You know, more and more of these posts are coming out of me trying to teach my young sons how to play. One of my sons was reading the book Castle by David Macaulay. I told the older one that he too should read the book. “But, isn’t that...informative?” Gasp! No! Not that! Heaven forbid! Ok, enough of that. Yep! It is informative. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t have the information contained within that book, you should not be running a fantasy role-playing game that in any way mirrors feudal Europe, which, let’s face it, most of them do.
I’m not saying that this is the quintessential book that must be read, but the information in that book is needed. The book Castle is just the easiest way I know to gain that information.
So forgetting the book - how much research is required to run a game? I do tons of research; probably way too much. Other guys are running things with absolutely none. Where’s the happy medium? I’m interested in your opinions. I think it depends on the education and personalities of your players. Some re-enactors need to have everything exactly right, and the slightest coat of arms out of balance ruins the game for them. I’ve even had arguments a couple of times where I insist that Fletnern (my game world) is NOT Earth and therefore the development of certain technologies would not have followed the same course. For some realists, that isn’t good enough. So again, where is the middle ground? Does it matter if you place a swamp next to mountain and a desert? Maybe not. Does it matter what the mass of the planet’s moon is and how that mass would affect either the gravity while standing on the moon or the rise and fall of the tides? Probably not. Should there be some sense of realism? I think so.
Here’s a big one - If 10 coppers = 1 silver and 10 silvers = 1 gold, does that make sense compared to our modern sense of money? No way. Does that mean its wrong? Maybe, maybe not. This is not the planet Earth we’re dealing with here, and maybe the supply of gold and silver are completely different on that planet. So is game balance and ease of monetary conversion so important that we can ignore this sense of reality? Yeah, I think it is.
Here’s my completely unscientific answer to how much research is needed: Enough that your players believe that within that world, this is reasonable, but not so much that you feel like you have homework every night just so you can have fun one day a week.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Switching Genres take 2
OK, so the last post was why Westerns are good. Here is why others are not so good:
Super Hero stories - Too often the super hero is a solo act. Too often the villain is a solo act. Few fantasy role-playing games are set up for fight, escape fight again. They’re kill or be killed. That doesn’t work as well with superhero stories. Also, the hero(es) often gain power in astronomical proportions. The hero doesn’t gain a better weapon, he learns to channel his inner self and go from throwing small flames around to going super nova. That doesn’t work for extended campaigns. The action pacing is often very good though.
Fantasy stories - Too often the hero is a solo act or a hero with less important followers. Too often the players see the similarities immediately. Too often there is one super powerful weapon - not the kind of thing that groups of friends can share. Often the action is paced wrong and the hero and his lady love are important aspects.
War stories - They typically use “parties”; this is good! They are kill or be killed; which is good! Typically they are far too dramatic, with massive amounts of character building and not the right action pacing for a RPG. Sometimes, TV series can be useful for mission ideas (Think Combat! or Rat Patrol). The enemies work because they are always the same. Trying to get a plot line where your party members HATE the enemy, but its a new enemy every week? Yeah - nope.
Off genre action - This is some of the best ground, but it depends on the movie. A classical space opera might work, unless its all about one hero, though you’ll never hear me say anything bad about Flash Gordon. Some of the pulp action stories, typically about Wild Africa - can work nicely, but they do rely on their location for some of the mystery and suspense. That can be extremely difficult to reproduce. Of course, there is no better hero than Allan Quatermain, and in his first two books, he does travel with a party. It comes down to the same issues as we laid out here. As we all know, a sci-fi movie can be a classic Western style, or a war movie or a super hero story. Victorian, Future, post-Apocalypse, they really don’t change what we’ve already listed.
Super Hero stories - Too often the super hero is a solo act. Too often the villain is a solo act. Few fantasy role-playing games are set up for fight, escape fight again. They’re kill or be killed. That doesn’t work as well with superhero stories. Also, the hero(es) often gain power in astronomical proportions. The hero doesn’t gain a better weapon, he learns to channel his inner self and go from throwing small flames around to going super nova. That doesn’t work for extended campaigns. The action pacing is often very good though.
