Return to Zombie Island: Part I

We were only expecting 4 total at the table again this month so I prepped for another session of Fudge; Return to Zombie Island: Part I. At the last minute another member of our group was able to join after all. So, at this point, there's only one member of the group that hasn't been exposed to Fudge. There weren't a lot of major shifts in this build. I refined the mana costs for spell effects. I also made some fixes to the auto-calculating character sheet but nothing major.

Exposing Players to Fudge
This was much more difficult than the last time. From the last session I had three players now exposed to the way that Fudge encourages the GM to fudge details to keep things moving faster. Those players were comfortable with me flipping back and forth between using the dice for mechanical versus story results. Enter the new player whom I'll refer to in this post as Min-max. The challenges started when he was creating his character, "Do I have to pick a Fault that will come up during the session?" This question came just after I explained that this adventure is totally self contained with no connection to future missions or a possible campaign. We got through character creation alright but then he kept getting frustrated by the fudging. His comment at the end of the session was, "It needs more consistency."

I asked, "What the magic system or the combat system?"

"No," he replied, "the whole thing."

O-kay. I either have a player with a serious misread of the system or a serious mismatch between the system and the player. Though I tried to duplicate the same style of introduction that I used in the first session, it didn't sink in for him.

Play Testing
This was at once very encouraging and daunting. The magic system played well. In the last session, I was trying to test the mana per cast cost structure. We tried enough different things in that session that I revamped several aspects. In this session, I found that the mana per effect costs felt much better. For anyone interest here is how I have done it. The mana cost is calculated by adding independent mana costs for distance, duration, subtracting for time concentration, and finally adding a cost for either area or number of targets. Though it seems a little complicated, most of the players figured it out and could calculate cost quickly. Most effects ended up costing the minimum mana of 1. My players all ended up spending 5 mana or less during the entire session.

The magic "schools" were a little more challenging. This was a completely untested aspect of the system so I'm not surprised. I incorporated some elements of the Magic: The Ascension system. All spell effects are a combination of the schools. For example a Fireball would require Elements and Creation. However, it isn't quite that simple. I've got each magic school paired with another. Here they are:

Nature-Health
Body-Mind
Elements-Spirit
Creation-Illusion
Destruction-Alteration

One of the themes that I'm hoping the players will explore during the campaign is balance. The magic system is designed to allow the players to explore that element of the campaign. For example, if a character casts a lot of spells with body over and over and over again, she or he experiences both a little physical boost and a little physical deficit. The image here is that the mana imbalance is reflected in the body of the mage. The imbalance in the mage can be redressed by consciously choosing to cast the opposite type of spells. If the imbalance is not redressed, then the imbalance grows, eventually becoming more and more of a deficit.

The challenge in creating the system has been coming up with the right pairs. The Nature-Health pair for instance is my nemesis. I started that pair as Nature (flora and fauna) and Humans. But it quickly became apparent that the "Human" school would be used far more for buffing friends and foes than the "Nature" part of the pair. I decided to change the human aspect to "Health", here defined as a striving for wholeness that is perfected in humanity, because limited this way the pairs would better balanced. I'm still not very happy with the pair though because it isn't very intuitive.

Explaining each of the pairs, communicating them to the players, and helping them to have a feel for the magic system took a lot of time at the table. Since the session began with 2 in game days to prepare for the return to zombie island one of the players referred to in the last post as my power gamer really got into the idea of exploring some of the uses for the spell colleges and started using the scientific method to test different ways of exploring the nature of life, detection of life, and the passage from life into death. It was a lot of fun for him buying chickens, trying to use alteration and spirit to change his spirit's ability to detect the life force of the chicken and then detecting the chicken's passage from life into death while it was killed. This was by far one of the best parts of the session for me too because I got to find out how well my magic system cohered when investigated by the players. I was making up the answers on the spot and helping the character come to conclusions about the nature of the magic preventing the zombies from fully passing into death. The result of the investigation was that the players created a new spell that they thought might be able to help them against the zombies. Of course it did help them.

The daunting aspect of discovering the magic system came from Min-max player in the group. He kept thinking in concrete terms, viewing "Spirit" as something that could be quantified or have location. I kept trying to preserve the sense of mystery and "magic" but he kept trying to know the physics of "spirit". I have the sense that we haven't seen the end of this discussion. So often gaming systems describe and quantify magic as just another form of technology. A game mechanic that can be known, predicted, quantified, measured, and reused predictably. The transition into my magic system where magic is an aspect of the story, one which is changed by the players and which changes them--in that sense a magic system that is more mythical and ineffable--may take longer for some players than others.

