How Else Could the Die Roll?

 Role Playing Games, System Neutral  3 Responses »
May 012012
 
'Let the Games Begin' by see-through-the-eye-of-g on Flickr

'Let the Games Begin' by see-through-the-eye-of-g on Flickr

Failure can be interesting if it encourages creativity; when players can’t do the first thing that enters their heads, so they’re forced to pursue alternate paths.

But.

What if, instead of success/failure, you rolled to determine one of two different outcomes? Or a range of outcomes?

I’m sure there are systems that do this (like Fudge). But imagine it accepted broadly, in most RPGs. What if popular systems were built around the idea of dice rolls providing more than a binary outcome of success or failure?

What if the GM built dangerous situations, not monsters?

GMs are used to constructing encounters with a balanced mixes of baddies, and choosing or constructing appropriate baddies. What if we rose our thinking to a higher level?

Imagine the GM laying out possible outcomes for a situation. The players then roll to determine which one occurs.

We could build a system for this, but let’s use common, existing mechanics. When in a dangerous situation, choose appropriate abilities, skills, etc. Instead of rolling against one target difficulty, you roll for each possible outcome. The outcome with the highest roll occurs.

Example: The players have been hired to protect a caravan traveling through the desert. An airship covered with a swarm of giant insects descends out of the sky and crashes on the path ahead. The PCs see at least one unconscious survivor. Outcomes include: the players rescue the survivor but are attacked by insects; the players are attacked by insects and the survivors die (but leave behind a record of their trip); all the insects are dead but the players rescue the survivor. The players roll for each of these outcomes, adding all their results together.

How might this broaden the kinds of situations that your party would get into?

Building a Dungeon in Classic D&D

 Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games  3 Responses »
Apr 242012
 

This is the last part of my ongoing series dissecting early Dungeons & Dragons, and building the retroclone Dungeon Raiders out of it.

'Escape' by shanegorski on Flickr

'Escape' by shanegorski on Flickr

For simplicity’s sake, what follows is the entire article that I wrote in Dungeon Raiders about dungeon design.

Here’s the secret to creating an exciting, dangerous dungeon:

A dungeon is a series of scenes. Each scene is a major event–a fight or conflict–which occurs within a limited geographic area that I call a site. A few common site types are listed below.

A lair is one creature’s base. This creature may, of course, have minions. Examples of lair-based creatures include dragons, liches, and mad wizards.

Most lairs are single rooms. Even complex lairs made up of several areas should point towards an epicenter.

A warren is a set of rooms that make up the home for one clan or band of creatures. Goblins and kobolds, for example, often live in a series of interconnected passages and rooms that make up a warren.

Plus, some clans will be led by a chief who maintains a lair somewhere within the warren.

Warrens should be absolutely thick with one type of creature, and nearby sites should contain either a few examples of this creature, or at least evidence of their nearby habitation.

A trap (in these terms) refers to a room or small complex specifically designed to kill or ward off intruders, typically with mechanical or otherwise automatic guardians.

Traps can be mazes of twisty little passages (all alike), empty rooms, and switchbacks. They can also be individual rooms rigged with explosives, swinging blades, trap doors, and the like. Traps can also include all of these.

Monsters are rarely found in trap sites, which is a clue for adventurers to the site’s type.

A crypt contains a very powerful yet abandoned item (or set of items). They are distinct from lairs in that the central item is not a creature, though the “item” could be a dormant creature like a lich or golem.

Crypts are nearly always a single room. They can sometimes be combined with a lair if a powerful creature is attempting to use the powerful item abandoned in the room.

While the crypt itself is a single room, it most benefits from one or two introductory rooms that serve as warnings or clues about the upcoming crypt.

The last major site is the old kitchen, a room once used for a specific purpose, but now taken over for another use. Monster encounters frequently occur in once-mundane areas, in which monster and adventurer just happen to meet.

When designing your dungeon, start with the sites that you want to feature. Draw those on a piece of paper, simply as circles connected by lines. Then, flesh out each site. How big is it? How many rooms does it include? Where are the exits? What monsters should be included?

Then merge your sites, connecting them with passages or nestling them up against each other. Voila! You have a dungeon.

