Tabletop Deathmatch: After Action Report

PRELIMINARIES

I enjoyed the sweaty, exhausting, and sometimes aggravating Gen Con of 2013. I didn’t get a chance to say hi to as many people as I wanted to. As I expected, I picked up a ton of Pelgrane Books 13th Age, Double Tap, Owl Hoot Trail, Eternal Lies, Hillfolk, and Blood on the Snow. I’ll probably write about some of those in the next few weeks- I’m generally really pleased by them. I think one of the most amazing things about Pelgrane is that each line has a unique and distinctive graphic presentation, all of amazing quality. The Hillfolk books look completely different from the Night’s Black Agents volumes- but they don’t feel like they share a house style. White Wolf does striking layout, but you can tell when you’re looking at one of their books based on the shared design elements. I picked up a few other new things- a couple of figures from a new Bushido line of samurai miniatures, Monsterhearts, FATE Accelerated,  and the Warbirds rpg (imagine Crimson Skies with the serial numbers filed off). In the Chimera shop buy one get three free I bought two bundles including This Favored Land, some Star Wars books, the revised Grimoire for Ars Magica 4e, and a couple of old Mayfair Role Aids sets.

But all of that was mostly a distraction to keep myself occupied until the final showdown.

Tabletop Deathmatch

TO BATTLE

The actual TTDM process went well, broken into several slices. I had to do an interview for the first part late in the day on Saturday. I played in an rpg, Trash Planet by Shoe Skogen, for the first three hours and then had to duck out. Unfortunately that meant that heading back to the main building I crashed straight into the costume parade which locked me up for about thirty minutes. I stopped by where I’d stashed my copy of the game and then headed over to the meeting place- but then I got a text that they were running a little behind. Luckily I managed to find a free comfy bench and sat down- trying to let the adrenalin burned gently off rather than completely crashing.

When we finally went to the interview, my hopes were confirmed. I’m an unabashed fan of LoadingReadyRun- I started watching everything they did after I saw they started Unskippable on the Escapist. I watch all the videos- even the MTG podcasts and the "Loading Time" Behind the Scenes stuff. So when Graham from LRR walked up I went pretty much full fanboy. I also met Trin from Cards Against Humanity, and a nice camera operator who’s name I either didn’t catch or went out of my head. We had to wander around the convention for fifteen minutes to find a place of relative quiet for the interview. I thought that went pretty well- though trying not to look straight at the camera’s a talent I clearly haven’t developed. 

Then we went down to the board game hall when they shot an unboxing video of Right of Succession: setting up the board and walking through a turn of play. Finally I had to stand there while they shot me making a “Grrr” face for the Deathmatch promo materials. It had the wiff of the absurd. I did hand off copies of some of the books I’d done to Graham, so I was pretty happy when all was said and done. The TTDM contestants had arranged for a small gathering at one of the bars later Saturday night, but I was exhausted by that point and others in our party were as well, so I unfortunately skipped out on that.

The next morning I had the actual pitch before the judges. I think I was the absolute last person to go. I took along Mark and Derek for moral support. I wasn’t sure how the pitch would be structured- if it would be a good idea to have a team in the room. As it turned out, it wasn’t set up for that so they waited outside. I did have a chance to meet a couple of the other contestants- Robert Huss who created The Shadow Over Westminster and Mark Major and his partner (another name I blanked on) with Jupiter Deep published through Game Crafter. It also turned at that time that our pitch would be five minutes, not ten or fifteen as indicated in the earlier emails. I wasn’t expecting that would be too much of problem- I’d practiced a ten minute pitch, but that was a lot of time to fill. We talked for a few minutes and I was pretty calm.

…Until I actually walked into to give my presentation. It looked like something out of Shark Tank, with fifteen (I think) judges arranged in three rows. Heavy, bright lights, and no A/C in the room. I can’t imagine how wearing that must have been for the judging team over four days. I set up my game on a table in the middle, and then launched into my spiel, trying to keep an eye on the enormous red timer ticking away. My voice cracked, I repeated myself, I don’t think I hit everything I wanted- but you’ll see all of that when they actually post the video.

After the pitch (I think I did it in 4:30), I moved the game board up to the judge’s table, distributed extra copies of the rules and one-sheets and then went to the Q&A portion of the program. There I felt much better and more confident. I know and love this game and enjoy playing it. I didn’t get any real curveballs. Probably the strongest knock against it would be that we haven’t yet done any blind-testing. We’ve played it would probably four dozen people, but we hadn’t yet had the chance to give the final version a run through to get that kind of feedback. One judge asked an interesting question about the scoring logic for some of the end-game bonuses. That pointed out a piece of theme that I had in my head but hadn’t made explicit in the rules, i.e. why do the players actually get these bonus points? But the best part of the Q&A came when one judge asked if I’d heard of Blood Royale, which as I mentioned in my previous post, had inspired me to create this game. It was really satisfying to have someone spot what had been a thematic inspiration for me: at least I’d done that job well.