The Combat System
We had two combats during the session. The first took place as the players approached the island. The second took place as the players and their squads tried to approach the Main Building at the Sanitarium. In these combats there were two problems, the Fudge damage spiral and the discrepancy between the Fudge damage system for PCs and the Savage Worlds damage system for NPCs.

The Fudge damage system, if you aren't familiar with it, allows for a certain number of "Scratches" when the character has been barely hit. When "Scratched" there are no mechanical effects. A "Hurt" character experiences a -1 to all rolls, 'Very Hurt" leads to a -2 to all rolls An "Incapacitated" character is at -3. After that a character is unconscious and "Near Death". The results and consequences being "Near Death" are up to the GM. One player was pretty frustrated that he took one arrow which caused him to be at a -2 in combat immediately. This had some severe consequences for his ability in the combat and will have ongoing consequences for the adventure because he won't have a chance to heal all of that wound. He did receive a magical healing but he's still pretty upset about the -1 to all rolls that remains. I'm still trying to determine if I like the feel of this damage spiral or not. On the one hand I really appreciate the more gritty verisimilitude and the fact that this mechanic will cause the players to be cautious to enter combat. On the other hand I don't want my players to feel completely ineffective.

The second challenge in the combats was that I used the Fudge damage track for the PCs and one significant NPC but I used the Savage Worlds damage track for NPCs. On the surface, the differences look pretty inconsequential (both systems have 3 basic categories for combat effecting damage) but the way that I was running the Savage Worlds damage, meant that in comparison to the PCs, the NPCs fell very easily to the enemy. I'm not yet sure about the solution for this discrepancy but I'm fairly certain that there's a simple solution (maybe ignoring "Scratch" damage on NPCs) that would just put the tracks a little more in line with one another.

Adventure Specific Challenge
I created the zombies in the first combat with too much damage resistance. This allowed them to overwhelm the PCs and NPC allies in the first session. The players flailed about with magic and I Fudged things to allow them a magical effect that could eliminate the zombies and prevent them from reanimating. During this sessions, this led to a challenge, the best way for the PC mages to kill the zombies was to create magical arrows that the NPCs could use against the zombies. Though this was effective, it put the PCs in a combat support role instead of in the thick of battle being directly effective. I think that one reason this happened is because the players didn't continue thinking outside the box. For example, they continued trying to preserve their mana so instead of casting an effect directly on the bad guys and burning a larger amount of mana to destroy a lot of baddies quickly, the PCs kept using the "enchant arrow"-"pass arrow to allies"-"fire arrows" technique they already knew. My current plan is to do a little mission debrief after the mission to discuss some of the options they didn't try. My hope is that this will continue to help them learn about the system and the options they have to make the story. It helps me to write these ideas out because I'll be able to review these at that time.

Play Testing Fudge

In January our regularly scheduled game was put at risk by 2 out of 5 players not being available. The GM of our current campaign felt that 3 players was too few to run his current Cyberpunk 2020 campaign so I stepped up to the plate to run my build out of fantasy Fudge.

I had two main goals in the session. First, and most important, I wanted to expose my players to Fudge with a clear focus on having fun and getting them hooked on it. Second, I wanted to play test the magic system that I've created.

To set up meeting these goals, I did a couple of things. The story was not nearly as important to me as having fun and playing with the magic system so I didn't concentrate much on it. I created an isolated story line in a world that is familiar to me; the same world that I used for my GURPS campaign. I told the players that this was an isolated adventure with no consequences, implications, foreshadowing, or connection in any way whatsoever with a potential future campaign. I also took out a notebook and set it next to me at the table. I told the players that this would be a learning session for all of us and that if they had any process, rule, or game comments that I'd take notes on them to consider later. I then asked the players to please not enter into debates about those problems during game play beyond making sure I took the note. These steps really helped create the cooperative learning and fun atmosphere that I was looking for.

Exposing Players to Fudge
Character creation was one thing I had intended to gloss over by using pregenerated characters. I'm a spreadsheet geek. I made a spreadsheet for character creation that could easily generate a complete character, total the points, and autocalculate weapon damage. Well, long story short, it didn't work (not always great to switch from creating something in .odf to excel even if you've saved as an excel file all along). Anyway, this meant that once we were at the table, I had to help the players generate characters fast. I used a quick subjective style and just asked my players what they wanted, I made sure their attributes, gifts, and faults added up right. For skills though, we just eyeballed it. I had three character sheets in about 20 minutes once I figured out that this was the only way were going to end up with sheets at the table at all. Imaging trying to create 3 D&D character sheets from scratch.