If the PCs dive into a dungeon that you haven’t fully fleshed out, no worries! Just think in terms of sites, and make it up as you go along.

Treasure in Classic D&D

 Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games  4 Responses »
Apr 172012
 

This is part of my ongoing series dissecting early Dungeons & Dragons, and building the retroclone Dungeon Raiders out of it.

'Pirate treasure chest' by mags20_eb on Flickr

'Pirate treasure chest' by mags20_eb on Flickr

Treasure’s a very important element of early D&D.

In OD&D, as your character leveled up, you rolled for extra HP, and if you played a spellcaster, you got to choose new spells. That was it. No new abilities. No extra attack bonus or damage.

This means that the difference between a first-level and a tenth-level fighter was primarily equipment.

So, treasure must be made available, and it must be reasonably useful.

Treasure can be neatly divided into two types: magical and non-magical.

Non-Magical Treasure

Monsters carry a certain amount of treasure, which is grouped into categories by letter. Weak monsters–lizardfolk, oozes, and zombies–carry type A treasure, while dragons carry type D. Because old D&D loved its random tables, we’ll construct a Treasure Table. Roll a 1d20 to determine the type of treasure found:

Type Gold Gems Equipment Potions
A 1-15: 1d10 16-17: 1d6 18-19: 1d4 20: 1 potion
B 1-10: 2d10 11-15: 2d6 16-18: 1d6 19-20: 2 potions
C 1-10: 3d10 11-14: 3d6 15-18: 1d10 19-20: 2 potions
D 1-8: 4d12 9-14: 4d8 15-19: 2d6 20: 1d4 potions

If you roll Equipment, the DM decides what to hand out. The DM can either choose weapons from the list of weapons described in the previous article (with a +1 or +2 if appropriate), or select a magical item below.

Magical Treasure

Early D&D lists plenty of magical items. For copyright reasons, I wasn’t about to duplicate names, but the effects are useful.

All magical items have “charges,” which indicate how often they can be used. This allows the DM to scale the impact of magical items; a low-level party can discover a staff of healing with only two charges left, but ten levels later they may find one with thirty charges.

Here are a few neat items:

  • Wand of Magic Power – When a charge is used, all enchanted or otherwise magical objects glow for the next 5 minutes.
  • Staff of Healing – Touch this staff to any creature to heal 1d6+1 damage. This will only work its effect once per day per creature, but can be performed on up to ten different creatures each day.
  • Staff of Telepathy – Once per day, the holder of the staff may send mental messages to any ally within 100 feet. Also, once per day, the holder may attempt to read the surface thoughts of any creature within 50 feet; the creature gets a saving throw (vs. wands).
  • Potions are listed on their own 1d20 table. Early D&D listed many potions with odd effects and no listed durations or limitations, so I’ve decided to include a representative sample, and leave their limitations up to the DM.
    • 1-8 Cure Minor Wounds (recover 1d6+1 HP)
    • 9-10 Cure Medium Wounds (recover 2d6+2 HP)
    • 11-12 Cure Serious Wounds (3recover d6+3 HP)
    • 13 Invisibility
    • 14 Flying
    • 15 Speed (doubled)
    • 16 Polymorph
    • 17 Resistance to Elements
    • 18 Undead Control
    • 19 Giant Control
    • 20 Dragon Control

Note that all measurements and durations are game-world equivalents, so players don’t have to convert from inches to feet or rounds to minutes.

Interestingly, magical weapons typically provided extra damage against a certain type of creature, such as lycanthropes or undead. So, we’ll make this simple and say that magical weapons typically provide 1d4 damage against a creature type of the DM’s choosing. Similarly, magical armor absorbs damage from a particular creature type. This type may be specific (e.g., lycanthropes) or general (e.g., all magical attacks).

This is all quite loosey-goosey. Does a polymorph potion allow the drinker to change size? Are the clothes changed along with the body? How long does it last? Does it affect only visual appearance, but also distinct odors (an important consideration when facing, say, lycanthropes)?

Early D&D leaves this up to the DM, and I like it that way. Why not leave it up to the DM, to decide as the situation warrants?