Fantasy stories - Too often the hero is a solo act or a hero with less important followers. Too often the players see the similarities immediately. Too often there is one super powerful weapon - not the kind of thing that groups of friends can share. Often the action is paced wrong and the hero and his lady love are important aspects.
War stories - They typically use “parties”; this is good! They are kill or be killed; which is good! Typically they are far too dramatic, with massive amounts of character building and not the right action pacing for a RPG. Sometimes, TV series can be useful for mission ideas (Think Combat! or Rat Patrol). The enemies work because they are always the same. Trying to get a plot line where your party members HATE the enemy, but its a new enemy every week? Yeah - nope.
Off genre action - This is some of the best ground, but it depends on the movie. A classical space opera might work, unless its all about one hero, though you’ll never hear me say anything bad about Flash Gordon. Some of the pulp action stories, typically about Wild Africa - can work nicely, but they do rely on their location for some of the mystery and suspense. That can be extremely difficult to reproduce. Of course, there is no better hero than Allan Quatermain, and in his first two books, he does travel with a party. It comes down to the same issues as we laid out here. As we all know, a sci-fi movie can be a classic Western style, or a war movie or a super hero story. Victorian, Future, post-Apocalypse, they really don’t change what we’ve already listed.
Switching Genres
Sorry for the delayed post - I was out of town. Better yet, I’ll be gone again this weekend, so I’ll post both now. It was a two-parter anyway, so it sees to fit.
We fill a lot of space in some of our books (most notably Forge of Imagination and Character Foundry) talking about switching genres. So what works? I think that flat out, the best genres to borrow ideas from are the Westerns. They work perfectly for fantasy games. Now, I’m talking about John Wayne style Westerns here, not those Clint Eastwood ones. Unless your gaming group likes to spend hours staring intimidatingly at one another, forget most of the Clint Eastwood stuff.
So why do they work? Well, first off, there is typically a “party” or at least a pair of guys or the hero gathers together a posse. You know, a party, like a standard fantasy game. Then there is the pacing of the action. Westerns have some of the best pacing. Small events turn into bigger events, which get confused with other things, until the big climax. Plus the villain usually has a small army of guys. Let’s go to an example:
Imagine a typical Western - Two buddies stop by a small town and have a drink in a bar. There they see four guys jump one guy in a bar fight. They help him out, and get embroiled in his problems. The victim tells the heroes who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Beautiful adventure development without the unrealistic, you walk into a bar and a guy hires you to go...
At this point, the villain might appear and try to turn the good guys to his side, but since he hasn’t done anything really villainous yet, they can’t just go kill him. Likely there is some side mission that needs to be done - the good guy’s boss needs medicine that he is carrying, the victim guy was in town to meet a string of ponies, etc. This provides another action packed encounter when the players are fighting the villain’s minions. Eventually, the good guys (your players we’re assuming) need to fight their way through all of the villain’s minions until they get to him and kill him. Sound familiar?
What else? Well, how many times have the good guys escaped from some bad guy trap. Just as they look over their shoulder and say, “I think we lost them” the entire Sioux Nation comes riding over the ridge. The Indians don’t have anything to do with the good guys or bad guys, but they still serve as enemies. The same thing can be said for the desperate struggles against the environment. Whether its trying to cross a raging river or survive travel across a desert, these man vs. nature encounters are great as well. Hey, throw in a burning barn if nature isn’t going to fit the bill.
I guess this all makes better sense if you’ve read Forge of Imagination, but I think you’ll still get the drift! (RPG Now Links)
We fill a lot of space in some of our books (most notably Forge of Imagination and Character Foundry) talking about switching genres. So what works? I think that flat out, the best genres to borrow ideas from are the Westerns. They work perfectly for fantasy games. Now, I’m talking about John Wayne style Westerns here, not those Clint Eastwood ones. Unless your gaming group likes to spend hours staring intimidatingly at one another, forget most of the Clint Eastwood stuff.