After that I went out and we did a brief exit interview. And then I was done. We gathered up the crew, did a final buy of product and then head out. And I pretty much collapsed on the ride home. We stopped off to eat BBQ and after that I desperately fought just falling asleep for the next two hours. Eventually I landed on my couch, my sweet delicious couch and slept for two or three hours. 

THOUGHTS

I don't know what my chances are- some of the contestants have already published and marketed the games they've presented and they look quite nice. I built my prototypes myself- with the exception being the cards I recently had done up through DriveThruCards. I'll be curious to see how many of the others have done blind testing, as that could be a serious black-mark against me. I'd have liked to have played some of the others' games- I think several of us suggested they arrange a get-together room for that next year. I'm looking forward to the video though- in some ways. It will be a great tool for exposure and publicity  provided I don't look like too much of a buffoon on screen. 

RPGs: Where to Start? Play on Target Podcast Ep. 16

This week Play on Target hits our first actual requested topic: how to actually start in rpgs? I suspect we come at it from more of a GM than player perspective, but there's some useful advice for players as well. We live in the golden age of gaming, but that can be more than a little overwhelming. I wonder how many actual new people get added to the hobby each year? Do things like Wil Wheaton's Tabletop episodes on Fiasco and Dragon Age drive traffic? Does a new edition of D&D? I should also mention another great resource for people thinking about getting into gaming, Reddit's RPG subreddit has a very cool Beginners' Guide to RPGs. 

RPGs: Where to Start?
Play on Target Episode Roundup

I’ve still been turning the question around in my head since we recorded the podcast. I’ve been playing for a long time and the industry’s vastly different from when I started out. That makes it hard to reference that experience. I was very young, and we only had a handful of systems and genres available to us. I’m a gamer, though, because people were patient enough to teach me games. And not kids games, but a particular brand of D&D with dungeon-crawling and then later superheroes and then still later Call of Cthulhu. Over the years I’ve introduced a number of new players: some well and some badly.

But the majority of people I’ve played with came to the table knowing games. They’d played something else a few years before- perhaps a failed D&D campaign, some sessions of Rifts, a Vampire LARP, or even an MMO. They get the basic idea of rpgs and the system. What they don’t necessarily know is the genre. For example superheroes requires a certain mindset- and an appreciation for tropes. The player who had come to play in a supers game after mostly fantasy ended up torturing and brutalizing bad guys because that was the mode she’d operated in for the previous campaign. There’s a big difference between people who’ve read comic books and those who’ve picked it up through movies or television. That’s not a bad thing, but it means the GM needs to be aware of their own reliance on references and conventions. Some people don’t know swashbuckling, Hong Kong Action flix, or even Fiasco-style tropes. That means the GM has to make room to teach those- and not laugh or be shocked at a player’s genre mastery.

To give an example, I had a couple of players I’d run a short fantasy game for. They loved it and really wanted me to run a Vampire the Masquerade game. They’d played in one before and loved it. I warned them that it might not be what they wanted. I’ve always seen VtM as a darker game about consequences and choices. But they convinced me to run. And it wasn’t what they expected, or perhaps even wanted. Eventually they bought in, but it took some time and we had plenty of miscommunications. Their previous VtM game had made them powerful pseudo-superheroes, kicking ass and taking down names. Mine didn’t do that. Should I have shifted the campaign tone? Should I have been clearer about what the game would be like? I suspect the latter would have helped. But it took me some time to realize the gap between how they saw the genre and how I did.

I have another, potentially unfeasible suggestion. If you’re a new player trying to join an existing or experienced group, make sure you’re not alone. By that I mean: don’t be the only newbie. There’s a certain isolation that comes from being the only one who doesn’t yet have buy in to the game, genre, or setting. And I’m not saying that the other players will isolate or mock you- far from it. Instead, they may be overly helpful: flooding you with options, making suggestions, offering advice, crushing you with info dump. Having more than one new player will a) spread that helpfulness around and b) generally reduce the ratio of experts to beginners. The side effect of this is also that it’s easier to extricate yourself from a bad game if you have a buddy with you. GMs should also take this into consideration when bringing new players in.

Finally, if you can, I suggest new players/gamers who want to get into the hobby try it out with a group. IMHO experience playing at a table’s the best way to get a sense for how a game operates. You’ll pick up all of the basics you need to then read and figure out most games. You don’t even need to play a session of the game you really want to start with- any will do. See if you can go to a game store demo, find a convention, or look for a chance to drop in on a group with posted openings. Online gaming can also serve this function, but a little less well. At the very least, you can watch some actual play videos online. In that case, I’d recommend watching a game which is being played online over watching a taped f2f session. 

RPGs: Where to Start?
Play on Target Episode Roundup

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.

Tabletop Deathmatch: Right of Succession

WHO RUNS BARTERTOWN?