Only one more article remains: An analysis of class dungeon design.

Monsters in Classic D&D

 Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games  No Responses »
Apr 102012
 
'Grugnak' by Peter Seckler (CC-BY-3.0)

'Grugnak' by Peter Seckler (CC-BY-3.0)

This is part of my ongoing series dissecting early Dungeons & Dragons, and building the retroclone Dungeon Raiders out of it.

Early D&D relished its monsters. To avoid drawing the ire of Wizards of the Coast’s lawyers, Dungeon Raiders‘ bestiary is simply a list of classic fairy tale monsters, accompanied with stats.

The stats for these monsters may seem either simple or surprisingly complex, depending on what you’re used to. Those expecting only one or two stats may be surprised by how many things we need to keep track of:

  • Attack roll, including the possibility of multiple attacks.
  • Damage bonus, if applicable.
  • Hit Points, represented as a single number. No die rolls here; too swingy. We have other ways of making combat swingy, as you’ll see in a few lines, and the GM can always tweak the numbers up or down to make a fight harder or easier.
  • Armor, to absorbe damage.
  • Saving throw bonuses, for particularly magical creatures (or particularly unlucky ones).
  • Alignment, not that it’ll matter much.
  • Number Appearing, to add a certain amount of swinginess. How many goblins are in that lair? Could be anywhere from 10 or 100. Roll to find out!
  • Treasure kept on-hand.

Here are a few example monsters:

Monster Attack Damage HP Armor Speed Saving Throw Alignment # Appearing Treasure
Beetle (Giant) 1d12 8 +3 15 -2 Neutral 1d8 B
Dragon (Young) 1d10,1d6,1d6 +2 40 +5 50, fly +5 Any 1d4 D
Dragon (Adult) 1d12,1d8,1d8 +3 60 +5 50, fly +5 Any 1d4 D
Goblin 1d4 4 25 Ch. Evil 1d10*10 A
Lizardfolk 1d8 7 +2 40 -1 Evil 2d8 A
Ooze 1d4 +3 1 +4 35 -3 Neutral 1 A
Troll 1d6+2 +1 15 50 -2 Evil 2d6 B
Wight 1d6 -1 3 15 -1 Ch. Evil 2d10 A

Let me add a few notes on dragons, pulled almost directly from Dungeon Raiders:

Each dragon has three attacks as noted: a breath attack (the first listed) and two claw attacks.

A dragon’s breath attack always deals typed damage, in accordance with the dragon’s preferred environment. White dragons breathe ice in a sphere 30 feet wide; red dragons breathe a column of flame 50 feet long and 10 wide; blue dragons throw a wall of pure force 20 feet wide that flies 40 feet; grey dragons fire a cone of lightning 5 feet wide at its base, 30 feet long, and 15 feet wide; and the fearsome black dragons scream a horrid shriek of necromantic magic that affects all creatures within 20 feet. Note that the dragon need not be within its preferred environment to use its breath.

Moreover, dragons are typically 20 to 30 feet wide. Other monsters are approximately the same size as humans.

So what does that letter in the Treasure column mean? Check out next week’s article to find out!

Ability Scores, Skill Checks, and Alignment in Classic D&D

 Dungeons & Dragons, Role Playing Games  3 Responses »
Mar 132012
 

This is part of my ongoing series dissecting early Dungeons & Dragons, and building the retroclone Dungeon Raiders out of it.

'ShuttaFly' by aarika on Flickr

'ShuttaFly' by aarika on Flickr

Ability Scores

Far be it from me to throw out the six classic ability scores. But what use do they have? When did you last have to use your ability score in D&D?

Original D&D uses one lookup table, with effects on the character depending on each ability score. Each class has a prime attribute: strength for fighters, intelligence for magic-users, and wisdom for clerics. A higher prime attribute improves your XP gained, while a low one penalizes your XP. Or, strength can be used by clerics at 1/3 its value, intelligence by fighters and clerics at 1/2 its value, and wisdom by fighters at 1/3 its value or magic-users at 1/2 its value.

See what I meant by “strange simulationism” in my first article on early D&D?

First Edition D&D expanded this lookup table even further, into one table listing the adjustments to XP made depending on the prime attribute, and another for each ability score’s effect on the player.