So why do they work? Well, first off, there is typically a “party” or at least a pair of guys or the hero gathers together a posse. You know, a party, like a standard fantasy game. Then there is the pacing of the action. Westerns have some of the best pacing. Small events turn into bigger events, which get confused with other things, until the big climax. Plus the villain usually has a small army of guys. Let’s go to an example:
Imagine a typical Western - Two buddies stop by a small town and have a drink in a bar. There they see four guys jump one guy in a bar fight. They help him out, and get embroiled in his problems. The victim tells the heroes who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Beautiful adventure development without the unrealistic, you walk into a bar and a guy hires you to go...
At this point, the villain might appear and try to turn the good guys to his side, but since he hasn’t done anything really villainous yet, they can’t just go kill him. Likely there is some side mission that needs to be done - the good guy’s boss needs medicine that he is carrying, the victim guy was in town to meet a string of ponies, etc. This provides another action packed encounter when the players are fighting the villain’s minions. Eventually, the good guys (your players we’re assuming) need to fight their way through all of the villain’s minions until they get to him and kill him. Sound familiar?
What else? Well, how many times have the good guys escaped from some bad guy trap. Just as they look over their shoulder and say, “I think we lost them” the entire Sioux Nation comes riding over the ridge. The Indians don’t have anything to do with the good guys or bad guys, but they still serve as enemies. The same thing can be said for the desperate struggles against the environment. Whether its trying to cross a raging river or survive travel across a desert, these man vs. nature encounters are great as well. Hey, throw in a burning barn if nature isn’t going to fit the bill.
I guess this all makes better sense if you’ve read Forge of Imagination, but I think you’ll still get the drift! (RPG Now Links)
Monday, March 15, 2010
Lower Level Bad Guys
I was making bad guys to throw against some younger kids (8-12) who want to play Legend Quest and it occurred to me - Why would really minor bandits be warriors? Look, there are kids who grow up wanting to be soldiers. They play soldier, they watch soldiers, they get into military academies, and then they become soldiers. These guys are going to be warriors through and through. OK, so they will learn some auxiliary skills, like carousing and maybe a foreign language, but by and large it will be combat skills and those skills that promote good military life (etiquette, weapon craft, maybe senses, etc.)
What about our rabble of bandits? Did they decide at a young age they wanted to be bandits? Probably not. Did they grow up playing bandits? Well, maybe yes. Did they go to a bandit academy? Nope. So what skills should they have? Well, if they are low level bandits, they probably tried to do a number of other jobs first. Maybe they were porters, common laborers, maybe caravan guards, lumberjacks, bartenders, cotton pickers, or all of these at various different times. I went with these guys tried to make it under a number of jobs, but kept getting fired for not working hard enough. Slackers seem to be more inclined to turn to banditry. I figure they were lumberjacks longer than any of their other minor professions, so they wield axes (tool strength), and the one guy who worked as a caravan guard also has a bow. Are they weak in combat? Sure, but they’re supposed to be - they’re starter bad guys.
Gotta tell you - I’m really proud of these losers. They make sense. These are exactly the type of guys that would try to pull off this job and get killed for it. They are tougher than a typical farmer, enough so that most people would hire mercenaries to protect them from them, but not offer enough money to get the really good mercs, just the starter ones. I’m also really happy with the LQ character creation process that allows me to create guys like this quickly, and not have to pigeon hole every character like he spent his life in a gladiatorial training camp. Try it - You’ll like it!
What about our rabble of bandits? Did they decide at a young age they wanted to be bandits? Probably not. Did they grow up playing bandits? Well, maybe yes. Did they go to a bandit academy? Nope. So what skills should they have? Well, if they are low level bandits, they probably tried to do a number of other jobs first. Maybe they were porters, common laborers, maybe caravan guards, lumberjacks, bartenders, cotton pickers, or all of these at various different times. I went with these guys tried to make it under a number of jobs, but kept getting fired for not working hard enough. Slackers seem to be more inclined to turn to banditry. I figure they were lumberjacks longer than any of their other minor professions, so they wield axes (tool strength), and the one guy who worked as a caravan guard also has a bow. Are they weak in combat? Sure, but they’re supposed to be - they’re starter bad guys.