August is the cruelest month for blogging- with the daily pressures, the tidal wave of Gen Con information, and schedules up in the air. I think we’ve lost at least half our monthly play sessions to the whirlpool. Today I want to mention/shill for a game project. A couple of months ago Cards Against Humanity announced their Tabletop Deathmatch competition. On a whim I submitted the board game I’ve been working on and playing for the last couple of years, Right of Succession. To my shock, I managed to make the cut for the final sixteen.

Seriously, shock.

So I get to go down to Gen Con and pitch the game to a panel of judges. I think I’m going absolute last on Sunday, which hopefully won’t mean people are too punch-drunk and burned out. I’d showed the game last year to a couple of people- which was a learning experience. I spent a number of years as an acquisitions editor for an academic publisher. That meant I took pitches and worked with authors, which gave me some expectations about that process. In any case, I’d planned on going down to Gen Con this year already- if only to pick up my stuff from Pelgrane. We may have a kitten arrive this weekend, so Sherri may well be acclimating that new beastie in while I’m gone.

Apparently they will be taping the Deathmatch process, with an interview plus the pitch session itself. They’ve gotten LoadingReadyRun to do the production on that for a web-series. I’m really, really hoping some of the LRR people will be at the con itself. I’m a huge fan of their stuff and it would be awesome to actually meet them.

SO WHAT’S THE GAME?

I’m glad you asked, fictitious voice in my head. In Right of Succession you take the role of a noble house, trying to rise and gain influence over several generations. You do that in a couple of ways. You add new branches and key leaders to your house, eventually marrying and creating new lines. Each key person has an area of expertise and a rating- so you might have a branch with a Grand Dame (Society 3) and a Pamphleteer (Activism 1). Those roles allow access to different actions which can be used to modify your house, gain influence, generate money, or affect other player’s houses.

More importantly, you’re trying to build up values in the different areas to match the agendas of the current “Real Power,” the figure within the royal household who actually has power. That may be the king, a sneaky vizer, a young prince, the grand inquisitor, or even the royal consort. Each has differing interests. By matching your house’s development to that, you gain more influence (aka VPs). But the trick lies in the way those royals operate. In each generation, one of three people may be the “Real Power”- and through actions and money you can affect who has command. A generation lasts for two turns, and then another rises and takes its place- forcing you to calculate how to match their desires. You can see a couple of turns ahead, allowing for strategic planning.

I enjoy board games, but I’ll admit I can get burned out of even a good game after a half-dozen plays. I’m hugely biased, but we’ve been playing this game for the last couple of years pretty much every week and I’m not tired of it. I still find new approaches and I still look forward to playing. I’m managed to build a game that really hits the sweet spot for elements I enjoy when I play.

ORIGINS

Right of Succession came out of two distinct game elements I enjoyed. The first came from classic board games which had better ideas than execution. GW published an epic kingdom-building game called Blood Royale in a giant box. We played it, I think twice. It ended up too long and too boring. It had some great ideas in it- I loved the concept of the goods and treaties. I used that to craft a "Model Feudal Council" at an academic summer camp. It allows me to bring together some fantasy elements with training in Robert’s Rules of Order. I figured that would serve them well if they later wanted to do Model UN, Arab league, or the like. The more interesting idea from Blood Royale was the creation of a lineage- with marriages, family evolution, and the changing of generations. I wanted a game with more of that. I picked up Avalon Hill's Down with the King, hoping it would do that, but it was just a weird hyper-long and detailed game. (That’s one that needs to be reworked and rebuilt for a new era).

So I knew I wanted a game with multiple generations of families. To that I brought another mechanic that I really loved: Demon Fusions from the Shin Megami Tensai video game series. In that, you can merge two demons to create a higher rank one. What you get depends on what you combine. More importantly, there’s a game to trying to carry over the right skills to the new beast. When you play, you try a merge and if it doesn’t exactly give you the right combo of abilities, you back out and try again. And again and again. It’s a weird grind that’s strangely satisfying. I worked trying to figure out how to use that mechanic elsewhere. In the end, I used it as the basis for the marriage system in Right of Succession.

Which I hope doesn’t say anything bad about me.

ANYWAY

So we’ll see how this goes. I’m looking forward to being able to show off the game. Maybe I’ll even get a chance to play it with some new people at the con. I hope I run into some readers and fellow bloggers.

Wish me luck. 

Gen Con, What Game Companies Need to Do & Apologizing to Rifts

THE BIG SHOW

I will be at Gen Con next week, Friday through Sunday. That should give Sherri plenty of time to play Animal Crossing: New Leaf and possibly deal with the new kitten. I’m looking forward to picking up my Hillfolk Kickstarter and some other things from Pelgrane.