Otherwise, ability scores were not used directly in either system. Great.

How can we simplify this, and provide a use for ability scores?

Let’s look at the numbers. If we use the traditional method of rolling up ability scores–rolling 3d6–we have scores from 3 to 18. This is usefully less than 20, but never exactly 20 or 1. Jumping forward in our design a bit to skills, we notice that there are no skills in Original D&D or First Edition. We could use some equivalent.

What if we combined the ability score with skill checks? So, if a player is attempting a strength-based check, like lifting a portcullis, she would roll a 1d20 and compare it to her character’s strength score. We want high ability scores to be good, so the character succeeds if the roll is less than or equal to the appropriate ability score.

Boom! Now what about those tables of effects? Well, I don’t think they’re useful. Players are very good at working the system to have a high prime attribute, and construct a character to minimize the impact of the lower scores. They also add quite a bit of extra situational math, so we’ll ignore them.

When an adventurer is faced with a truly difficult action, such as leaping bravely across a chasm as opposed to merely strolling across a bridge, choose the adventurer’s appropriate ability score and roll 1d20. If the roll is less than or equal to the chosen ability score, or a 20 is rolled, the character succeeds. If not, the character fails.

The preceding roll is called an ability check. If the adventurer must attempt a particularly challenging action, the GM may add a penalty, typically -2 or -4.

Saving Throws

What about saving throws? For simplicity’s sake, we’ll say that everyone rolls 1d20, trying to roll less than or equal to 10. Rogues get a +2, for a target of 12.

How about saving throws against other effects? This quickly gets hairy, so we’ll make it optional: certain effects include anywhere from -2 to +2 on the saving throw. We’ll also give certain classes bonuses: fighters get -1, while wizards get +1. All optional, though.

Optional: To increase realism (such as it is), add or subtract the following amounts from the difficulty target of 10:

Class of Adventurer Rolling Saving Throw:?

  • Fighters: -1
  • Clerics: 0 (no difference)
  • Wizards: +1
  • Rogues: +2 (their natural rogue ability)

Attack type:

  • Rays: +2
  • Wands and staves: +1
  • Paralysis: 0 (no difference)
  • Dragon breath: -1
  • Spells: -2

Alignment

Now. Alignment. Boy, has this been a controversial topic lately!

Let’s return to the sources. OD&D has no alignment; Basic 1E has only lawful, chaotic, or neutral, and AD&D offers all nine classic alignments. Which approach is “best?”

If we’re going to use any of the alignments, we’ll need to define our terms. “Chaotic” vs. “lawful” characters are pretty easy to understand, but what about “good” or “evil?”

I’ve come up with an approach that I think is more helpful within the game: “good” and “evil” are more accurately “selfless” and “selfish.” A “good” character will naturally help others at his expense, while an “evil” character will naturally look out for his own interests at others’ expense.

This is not a good general definition of good and evil. It’s an approach for alignment in RPGs, which allows different characters to work together.

With that, I feel okay with placing all nine alignments in Dungeon Raiders.

 

RPGs for Kids: The Savage Peanuts

 Dungeons & Dragons, FATE, Role Playing Games, Savage Worlds, System Neutral  1 Response »
Jan 312012
 

The Savage Peanuts Title

The Savage Peanuts is a role-playing scenario for kids, in which the players must rescue a boy who has been kidnapped by feral peanut people.

I use the term scenario deliberately. This is not an adventure; the story is not linear (well, except for the set-up).

This article describes a problematic situation and the characters in it, but does not describe what happens, or how the problem is solved. That is up to the players.

This adventure can be run in any role-playing system.

Setup

Thomas, a boy in the player-characters’ home village, has gone missing. His worried parents say he often snuck out of the house at night to drink from the stream near the village.

At the stream, any sort of investigation will reveal tracks in the soft mud near the shore, leading into the wilderness. A good investigation roll will reveal the footprints of a boy struggling in the mud, but even a poor roll will reveal the tracks.

The tracks themselves look like giant bird feet. Following the tracks leads to….

