Things We Think About Games: Books I Like

"I feel like all board games could have the same name - which one of my friends is a competitive ***hole? Tonight we played 'steve.'" - Demetri Martin

Mea Culpa
Back about a year and a half ago I bought Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball's collection, Things We Think About Games. At the time I said I wasn't sure if it was worth the price tag, $20 for a slim volume. I enjoyed the book...but was uncertain if it measured up. Come forward to today, and I have to say that it is. For me, at least, it has been worth the money.

I say that because I've reread the book at least three times now. I find myself picking up and thumbing through it, remembering ideas I'd forgotten, disagreeing with some conceptions, and coming around to agreeing with things I shook my head at a couple of months ago. In short, unlike many other books about games, this book pays off the rereading (examples of one's that don't hold up over time or are uneven...the Second Person collection or Gygax's Role-Playing Mastery). That means I've gotten more than my money's worth in ideas out of this book.

What Is It?
The book itself is simple- a series of pages, each with a single idea about games: role-playing, board, video, card and so on. In some cases that idea's enough- the statement of it makes you think. In other cases, the contributors expand briefly on that idea. The book opens with a brief foreward by Robin Laws- a game author whose every word I admittedly follow and reread with a stalker-like fascination. That's followed by great and lengthy introduction by Wil Wheaton who expands on his philosophy of "Don't be a Dick."

The main body of the book is made up of 101 of these thoughts from Hindmarch and Tidball. They range from the seemingly obvious or the almost zen riddle approach. In the same way we move from the abstract to the eminently practical. I'm torn a little, between my desire to provide an example, and my desire not to give anything away. I'll only provide one-

Sometimes I can see your cards when you hold them that way. Sometimes I will let you know.

Sometimes I won't.

I think what's really admirable throughout the book is the economy of language and writing. I'll admit that some of my first impression came from the open and sparse graphic design, with few words on a page. You get a number, the statement, often a brief explanation, and then a set of tags for the idea's category. From that presentation I draw a new idea not in the book:

Word count has never been an accurate measure of the quality of an rpg product.

The more I reread, flip through, pick out an idea, the more I realize how well the authors have designed it. And I imagine they must have had to restrain themselves from going on and on about certain ideas. I know when I read some of these, I immediately start thinking and adding detail. That's a gamer habit, and Things We Think About Games plays to that.

After the main section, book continues on with a series contributions from a series of excellent game designers and authors: Ken Hite, Jon Kovalic, Fred Hicks, Michelle Nephew and others. There's some great stuff there- often coming from a new perspective such as publishing and rules layout. Two longer and more unified articles follow. The first "Seven Lessons Learned from Warcraft" takes the kinds of situations and tasks of MMORPGs and shows how they apply to life, not just to other kinds of games. It's funny, real and great. In some ways it is an echo of the self-development book I imagine Dave B/Wavemotion writing someday (a blog you should be reading). The last article, by S. John Ross, presents what he sees as the five key elements of any game and gaming situation- a great framework for examining them.

Overall
I liked this book the first time I read it. But I also dismissed it will far too faith praise. I've realized that in many cases Things We Think About Games articulated problems or ideas about gaming that I hadn't been able to. In a couple of cases they lifted a burden of worry from my shoulders. They made me see the difficulty in a new light, and I let it go. I feel goofy saying that, but it is true. If you like games in general, you should read this book- well-designed, well-presented and fun. Beyond that, it is a game book you'll find yourself going back to reread again and again.

That's my review- but since it is a little short, I'll finish by reworking an earlier post (9/09) which was inspired by this book. These are mine, but are examples of the kinds of things in the book:

If You Don't Like to be Wrong, Maybe You Shouldn't be Playing an RPG.
These kinds of games are, by their nature, about uncertainty. You don't, can't, have all of the information. Drama comes from surprise, mistakes, mystery and accidents. There's also the fact that you have other players reading the situation, often quite differently. The nature of the game means you can't always be right-- even in a game without dice.

If You Can't be Wrong, You Really Shouldn't be Playing an RPG.
And maybe you better see if you've got some deeper problems. Not that you could really acknowledge that, right?

If You're Going to Say No, You'd Better Have Another Option
There's a role-playing maxim that suggests the GM shouldn't say no. If you can't quite get to yes-- have the player make a roll. The basic idea is to affirm player choices and provide them with opportunities, even if you don't think those choices seem great or especially if you think they're game breakers. If something's a gamebreaker to you as a GM, then you've planned it wrong. On the other hand if a player asks to do something that doesn't make sense to me as a GM, I'll repeat back to them what they say they're doing, perhaps with some more context of the situation, in case I haven't described the situation as well as I should have.

But this also applies to situations as a player. If someone suggests a plan or option and you say no-- you'd better explain why. Few things can bring a game to a halt quicker than players who simply shut down other player's ideas. And "I don't want to" isn't really an option.

Want to Piss Me Off? Tell Me You Were Just Playing Your Character
I've said it many, many times before, but know where your character ends and your player begins. Being crappy to other players, NPCs or to the GM and then saying "I was just playing my character" is like saying: You Suck and then putting a :-) after it (or a "Wink!"). Bottom line- as has been said before- don't be a dick.

Feed a Bad Player and He'll Poop All Over Your Game.
Some bad play comes out of ignorance or unfamiliarity to the play or the group dynamic. That can be fixed- through example or through discussion with a player. But some bad play is just bad play and can't be fixed. If you throw most plots, NPCs, or other things you think they want, they'll still be bad players and you'll have alienated the others at the table. They'll get fat and bloated until something happens where they make that final release...or the game ends...or both. I've seen it too many times.

Some Characters are Easier to Write for than Others.
Some PCs are easier to develop storylines for than others-- for that particular GM. A games strives for a kind of parity in terms of attention between players but in practical reality it never achieves that. As a GM, it isn't necessarily that I like one character better than another-- but some character fit better with what I'm doing, spark more stories or seem more sympathetic to me. I'm trying my best to keep that in rein, but it happens. If you're not getting the table time you want, talk to the GM about the kinds of stories you'd like and how that fits with your character. Don't demand X plot, but give the GM a better sense of things-- they may be lost when it comes to plotting for you.

Give Me an Excuse to Let You Win
As a GM, I want you to win most of the time. I want you to have small victories, but I also want there to be challenge and tension. When you're trying to do something, don't just say what you're doing, but how you're doing it and why you're character is able to (skills, equipment, past experiences, psychological shock). Give me a hook to hang the victory on-- something that makes you're investment in your character pay off.

Some Skills are Better Than Others
Most systems with skills generally have equal costs for most skills. However, not all skills are as useful as others- by this I mean things like Sailing or Pilot (Cart). That's a fact of the game.

I Want What I Paid For
On the other hand, if skills like Diplomacy or Combat Abilities aren't going to be useful in a game-- the GM better tell me that ahead of time. If I've built my character based on statements about what the game is going to be like and it isn't that, I'm going to be pissed.

Epic Fail = Table Time
The best part of having awful things happen to your character is that you get a chance to play those moments out. Sure a GM will probably play out some good, happy times at the table-- but more often than not we'll be dealing with the tense and awful. If you keep your character safe and bottled up, then you're less interesting. There's a limit to how many times I'm going to try to draw you out with new characters or plot threads. Eventually I'll get tired of that and figure you just want to watch the game go by for other people. Take risks, even if you think they might not be in character fully, to give yourself a chance to be at the center of a scene.