My players grasped the adjective ladder system in a flash. In fact, for the first time, my female player was explaining the rules to her perpetual-crunch-monkey husband. This was one of the great things about the system in play. I have read a lot of descriptions of players grasping the system quickly but seeing it in action was another story. I actually couldn't believe how fast they began translating Fair into 0, Good into +1, etc.

After a brief roleplaying encounter, I send the players to their mission: Assault on Zombie Island.

One of the big changes that I've been looking for in a new game that I run is an end to the D&D generated trope of 5 characters save the world. For more on that concept and how I've used the Savage Worlds system to make cohorts feasible in combat see this entry. When I explained that the players would be going to the island with 4 squads of 8 "White Sword" Mercenaries I got a couple of skeptical looks that said, "Really? This is going to be so slow". The players discussed in character how to approach the island and I gave them 4 approach points which they wisely narrowed to the two viable ones. Then, and this surprised me a little, they decided to divide the PCs into the 2 different groups that they sent to land on different parts of the island. This surprised me because I didn't expect them the break the D&D generated maxim of "Don't split the party" so quickly. I suppose given surrounding the lone PC mage in group 2 with 16 mercenary soldiers didn't hurt. It helped confirm for me that the system has a lot to do with how people play. I was pleased both to see this high level of adaptability in my players before we had even rolled initiative and also that the system that I created was already breaking them out of their gamer truism ruts.

As the boats approached zombie island they were suddenly attacked from underneath. Zombies started pulling at the edges of the boat while the squads were still approaching the beach. The zombies tried to capsize the boats with the squad and one PC mage still in the boat. This ratcheted up the dramatic tension pretty quickly.

The first action the mage tried was also the first spell cast of the game. He tried using a jump spell to leap out of the capsizing boat and land on the beach. So, the first thing that I did was show them how to use the table I created to calculate the mana cost (a combination of distance from the caster, duration, and concentration time). This was pretty easy. The next thing I had the player do was roll against his magic skill. Here, I really slowed things down. I don't remember the details here but let's imagine that his magic skill was Good and that his die roll result was Great. I walked him through my mental process showed him where his magical jump effect would have landed him if he had rolled Terrible, all the way through Superb. I really tried to explain that this wasn't a "mechanic" but rather a story result. They really understood and seemed to appreciate it. The player even finished my thoughts for me with something like, "So, in a different situation a Superb result might be a different distance because this isn't about numbers but about what yields a Superb result for my character?" Mean while, I'm thinking "Yes, yes, yes! Gaming salvation at last. This is my crunch monkey saying this!"

The simple gaming mechanics worked very smoothly. The rounds were very fast even with the squads of soldiers and the 30+ zombies swarming the landing parties. I used a combination of things to speed this up. First, I used a more simple damage mechanic than the one for the PCs, the zombies and the soldiers could take 2 wounds and continue fighting, on the third, they fell and were removed from the battle mat. This is pretty close to the Savage Worlds mechanic for damage. In addition to that, I rolled all the soldiers and all the zombies as one group. If the group rolled better on attack than average, they'd hit more enemies and vice versa. They players reported that this had the quality of a film because the action slowed down and became more detailed when paying attention to the primary characters. . . them! I got a lot of positive feedback on this from the players.

Here is a quote from one of my players from an email after the session:

I will say it again, the FUDGE system impressed with it's ease of use and reasonable amount of "crunchy bits" to keep things interesting.

Admittedly, those "crunchy bits" were there in the magic system because I put them there for him. I'm just so glad that I'm finding the sweet spot between my story interests and my players' need for mental stimulation can all get met. Session goal one: Accomplished.

Play Testing the Magic System
As I mentioned above, the magic system is designed so that the players begin with a mana pool and the costs of magical effects are determined by looking up mana costs on a table and adding range, duration, and concentration time (more time reduces costs). I used a magical attribute to determine the highest amount of mana a player could put into a spell. The players really got into this and made a lot of suggestions for improving it.

By the time we broke for dinner, I decided to incorporate some of their more obvious and simple suggestions (mostly adjusting costs) and we played with an already improved magic system in the second half of the session. One interesting thing that happened for me in the course of play was that I found myself not minding nearly as much as I thought I would when the players found ways to exploit the system to their own advantage. One of the things that always bothered me about magic in most other systems is that it never cost anything and risked nothing. For example, as the players were trying to escape zombie island, they were maxing out the amount of concentration time to cast a very powerful effect for a mana cost of 1 (the minimum allowed). The effect was being used to allow them to pass their wounded down to their boats at the bottom of a cliff. As the situation grew more intense though, with zombies quickly narrowing in on them, they had to switch tactics, less and less time concentrating, more and more mana, same effect. To me, this was awesome. This is exactly the kind of process I was hoping for in the game; magic varies, is affected by the circumstances, and is rewarded by planning.