The Scenario’s Location: The Clearing

Dozens of strange, tall trees surround a large clearing. In the middle of the clearing, several strange creatures dance around a bubbling cauldron. A simple wooden scaffold has been erected over the cauldron, and dangling from a rope over the cauldron is Thomas.

Continue reading »

10 Questions With Eddy Webb and Rich Thomas From White Wolf

 Interview, Role Playing Games  3 Responses »
Sep 082011
 

I’m lucky.  Today I got to interview Eddy Webb, Senior Developer and Rich Thomas the Creative Director for White Wolf/CCP Transmedia.  Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, guys.   

As a long-time fan of the World of Darkness I’m really excited for the release of Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, or V20 as I’ll refer to it for the rest of the interview.  What would you say was the number one reason for doing V20? 

Rich Thomas: We really wanted to celebrate the 20th anniversary with something really beautiful, and in a way that would not just be celebrating the game WW made, but the games created by all the fans. People’s lives were changed by Vampire, and we wanted to give those fans something that spoke to them about the amazing ride we’ve all been on.

Eddy Webb: Absolutely. We really wanted to make something for the community to celebrate this milestone. In fact, the top of the credits page has a dedication to the various communities that kept the game alive all this time.

Were you surprised at the fan reaction and/or demand for V20?  Was the demand more intense than you had initially thought it was going to be?

EW: It really was. I mean, we certainly went into the project thinking it was going to be bigger than some folks thought it would be – the distribution chain quoted us a number they thought they would be able to sell of V20, and we doubled that in the end. But the sheer PASSION of the response after all this time – that was surprisingly intense.

RT: Intense, gratifying, wonderful, invigorating passion. Being able to get direct feedback, stories of how the game changed people’s lives, relationships and marriages that came from playing VtM- these conversations were all so much more immediate than was possible during much of the time we were making the game.

I’ve noticed that there’s been some confusion among the fan base as far as the distribution method for V20, that it was only going to be available for distribution as a physical book and only available at the Grand Masquerade or for those that pre-ordered the book through White Wolf webpage.  As I understand it, that’s not necessarily the case.  Care to elaborate on what distribution channels are being used to get V20 out to the public at large?

RT: The original intention was that this was going to be available directly for fans to order through our WW store via the pre-order process. Part of the confusion was some awkwardly written announcements that made it sound like it was only available at Grand Masquerade- the GM edition was only available there, but that wasn’t how it read. That was completely our screw-up and caused a lot of confusion. Once we started hearing from fans who couldn’t afford the deluxe price (and later we heard from fans who only just heard about V20 at all), we decided that PDF and PoD versions would give those folks a chance to have it too.

EW: Exactly right. We wanted to make sure that those fans that bought the book sight unseen got a special, luxurious copy of the book, but pretty early on we decided that we wanted to do a more persistent version that later fans could acquire. However, between a lot of crunch to get the book out on time and some technical problems in our website in communicating things, we weren’t able to really talk about the new options until GenCon.

And I understand that we can also look forward to new Classic World of Darkness sourcebooks, the ability to order older books, as well as a Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition and perhaps even, one can hope, a Mage 20th Anniversary Edition?  Any plans yet for Wraith 20 or Changeling 20, or is that still undecided?  What distribution channels are you looking into for these products?

EW: Anything beyond Werewolf 20th (W20) is undecided. We were happy with the response to V20, kicked some numbers around, and decided that W20 made sense for us to do. If we’re in the same place next year and Mage 20th makes sense, we’ll consider that, as well as other potential projects. We’re playing everything year to year, constantly reassessing what makes sense for us as a company and for the fanbase as a whole.

RT: Right now, we have no intention of using the traditional distributor/retailer or chain store channels. WW books- both new products and backlist- are available via our publishing partner DriveThruRPG. We’re hoping to do a deluxe version of WtA 20thbut that’s as far as our plans have reached.

I’ve noticed a unfortnate trend among local retailers.  Because there weren’t many products coming out to brick and mortar stores since the release of Geist, I’ve actually encountered at least two retaillers that have reduced the shelf space for White Wolf products tremendously and have practically told their customers that you guys were getting out of the RPG business.  Anything you’d like to say about that, just to clear up any confusion?