Plays Well with Others
On the other hand, don't go falling into everything just to have all the table time you can. That's annoying and diva-like. Learn to love the other PCs-- be as interested in their stories as your own. Make yourself the person they want to have with them when they go to do their scenes.

Celebrate Victory
When a player wins, let them win. Give them proper credit for their victory. Never undercut it with "well, the opposition wasn't that tough..." or the like. As a GM it costs you nothing, and an inflated sense of self can be used later. Especially never undercut a PCs dramatic death or sacrifice. If they die holding a gate against the enemy, don't say afterwards "You know there was a special button you could have pushed to magically lock that...". Don't do that. Really don't-- not even with an off-hand comment. Don't.

Big Finishes Can Save a Game
If I'm watching a movie that's slow and lame and bores me, but the ending knocks it out of the park-- that is the part I'm going to remember. The opposite holds true, if a movie's great and then the ending is a let down. The same thing holds for campaigns, one-shots, arcs and sometimes sessions. No pressure there, I'm just saying.

Something Every Week
Something should happen every session. After a session, I should be able to point at something interesting that occurred. If there was a fight, something interesting should have happened in that fight. I ought to be able to tell a relatively non-boring story about the session. If not, then we're not doing something right.

Never Say There's Nothing for Me to Buy
Really-- there's nothing your character wants to buy? You've hit the nadir of your abilities? Why don't I put that to the test then. If you want me to bring my GM whipping stick out and not in a good, "I get time at the table" but more in a "my character's out for how many sessions?" way, tell me this.

Know Who's Playing
At any particular moment, you should know who is talking to the GM or interacting in character with another player. If you're not aware of that then there's a pretty good chance you're talking over someone or interrupting a scene. People zone out, and that's OK, but not when you stomp on other people's enjoyment.

Poo Flies Both Directions
Trash-talking and poking fun at other players is a part of the game. However if you go down that path, you'd better be prepared to get some of that splattered on you. In other words, don't dish it out if you can't take it. Obviously there's a question of tone and level to be considered here-- make sure you keep things on the same level or in the same spirit as the other person.

It is Small Table
You've got a lot of people usually around a table, plus the various books, papers, food, drinks, dice, miniatures and so on. Be respectful of other people's stuff and don't crowd them out. Imagine you're at a nice dinner and keep those manners. If someone ends up looking at your character sheet or stuff by accident, don't get shitty. Most of the time that's an accident.

Yes, People Can Read Your Body-Language
If you're irritated, if you aren't enjoying yourself, if you're just a ****wit- people will know it. They can see you cross your arms, can see you pull your stuff back close to you and get defensive, and see you shut down. Don't act innocent if people ask about it later. You're in a small area with these people for several hours-- gamers are notoriously oblivious, but they'll pick up on that. Try to relax and get through the moment of what's bothering you. Get up and stretch if you need to-- and address your problem after the game. If it is just that you're in a bad mood, say so at the table and apologize. Being in a bad mood, on the other hand, doesn't give you license to make other people miserable.

No Plan Ever Survives Contact with the Player Characters.
Get used to it.

Change
Some people imagine themselves as iconic heroes, untouched and untouchable by the world. These are usually uninteresting characters. Characters who can't evolve or can only evolve along predetermined lines imagined by the player at the start-- those are boring characters. Be reactive to experiences and see how the unexpected shapes you.

Compromise does not Automatically = Failure
Other versions of the iconic characters mentioned above have to have things their way. They can't compromise their codes and rules. In some cases, that's a good challenge- a brings about questions about those codes in themselves and others. But more often than not, we get Rorschach like characters. Characters who can't adjust and work with a group shouldn't be made up to be played with a group. A game is a back and forth of argument, compromise, solution and progression.

Interparty Fighting Sucks
There are some games that encourage this-- Paranoia as the best example. But there are some others- an Amber RPG Throne War or Wilderness of Mirrors. However the bottom line is that these experiences will come over to haunt you. They'll color other games, irritate people, and provide fodder for later payback which can destroy another game. There are exceptions- like one shots. But generally be prepared that even a game that's declared to have that purpose and be isolated has a pretty good chance of coming back to bite you in the ass. And for a normal game where you let this happen, especially late in the game, it can be bad. You may have to suspend disbelief to keep people from going after each other, but you're already operating in a fantasy world-- so what's the problem there.

You Don't Own NPCs
Other people can talk to them too...don't get upset about it.

Tick, Tick, Tick...
Understand that when you start talking about WoW, a timer starts in my head. You've got about thirty-minutes (plus or minus ten) before I want to move on to another topic. I think that's pretty generous.

The Future is Now
Computers at the game table were a great idea when we thought about that twenty years ago. Today, not so much. Bonus: yes, it is a little rude when you're playing away with your iPhone constantly when other people are taking their scene.

Don't Threaten to Burn My House Down if My House Has Burned Down in the Past.
If you'd played with people long enough odds are pretty good you know what irritates them. That's part of the art of banter at the table. But you also probably know what really pisses them off. Know the difference and don't use that in the game.

Count to Five
If someone asks the GM a question, do a five count before you jump in to answer. Give them a chance to respond, and if they look around for input, then go ahead and speak your mind. Even, if not especially, not rules questions.

Take a Penny, Leave a Penny
If you're drinking my pop, would it hurt you to bring some to contribute every once in a while?

Wasn't There Another Stone Giant There?
If the GM forgets something bad, don't remind them. On the one hand, they may have honestly forgotten, in which case they'll remember it later, do a face-palm, and pretend nothing happened. On the other hand, the GM may be deliberately ignoring it to move the scene forward or to keep from killing the party off.

The Last Fleet: Character Creation

On Saturday, we had the character creation session for our upcoming Last Fleet Campaign (I posted about prep for that earlier here, here and here). Originally I’d hoped to have a chance to do a little play and campaign set up after we got done with character building, but time got away from me. That ended up being OK as we spent most of the time talking about characters and roles- with the players interacting and making decisions to compliment one another’s choices.

We’re playing with a significant variant to the existing rules for Action Cards which all of the players have played with (in at least two and usually more versions). I’ve been working on simplifying some aspects, adding new options, and playing to the strengths of the game. Where we’ve dropped things in play, I’ve removed those options from the rules. Skills/Abilities got a better set of definitions and examples. I took out "Traits" that gave global bumps, a mechanic that mostly got forgotten. We have a new damage system which includes Tags, the idea of multiple kinds of damage (social, physical, mental, etc) all of which get tracked from the same pool, flaws which have an effect and allow the players to use those to regain drama points, resolution which has the GM draw first and then players react, and a limit to the number of redraws for any attempt. It’s actually a pretty comprehensive set of changes given how rules-lite the system is and I’m excited to see how it plays out.