Gotta tell you - I’m really proud of these losers. They make sense. These are exactly the type of guys that would try to pull off this job and get killed for it. They are tougher than a typical farmer, enough so that most people would hire mercenaries to protect them from them, but not offer enough money to get the really good mercs, just the starter ones. I’m also really happy with the LQ character creation process that allows me to create guys like this quickly, and not have to pigeon hole every character like he spent his life in a gladiatorial training camp. Try it - You’ll like it!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Environments
According to the Legend Quest rule book:
Adventurers have a special “edge” that allows them to perform at their best in the worst of situations. Others, not as at ease with adventuring, will suffer for their lack of that “edge”. Any non-adventurer will be -20 on initiative, defense and sensing rolls. This is to simulate jumpiness, distractions and not always looking over one’s shoulder.
So is “adventuring” the only time this happens? No! A well used optional rule within the play-testing crew has been that this lack of an edge affects a wide range of environments where one might not be familiar. Here are some examples:
Sea Legs - Any land lubber on a boat would experience the same type of penalty. They wouldn’t know where to stand, how to avoid the ropes/sails, would be more unsteady on their feet, etc. Once they gained their sea legs, typically by being on the boat for a week or so, they would likely not suffer the penalty, even if they never fought during that initial period of time.
Mounts - There are already rules about mounted combat, but what about switching to a completely different mount? Put a skilled horseman on a flying pegasus, and he is going to suffer a penalty. Not only is the three dimensional form of combat likely to be new to him, but he is also going to have to look out for those massive wings. No use clipping your own stead’s wings while trying to stay in the air. The same would be true of a person riding a massive beast, such as a dragon or elephant for the first time. Without training, it would be incredibly difficult to balance on a back that you can no longer wrap your legs around.
Flying - On a similar front, someone who had never flown before (we’re assuming a flying spell or some other sort of individual magic here), would suffer the penalty. Imagine strapping on inline skates for the first time and then trying to conduct a sword fight. That’s what flying should be like.
Major Military Action - Skirmishes are one thing, but when you line up 10,000 soldiers of each side of the battlefield, fighting becomes a whole different thing. For those (and we mean adventurers here) who have not drilled in close order combat with large numbers of troops, simply being shoulder to shoulder with 10K of your closest buddies is going to throw you off your game. The comedy in my head right now is a guy with a flail standing in a line of pikemen. There was a reason that all those soldiers used spears, while adventurers often go for more exotic weapons - spear work great in close quarters. Anyway, not being use to that style of combat should put those folks at a disadvantage.
Underground - Similar to close quarters would be underground. Here it is likely the walls and ceiling that are going to hang you up instead of your buddies, but the effect is similar.
Let’s stop being so long winded and just hit some of the other environments: underwater, on the back of a giant sea turtle (you run your campaign your way, I’ll run mine my way), volcano/hell, a gravel (unsteady) path on the side of a mountain, amidst the trees (no, not on the ground - actually up in the tree limbs standing on branches), zero gravity, and the list just goes on and on.
Why do you do this? Well for two reasons - #1 - it makes sense. #2 - it can help you even the “playing field” against your heroes. Adventurers should be better suited to investigate a haunted coal mine then the local sheriff. (That’s a revenue maker for your players.) At the same time, the duke’s sentries should be better suited to take the field, than some dragon slayer. Oh, he’d still be a fearsome foe, but he’s out of his element. Quick example - A group of halflings live amongst the boulders on a steep mountain side. Not only have they adapted their defenses to take advantage of the difficult and often blocked pathways, but they have learned to fight and move like mountain goats. With these nimble warriors leaping from boulder to boulder while stabbing with their daggers, they should have an advantage over anyone who assaults their mountain home and fights, well, like a normal person. Think of it this way - How many American kung-fu movies have you seen where the American hero keeps getting kicked by the martial artists, because he doesn’t know how to defend himself. So he dodges for a short time and watches the speed demon attacking him, until finally, he reaches out and blocks the kick. OK, not the best analogy, but it is like that. Given time, they can get use to this environment and style of combat, but the first couple of times, they’re going to be like the new kid on the inline skates.
