The Right Stuff

I thought I’d post a short update on the progress of the latest EPOCH scenario collection.  EPOCH: War Stories will see a diverse range of scenarios which feature war – either taking place in wartime, or with war as a backdrop.

A couple of weeks ago I ran a playtest of the scenario by Mike Sands (of Monster of the Week fame) called Coldest Winter set during the Winter War (Finland and the USSR, 1939-1940).  We enjoyed the epic scale of this scenario, and had some great characters.  With a little polish I think it’ll make a really strong offering.

Last week we played through Marcus Bone’s scenario From Above and Below which took us to the horror of trench warfare during the Great War.  You can read Marcus’ thoughts on the scenario here, and how he found the process of creating an EPOCH scenario.  As a player, I had a great time, and found a really evocative setting, paired with a solid premise, and some really atmospheric scenes, made for a really strong scenario.   Marcus has a little more polish to do, but I found his first EPOCH offering very impressive.

My own scenario is progressing more slowly than I’d like.  Mass Destruction is set during it in the first hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as a collection of journalists are transported to witness the discovery a cache of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.  The first few scenes are fairly clear to me, as I have a strong idea about the source of the horror, but the final scenes are yet to unfold.  Hopefully I’ll have a finished working draft ready to playtest in a few weeks.

There are some other intriguing sounding scenarios being crafted – Igor will soon test a fantasy war scenario, Andy M. is working on a Home Front scenario with, what I hope will be, a creepy twist on Dad’s Army while Liam will draw on some working knowledge of African Peace Operations.

It’s an exciting time seeing these great ideas resolved into great EPOCH scenarios.

Horror and Helplessness

A little while ago Lowell Francis, a blogger who has posted extensively on horror roleplaying games, posted that in his view,  "horror thrives on player uncertainty and lack of control”.  I thought about it a little bit at the time, but when he recently repeated the assertion that “most horror operates from threat, entrapment, and some degree of helplessness “ it helped me crystalise my own thinking about the nature of horror in roleplaying, and helplessness.

Helplessness is tricky in roleplaying games because of the question of trust.  Most traditional RPG’s are a shared paradigm where one individual has more narrative powers, and can set the stakes for most conflicts (as GM).  In this relationship, trust is essential.  Implicit in this traditional paradigm is the fact that the GM is not subject to any meaningful checks and balances beyond their social relationship with the players – and, therefore, can structure the story to kill, maim or incapacitate one or all of the characters (or place them in situations where the survival of their characters is unlikely).   But even if the stakes aren’t this severe, the players are effectively being asked to trust that the GM has the best interests of their characters, and their enjoyment of the game as players, at heart.  In a traditional roleplaying games, therefore, the players are largely helpless against the authority of the GM.

Nowhere is this paradigm more evident than in horror roleplaying games.  Many of these systems conflate character helplessness with player helplessness.  They use a mechanical system to establish norms, then ensure that exposure to horror will irrevocable and perpetually erode the characters mental wellbeing within those norms (a la Sanity points in Call of Cthulhu).  In this context the system is continually reinforcing to the player, that their character is helpless against the horror (in the case of Sanity points, they will almost always lose sanity points faster than they can gain them, and each loss is accompanied by periods of system dictated distress helplessness – temporary, permanent and indefinite insanity, often at critical moments in the action).

Other systems use similar mechanics.  In the Gumshoe system the characters spend from a wide pool of perpetually diminishing resources to investigate, encounter and attempt to survive their brushes with the horror.  In Dread, each pull of the tower brings the characters closer to their doom.  In Geiger Counter the horror increases its dice pool every test.

But, in my view, most horror isn’t actually about helplessness. 

Horror is about the intersection between character and something terrible (the source of the horror).  The essence of horror is not helplessness, but rather the human struggle against the macabre and inhuman.  The place where a protagonist tries to find the strength to struggle against forces that would otherwise eviscerate their physical or mental wellbeing.  Lovecraft’s Robert Olmstead escaped Innsmouth, Armitage dispelled the Dunwich Horror and Dyer returned from the Mountains of Madness intent on warning others.  Ripley ultimately defeats the Alien, Ben survives the horde during the Night of the Living Dead, MacReady bests the Thing and the Freeling family flee beyond the reach of the Poltergeist.

So, if you accept that horror is about the struggle, rather than helplessness, what does this mean for horror roleplaying games?

To reflect the way these stories play out, the GM should be continually exploring the impact of the horror on the characters.  The horror should have no independent motive or agenda – rather it exists entirely through the prism of the characters experiences.  That’s not to say all the characters must survive, or that there isn’t a broader story – but the experience of the characters should be the focus of the game.