CHARACTERS
Here’s how the characters themselves came out:

Lira Moondawning, Namir Rogue/Shadow Mage

• Office: Chief Scout
• Flaws: Kleptomaniac, Likes to Scare People
• Broad Abilities: Scout, Martial Arts, Thief, Nimble
• Racial Ability: Perfect Balance
• Abilities: Listen, Lockpicking, Tumbling, Fast Talk, Cast Spell, Rolling Dodge, Move Silent, Small Blade Attack
• Specialties: Silent in Trees, Rolling Through Doorways, Kick Dropped Knife into the Air
• Talent Requests: Shadow Stealth, Disguise mastery, Distractions, Intimidation, Dagger Tricks, Ninja Stuff, Magic Weapon

Chain Firespinner, Scalebound Brawler/Fire Mage

• Office: Master of the Watch
• Flaws: Bluntly Honest, Overly Enthusiastic
• Broad Abilities: Perception, Hand-to-Hand, Healthy, Concentration
• Racial Ability: Grappling Tail
• Abilities: Ride Wyvern, Claw Attack, Iron grip, Solid Reputation, Gauntlet Parry, Dodge Ranged, Gather Rumors, Fit In
• Specialties: Putting Out People on Fire, Accurate Light Signaler, Breaking Chairs over People
• Talent Requests: Scales, Claw Attack, Fire Breath, Control Fire, Tail Bonus

Marreg Warmane, Orc Warrior

• Office: Master of the Hunt
• Flaws: Have to Be First, Low Alcohol Tolerance
• Broad Abilities: Hunter, Brawling, Survival, Fine Weapon
• Racial Ability: Tough Skin
• Abilities: Move Quietly, Throw Massive Things, Sword Parry, Resist Fear, Ignore Terrain, Dodge Melee, Sword Attack, Intimidate
• Specialties: Calm Tyren (Wyvern), Heave Carcass, Blade Leaping
• Talent Requests: Slams, Rage, Sacrifice Throw, Bellow, Social Sledge Hammer

Whet Bloodlaced, White Elf Pistoleer/Empath

• Office: Master of the Vigil
• Flaws: Spooky, Flashbacks
• Broad Abilities: Investigation, Soldier, Fast, Status
• Racial Ability: Night Vision
• Abilities: Ride Wyvern, Search, Psychology, Move Quietly, Keep Footing, Called Shot, Sword Parry, Spot Tracks
• Specialties: Near Miss Threatening, Wyvern Jumping, Smell Blood (Pick Out Dangerous Men)
• Talent Requests: First in the Round, Movement, Sense Ambush, Read People, Additional Senses, Precognitive Parry

Dweena Squint, Goblin Scout/Gadgeteer

• Office: Master of the Stores
• Flaws: OCD about Puzzles/Riddles; Nosy Parker
• Broad Abilities: Assessment, Mother, Gadgetry, Puzzles
• Racial Ability: Poison Resistance
• Abilities: Unpickable Locks, Blunderbuss, Spot Hidden, Design Gadget, Diplomacy, Manage Organization, Command Trust, Size Up Opponent
• Specialties: Full-Name Freeze Attack, Always the Right Key, Wyvern Skitching
• Talent Requests: Cling Boots, Sky Squid: Ink jets, Sky Squid: Eyes in the Back of My Head, Adaptable Blunderbuss, Scope, Goggles

Each player also wrote up a version of their "What My Father Told Me" question sheet to give background on their culture. I was surprised and pleased, given how much time those things take. I figured I’d be missing at least one or two. I’ll post some later as an example. Some of the players approached it as their character telling the story- and I should have been clearer about that. I think these culture creation documents work better when they’re positioned as an elder educating a young person. Most players had also found a picture to use for their character. I talked with them a little about what role they saw their people fulfilling in the fleet. The Goblins have the greeatest skills in meshing magic machines to users; the Orcs are known as the greatest Sky Huntsmen; the White Elves waste nothing and a masters of recycling and reuse; the Namir work the finest rope; and the Scaleborn have the finest leather-scale armor.

THE FLEET
We took some time to also talk about the general concept of the fleet. Each player is essentially an officer and makes up the "away team." There’s a little cross between BSG and Star Trek in a fantasy universe. The fleet is made up of nine vessels, escaping through the Stormwall and trying to find a new home. Each player comes from a different race, and so there’s a ship of their people in the fleet. There’s also the main flagship, the only one really well-armed and armored in the fleet. The characters primarily serve there. It will be made up of a crew drawn from across all of the races, including many otherwise completely lost in the Landfall. Ideally, I want the players to imagine the fleet as a kind of traveling city, with each ship being a neighborhood. We can move between "urban" and "wilderness" adventures in that way. I picture the ships as having skiffs to travel between them. The players have a little more mobility as they have a flying mount- four of them with riding Wyverns and the fifth trailing along with her Sky-Squid.

Three other ships make up the fleet. The first is a "Hive-Ship" populated by the quiet insect race of the Artikhane. They general don’t speak about themselves very forthrightly, so whether they are one race or several is unclear. They can understand the common tongue, and some can speak it. They possess their own magical and spiritual traditions including a sky-ship which operates by different propulsion principles. They bring to the fleet their specialty of Resin crafting, useful for patching and making molds. The second is the second largest ship in the fleet, and second best armed (although still pretty meagerly), that of the human Kingdom of Straad. They’re a mercantile people, ruled by the Council of the Square. Their people had been mighty tradesmen and scholars, with several unique magic schools. They bring an expertise in ship-building, repair and construction to the fleet, making them important beyond their size.

Finally, the last ship in the fleet actually wasn’t expected. I plan on detailing how this all came to be in the first session. When the fleet readied to depart it was intercepted by what may be the last Rescue Ark. The Arks had been mentioned in the timeline as a means of rescuing people from the falling islands. This Ark arrives, packed to the brim with survivors drawn from across the realm. It is over-capacity for its size, has little in the way of supplies, and many races with old tensions between them. At the start of the game this will be a situation hanging over the players. This ship should be the "bad" part of town- a dangerous and desperate area.

LOOKING FORWARD
I didn’t set up much beyond this for the session: it was more important to get the players oriented to their characters and describe how the new rules would work. I was asked where we would actually start- in transit or with the fleet just making its escape. I’m still not sure yet- I want to frame it well and make it exciting, so I suspect we’ll at the very least have a flashback to the escape in Session One. I did make clear to the players that the game would last exactly twenty-four sessions, no more- no less. I’m looking forward to seeing how everything plays out in the first actual play in two weeks.

Directing the Game (Part Two)

Sequel-itis
I've got a few more stray thoughts about cinema and rpgs. This continues on from an earlier post Directing the Game: Part One. And that's a commentary on the excellent Geeklist Hida's Top Ten: Directors You Wish Were Running A Game For You by the inestimable Hida Mann. And so we have a nested blog post.

What Was Our Mission Again?
I think of rpgs as a medium- just as cinema, novels, graphic comics, plays, opera and so on as means to conveying a story. That's not to say it is exclusively about story- rpgs have a number of other goals, including the game portion. I think of board games as a medium providing a story about competition, with more or less detail on top of that. RPGs obviously have, or I should say can have, different goals than other mediums. I probably fall closest to Narrativist in the GNS approach- but that's just what I like. The Gamer position's just as reasonable, and the Simulationist...anyway let's move on.

Robin Laws makes a point in Hamlet's Hit Points that has struck with me about the medium. Communication's actually pretty difficult in a tabletop rpg. The GM's the one providing a singular source of information (leaving aside handouts and props for a moment), the players have divergent interests, there's an expectation of interactivity, people who aren't 'on' can do other things, there's no social penalty for walking away to get something, you have books and papers to leaf through to check things, the environment may not be great, you may have cross-talk- in short rpgs face many difficulties not present elsewhere. In a theater you have more complete visual and auditory immersion, seats with a distinct orientation, lighting, the social expectation of silence, an obligation to private and passive reception of the material.

Losing Track of...What?
One of the places that can really hurts is during a combat sequence. Players get invested- they're present, they have something to do. I don't think its an accident that most rpgs build significant sections around combat,m even if they're dressed up as conflict resolution. And of course in a film, a good fight/combat section can easily make it worth my time. By the same token, confusing or badly shot fight sequences irritate the crap out of me. Modern martial arts films which shoot too close to see what's going on just make me angry. Bourne did that, but well and for a point. On the other hand, so many do it to avoid having to worry about showing full moves- instead we get many, many cuts and small sections of the fight assembled like a strange flip-book.

