stakes, and we failed. Should the GM have edited the scenario to make it less arbitrary? Perhaps, although obviously he/she shouldn’t have to. Should the GM have made sure that we had the clue? Perhaps, and I think this is the kind of experience which kicked off the GUMSHOE system, guaranteeing that vital clues are found – although to be fair, we made it all the way to the end scene – we just missed a vital piece of information (which could easily have been ruled an optional, rather than core scene in GUMSHOE). We solved the mystery, just didn’t ‘win’ the game.

Ultimately, I think that this kind of experience can put many people off games like Call of Cthulhu, and raises the issue of GM trust. I trust that the GM will provide me with a good experience, and I trust that he/she will follow the advice in the CoC core rules about making sure that any character death “acquires a sense of justness”. Without such trust, the game will certainly devolve into a rules and mechanics fest, as I try and seek any and all possible advantage using mechanics, because I don’t trust that the GM has my best interests at heart.

D&D4E – To slick for it’s own good?

2010-03-11T23:50:00.000-08:00

I’d like to provide a brief entrée while I’m preparing my post on the topic of the TPK. I play in an old-school D&D 4th Edition campaign. I’ve now played half a dozen sessions using the 4th edition rules (having previously played using 3.5E, 3E and 2nd ed.) and I’ve got to say that I think that with 4th edition, Wizards have outfoxed themselves. By making the game system heavily focussed around combat, and by making combat much easier to manage through the use of cards, I really haven’t engaged very much with the game system.

In 3.5 just creating a character would have had me flicking backwards and forwards through my D&D tomes, trying to find obscure passages, cross-checking feats and skill synergies. Now most people would argue this is a poor design for information, and they’d be right; but I will say that I felt a strong feeling of accomplishment by simply creating a character, and another for actually running that character through a combat (even though I would almost certainly have missed or miscalculated some bonus of other). With 4E the basic stats, a quick check of the equipment table and the cards seem like more than enough to get me through – so that’s what I’ve been doing.

Now my first two characters are dead, I have to admit that I don’t really care what my next character is – a decision I might have agonised over in 3.5 for some time, weighing options, and consulting yet more tomes. But in 4E I know that my new character will likely have very similar powers to the departed, and I just have to pick which button to press (card to play) each round - and I don’t suspect it will need much in the way of time or attention to create and run, which I suppose is a good thing, right?

I should clarify that it is early days of playing 4E and that I may yet become more attached to this sleek, plastic thing that’s eaten my old mongrel.