But that’s not how many games play out.  This blog is called Total Party Kill because of precisely this tension.  The idea that GM’s sometimes violate the relationship trust – exploit the helplessness of the characters in their games.  Indeed many systems and scenarios are explicitly designed to create this experience, or will inevitably result in this outcome without modification.

Some players may accept, or even enjoy the helpless downward spiral of their characters.  Some may even embrace it – but unless you’ve had a conversation with your players about exactly how they enjoy interacting with the horror, its safest to assume that some players are looking to try and triumph against the horror like so many protagonists in horror movies and literature.

For these reasons, when I designed a horror roleplaying game, I put that conversation front and centre.  I also ensured that there would almost always be survivors of the scenario, just as there would be victims, and that the decision about which character survived, and which did not was an artefact of highly structured collective decision making, rather than putting the load on one individual – thus, the players are not helpless in a story that is all about their characters.  I designed a game that I believe exemplifies the struggle that I believe is central to horror.

Surviving EPOCH

Character survival is the aim of the game in EPOCH.  The scenario will remorselessly eliminate characters, so the pressure is on to make your character one of those that will survive the horror right through until the end scenes.  While is true that EPOCH is guaranteed to eliminate characters, it is equally true that there are guaranteed to be survivors so long as there is a basic level of engagement with the scenario.  So, how to make it through to the end? 

Because eliminations are the result of collective decision making, there is no guaranteed method, and every group will be different – but here are some methods I’ve observed as a GM that are often the hallmark of characters that go full distance:

1. Start with an interesting backstory 
Okay, this sounds like unhelpful advice because, of course, you are going to create an interesting setup for your character, but how can you get others to judge this as interesting enough to vote for your character?  Use the opening scene and consider some of the following:

• Introduce conflict, things aren’t going great for the character, be it relationship, career or otherwise.  You don’t need the detail yet, just establish that the character is feeling some pressure because of competing agenda.
•  Hint at something dark or secret.  You don’t necessarily need a lot of detail, but hopefully you might have an idea for a secret that you could hint at in the opening scene which you can develop later – or even ignore completely, but if you do some basic groundwork now you are likely to look clever later as you weave things together.
•  Embrace the conflict.  In the opening scene you should get an opportunity to show the audience how your character responds to some minor conflict or challenge.  Milk this camera time for all it’s worth and try and avoid ambivalent or run-of-the-mill responses.

2. Use the flashback for maximum impact.
As the scenario develops you will receive flashback cards – these represent a golden opportunity to have some dedicated camera time to develop your characters backstory.  I have observed that the difference between people who have played EPOCH before, and those who are playing for the first time, is the use of flashbacks.  Veterans understand that a well crafted, clever flashback is a major factor in deciding the winner of a ballot, and use them accordingly.  When using flashbacks: 

• Clearly establish the scene and time as it relates to current events as while it may be clear to you, the rest of the audience may be confused without this explicit framing.
• Use it to increase audience empathy, or intrigue about your character – ideally revealing more about the secret you have established, or a major motivation for your character.
• Again, be as clear as possible when framing this scene to avoid confusion.  Everyone needs to understand what the scene has revealed, and how it relates to the character in order for the flashback to increase your chances of survival.
• As the game goes on, play flashbacks sooner, and the time between challenge rounds is likely to diminish and you don’t want to miss an opportunity for that spotlight time.

3. Play your Hero/Zero card for maximum effect. 
The Hero/Zero card allows you to have an important and direct impact on another character.  If you do this in an interesting enough way, it may secure you some enhanced interest value.  This is particularly true if you Zero another character.  If you Hero another character, your chances of survival may be increased by a reciprocal act of heroism, but this is only likely to happen if you back it up with some bonding during the next tension phase.  Be sure to milk this for as much as you can to try and secure some additional support.

4. Play up your injuries or trauma. 
Be sure to emphasise the impact of the outcome card you played during the previous challenge round.  The more you emphasise the wounds, the more the other players are visualising the character, and the greater chance you have of making an impression in their minds when they vote. 


5. Add a twist 
Some of the most successful characters add a twist half way though the game.  Often this is something completely out of left-field.  A sudden agenda, secret or history which makes their character undeniably interesting.  The complication card deck is designed to offer a suggestion for this twist, if you are having trouble thinking of something (and it can be hard, once you have a clear idea about a character).  While a complication card often, at first, seems impossible to weave into your characters story – if you think about it laterally there is almost always a way to make it work.  This should instantly give you some new material for a flashback and enhance the interest level in your character.

