This weekend I had a chance to sit in on Indie+'s "This Imaginary Life" covering the topic of Villains. I think we offer some usable insights. More importantly, I got to meet and talk with some new and super-sharp folks.
In a couple of posts I've mentioned the city-building exercise we did for VirtuaCon. We used a modified version of Microscope for that. I've uploaded both of those videos in case you want to check out how that operates. Here's part one:
...and here's part two:
I also did a session of Kingdom recently. If you haven't had a chance to check out that game, you really should. We started with something that looked like Hogwarts at the start and went dark very quickly.
Finally I've uploaded some of the more recent sessions of our 13th Age campaign. We use Roll20, but I record it in XSplit so you can see the app (I haven't figured out this Twitch stuff the big dogs are using). You can see the full playlist for this campaign here.
Once again I got the opportunity to talk gaming alongside
some incredibly smart people. Richard Rogers invited me back for another
session of “This Imaginary Life” this time talking about how GMs should think
about/handle the impact of bad rolls on a session. There’s at least a couple of
moments during the segment that made me go “Oh yeah, jeez—that’s a much cooler
way to see that.” You can check out the video below.
I’ve been thinking about one particular bit in the
conversation. We talk about GM modelling- essentially the GM demonstrating
through play how they handle things. With a new GM and/or new game, a player
has to figure out how the game’s actually played- what’s valuable, what’s
viable, what’s the game’s focus. Even on a micro-level, they have to uncover
the mechanics: what happens when the die falls off the table, how are
perception/reaction checks handled, how are checks involving group work
handled? Usually these approaches come from the GM (or the culture of the
table) as the authority.
How does a player model play for the GM? Does that just mean
playing well- or are there play methods, goals, objectives- which the player
can act out to help the GM get on their wavelength? Maybe?...like a player taking NPCs seriously demonstrates that the GM ought to take them seriously as well.
But does that work in reverse? If that player just kicks NPCs in the shins, should that
be an explicit message to the GM to give up on deep background characters? I suspect that I’m overthinking this; I bet player modeling is just about playing well. GM
modeling is a distinct beast. I’m a GM who has moved to give more and more
authority to the players, but this may be the place where I draw the line. I
model those elements I’m pretty set about the authority I want at the table.
Anyway- that’s a more than a little off the topic. If you
watch the video you can see some smart people (plus me) talk about gaming.
GAMES ON DEMAND
As I mention in the video, I’ll be running at Games on
Demand this year at Gen Con. I’ve run at cons before- I used to help with Eden
Studio demos, ran a couple of local conventions, and GM’d at Gen Con way
back in the early ‘90’s. But it has been a several years since I’ve done full-blown
con sessions. And I’ve never done GoD before. So wish me luck, and if you’re at
Gen Con be sure to stop by and say hi.
VIRTUACON
Last year I ran sessions for RPGGeek’s VirtuaCon online and loved it. I’m trying to figure out what I want to do this year. Ideally I’ll run three sessions- a kind of trilogy of games if possible. Right now I have
three sets of ideas:
BUILD A WORLD WORKSHOP
Last year I did a session of Microscope in which the players
created a semi post-apocalyptic world. You can see my post on that. It went
well- though Google Docs ended up being more a problem than an aid. We put that
world together late on Friday and then I created and ran a Fate session based
on it for Sunday. I was thinking of doing the same thing again this year, but
adding in a twist. I would also do a session of Kingdom set somewhere in that created
world. It might take some figuring out- and I figure even if I can’t come up
with something for the Kingdom session, we can still play using another
playset.
Games:Microscope, Kingdom, Fate Accelerated
SUPERHEROES: GENERATIONS
This is stolen from a suggestion made by Tom Tyson. Run
three different superhero games, each using a different system and each
representing a different era (Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Modern,
etc.). It would be a shared superhero world- with loose connections between the
stories. It would interesting to do something with a “Freedom Force” style
supergroup which examines different eras. Three sessions would be
enough to build an interesting world. It might even be fun to see if other
people might be running superheroes and get them together on that. Or perhaps
even use Microscope to create a shared setting to run from.
Games: Three
different superhero games (M&M, Marvel Heroic, V&V, Champions, etc).
HACKERS’ DELIGHT
The last ideas involves finding three different “hacks”
people have written and running sessions of those. Last week I read through
Brennan Taylor’s hack of Legend of the Five Rings to Apocalypse World and it
looks pretty cool and playable. I think that could be amazingly fun. John
Wilson created an adaptation of Golden Skies
Stories to Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll tales. It has been some time since I’ve
read those, but I love them. That could be fun. I’m not sure what I’d do for
the last hack- maybe something like Cthulhu
Vice, a really funny Savage Worlds setting which combines Cthulhu an ‘80’s sandal-wearing
cop show. I've also been thinking about doing Nights Black Agents, but using James Bond 007.