Adventurers have a special “edge” that allows them to perform at their best in the worst of situations. Others, not as at ease with adventuring, will suffer for their lack of that “edge”. Any non-adventurer will be -20 on initiative, defense and sensing rolls. This is to simulate jumpiness, distractions and not always looking over one’s shoulder.
So is “adventuring” the only time this happens? No! A well used optional rule within the play-testing crew has been that this lack of an edge affects a wide range of environments where one might not be familiar. Here are some examples:
Sea Legs - Any land lubber on a boat would experience the same type of penalty. They wouldn’t know where to stand, how to avoid the ropes/sails, would be more unsteady on their feet, etc. Once they gained their sea legs, typically by being on the boat for a week or so, they would likely not suffer the penalty, even if they never fought during that initial period of time.
Mounts - There are already rules about mounted combat, but what about switching to a completely different mount? Put a skilled horseman on a flying pegasus, and he is going to suffer a penalty. Not only is the three dimensional form of combat likely to be new to him, but he is also going to have to look out for those massive wings. No use clipping your own stead’s wings while trying to stay in the air. The same would be true of a person riding a massive beast, such as a dragon or elephant for the first time. Without training, it would be incredibly difficult to balance on a back that you can no longer wrap your legs around.
Flying - On a similar front, someone who had never flown before (we’re assuming a flying spell or some other sort of individual magic here), would suffer the penalty. Imagine strapping on inline skates for the first time and then trying to conduct a sword fight. That’s what flying should be like.
Major Military Action - Skirmishes are one thing, but when you line up 10,000 soldiers of each side of the battlefield, fighting becomes a whole different thing. For those (and we mean adventurers here) who have not drilled in close order combat with large numbers of troops, simply being shoulder to shoulder with 10K of your closest buddies is going to throw you off your game. The comedy in my head right now is a guy with a flail standing in a line of pikemen. There was a reason that all those soldiers used spears, while adventurers often go for more exotic weapons - spear work great in close quarters. Anyway, not being use to that style of combat should put those folks at a disadvantage.
Underground - Similar to close quarters would be underground. Here it is likely the walls and ceiling that are going to hang you up instead of your buddies, but the effect is similar.
Let’s stop being so long winded and just hit some of the other environments: underwater, on the back of a giant sea turtle (you run your campaign your way, I’ll run mine my way), volcano/hell, a gravel (unsteady) path on the side of a mountain, amidst the trees (no, not on the ground - actually up in the tree limbs standing on branches), zero gravity, and the list just goes on and on.
Why do you do this? Well for two reasons - #1 - it makes sense. #2 - it can help you even the “playing field” against your heroes. Adventurers should be better suited to investigate a haunted coal mine then the local sheriff. (That’s a revenue maker for your players.) At the same time, the duke’s sentries should be better suited to take the field, than some dragon slayer. Oh, he’d still be a fearsome foe, but he’s out of his element. Quick example - A group of halflings live amongst the boulders on a steep mountain side. Not only have they adapted their defenses to take advantage of the difficult and often blocked pathways, but they have learned to fight and move like mountain goats. With these nimble warriors leaping from boulder to boulder while stabbing with their daggers, they should have an advantage over anyone who assaults their mountain home and fights, well, like a normal person. Think of it this way - How many American kung-fu movies have you seen where the American hero keeps getting kicked by the martial artists, because he doesn’t know how to defend himself. So he dodges for a short time and watches the speed demon attacking him, until finally, he reaches out and blocks the kick. OK, not the best analogy, but it is like that. Given time, they can get use to this environment and style of combat, but the first couple of times, they’re going to be like the new kid on the inline skates.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Character Backgrounds
How’s this for a character background: (This character actually exists in an on-going campaign as an NPC.) From his earliest memories, he has been an orphan and been fascinated with magic. One day at the orphanage, the local noblewoman was visiting, but a band of villains attacked her. They used magic to put everyone to sleep; everyone but this little boy. He played possum, but watched them. When the heroes arrived, he was able to give them descriptions and point them in the right direction. Because of his information, the heroes were able to rescue the noblewoman. She returned to reward him, and asked him what he wanted (expecting to give him cash). He said he wanted to be the apprentice of the wizard/enchanter among the heroes. Now he is. That was three or four years ago, and now he’s 15 and gaining a strong magical education.