2012 in Review

Around this time every year, I review my gaming achievements over the past year against what I had planned.  Then I set some goals for the next 12 months.  So how did 2012 stack up?  Let’s see:

1. Finish and publish EPOCH

Check.  I published EPOCH on Halloween 2012.  In February 2013 I released a revised edition featuring new layout by Marcus Bone, and new card art by Doug Royson.  Print on demand cards were released in February and this week I released a print on demand version of the game book.  I am proud of EPOCH and encouraged by the steady sales that it has maintained, even though I don’t think it’s broken into mainstream gaming consciousness. 

2. Write a good selection of scenarios for EPOCH

Check.  I’ve personally written and published 5 EPOCH scenarios, the latest being included in the new collection Frontier of Fear.  There are a total of 8 EPOCH scenarios in print, with a further 3 in various stages of readiness for release, and another 5 that are still a gleam in the eye of their author. 

3. Run the Call of Cthulhu campaign Beyond the Mountains of Madness

Partial check.  The campaign is 90% complete, I hope to run the final sessions shortly.  I’ve posted about the campaign here. 

4. Run the Warpstorm Trilogy, a Rogue Trader campaign

Nope, this remains high on my list of games I want to run, and I hope to begin it as soon as Mountains is complete. 

5. Attend upcoming local tabletop roleplaying conventions

Partial check.  I attended Fright Night and Kapcon 22, but didn’t attend Day of Games or Confusion in 2012. 

6. Write and publish my Call of Cthulhu resource

Nope.  EPOCH has taken all my writing resources of late, and without any clear deadline, this project has languished. 

7. Write and possibly co-run a zany disco based game with Mike

Nope, sadly this did not come to fruition despite a series of e-mails proposing an awesome Bill and Ted style game featuring a ‘dice tower of power’. 

So, what goals for the next twelve months?  Here's my list:

• Write and publish more EPOCH scenarios.  I’d like to see a total of 20 scenarios in print by this time next year.
• Write and publish the EPOCH companion.  This includes some expansion rules and new cards for EPOCH as well as my mini-series rules and scenarios. 
• Write a scenario for Esoterrorists.  Marcus has been talking about this, and if he still wants it, I’d be pleased to repay some favours and write an Esoterrorists scenario for him. 
• Run the Warpstorm Trilogy for Rogue Trader.
• Attend Day of Games and Buckets of Dice in Christchurch. 

Do you have any goals for the next year?

EPOCH in Spaaace

Yesterday I released Frontier of Fear, a collection of 4 science fiction scenarios for the survival horror roleplaying game EPOCH.   It is the first of what I hope will be several scenario collections, and it’s been an interesting, and thoroughly rewarding experience.

For me, science fiction and horror movies have a natural synergy.  The central theme of many of these films is an exploration of the unknown, leading to the discovery of an otherness which may prove hostile, or simply ambivalent to the plight of those who encounter it.  Yet in both cases it is the very human nature of the protagonists which ultimately condemns and, upon occasion saves, the characters.  In these films the characters, their strengths and weaknesses, and their relationship with one another, adds the all-important context for an encounter with the unknown.

For me, the elegance of Frontier of Fear is that while, as a player, you will likely recognise very familiar and classic science fiction tropes present in these scenarios – the act of creating a character and developing and exploring relationships with the other characters, while also trying to ensure your character’s survival with an interesting back-story, will keep the experience fresh and enjoyable.  At least, that was my experience in the scenarios I playtested for this collection.

I’m very grateful to everyone who contributed to Frontier.  Igor Divjak, Liam Jones and Andrew Millar have crafted some fantastic EPOCH scenarios, applying their very considerable creative talents to create an experience which I think will deliver some very satisfying gaming.  Andrew Smith did some remarkable, and invaluable work editing on a tight timeframe, while Doug Royson breathed some real life into the collection, providing a series of fantastic and evocative pieces of art.

I’m also grateful to all the playtesters, who spent some time and energy helping us take the rough edges off these scenarios.  The final product, I think, speaks for itself.

If you'd like a copy to review, please drop me a line.

Laying Your Cards on the Table

Given there has been some interest in the comments about the Print-on-Demand card deck for EPOCH, I thought I’d take a moment to discuss my experience of the process to this point. 

Why cards?  
Well, as you may have read in my post on the design philosophy for EPOCH (republished recently in the RPG review) I wanted EPOCH to be a highly focussed game and felt that using dice, and even the lightest mechanical touch to support them, risked diverting player interest from the character narrative at key moments in the game.  In terms of a resolution system, in a survival horror game, from a players view it seems reasonably to try and skew the odds in the favour of your character wherever possible – after all, the overall odds are likely to be tilted against your character, and in my experience of using systems, even comparatively simple and abstract systems like Gumshoe, or story based systems like Fiasco, some players will often want to optimise any odds or outcomes as a general principle, if presented the opportunity to do so.  This invariably results in players seeking out-of-character clarification across the table, or negotiating to try and ensure they have the best chances of success.  I’m certainly not against using dice, but for my game, where detailed characterisation over a single session is essential, I wanted a mechanic that better supported this approach.