If you’re going to be at Gen Con, hunt me down. I haven’t signed up for anything, planning on mostly seminars and shopping. I hope to go to the podcasting seminar on Friday. I have an appointment late Saturday afternoon and late Sunday morning, but otherwise planned nothing out. I’ll have a copy of my board game Right of Succession and the homebrew rpg, Action Cards, we’ve been playing for the last decade+ if anyone wants to see those. I’m going to try to keep my kit otherwise to a minimum, with maybe Microscope and some other stuff. Anyway I hope to run into some people I know. If you’re going to be there, leave a comment or email me at edige23 (insert obligatory symbol here) gmail.com.

My Gen Con hunting list includes:

1. 13th Age

2. 43AD

3. The Justice Trade for Ashen Stars. (maybe…there's a bunch Pelgrane stuff on this list…)

4. DragonMech (If I can find a bundle of this stuff for a decent price)

5. The Edge of Midnight (They had a bundle deal on these last year that I passed on because of the weight. I might try again. Another maybe.)

6. The Esoterrorists 2nd Edition (maybe- if it is available)

7. Eternal Lies (The new ToC campaign. Even though I'm not sure I'll get a chance to run it, I want to read it. Another maybe.)

8. FATE Accelerated (The one thing I didn’t get a printed copy of from the KS).

9. Iron Kingdoms (I’d like to find some older stuff cheap perhaps? Someone contacted me that they have some to sell, so I might hold off.)

10. Monsterhearts (Sherri wants a printed copy of this.)

11. Double Tap for NBA

12. Over the Edge (2nd Edition) (Another one someone offered to sell me. If I see a really cheap copy, though).

13. Owl Hoot Trail

14. Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island (The one board game my wife insists I buy if I see it).

15. Statosphere: The Invisible Clergy Sourcebook

16. Strongholds of the Empire (I'm hoping AEG might have a POD copy of this at their booth.

That’s a wishlist, so we’ll have to see what fraction the budget can support.

SUGGESTION BOX

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to play a demo game of 13th Age via G+Hangouts/Roll20. I had fun and importantly it closed the deal on my decision to pick up a copy of the game. It occurs to me that online demos, done regularly could be an effective supplement to f2f conventions. They reduce the overhead costs of travel and create an AP video which can be pointed to. Companies could tie participation perhaps to a coupon or discount.

To really do that well, companies need to step up the kinds of tools and packages they have available for online play. Demos specifically created for online play- with an interactive packet. For example, pre-generated characters but with form-fillable sheets to mark damage or conditions. Create a set of tokens to match those characters. That would be enough to allow GMs to easily use those with their own scenarios online. Going a step further, maps from the demo could be put together and made available on these services- in this case I’m particularly talking about Roll20. Tokens for opposition and NPCs could be possible as well. The maps and extra tokens could be a nice touch, but not necessary.

Roll20 has made a nice cottage industry for artists creating general tokens and maps. For a number of years smaller companies have been creating token and map packs, particularly for VTT but often useful in jpeg format for other applications. Savage Worlds in particular has been great about providing image and token support for their products. However many of these still appear on sheets, requiring the GM to cut, paste and size to create them. I think companies need to be really looking at how to support online play by providing ready-made tokens (and maps) suitable to these kinds of games. That’s true even for games which don’t require a fully tactical map. It would be nice to have a set of tokens based on the art work for games like Night’s Black Agents or Ashen Stars. The GM could use those to show relative positions and groupings. Use the art assets from the books. One company who really ought to be doing this is Privateer for Iron Kingdoms. They have great art assets- for face-on tokens. But they also have the various overhead icons and silhouettes they use for the rpg and miniatures game diagrams. I’d love to run Iron Kingdoms online- and if I could buy several packs of those, it would make my life easier.

Games with odd or unusual tracking systems or set ups really need to think about how someone will play their game online. I’ve seen various approaches to Fiasco. We played using a shared Google Doc, but I’ve also seen some lovely set ups that create a board space and make writing and placing the detail cards really easy. In the near future I want to run Microscope online- and to do that I’m going to have to figure out the best way to have the players write up and arrange the cards. I’d love an interactive app for that that displays nicely in Roll20. The same thing holds for similar games like Last Best Hope and Durance. Ideally I should be able to pull up simple tools that recreate some of those visuals onscreen.

That’s one of the challenges facing DramaSystem aka Hillfolk. I really hope that they’ve already developed the best and most attractive methodology for playing online using Roll20 or something like it. I’m not talking about just screen-share and a document, but art or tool bits to handle the several oddball stages of the game. For example, we need an easy way to build the relationship map. That should be possible with those tools- but a template would be helpful. We also need a means of tracking the various expendables. Finally we need a guide for how to easily set up the card resolution system with the Roll20 tools.

Because here’s the thing- my best chance for trying out these new games and sharing them with people lies in online play. Maybe I’ll be able to try them out with my f2f group, but we’re likely deep in our campaigns. Maybe I can get to a convention, but I only go to a couple each year. But if there’s a well set-up and attractive option to play online, I’m likely to take it these days.