And when the director has a bad editor, then truly ugh. We don;t get a sense of the space, of the positioning of the characters, things pop out from nowhere,...wait, how did he get over there??? I'm confused. And I've had fights like that- both as a player and a GM. My instinct when I run fights is to bear through and get a frantic pace. Ideally that keeps the energy up. But if the players lose the thread of the fight narrative, then they can get irritated when they get shut down on actions or have another player step on their toes. This can hold true even if you're using figures and maps, which I do from time to time, but probably less than half the fights I run. With this possible confusion in mind, I've been practicing a trick which works well- though it isn't original to me. I read it in an rpg blog some time back.

Building a Combat Narrative
Basically when I run a combat, I still try to keep speed up. Players know that when I come to them, they should know what they're going to do. But also they need to stop me and ask me if they're unsure about something important- I try to be good about shifting gears down if I see those kinds of requests. But my goal within a combat round is to construct a complete narrative of that scene. When I come to a player, I try to give a really quick statement of their situation and position: "OK, Kenny, you're on the conveyor belt, and can see that the mooks are trying to lift something out of the box in the corner. What are you going to do?" I've already described the scene, but I do a recap for each player. Its a few second that reorients the player in the moment and also says: OK, you have the floor now, Mr. Player. They take their action, and then when I come to the next player I do the same thing- except, I make sure I state their position relative to the previous player and their action. "OK, Sherri, the machinery's going full tilt and you've seen Kenny leap off past you towards those Mooks with the box, what do you do?"

As the round goes on I compound this- adding a little more, rewinding and describing the turn- and making sure the active player sees what others have done and how they can play off of it. In a tight turn, but the time I get to the last player I'm providing a mini-story of the turn as a whole. Ideally I can take some time at the end of the turn to clarify results and signal the move to the next turn. We draft a dramatic narrative for the turn on the fly- in part by not seeing everything as simultaneous, just close to simultaneous. And I deploy repetition for effect, a classic storytelling technique which can get old in a visual feature. That repetition is a form of flashback, or rewinding.

Flashback
Flashback's a difficult thing to pull off at a game table- but can be quite fun. The trick is to not make it over determined- a GM can narrate a flashback, but you want the players involved. Which means you want to give the players power to affect things. Some movies play with time even more, like Momento or TimeCrimes. Of course, Hida has Kurosawa as his top pick for rpg director on his list- could something like Rashamon be done in a game? Bouncing around can be fun- but again as I mentioned earlier, it is easy to throw players out of the experience of a game through that bouncing. I've seen at least one game that does build that kind of flashback into the structure of play- InTERRORgation. I don't think it does a particular great job with that, however. It has a great premise- that players build the narrative of what happened in their story through the act of spinning that story out through contradictory answers to some kind of debriefing or questioning.

Time at the Table
A couple of interactive uses for flashback I've seen at games. One, for characters with lost or rewritten memories. The GM can use a flashback scene to play those out. This requires some prep to give the other players a sense of what's happening. Microscope uses a version of this in its "Scene" system- in which players bore down to the smallest level to answer a question. Two, as a means of establishing character or relations. One of the best games I played in began with a series of flashbacks in which each player got a half-session dealing with their background. The other players played NPCs from that past and provided a story that explain some of the character's personality. It invested everyone at the table in the player's experience and role. Another version comes from the Fallout game we've been playing which began with the group witnessing an atomic fireball, then being questioned by our rescuers about exactly how that came to pass- we then rewound to the actual start of the campaign. We didn't come back up to that time point until about halfway through the game. Three, one suggestion I read was to use flashback as a gap-filling measure. If a player doesn't show up for a game, the Gm can run a flashback adventure- an untold story. This allows the group to play, provides some incentive ("oh, yeah, that magic sword I'd gotten I forgot about...') and potentially can be used to introduce goofy sidequests.

Luckily Ahead of Time I...
All of those echo the way films use flashback- or perhaps in some cases more echo how TV shows handle it. One other technique I've used is "flashback prep." This works for games where you have a James Bondian or Bourne sense of the PCs being one step ahead and even echoes how leverage works at times. I use it to encourage players to keep planning sessions brief. Basically players get points or a point of points for 'plans.' Then when they carry out a caper and hit an obstacle, they can spend that point to retcon that they'd planned for that. They brought a device, they hired a diversion, they created an extra identity. It allows them to pull off Mission: Impossible style events. I also means you can play those situations out and reduce player frustration with the "My character would have know..." anger moments. Players don't have to know everything their character would- they just have to be able to spin an entertaining story about what they did ahead of time. The GM can classify those things or even require a pull- I used a variation on this in my Witless Minion! rules. There's a variation on this in the Time & Temp as well.

Still not done...to be continued.

Comics & RPG Links

So some updates on current work first:

Comic Book Resources has an interview with Scott Snyder and I about the upcoming Project Superman mini-series. I co-plotted and am doing the script. It is part of the upcoming Flashpoint event from DC this summer.

You can read the interview here.

Of course besides having the chance to work with Snyder, I also get the opportunity to work with Gene and Art! so that's pretty amazing. Plus there's at least one rpg reference in the first issue. This issue will be out in June.


Also out in June is a story I did with Gene for the new Rocketeer Adventures from IDW. These anthologies allow creators to write up new short stories using the classic Dave Stevens characters. The pages look great- and this should be a pretty incredible book. Here's the solicitation text:

Rocketeer Adventures #2 (of 4)
Darwyn Cooke, Lowell Francis, Mark Waid (w) • Darwyn Cooke, Gene Ha, Chris Weston, Pinups by Geof Darrow (a) • Alex Ross, Dave Stevens (c)
This issue of ROCKETEER ADVENTURES continues to soar with a trio of stories crafted by masterful comics creators. Mark Waid and Chris Weston provide a pulse-pounding story of revenge set to a colorful backdrop of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, Lowell Francis and Gene Ha put Cliff through his paces in an-all action extravaganza that has him fighting tooth and nail for his very survival—plus a special guest star! Finally, Darwyn Cooke delivers the goods (as always!) with a tale that we won't say one word about—it's too good to even hint at and ruin the surprise! Plus, a pair of pin-ups, BOTH by Geof Darrow—his incredible piece was just too massive to be held to the confines of a single page, so he’s supplying a gorgeous TWO-PAGE pin-up!
*2 regular covers will be shipped in a 4-to-1 ratio (4 Alex Ross, 1 Dave Stevens sketch cover)
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Finally, Legends of the Guard won a Gem award for Best 2010 Anthology. Even more interesting, it has been nominated for an Eisner Award for best Anthology. I only have one story in there, but I can claim an Eisner by proxy nomination...right?

GAME LINKS
*I've tried Loot a couple of times now- picking up Spirit of the Century and Maschine Zeit. I'm really happy with the service. Loot is essentially an rpg version of Woot or Tanga. I've been pleased that it has had things which I wanted to pick up, rather than exclusively OSR, Pathfinder or the like.

*Berin Kinsman has an interesting free pdf available called "The Tao of Rules Hacking" which you can find here. It is an interesting read and worth looking at if you're doing some rules rebuilding (as I've done recently).

*World vs. Hero is an interesting game with a kind of free-form two-player positioning. I'd submitted it as an rpg item for RPG Geek, but the decision was that the game presented itself more as an board game and so it went to the BG side. I'm not sure about that. Anyway, the author of that game has an interesting blog with some worthwhile insights.