RT: I guess that’s natural from their point of view. We aren’t putting books into their stores, so it seems to them that we’re out. Well, we’re not. We’re publishing new products for cWoD, for nWoD, and for Exalted, with our new model of PDF/PoD, and we’re creating at a pace and with quality standards that make sense for us and aren’t the grinding “publishing treadmill” of the 90’s.

EW: It’s also indicative of how the lines of communication have eroded over time. For years we’ve communicated primarily to distributors and advertising outlets, and that filters down to the fans. Now we’re moving towards more direct-to-fan communication because we’ve found problems with these previous modes of getting the word out. It does mean, however, that those who aren’t aware of how to talk to us now assume that we’re silent because we aren’t making products anymore.

So…about Scion second edition…..:-)

EW: Since we’re been talking about our new direction, it seems like everyone has a list of wish list books, including more or updated Scion books. I wish we could do them all, but the reality is that when you have over 20 game lines and you’re making most of them available again through print-on-demand, we’ll never be able to do all of the books everyone wishes we would. We’re constantly looking at what there’s strong demand for and how that intersects with our resources and capabilities, so nothing’s impossible.

RT: Who knows? We’ve got a lot of possible projects, but Scion deserves some love too.

Is there anything you can tell us about the Onyx Path?  What little information I’ve seen amounts to basically the .pdf released fo the GenCon slideshow.  Any little tidbits you can share?

RT: Besides presenting older projects like the Mage Convention books, I think where the Onyx Path might lead is very much going to be dictated by what response we get from the fans with the V20 Companion, Children of the Revolution, and Hunters Hunted 2. In the same way that the Open Dev process for V20 gave us such an amazing series of dialogues with the fans and inspired the Onyx Path releases this year, the Open Dev with the new projects will take us towards other projects we haven’t imagined yet or will confirm a few we already have in mind.

EW: One of the things that’s been strange since GenCon is that up to now, we’ve announced things once they were well underway. With V20, we’ve moved to talking about things well in advance of any concrete plans. When we announced Mummy, for example, at GenCon, all I had was two-thirds of a title, a PowerPoint slide, and a four-page document of notes at home (which quickly became obsolete anyhow). The community is still used to us having all the answers and holding back information instead of being out there very early and the answering being “We honestly don’t know yet.”

How do you feel that the rise of digital publishing and online distribution has transformed the RPG market, both for publishers and for fans?  Do you think we’re going to see a time when brick and mortar stores carrying RPG or comic products is going to go the way of the dinosaur?

EW: I wish that weren’t the case, but when big-box bookstores carrying more mainstream products are folding, it’s hard to believe that more niche retail stores are going to buck that trend. Certainly some owners have done some very smart things to keep going, but I think the trends away from brick-and-mortar stores aren’t exclusive to the RPG industry – certainly music stores have been struggling since the iPod.

RT: Absolutely. The brick-and-mortar stores are going to have to evolve as well, I think. On a bigger picture level, the barrier to entry has dropped further for folks who want to create RPGs and get them to market. There’s a huge shift that’s empowered by the rise of ePublishing and our little niche of the overall publishing biz is changing as well.

Do you believe that there is one perfect RPG system?

RT: On a playing level, I think there are systems that combine with setting to really connect with how you internally imagine your characters- so they’re perfect for you. On a game design level- absolutely not. On a business level:  any versions of the Storyteller and Storytelling Systems!

EW: I believe each person has a personal perfect system,  because everyone has different needs from such a game. Sometimes, you have to write that perfect game for yourself, though. That’s how I got started….

Do you get a chance to actually play RPGs and, if so, what are you currently playing?

EW: I play in a biweekly D&D 4e game, I play two Masquerade LARPs a month, and I’m currently in a monthly Dark Ages: Vampire game. I’m also getting ready to start up a game at the office of a new RPG I wrote for fun.

RT: When I’m in ATL, I play a D&D4th game DM’d by Ethan Skemp. I’m in a couple of other D&D games down there including an old school version called Pagan Lands by Justin Achilli, and from home  I’m Skype-ing into a game based on the Scarred Lands DM’d by Scott Holden. Surprisingly, I’m in two V20 games at the Grand Masquerade, which will be very cool as I haven’t played a full session of tabletop Masquerade since the original playtesting in 1991.