So where did your character learn to cast spells? From a powerful adventuring wizard hero! My character was in the right place at the right time and through luck and slightly higher mental attributes, resisted a powerful spell.
Now what’s wrong? Well, this PC now has a very powerful mentor and guardian who will likely bail him out of trouble whenever it becomes necessary. Do the other PCs have that? Should any of them have that?
Gamemasters need to demand that players actually come up with character backgrounds, but they cannot let those backgrounds cause unbalance in the game. Too often GMs let these things go because they sound cool, not thinking of the nightmare it will cause later in the campaign.
Force the players to think up something cool, but restrict them from anything unfair. If you’re stuck for good ideas, pick up a copy of Character Foundry (e23 or RPGNow), the character building books we put out a short time ago.
So where did your character learn to cast spells? From a powerful adventuring wizard hero! My character was in the right place at the right time and through luck and slightly higher mental attributes, resisted a powerful spell.
Now what’s wrong? Well, this PC now has a very powerful mentor and guardian who will likely bail him out of trouble whenever it becomes necessary. Do the other PCs have that? Should any of them have that?
Gamemasters need to demand that players actually come up with character backgrounds, but they cannot let those backgrounds cause unbalance in the game. Too often GMs let these things go because they sound cool, not thinking of the nightmare it will cause later in the campaign.
Force the players to think up something cool, but restrict them from anything unfair. If you’re stuck for good ideas, pick up a copy of Character Foundry (e23 or RPGNow), the character building books we put out a short time ago.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Gauging Enemies
So my son is starting to game master. Of course - he swears he doesn’t need to write anything down in order to GM. Actually tapped his temple to tell me it was “all in there”. Yeah, LOVE that in a GM!
OK - so one of his earlier mistakes involved giving the enemy wolves 12,000 LB - Yes, that would be 2,000 Endurance. But Wait! The players’ weapons did % die damage (1-100 or 2-150). He felt this was entirely reasonable. Truth be told, the players would have won. Of course, it would have taken them 200 hours, but hey - these kids had some time on their hands.
So I made a spreadsheet. It lists chance to hit, defense, damage and LB for both physical and magical. (One list for the good guy and one for the bad guy) It computes the % chance of success and uses that compared to the damage and LB to compute # of turns it would take to kill someone. That way you can compare how many turns it would take either character to kill the other. If there is a party, divide the turns by the number of guys per side.
Is this the world’s greatest gauge of threat level? Of course not. But it’s turning out to be a sweet little tool that makes you think. Once you spend the four minutes to create it, it only takes a couple of seconds to drop in the numbers.
OK - so one of his earlier mistakes involved giving the enemy wolves 12,000 LB - Yes, that would be 2,000 Endurance. But Wait! The players’ weapons did % die damage (1-100 or 2-150). He felt this was entirely reasonable. Truth be told, the players would have won. Of course, it would have taken them 200 hours, but hey - these kids had some time on their hands.
So I made a spreadsheet. It lists chance to hit, defense, damage and LB for both physical and magical. (One list for the good guy and one for the bad guy) It computes the % chance of success and uses that compared to the damage and LB to compute # of turns it would take to kill someone. That way you can compare how many turns it would take either character to kill the other. If there is a party, divide the turns by the number of guys per side.
Is this the world’s greatest gauge of threat level? Of course not. But it’s turning out to be a sweet little tool that makes you think. Once you spend the four minutes to create it, it only takes a couple of seconds to drop in the numbers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