GROUNDS FOR DISMISSAL

I posted about running Hollowpoint last week. We had a moment during the break when Nick, glancing at my gaming shelf, spotted Fantasy HERO and commented “somebody likes math.” That turned us onto a brief discussion of systems and history. I’d played HERO for about twenty years before setting it aside. The same thing with other clunky systems like Rolemaster. I made a joke about all games being worthwhile, except Rifts. At which point a couple of people said that’s where they’d started and they’d had a great time playing it. Consider me properly schooled. I thought back to the predecessor of Rifts and the whole Palladium canon, the original Mechanoid Invasion. We’d played and loved that. The system was a hot mess, but we had a good time playing it.

In the monthly board gaming group we have a couple of people who loudly and angrily decry Worker Placement and Deck-Building games. That seems weird to me, but then again I’m not a fan of race games. I have to remember a system may not be something I want to play or run, but that doesn’t invalidate it. For example, I don’t particularly care for Dungeons & Dragons 4e- but many people do. I thought I might want to try a classic game so I picked up a copy of Dark Dungeons. But man, I do not want to work through that. It doesn’t do anything for me…but lots of people talk about the Rules Cyclopedia fondly. OSR has no particular appeal to me, but many smart and creative folks embrace it and I've tried. The same with pure story games.

That’s a lesson I have to relearn every few years. There’s sometimes the pressure, especially in the high social media age, to rise to defend vigorously anything you like. I don’t think that’s a bad instinct, except that people carry it too far. Someone’s dislike of your favored system isn’t a crime to be vilified. Someone suggesting alternative approaches isn’t an assault on your game practices. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Shoepixie has a great postconsidering what she gets out of radically different games. She contains multitudes, as I hope do we all. 

The Fire This Time: Hollowpoint

TEASER TAG
This week I had the chance to run another one-shot session of Hollowpoint. My friend Nick had asked to see the game. He’s running for "Games on Demand" at GenCon and wondered about adding it to his arsenal. I love Hollowpoint as a one-shot engine, so I agreed. I waited until the day of the game to come up with a concept- I wanted to see how long it took me from start to finish. I ended up going with a riff on Delta Green. However, these DG agents wouldn’t be paranoid and desperate agents, but instead fully-sanctioned bad-asses devoted to putting bullets in cultists and keeping a lid on Mythos weirdness.

I modified the toe-tag character sheets available from VSCA, substituting OCCULT for CON. I rolled “talking” approaches into COOL. I opted for OCCULT as the term over Mythos as HP aims for active use skills. I ran through the basic rules and gave them the mission:

Background: Six hours ago, DG lost contact with the secure agency facility in Chicago. That location isn’t an operational team, but instead an archive and holding center for dangerous materials and hazardous volumes. There had been some previous weirdness over the previous month in the area. Cultists had been dropping off the radar- with some suspicion of a cultist turf war. The Chicago team had been contacted by a highly placed cultist, Carlos Augustino, who’d offered to trade info on what was going on in exchange for protection. The Chicago office had been told not to take up the offer since they weren’t an ops team. The request would be routed to higher ups.

Objectives:
1. Investigate the local DG Archive and Vault.
2. Alarms indicated that the facility had been breached. Any stolen materials must be retrieved and the perpetrators neutralized.

The group came up with five characters after some discussion. They opted to spread out their specialties, with each person taking one skill as their “5”:

• Walter: KILL specialist (Complication: Short Man Syndrome) 
• Amiga: DIG focus (Complication: Diabetic)
• Antoine: TAKE focus (Complication: Addicted to hallucinogens through which the mythos touches him)
• Kurt Johansen: OCCULT expert (Complication: Wishes to steal Mythos artifacts)
• Richard Andrew Andrews: TERROR expert (Complication: Description matches that of a suspect in a Chicago-area serial murder investigation).

EPISODE
Scene One: I gave the group time to ask some questions about the situation and gather some background details. I laid out the basics- a small team of personnel on site, lack of contact, deadly stuff present, weird shit going down in Chicago generally, the possibility of cultist or MJ12 opposition. They made a DIG check to get further information on the site and the potentially dangerous materials there. That success gave them confidence that if they entered they could quickly used the RFID tags to figure out what had been taken.

Scene Two: They arrived on an early Sunday morning, with Chicago gripped by a heatwave and jammed up due to a festival (“Taste of Chicago”) happening downtown. The DG archive had the cover of a postal sorting facility. On site they found the security systems taken down professionally. Inside the secure doors remained closed. Instead the attacked had managed to burn a hole down into the facility, cutting through concrete and steel. The group opted to go in via the normal route.