EPOCH also uses cards to provide attributes and motivations to help with character creation, reveal plot elements as part of the Horror Track, tack the triggering of flashbacks and provide inspiration for players during the game if required.  In each case a randomly rolled table, supported by dice could have delivered these elements, but I felt that making each element available to the player (and GM) in the form of a card was a more elegant solution. 

Design 
Because EPOCH is a game which stresses player focus on characters I wanted the cards to be very simple, and allow the player to use their own creative abilities to fill in the detail.  For this reason, most of the original EPOCH cards were simple white rectangles with a black border, featuring a single word.  For the Outcome cards, which depict the injuries the characters suffer, I wanted to add a little extra element, blood spatter in quantities appropriate to the outcome seemed like a neat visual way of overlaying the degree of severity of each card. 

The basic cards I made for the early version of EPOCH were serviceable, if somewhat no frills.  However, I found that when my fellow EPOCH GM’s were printing them in preparation for Kapcon they frequently complained because the cards weren’t aligned to print double sided and assuming you want all possible card options for six players, you needed to cut out around 98 cards, which is almost 200 squares to cut when you do the card backs separately!

So I commissioned EPOCH artist Doug Royson to come up with some new art for the cards.  I knew that I wanted to try the print-on-demand card service offered via drivethrurpg, and therefore decided to make the new cards in the same format for both electronic and print versions.  To help the process I gave Doug the information sheet from Drivethrurpg which specified the size of the cards, and the need to create a bleed around the card (an area which the printer couldn’t guarantee 100% where the cut would be so should have no important text or images.

Doug delivered some amazing looking prototype cards.  We went back and forth a few times until we got a final product we were both happy with.  These were delivered as photoshop files of around 60-80 MB that I then used photoshop to create the entire deck.  Next I created the files for the digital product by laying these out using identical templates so they can be printed double sided (although I’ve found many printers have a tray feeder variance of anything from 2-10mm, and the bigger and fancier the printer you use, the more likely you are to find a low double side feeder variance). 

Printing 
I had thought doing the digital files was fairly laborious, as each card had to be resized and copied to a layout page and lined up with guidelines, but that was nothing compared with what was to come.  

•  Tip One: Create multiple versions of all your cards so that you always have master files for each step of the process you can revisit.  

 The first thing I realised was that while Doug’s cards were great he had made the bleed, the same as the border.  So, if I wanted a black border around the cards (and I did) I needed to create a new template, and paste the card in, effectively giving it a double border, half of which would be cut off during printing.

•  Tip Two: make sure you mark the bleed lines into your print documents and factor them in.

Next was the colour format of the cards.  Printers use CMYK (as opposed to RGB) because they are actually printing each colour separately, and in addition I needed to make sure the cards are not ‘over-inked’ meaning they had less than 238% total amongst the C,M, Y and K (the suggested mix is C 60%, M 40%, Y 40%, K 100%) .  A simple adjustment to make, but something to do early in the process to save hours of tedious clicking (apparently Acrobat can sometimes fix this easily - mine did not).

• Tip Three: check your colour settings.

Next I needed to resize the card as the deck would otherwise have been more than 2 GB and been unmanageable to upload to the printer.

• Tip Four: start with large, high res card files and convert them later, creating new print master files.

Finally it was time to collate the deck for printing.  The printer wants a single PDF, so I need to create a PDF which contains all of the cards, starting with the back of the first card in the deck.  This was pretty laborious, as the deck has 130 cards, so that’s 260 individual card files to add to one document.  This is particularly tricky when creating multiple versions of the same card, as it’s easy to lose track. One mistake and the card deck would be incorrect, and that’s on you – not the printer.

• Tip Five: Create the final file carefully, and double check everything.

You will also need to made sure the file is saved as the right kind of PDF (a PDF/X-1a:2001) in newer versions of Acrobat, or Acrobat that's fairly straightfoward (look under print management) but it can be trickier to find in older versions.  That’ll do for now.  Any questions?

The Proof of the Pudding

I just recieved the proof set of the EPOCH print-on-demand card deck and I have to say it is pretty fantastic!  For those who are interested I'm working with the good people at drivethrucards.com who have been extrmely helpful and easy to deal with.  Here are some early pictures of the proof deck.  Now, how soon can I schedule another EPOCH game?