*A really good article on player attachment from Casting Shadows.

*I can't recall how I stumbled on this article looking at the "table cost" of rules for rpgs. It has a fairly mechanical approach- but the key ideas hold true across the board. Really interesting fodder for thinking about games.

*Here's an article for writers posing the question "What if your characters don't want anything?". That's an interesting question to pose about players- especially given that earlier essay on player attachment. Sometimes players either don't know their motivation or else hide it so that they can't get tagged from it.

*Leviathans, the only miniatures game I'm looking forward to.

The Last Fleet: Campaign Development- World Building as Play

Campaign Prep as Solo Session
I like to reflect on process- I perhaps spend to much time thinking about these issues. One thing I've learned is that the game in the GM's head never matches exactly the game as it gets played out at the table. That's a great and necessary thing, since the players' choices can impact the direction of the game. I think one defining feature of a GM is how much they allow the players to shape things. I'm not talking about the linear path of a "railroad" game and the players changing events and forcing the GM to scurry to fix problems. I'm talking the players shaping the tone, direction, sense of drama and purpose of a campaign. I like to look back and try to figure out what I was thinking before a campaign started- hence my various campaign postmortems (Campaign Postmortem: Star Wars Episode VII: The Darkening Rift, Scion Campaign Post-mortem, Vampire Campaign Postmortem and a round-up of the tags here).

I tend to picture game prep for a campaign as a kind of solo session away from the table. I'm not a big plotter, but I like to brainstorm ideas. And before a campaign, I like to think about possible arcs and stories- what kind do I think the players will want? What details have to be ironed out to give them the space to play out their stories? How do I imagine the pace of progression? So my current work/session revolves around getting ready for "The Last Fleet" campaign, which I've talked about previously here and here. I know some people have been curious about how Microscope works as a campaign starter- so I want to talk about how I've approached the material the players generated during the history creation session.

Premise Setting
Now I imposed the general plan of the campaign, the idea of the refugee fleet in a fantasy world, but I left it pretty open. I think starting with a campaign hook like that did help- players had a sense of what they were building towards. I'd be curious to see how leaving things more open ended affects what the players do. I didn't specify most of the parameters, but I had some idea. For instance, I expected the players would settle on one of two approaches to the broken world- either a vast ocean (ala 50 Fathoms) or broken floating islands in the air (ala Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies and Sundered Skies). I came up with a few other approaches in my head: a desert world with sand ships, a kind of planar world with ghost vessels, fantastic space (like Spelljammer), and even underwater. Some things I really wasn't sure what they'd come up with- that the barrier would be made of a tempest, The Stormwall, was something I put on the table based on a couple of the other players suggestions. The threat which would force the fleet to flee I also tried not to think about before hand- and we ended up with extra-planar avengers come to destroy the people's for their transgressions in summoning and binding. I like that- it provides the right sense of alien menace following them.

The players most significantly affect the cosmology of the game through the "Add" and "Ban" list. We use these slightly differently than the book suggests, but still pretty close. Most of the items on these lists some changes in my approach, so I think it worth walking through them and assessing their impact.

Banned Concepts
No technology without a personal investment and magical empowerment: any tech (guns, flying machines, etc) must be magically powered. This caused debate- some players like technology, like firearms in their fantasy while others dislike it. We're currently also doing a Steampunk fantasy game, so I didn't want too much overlap between these. The idea that any "technology" like flyers, tanks or firearms have to be magically powered makes them rarer. It also means that not anyone can simply pick up such items and use them. Right now I'm thinking about what the implications of that will be for play. If they find items of another magical tradition, can they use them? Is there some process of attunement? I suspect so, serving both as a plot device and a means to maintain some limitations on powers.

No free mana: all magical power comes from a physical power source, the most common being magistone. I wasn't expecting this and it changed how I was thinking about magic in the game. Suddenly magic becomes a limited resource- not just on training or talent but in the actual substance used to allow mages to cast. Without that substance, no magic is possible- so it isn't like Ars Magica where vis serves as a supplement. Imagine it as a no-mana world, where the only power comes from magical batteries. We talked about this idea for a bit at the table. Magistone does naturally "recharge" a little, but any particular chunk of it will burn out over time. Overcasting and reckless casting can also cause it to break- making it a resource players might place at risk in play.

One immediate comment at the table was that Magistone would become the cornerstone of the economy. That idea bothered me a little, so I introduced the concept that magistone actually had some negative health effects if handled too long or in too strong a concentration. Another player also added that it became volatile if too much of it accumulated in one place. That had nice implications and set up some future problems for the fleet and the campaign. A number of other events played off of these ideas as well. Though it hasn't been stated, I'm going to assume that all magistone is universal- can be used for any magic. There isn't a dedicated form or if one does exist, it would be something unique. We also haven't addressed the question of divine or priestly magic- the timeline has "Avatars" of the gods so they much have some power. However the situation is additional complicated by some other factors I'll talk about later.

No multiple worlds- a single world broken and divided: This pretty much eliminated the possibility of the game being "space" or planar based. We didn't yet have the world defined, but we knew what it wasn't.

No universal magic: all magic comes from specific traditions which focus on particular effects. Persons cannot learn deeply into more than one tradition. I'd been thinking about this before the game and added this to the list when I had the opportunity. Given that I planned to build each players "class" on the fly as the game rolled along, I wanted to make sure that each mage wold feel special and have a fairly distinct range of abilities. Players will be able to tell me what kind of kinds they'd like to be able to do and I'll tailor the talents they have to choose from each session (imagine making up spell, feat or advantage tracks for the players based on their feedback). I also wanted to echo the evocative and flavorful magic of Reign. I'd been looking at that recently, and I expect to loosely borrow from those traditions for play. Each form of magic there feels like a completely new paradigm, with its own culture and history. A couple of the players added the names of some traditions to the timeline ("Forgiveness of Stone") so I'll integrate those into the setting.

No personal flight spells- magic items allowed: By this point we knew that there would be skyships and flying around. This restriction has some pretty significant implications for a world like that. Obviously things fall in this world and that's a fairly significant danger. Magic items, even tech-like ones, require magistone to operate so that makes that substance even more important. It also means flying steeds and mounts would be huge and that falling off or out of one could be truly deadly if you weren't ready...

No constant powers or effects on magic weapons: powers must be activated. Suddenly the +1 sword or any weapon with a standing effect is off the table. There's a logic here- that activating the power drains the magistone and it either requires more time to recharge or else you risk destroying the stone. I might have that as a factor- with players being able to press their luck to get a weapon to last longer. At the table we applied this concept specifically to weapons, but we didn't talk further about the logic of it. Now that I've seen all the pieces, I think I have a rationale for this approach. Most weapons are small, hand-held. In order to have a longer-lasting or constant effect from any item it requires either more magistone or a more complex mechanism to operate. Hence we can have magical engines which lift the ships or have industrial application. But anything small can only have magical effects which fire off in an instant or have a very short term effect. That means this applies to armor, shields, rings, wands, bracers and all like items. That's a fairly major shift from other classic fantasy settings and makes some other kinds of things (magical traps, continual spells and such require some thinking about as a GM).