Inside they began exploring and immediately came into conflict with a set of Fire Vampires left behind. The group had to take the opposition down quickly. The Fire Vampires heat would could destroy records and possibly bring down the roof. The group used a variety of skills, but managed to dispatch the bad guys quickly- with a mix of distraction, occult knowledge and fire extinguishers. Andrews took a KILL hit- his face and hands severely burned. (14 Dice)

Scene Three: The group worked through several lines of investigation. Most of this we handled via back and forth questioning, but we had two skill checks in the process, upping the conflict dice. The skill and professionalism of the break-in made the team suspect it hadn’t been cultic, but might have been MJ12 or a like group. They confirmed one item had been taken, The Testament of Carnamagus, an ancient volume with references to the Elder fire god Cthuga. They did some further checks to see if they could find any other important places or times associated with the deity. A check through the facility revealed that all the agents had been killed, with one exception, the Section Chief Agent Danafer.

GM Sidebar: I’d sketched out my notes and plot pretty openly. I had at least three different directions I figured they could go at this point: a hard lean on the Mythos stuff and occult research; tracing the cultic underground; or pursuing the agent leads. I’d come up with a couple of scenes for those cases- mostly names, conflict settings, and leads. The time span I had for the session meant that once they went down one path, I tried not to throw in too many tangents or red herrings.

They tracked back on the missing agent- finding that he’d been doing some off the books investigations. That led to some other leads- most importantly, that he’d be black-bagged and grabbed up about an hour before the break in. Terrifyingly competent hobos provided the next clue- with a camera phone image of the snatch vehicle. The group tracked all of that back to a private shooting range which seemed to be used to supply weapons and equipment to black ops groups.

Scene Four: The group arrived on the site of Sharktooth Security. They’re able to ascertain that the grab van’s on site, along with a team of agents and the company’s security staff. We do one round of conflict in which I’m trying to get a couple of DIG hits on them in order to detect them. The group uses a combination of TAKE, DIG, and COOL to gather further information. I did this as a single dice pool. That transitions quickly into a much more aggressive approach once they’ve confirmed the numbers on site and Danafer’s death. (20 dice)

I consider the second round part of the same conflict and don’t raise the dice. However, it includes a named adversary, so I split my pool after adding two dice. (22 dice, split). The group does a decent job mowing through the opposition- burning traits and starting to use teamwork. I get single hits on several people. Amiga, the hacker, takes off after a single kill hit. And by take off, I mean rolls away in his advanced scooter since he’s just shy of 400 pounds. All the group hears is the sound beeping as he reverses away from the fight.

The team, despite some hits, clears the area. They find out that this is only half of the bad guys. They turn out to be renegade Delta Green Agents. They plan to use the Testament to create a Mythos-based 9/11, to bring the fight against the monsters out into the open. They hope to make that war an even larger priority than that against Terrorists. To that end, they’re going to brief summon Cthuga at the Art Institute in downtown Chicago and allow him to feast on everyone at the nearby outdoor festival.

Scene Five: The group heads downtown, cutting through traffic and driving on sidewalks. Attempts to contact the museum fail. Clearly the enemy team’s already on site. They pull up maps and decide the most likely spot for the ceremony will be a new Persian exhibit. At this point, the group has two choices: a) take the longer rear way into the facility, allowing them a better chance of concealment and ambush or b) head in through the front doors in a quicker and riskier approach. They opt for B. Inside they meet immediate resistance- with the enemy striking with KILL to bring them to a stop. They burn yet more traits and empty the teamwork pool further. I place several more single hits on the group. (22 dice)

GM Sidebar: Here I should have had a retaliation for the last scene, but I wanted to move things on. So folded that into this conflict. If they’d gone in via the long route, I would have skipped this fight and instead significantly upped the catch in the next scene.

Scene Six: Past the first wave of opposition that charged into the ceremony. They found ex-DG Agent Krieger leading the occult operations. Krieger worked with COOL to attempt to convince the group of the wisdom of his actions and convert them to his side. The rest of the bully boys used KILL in an attempt to stop them. (26 dice, split). I made disabling the actual ceremony into an OCCULT catch of four dice. This went through several rounds- and I managed to deal single hits to several of the group. Johansen ended up with single hits on four different areas. The group burned through nearly all of their traits, emptied the teamwork pool, and used their Agent talent (taking the hit) several times. In the end they managed to stop the ceremony and take down Krieger and his goons.

I enjoyed myself and I think the players had a good time. This is the first time no one died. Two of the players had played before; three had not. I started about 8pm with character creation and wrapped the whole thing by 10:30pm.

CODA
I should note that this set-up veers a little away from the structure I’ve used before. I knew I’d have a tight timetable, and I wanted to keep the adventure under two hours, plus time for rules explanation and character creation. When I ran this before I came up with a simple formula- a cheat sheet you can easily use to structure the adventure.

Keep in mind the set up frame needs to allow the players to be bad-asses, without having to worry about the reaction and influence of outside authority figures. That means they have to be part of the authority, have enough pull to avoid serious repercussions, or have co-opted those structures. MiB’s have this through the brain-wipes and fake IDs; a Thieves Guild might have high-level corruption; or the adventurers might operate at the behest of a distant ruler.