Games: ???
GAME VIDEOS
A quick reminder- if you’re looking for AP videos of games,
I’ve recorded a number for my non-monetized YouTube channel. There you can find my Changeling Lost Vegas FAE sessions,
some Mutants & Masterminds sessions, and one shots for Microscope, Kingdom,
Fate, and Base Raiders. I watch other GM’s sessions from time to time- it’s a great
way to pick up ideas and back-seat drive.
Yesterday I sat in with amazing gamers for a session of This Imaginary Life. TiL’s a G+ Hangout show affiliated with Canon Puncture- another great gaming resource. I got to chat with Rich Rogers and Judd Karlman. Rich does a ton of things beyond Canon Puncture, including Indie+ events and such. Judd blogs at The Githyanki Diaspora and was part of the Sons of Kryos podcast (which I’ve heard was awesome). He also wrote an amazing Sorcerer supplement, The Dictionary of Mu (which I had a dream about). I appreciate Rich asking me to sit in again; I love talking with other GMs about what they’re doing.
Judd mentions those kinds of conversations when we talk about GM Burnout. Gamemasters at low energy or on the brink might consider talking to - face to face, through G+, or on some other forum. I’ve seen some
success with that- though online conversations run the risk of going off topic. That depends on the forum. Every once in a while I watch threads on Reddit's r/rpg go off the rails. But generally other GMs want to help and have ideas
and suggestions. If a worried gamer asks a specific question, that’s easy to manage and respond to.
But what if they (or you) just have a sense of vague unease, uncertainty about
what’s gone on, or general dissatisfaction.
As I mention in the show, I think that might require
something akin to a writers’ workshop. How would that work? You’d want to
establish some ground rules- beginning with the idea of everyone gets a
chance to present what they’re doing. We’re all gamers with the impulse to talk
about our games so we’d need a safe space to discuss that. Well, not exactly
safe- more a fair space- that everyone’s gets their turn. Beyond that you’d want to figure out what kinds of responses work. I know that when I’m
uncertain about something and still trying to work it out in my head, more
direct suggestions don’t help as much. Because the listener hasn’t been at the
table, they don’t know the whole story. I can get in a cycle of frustration and
defensiveness even with someone I trust, like my wife Sherri.
So perhaps we’d need to think about ways in which we
give feedback. Reactions are fair- especially pointing out things that stood out as a
GM-Listener. Point to cool things, to places that generated new ideas, to
places which left you unsure, to scene breaks, to novel obstacles, to scenic
details. If handled well you can help a GM make a map of what’s working or not. I
think focusing on asking questions offers an even better opportunity. What do
you see the players doing in this scene? How are you shifting from this event to the next? What kind of adversaries do you see there? What kinds of players
are you running this for? As I’m writing those out I realize that’s harder than it
looks. I want to ask questions that elicit info without implying a judgment (i.e. Doesn’t this power level seem too high
here?).
I want to consider the "GM Workshop" some more and see what people have
posted about best practices. Are there some accessible tools to
use? I have an idea about how that structure might be made into something
interesting, but it’s a little rough right now.
We also talk about Long Campaigns in this episode. I think
there’s a clear and vital link between burnout and length. The longer a campaign goes on,
the harder it is to track the shape of it. A GM may find themselves running
a completely different campaign as it progresses. I ran a d20 Black Company mercenary game that
doubled in length over what I'd imagained. The PCs had back up characters but they
became as important as their primary ones. I ended up having to run both
parties in parallel. The game shifted from gritty and easy death to something
the players invested in more fully. That campaign was only about sixteen
sessions.
The longest campaign I’ve run went bi-weekly from Feb of ’07
to Dec of ’13. I broke that Steampunk Fantasy game into chapters, but even then
I could feel the runaway wagon of it start to splinter and buckle by the end. I
managed to hold it together with spit, sealing wax, and shiny encounters. One
issue we don't discuss in regard to Long Campaigns is the question of power
creep. Players get more stuff, become more potent, use up the available rules
options over time. Some games can handle that. But I ran a homebrew fantasy
game I imagined going for perhaps a year. It ended up going almost three years-
and the mechanics simply weren’t built for that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the episode and find something useful in it!
On Monday I had the chance to be on This Imaginary Life: A Post-Game Hangout Show. They have an amazing crew; I got to talk with Rich Rogers, John Stavropoulos, and Erik Frankhouse. We cover two topics- clearly stating your playstyle and techniques for running combats with less or no maps. I had a good time doing the show- though I 'll admit to being a little intimidated by such sharp and fast thinkers. I hope I offered some useful advice. Check it out.