Different races cannot interbreed: That's a little detail with some significant implications given the nature of the campaign. It eliminates a couple of the classic fantasy races which isn't that big a deal to me. However given that the players will be leading refugees who will be eventually trying to repopulate their culture- that can have a profound effect. There are some other implications, mostly about seeing the other as inhuman that arise, but I don't want to think about it too hard. As a GM, I also wonder about how all of these races came to be- that they don't share a common ancestor. Our history timeline supposes a time when the world was intact, before this section of the history. How long ago, we don't know (that's something I'll come back to). So we haven't looked at that history and legend at all...there's room there for me as the GM to put a spin on things. I will have to think about that.

Added Concepts
Skyships: This pretty much cemented either the floating island thing or else some form of difficult to traverse land. The players discussed this for a little bit and I think by the time we got to the actual history building everyone had settled on this. Of course this means thinking about a good deal of the physics of the world and how that operates. I've decided to play things as loose as I can. If I have to answer a question about the rules of behavior, I'll make a note of my response and try to keep it in my thinking about things. But generally I want to keep things loose and general in a Final Fantasy way. The ships have engines which make them fly- I don't think I need to know much further past that for the moment.

Reincarnation: This was the first of the genuinely surprising things added to the lists. We had to slow down and get from the player exactly what he meant by this. His take was unusual- reincarnation has no "karmic" tie. You don't come back as a different class of soul, regardless of your behavior in a past life. There's no "afterlife"- instead souls go to the Wheel of Reincarnation and are reborn. Until then, there's a kind of limbo they dwell in. It wasn't an approach any one had really thought of, but everyone bought into it.

As a GM my consideration is how a lack of sin & punishment through afterlife (either heaven or karmic rebirth) impacts society. Most societies have a moral code, and in a fantasy settings these are usually policed by the gods and by society. So I can imagine two approaches- and both might be true. On the one hand, persons who commit serious sins open themselves up to punishment by the gods. On the other, persons who sin might find themselves in a different caste or suffering badly in their next life. They'd still be of their race, but suffer a kind of bad luck accumulated from their previous life. This would be meted out by the gods and their agents. I'm not certain how I want to read that- and a later point on this list impacts that pretty heavily. We did establish that there's no continuity of memory- at least not an active one (i.e. you don't remember your past lives) so I do have to wonder at the practical application of this. There must be some way to access those past memories- some sign or connection- I have to think about that.

Non-human majority; humans less than 50% of population: Another one which hadn't occurred to me. We talked about this at the table for some time. That change offers three easy approaches: either another race (Elves, Dwarves, etc) holds the majority position; the 'major' races each hold relatively equal numbers, or there's an extensive plurality of races. Surprisingly, to me, we settled on the last of those. That required some rethinking on my part.

I've written before about my reaction to some non-human games in games, and players reactions to those races. My general druthers in a campaign is for one or two major races, plus a set of niche races. Stupidly, part of that comes from my background in anthropology. I tend to overthink things- I want to know how those societies work, how they fit into the larger structure, how the system as a whole fits together. I try to drill down to the cultural logic- how can this group co-exist with this group- what accident of history and adaptation allowed that? How could a society with this approach actually survive and flourish? Plus ideas of Nature and "Natural Tendencies" with races really bugs me. But I think I need to approach it the way that some of the Final Fantasy games do, particular those set in Ivalice (FFT, FFX, FF Crystal Chronicles) and just go with it. There exist a huge number of races, each independent, who just are. I can throw them in there and not worry about the details until and unless players drill down and take a closer look at them.

Active, Intervening Gods balanced by a complex bureaucracy: This was an interesting balancing act between two approaches. First the idea that gods could and would be active, present and intrusive (ala Xena, Jo Clayton's Drinker of Souls, and some other campaigns players had been in). Second, restrictions on that which would make any intrusion by a god either have to go through some complex divine paperwork or else require an equal and balanced response in the opposite direction. Plays and ideas laid down on the historical timeline ended up deciding that- establishing the bureaucracy as a response to events within time.

God Foundlings create new souls: This came from the question of reincarnation above as we tried to get some clarification about what that meant. Absolute reincarnation, with no afterlife and a closed cycle implies a set and maximum number of souls in the world. That seemed problematic as races couldn't grow. Essentially the only new souls come into this world when a god (male or female) procreates with a mortal. The resulting child is not divine, but is a new soul and not a reincarnated one. It is of the race of that mortal. That allows there to be new souls entering into the cycle and suggests that, in the end, all souls have a divine source. Is that, perhaps a source of power? Or is it a weakness for the gods? Something off-topic just occurred to me as well for the issue of reincarnation- are Elven souls different from Orcish ones? Can one race only come back as that race or can they become something new? That makes a pretty big difference. I don't think I'll make a decision on that until I see everyone's cultural background- that may impact it.

Elementals are native to this world: This was an interesting detail- more about having native and accessible elementals as beats than anything else. This could also have been accomplished by adding an event related to them to the timeline. We established that this meant the basic four kinds of elements. We eventually had non-native, extra-planar complex elementals appear in the timeline, creating a contrast. I like to think of these native elementals as more wildlife than an active intelligent force. I'll need to make sure that approach is clear to the players.

Each race/culture has a unique economic/crafting/commerce specialty which they're the best at: That's an interesting detail and one which forces me as the GM to come up with something for each race/culture I introduce. These specialties aren't exclusive- in that they aren't the only ones who can do X thing. But they are the best at doing that thing.

Other Concepts I Need to Plan Around
Twins
Of course a number of issues and major changes to the nature of the world appeared in the history itself. Some of these got picked up on and expanded, others are sitting there waiting to be expanded on. Probably the idea with the largest impact was that of Twinning. Essentially, after the disaster that destroyed the world, every birth ended up being twins. These twins share a soul, or rather a soul is split between them. In some cases there are connections between the twins, but more often not. A soul cannot be reincarnated until both twin's have died- releasing their soul back into the world. That, along with the nature of the limited number of souls, makes things like Necromancy particularly wicked. We also had added that, through particularly awful rituals one twin could kill the other to gain power. But that requires some serious prep and people couldn't normally gain power this way. The twin concept also provided a device for defining the players as "special." PCs can take the option of being 'twinless' in that their twin wasn't born with them, but instead in another section of the world. They could then use their connection with that distant twin to find a path through to the new world. The players came up with this and it sounded pretty great. I do know that I have to consider the issue of twin (alive, dead, fraternal, identical, etc) when I think about the NPCs.

The Gods
I mentioned the Gods above a couple of times, their role and soul generators and involved in a bureaucracy. Interestingly the source of that order comes from within the history. After the shattering of the world, the gods involved themselves heavily in the various conflicts (think The Illiad to the nth degree) resulting in devastating wars. In order to solve that problem, the gods instituted the rules. Gods could not act unilaterally, but would have to gain support for their actions. There wold be a process they had to go through. Additionally, each gods ended up assigned to a particular race or culture- creating some significant divisions and reducing the number of gods per race to a manageable number. That has a number of major implications for world building.

First, what happens to these gods when all the members of their group die? Obviously not every group and race will make it out from the cataclysm. So do the other gods die? Join someone else? I think I'm probably going to keep that as a detail I'll dole out later. The characters won't know yet what the fate of those gods might be. Second, that bureaucracy arose within the history for this part of the world. Did things happen the same way elsewhere? Is that God Court universal or do other sections have other rules about divine conduct? Are there different gods there? I suspect so, and that will be a cool thing to pull out later. Third, if the gods assigned to a particular race had particular talents, does that mean that this race had a kind of divine control over that aspect? For example, let's say that in the division, Kakaltha the Rain Goddess ended up with the Gnolls. Would she still be the Rain Goddess or something greater? Would others have to come to the Gnolls to petition for aid with rain? How does that work. I suspect the most workable approach will be many gods with overlapping aspects- but that will be important to figure out given the limited number of races among the escaping fleet. A minor group might have access to some divine powers others don't, giving them some power and influence.