Each operation is structured around two clear goals- concrete, but with enough openness to give the group room to come up with solutions. One problem shouldn’t necessarily nest within another- i.e. they ought to be related, but not “two birds with one stone” solvable. My cheat structure is this- the first of the two problems is solving/stopping/fixing a conflict between two groups. The players have to figure out what’s going on and put an end to it. Those solutions can range from soft to hardball. Second, the players have to retrieve or find something: a lost book, an agent who went missing, a hostage, or the like. That McGuffin’s in the hands of one of the two groups.

From there, coming up with everything else is pretty easy. What’s the conflict and who is behind it; what secrets/weirdness does each side have; where is each group based (the cooler the fight location, the better); and where’s the McGuffin & why? Develop a list of names and you’re good to go. That’s all.

Here’s another thing I noticed and we talked about briefly after the session- if you’re going to emulate a genre or existing setting, go big and go for something you know they players will know intimately. You don’t really want to be describing the rules of the premise except in the sketchiest terms. So go for Star Wars and make it truly over the top. They’re Commandos in the Old Republic, taking care of missions and problems the Jedi Council can’t or won’t take care of. Of come forward to the movie era and they’re agents of the Empire- perhaps even with a dark Jedi or two in their midst (with Force as a skill) hunting down rebels.      

The Third Continent

TERRIBLE MAP FRIDAYS?
I'd been running continuously in the fantasy world I'd crafted for about six years when I decided I wanted to try a slightly new spin on things. Most of the campaigns had taken place on one continent- with the suggestion that another existed to the far west. I decided I wanted an entirely new setting, with a carefully crafted and linked history, along with a focus on religion and the gods. I decided to borrow heavily from Harn for this. In a moment of total lack of inspiration, I called it the Third Continent. Eventually I would run a half dozen campaigns there- with two other GMs also running in the setting. Importantly I began to adopt and adapt ideas from Glorantha into the setting- at first piece-meal and then more deliberately as I discovered more about the then out-of-print world. Eventually it would be a terrible and cobbled together cosmology that managed to shoehorn in the Lythic Pantheon with all of the other Gloranthan stories. It is a mess, but a mess that some players really love. Below is the map I drew up, circa 2001 with my minimal graphic skills.

Breaking PCs: Play on Target Podcast Ep. 15

This episode we consider the idea of damage in its broadest sense: how do the PCs get worn down and taken out in the course of a game session or campaign. We look at more than just hit points. Damage can be resources spent, opportunities lost, equipment damaged, relationships eroded, conditions suffered, status stripped, money lost, and so on. The creative GM considers all the little ways they can create tension and raise the stakes in a game. Characters more than willing to martyr themselves with a glorious death on the battlefield may not have the same reaction to a significant other's death or even mundane crises like bankruptcy. Different kinds of damage may suggest new and novel situations to the GM. 

MEASURING PC BREAKDOWN
Play on Target Episode Roundup

MEDIC!
I’d originally started thinking about this question after playing the recent Final Fantasy XIII games. They switch up the normal calculations and practices of a JRPG. Essentially your Hit Point pool resets back to full after any combat. That means each combat ought to be a tight race to the death. You have two possible results: win or lose. Standard games have three results: win with no losses, win with loss of resources, or lose. FFXIII has some interesting dynamics to go with that- depending on the fight you may have to allocate roles to healing or to buffing. Some attacks cap the max you can heal back up to during that particular fight. I enjoyed it- but it was certainly more arcade than I was used to. Do I think a system like that could work? As with many answers in this particular podcast, I have to answer yes and no.

At first blush it seems like it shouldn’t work. It puts stress on every combat- which seems fitting with a game that has a mechanical system for tracking and balancing that. So my first thought is to say no. However, we have a couple of situations where this kind of effect happens. If your campaign offers easy access to healing (cheaply done, multiple players with healing, time and mana replenishment) then it can often feel like the players simply return back to baseline state after a fight. That’s solved by putting additional pressures- of time, resources, new challenges- to make that healing not “free.” This can also happen in campaigns with fewer conflicts- if you only have a fight every couple of sessions, as is often the case with more story games, then the time between those fights usually allows for that recovery. That also can be cured by putting pressures on the resources necessary for that healing or adding in statuses which can’t be easily cured. As an example of a genre that most often feels like this FF XIII structure- consider superhero campaigns. Usually they have a single big fight. Or even if they have a smaller fight beforehand, they can usually heal up. Mutants & Masterminds gets around this a little with the Drama Points. They’re so useful that they act as another spendable damage track- and players only get them back at the end of a session. Of course that creates incentives to delay a game so that the second fight doesn’t happen…