Pretty much every gamer has their favorite snacks and drinks during game night.  What are yours?

RT: A six pack of Coke Zero or Diet Cherry Vanilla Doctor Pepper. I get so caught up in the game that I’m not even aware of what I’m eating, so I try and keep the bags of chips away or really quickly it’s an empty bag.

EW: Actually, I’m pretty agnostic, and lately (like Rich) I’ve been trying to stay away from the snacks as I watch my weight. Getting older makes it harder to go on soda and chip binges, sadly.

RT: Of course, a scotch near the end doesn’t hurt the diet. J

Playing a Story in a Believable World 3

 Role Playing Games, Troll in the Corner  5 Responses »
May 252010
 

This story is a further continuation of “Playing a Story in a Believable World” and “Playing a Story in a Believable World 2”.  I highly recommend reading both of those articles before continuing.

Play on Assumptions

Adventures can be inspired from anything.  In the campaign I mentioned last article, one particularly nasty antagonist that the party set out to destroy was almost completely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model”.  It’s a story that hardly lends itself to high combat, but with a little modification I was able to pay it homage while making something unique and fun that Lovecraft fans could make a few guesses about along the way.  Another adventure, to hunt a sewer dwelling urban legend called Croc-Man, led the party to call up thoughts and stories of Killer Croc from the Batman cartoon/comics.  The story hardly had anything to do with the DC character, but it allowed me to direct the investigation because I knew what assumptions the party had made.

As my campaign evolved, the story called for higher action and less intrigue.  Though I never stated that a genre change was impending, I did allude to it repeatedly.  A war was brewing in my plot, a battle to epitomize Good vs. Evil on a mass scale.  The players could feel the danger growing larger session by session, NPCs spoke of an end to the battles they faced, and prophecy warned of the final confrontation.  To prepare for the massive combat, I watched movies like 300, Gladiator, and other violent action flicks.  I noted their soundtracks and during my battles, played those coupled with other powerful songs; music that I knew (knowing my group’s tastes) would pump some adrenaline into the room.  I can’t say I recommend Metallica’s Battery covered by acoustic metal group Van Canto for every game, but with my group is was the perfect choice.  Battles truly felt like epic moments of intense rage directed at an irredeemable enemy, exactly what I hoped to convey.

Afterword

Every group is different; I cannot tell you specifically how to lead every player to the assumptions you want from them.  However, I do feel that being aware of the mood you are crafting will help you figure out how to guide your particular group.  Here are a few starter ideas to help you establish a Continuity of Theme, Tone, and Mood.

  • Choose and communicate a genre style.  Every genre comes with its own set list of assumptions on the types of characters, adventures, and so much more.  Use this to quickly explain the feelings your story is trying to create.
  • Watch movies or read books that capture the chosen genre.  Anything that well illustrates the given tone you want to recreate can serve as inspiration.
  • Don’t be afraid to make references to the genre directly or indirectly in your campaign.  I don’t recommend taking your plot straight from Mass Effect for your Sci-Fi RPG, but if your group is familiar with the game and it has elements that blend well, use them.
  • Spend some time with Thesaurus.com (or a real thesaurus!  Advice I could use myself).  Look up descriptors for the mood you are establishing and find similar words, then use these in your descriptions for locations, artifacts, or characters.
  • Try to stay consistent from the outset.  This is probably the most difficult tip to master, if such a thing is possible.  In the event you are forced to change your mind about your genre due to disinterest or dramatic plot change, be sure to review this list of tips, choose a new genre, and communicate it to the players.

I think it is very important to mention here not place yourself in a box.  Your chosen genre should serve only as a baseline, a point from which assumptions can be made.  How you twist and direct those assumptions is entirely up to you as the writer and GM.  Lastly, crafting a believable world to tell your story in doesn’t end here, these are only steps along the path.  Experiment, read on game theory, and decide what works for you.  I’m working on more articles regarding NPC Relationships, Time Use, and Equipment that all tie your series of adventures into a story world your players can really get into.

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