Time & Healing
There's a lot of other things to draw out from the timeline, but I'll just consider two last details. I need to figure out exactly how long the timeline is- i.e. how many years, decades, centuries between the breaking of the world and the present time. That matters especially if we have some long-lived races like the Elves. It also will affect my thinking and world building for other sections. One of the strange details in the history is that healing magic arrives very late to history. So the development of magical means for healing and treating injuries, including sanitizing and such has arisen within the last generation or two. That's a pretty radical development. I assume that there would have been some serious development of conventional medicine, now being outstripped by the efficacy of magical healing. That presents some interesting tensions. It also suggests that quality of life, life span and such might be increasing just at the worst possible time for that..

Directing the Game (Part One)

Ready for the Close Up
So finally back on this particular blog track- taking a look at Geeklists (either mine or someone else's) to expand or comment on those ideas. My hand has finally healed up to the point where I can type regularly without too much pain. This week, I present a list by one of my favorite RPG Geek contributors, Hida Mann (Jaime Lawrence):

Hida's Top Ten: Directors You Wish Were Running A Game For You

In which he considers many directors and how their style might look at the table. It's a nice chance to comment on great directors as well as link the two mediums. His list illustrates another great approach to Geeklist creation and what makes that one of my favorite tools on the site. I have a lot to ramble about, so I'm going to split this into two parts.

Jaime brings to bear some serious knowledge about the directors. I consider myself a film buff- with some odd areas of interest, but definitively not an expert on film. I agree with a number of his choices (especially his #1) but at first I disagreed with some others- for example Zach Snyder. But the more I thought about it, in the context of directors you'd want to have actually running a game for you, the more the choices that at first seemed incongruous to me actually did fit. It also made me think about a number of issues related to the intersection of cinema and rpg gaming. So here are some of those thoughts- or at least part one of those thoughts.

Seeing the Game
I don't want to lay claim to a universal, but in my experience movies influence our visualization. They can help us shape how we picture stories told to us and can serve as a touchstone for experience at the table. We might reference a particular scene from a film directly to provide the players with a sense of the scene. But indirectly I think we build quite a bit of our imaginary landscape from films- or any other visual media. But among all the different types of visual arts, I think cinema builds a more profound impact on our senses (through the darkened space of the theater, a complete story told in a short time, the screen size and eye movements, etc).

A Trilogy
More objectively, three areas can impact our conscious play at the table: visuals, characterization and drama. One way to look at a game is that a GM is describing a film, with the players able to participate and interact with it. A good film can provide the GM with a set of tools for that description: we start a scene close up, we pan around to see something approach, the shot opens wider and we realize just how large the chamber is. These are all terms and concepts borrowed from film. I picked up an interesting book on this called Cinematic Storytelling which goes through and looks at how shots, movement, sound and other details get used to effect by directors. Its a nice book to give a GM ideas for presenting a scene if they feel like they've fallen into a rut.

Visuals
There's one approach to reading an rpg which looks at it as an interactive radio-play. I'm not sure I agree with that-- or at least, as an analogy, it doesn't work. Instead I like the idea that its someone describing a movie to you- complete with the slow down to provide visual details. I never cared for radio dramas. However my dad would sometimes retell me the plots to movies he'd seen which were too old for me. I still remember clearly walking along and him spelling out the details of The Shining to me. That stuck in my head for months- creating images far worse than the movie ended up being. A GM usually provides more description than "in voice" discussion, in my experience. The irony being that the GM has to seem like a natural storyteller- for my money there's fewer worse things than a GM clearly reading from boxed text at the table.

Characters
Movies can also serve as guideposts for characterization in a couple of ways. They can demonstrate how certain directors foreshadow or reveal traits through actions or reactions. There's an education to be had in framing and body language- since usually movies and rpg games don't give us the internal monologue of non-protagonists. That can be subtle. Of course one of the potential problems of this approach lies in the attention one gives to it. In a film, everything's taking place in a larger frame with continuous movement. Directors who heavy-handedly draw attention to what ought to be a quieter and more hidden signal insult the audience's attention. On the other hand, the GM has a smaller pool of information they're working with (verbal, body language, perhaps handouts, maybe lighting and music) and when the GM makes a point of mentioning something, that's usually a flag for a player- 'he wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't important..." Good GMs can, of course, turn that against the players but in general there's the difference of bandwidth between the inputs of a movie screen and that of a GM's presentation.

But another simple way in which GMs can use films as a basis for characterization is simply referencing characters by name or through action or manner. If the GM bears himself like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, that sends a pretty clear signal to the players. Likewise, echoing other iconic characters like Han Solo or Rooster Cogburn can paint a pretty clear initial figure: that the character looks and/or acts like that character. The GM can also use that as a false trail, but too much of that can throw players out of the story. Movies aren't the only source GMs can riff on for these things, but I'd argue they have the most vivid and most stable presentations of characters to play from.

Drama!
Finally, I think the most important thing GMs can take is a sense of drama and pacing. Not that any session or arc has to follow your standard dramatic progression, but it can be a useful thing to have an appreciation for. Understanding how a first act has to push things uphill, how the second builds and challenges and how the third introduces complications and resolves plots can be great. Even if you're sandboxing a game, you can consider how movies switch from fast to slow or ratchet up the tension. Dramatic structures can be built into each piece: scene, session, arc, campaign in larger and larger forms. Mind you, I'm a person who really thinks pacing is vital to a good game and that it complements drama. I've talked a little bit about that idea before. Consider how the various directors Hida mentions control the pacing dial. Probably the best example of this would be the adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to the screen. If you've read the book, you know there's a lot of bloat. Interesting material, but bloat (tangents, extra information, rules discussions...). The screenplay manages to cut the right things to keep the drama and the tension going. I'm not saying it is a great film, but it does manage to take tough material and make it into something with real energy.

Changing Descriptive Languages
I have a little theory about description in games, and I'm not sure how much water it holds but bear with me. I believe there's been an evolution in the visual language of gaming: particularly in how combat's described and how players envision their actions. In the old days, the description of a combat tended to be more mechanical, even if the system wasn't particularly mechanistic. We had some flourishes in descriptions of actions but they tended to draw from a few cinematic/visual sources: Bond's films and like brawlers, some sword and sorcery epics (like Dragonslayer, the Sinbad films), and swashbuckling films. However the increased accessibility of HK cinema, wushu movies, and anime has changed the way in which players and GMs describe what's happening. Even before the "Stunting" mechanics of Exalted, we had Feng Shui really integrating those poetics of violence into the system itself. Now the default is to think of combats, chases, and action sequences in those terms. Systems which go for a more realistic and less cinematic approach are the exception. Even more 'realistic' modern films, like Bourne and Casino Royale still have crazy physical sequences which borrow more than a little from these ideas. I read a recent review of the movie Hanna which pointed out that now martial arts for characters is the default rather than the exception. I don't think that's a bad thing, but one worth being aware of. I know in our group it would be hard to roll back to a less cinematic approach to action.

to be continued...