MULTIPLICITY
We talked about different damage tracks as an alternative to straight hit points. This isn’t a new solution- CoC’s Sanity mechanic represents a similar approach. The lethal/subdual damage distinction from many FGU games and HERO’s Body/Stun do the same thing. This is slightly different from multiple damage types (Ego, Energy, Physical) which all hit the same pool of damage resources (HP or whatever). This multiple approach can lead to some problems in play. For example, in DC Heroes, characters had three damage tracks: physical, mental, and magical. When we first started playing, NPCs (like those from the books would have one as a weakness). However if one of the PCs had that as a primary attack, they would easily one-shot the particular bad guy. So the villains started to have a better spread of damage numbers. The result reduced the effectiveness of the players coordinating to take down a bad guy- unless they all attacked on the same area. If the rest of the team did physical damage and I’m did magic, then they would likely take out the bad guy before I had any effect. The game had options for team attacks, but the basic problem remained. FATE somewhat gets around the problem of multiple tracks by having singular tracks for consequences. If I make you use up a Moderate Consequence from my Composure attack, you no longer have that option for future Physical Stress (usually).

Tracking’s the other problem coming from multiple resources and damage types. This is a matter of personal preference: I don’t like having to track too many different things. That’s especially true where the system adds ongoing effects to tracking several damage pools. Rolemaster and Mutants & Masterminds, both have multiple damage conditions to track, but that’s tied to a single damage pool (HP and Toughness Penalties respectively). I’ve mentioned before that I like GUMSHOE but it didn’t go over well with my group. Part of that arose from having to track and record skill spends. That’s effectively another damage track- measuring player wear down and exhaustion. But it is one with many little bits and details and potentially distinct mechanisms for recovery.

MAIMING
Who doesn’t love critical hits? In the early days of D&D- late ‘70’s- everyone came up with their own system for handling those: random tables for bonuses, extra damage, etc. Rolemaster built and entire game engine just on the coolness of criticals. Many games built those in as unparryable or specialty effects. I always assumed the necessity of critical until I heard an argument from Greg Christopher on the concept. He pointed out that criticals, as cool as they were, usually worked against the players. The GM, by volume, usually rolled times and so would likely end up with more crits. If the game had devastating effects for such hits, you could wipe the table. More modest effects seemed like a half-hearted measure. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that- but I do consider those mechanics more closely these days. Critical hits with single shot devastating effects often lead to an escalation of effect and counter effect. Well, they shouldn’t be able to randomly crit kill the dragon on the first round with a dagger…so we have to have some mechanic to mitigate that.

Many combined critical hit and specialty damage systems combined them with a hit location mechanic. GURPS, TriTac (Fringeworthy, Bureau 13), and Killer Crosshairs. Hit locations seem cool but have a few drawbacks. First, no one wants to have their arm maimed. Players like doing these kinds of effects to bad guys- but some players have a harder time when this happens to them. That’s a judgment call and a good way to test for competitive players. Second, most hit location systems add an extra step to damage resolution. Unless you’re going for a gritty game where a damaged heel could have significant implications for survival (i.e. can’t keep up when you flee the zombies), I’ve usually seen these systems set aside after a few sessions. Third, location-based damage systems can create balance problems for the system itself. For example, Legend and other like systems assume location-based hit points. That means a solid weapon with some strength to back it up has a good chance to take out or cripple a limb. Let’s say you don’t want to use location damage and instead go with a damage pool. Suddenly the weapon which could inflict limb damage and neutralize an opponent has to hit the bad guy multiple times to cause an effect. Shifting those approaches requires some difficult choices and changes- something my GM for Legend has been working on.

MANIPULATION
Damage requires trust. If I do damage to your character- hit points, equipment breakage, the death of a loved one, dagger to the eye- you need to trust that I’m being fair. Systems with explicit damage rolls, clear mechanics, systems of balances (like challenge ratings) create trust and fairness through those mechanics. That’s an advantage they offer- transparency of mechanics and results. That’s a strong appeal for many gamers. I think that’s a good place to introduce new gamers- so they can see underneath the hood and not feel that what’s happened to them is arbitrary. I think it easy for gamers who enjoy more story or narrative rpgs to overlook how important that can be for a variety of games from tactical games to OSR to super-crunchy ones to mathematically balanced systems.

I’ve said it before, but trust is huge at the table- especially with systems that offer more narrative and interpretive power in the hands of players or GMs. We might look at a game and see immediately that it could be exploited by “that guy.” And it could- but more often than not, we aren’t playing with TG. We’re playing with our group most often. My advice and observations are tainted by that- by having a long-running set of players who trust me to be fair at the table.

And I need that trust so I can slowly and carefully con them into doing stupid things and second-guessing themselves. I need them attached to things they like. I need them to love their characters- because that’s the way I can get them to walk into the meat-grinder of damage-dealing situations. I can play off of their egos and desires to do well to get them to take non-traditional damage: spending drama points, invoking aspects, spending resources, to do well in those situations. That’s damage too- and creates alternate kinds of stress and breakdown for the PCs.

MEASURING PC BREAKDOWN
Play on Target Episode Roundup

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.