The Last Fleet: Campaign Development- Offices and Answers

Work goes forward on the new campaign based on the Microscope history we built. You can see the timeline we built in this post. The players are starting to come up with their roles and characters. I gave them a blank version of the "What My Father Told Me" sheet borrowed from Glorantha- that remains the best technique for having players define a culture or defining one for the players. I talked about that more in this post from a while back. I want the players to have a significant role in the fleet they're a part of, so I'm going to have them each choose an office. Coming up with these also provides a list of future NPC roles I can fill in at my leisure. I've also encourage the group to ask any questions they might have so I can do some teaser background. I ordered a copy of Sundered Skies and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, both of which seem to have some overlap with this setting. I'm hoping I'll find some useful ideas there.

OFFICES AND ROLES

While you guys will be young, you will be serving in important roles in the fleet- the equivalent of Officers. Some, perhaps all, of you will be Twinless-- meaning that your twin exists out there and serves as a kind of beacon for the fleet. You can chose your position- this will not take up all of your time, but will be your main task when not exploring or on away missions. Below is a list of positions and offices on the fleet. You may also choose to be the Second or Assistant to any one of these offices.

Master of the Watch: Oversees the various spotters and lookouts stationed across the ships. In charge of coordinating and maintaining clear communications about any sightings, through whatever means: physical, mechanical or magical.

Armsmaster: Either the chief or second in command for the small number of trained armed warriors kept in preparation for problems. Some drawn from the ships maintain a full-time role for security, while others serve in the Guard, as Hunters or so on.

Senior Engineer: The ships have various forms or propulsion and systems which have to be taken care of. The Senior Engineer's responsible primarily for the flag ship and for coordinating work across the fleet.

Duty Supervisor: Coordinates the manpower across the fleet. Records and schedules things and handles requests for labor to help with projects. Important for tracking persons and work.

Helmsman: Each ship in the fleet has a team of helmsmen, this position represents seniority on the flagship.

Gunnery Captain: The flagship's the best armed of the fleet, though that isn't saying that much. Some of the other ships have modest weapons attached to them-- often re-purposed from hunting. The Gunnery Captain's the lead on this for flagship.

Chief Signalman: In charge of communications between in the ships, especially in the heat of coordinated maneuvers. While some magic is employed for this, the bulk rests on more primitive light and flag systems.

Master of the Flight: The fleet has a small number of flying vessels- boats it uses. Some serve as ferries between the major ships of the fleet, some and exploration and hunting boats, and one as the main expedition ship. Those who, like the PCs, have some personal flight devices or mounts, also serve as an aerocorps, in case of battle. The Master of the Flight oversees all of these.

Adjudicator: Disputes will arise between and within the ships of the fleet. The Adjudicator is the person who steps in to settle those and possibly make judgment. He can assemble a tribunal for criminal cases as well. He might also serve, in a pinch, as the away negotiator. He is assisted by Advocates (another possible position with less responsibility).

Master of the Vigil: The Vigil serve as the “town guard” and police force for the ships of the fleet. This is a difficult position, often putting the guardsmen on ships other than that of their own culture. The Master of the Vigil oversees this and is the lead investigator.

Master of the Forage: If and when new places are located, the Master of the Forage will follow up to see what useful flora, fauna, or materials might be taken. They serve as a kind of botanist and ranger for the ship. The may follow up or go out initially (if a PC).

Master of the Hunt: Some food resources can be gain through hunting, a difficult and dangerous proposition in uncharted areas. Bodies of water may be fished, sky-fishing may be involved, or they may even pursue larger sky-beasts and fliers. Hunters are often away for days at a time on such expeditions.

Master of the Stores: Serves as the supply officer for the fleet- tracks goods across all ships. This not only includes food and essentials, but also metal, wood and other materials. They handle distribution according to requests and priorities. Most importantly, they track the supply of Magistone, making sure that not too much ends up in any one place to avoid accident.

Preservationist: The keeper of the logs and the archivist. This figure also works to record stories and memories from across the various peoples, in attempt to keep those memories alive.

Adjunct: The fleet is lead by the Admiral and the Captains of the Flagship, in that order. The Adjunct is the third in the chain of command there.

Master of Beasts: This office see to the keeping and breeding of various useful animals across the fleet. Only those who can be used to produce food or good or can be used as work animals or mounts have been allowed. The Master of Beasts sees to their health in this difficult situation.

Navigator: The Navigator has the difficult task of mapping in three dimensions and trying to figure out the clues from the tug of the lost Twins. The Navigator will be Twinless. They also handle weather prediction and storm calculation.

Chief Scout: The lead for any away team. They're the chief explorer for new territories found.

Chief Physiker: Obviously the different races of the fleet will have different medical needs. This office attempts to coordinate those needs and make sure the ships remain disease free. They oversee the herbal stores for the fleet.

Arcanist: Oversees the use of magic on the ship, including any devices which are magically powered. They authorize the distribution of Magistone for use and oversee the training of those who have begun to learn a particular path.

The Shadow: It is understood that at some point difficult things may be necessary. The Shadow oversees internal security, handles executions, would manage assassinations and so on. In good times, little might be needed of this position; in bad times it will be more soul-destroying (not recommended for PCs).

Diviner: In charge of assessing the gods currently associated with the various races and keeping their stories and lore kept. Sees to the assessment of signs and communications of the divine.

ANSWERS TO A COUPLE OF PLAYER QUESTIONS:

I know we have islands and bodies of water and they (used to, at least) float around in relative positions to one another in the air. But there's an idea of falling into the abyss and there's still sun/sky/stars. So, for shorthand, we'll say there's a "down" and an "up". But what do the storm walls look like? Are they huge tubes of turmoil or more like belts of crazy unpredictable storms blowing past pretty fast--storms you can maybe dodge if you're lucky....

The Stormwalls define roughly a sphere according to the mappers, but not a perfect one and one which does shift. Stormwalls vanish to vision at a distance, leaving the image of a clear blue sky- depending on where you look. The “Sun” which is a large and diffuse body of light rather than a circle moves in a circle from the top to the bottom of the sky- along with some distance factors. When the light is at the bottom of the sky, it seems further away, creating night for most of the islands, between that and the light being blocked. If you stand at the edges of the land at night, you get a strange phosphene glow. Dusk and dawn last longer, strangely enough.

There are stars, but they move quickly and in strange patterns, meaning that navigators have to have some complex equipment to use for calculating time and such. The bodies of the land and water, do move, but very slowly. On their particular plane, an island will complete a cycle in about ten years. These cycles are independent of one another- and that movement can be up or down. Storms may also cause shifts in these movements, resulting in the crashing of islands together or the enlargement or splitting of watery islands.

When you get close to the Stormwalls, you see what appears to be a disk of a massive stormhead, roiling and violent. If you move along it, the disk extends ahead of you. The Stormwall can also give birth to storms, some magic and other mundane. Storms and rain also independently form within the sphere. Storms can move fast or slow and can be a significant navigation hazard as they travel across, before either dissipating or being swallowed by the Stormwall.

Wait--and what do the bodies of water look like? I don't need them to be physically possible--I just need to be able to visualize them.

Any island can either be earth or water. If it is made up of more than half earth, then the island obeys a form of gravity. Things fall towards the plane of the islands “top”- which usually is oriented “upright” but not always. The underside of such an island lacks conventional gravity for foreign objects (like people walking) but for some reason the earth, ground and material of the island do not fall away unless forcibly removed (storms can cause erosion for example). Rivers on such islands roil off the edge back into the ground of the island.

On the other hand, if an island is made up of more water than earth, it obeys a different set of properties. In this case, the water shifts into a sphere which surrounds the earth. “Sea” and “Lake” islands are made up of a core of earth with the water around it. These often have significant sea-life and the “gravity pulls from the water's surface towards the core. So you can ride a boat around on such islands in any direction.