The player who played a soldier in this session said that since I'm hoping to try an all mage campaign and the magic system needs the most play testing anyway, he'd like to try a mage in the next session. Not to mention the fact that it looked like fun and I think he was a little jealous.

After the session, I incorporated most of the feedback from the players. During this first session, all mages could cast the same spells. They were only differentiated by power level differences. In the next session, I'm going to add the magic colleges back as the covering for the spell cost mechanic already described.

So, now we're on FudgeFitz 0.2 and coincidentally we have two no shows for the intended February game too. We'll have the same players for play testing again in our next installment: Return to Zombie Island.

Roleplaying: Niches and cohorts

I have continued toying with the ideas from my last post, emailing with the members of my group, and here are some of my current ideas.

In our group, every character should have some kind of social skills. I've been talking about these skills being different from one another by using the GURPS social skill distinctions (e.g., carousing, fast talking, and diplomacy). Carousing is for a character that is lower class and works more effectively at an unstructured social situation like a bar/tavern or a party. A character with social skills of this type should not be sent to negotiate with the noble. Similarly, fast talking might be a good skill among merchants, in quick negotiations, or when trying to talk your way past a guard but might not be as useful at the aforementioned party or bar. Fast talking is more goal oriented and someone skilled at it may not know as much about "small talk". Now diplomacy is a much more complex affair, takes more time, is very formal because it is different dependent upon the social rank of those participating. Yet in my Fudge build, these would all be labeled the same "Prosocial skill".

My players responded pretty positively to the idea that each player could have their own social niche. From there, I refined the idea that even the method of interacting may be the same but by becoming aware of the "in group" even characters with similar social styles may be more suited to one interaction over another. For example, the Knight and the Cleric may both be skilled at diplomacy but if you want someone to talk with the Bishop, you send the Cleric.

I did get a little resistance to the idea of running a campaign where every character has a niche defined along either type of social skill of in group affiliation. One player commented that of course the Face is going to be better at social interactions than the gun bunny. To this I introduced two concepts; allies and cohorts.

First, the concept of allies from Savage Worlds. I'm a little tired of the concept that the group is 4-5 characters is the one and only perfectly balanced set of people for "saving the world". So, I'd like the players to rely more on allies and supporters. If you knew that you were going into a big fight in real life and knew that your fate and the fate of many others depended on it, wouldn't you bring as many people with you as you could? We're going to have to play test this to make sure that allies don't slow play down too much but I think it can work and keep specialized social roles plus "gun bunny" cohort members.

Second, I'm thinking of divided troupe play as one way of making the world more diverse and of sharing the lime light. The opening of the campaign that I'm considering asks every person to make a character that is present at a particular noble's home on a particular day. These will be the main characters of the players. Each one will have a special set of social skills and an in group. To allow players to violate the trite commandment, "Don't split the party" I want each main character to have a cohort of other people from their in group that can be played by the other players when that main character is in their unique element.

For example, the 4 main characters at the noble's house might be Ivan (Player #1) a bartender from the local tavern brought in for one night to serve drinks at a party, Giovanni (player #2) the thief in disguise as a server, Father Brunelli (Player #3) from the local church invited because he was newly ordained and is a topic of conversation, and Gregory (player #4) a leader of a local press gang hired for security. That night they all experience things that tie them together and give them a common purpose. But sometimes, it just doesn't make sense to go together. Gregory goes into a riot on the Feast of Fools to rescue a young nobleman who got in over his head while masked. Father Brunelli probably doesn't have any business being in that riot. Fortunately for us, Gregory has his second in command, Stephen (played by player #1) who is skilled with a sword, Brock (played by player #2) a former soldier with a bad attitude, and Ug (played by player #4) who carries a club the size of a small child but isn't the sharpest rock in the gravel pile. Gregory is in charge during the riot but the others, though their main characters are off stage are still part of the action. None of these troupe characters are quite as skilled (not as high level or as many points) as the main characters. Later, when Father Brunelli needs to talk with the bishop, he brings, an acolyte, a deacon, and a servant. Now we've got a fully developed world, with deep relationships, potential for complex interweaving stories, and potential for a variety types of conflict and combat.

So far, the players have liked both the these ideas well enough. Personally, I'm really excited. The main way that I know I'm excited about a campaign is that my mind starts conjuring adventures in it. Once I stepped into the combination of troupe play, those wheels started turning a mile a minute.

Models for Blending GM and Player Interests

As I mentioned in my last post, I am exploring the idea of whether or not it is possible for the players to play with one aspect of the game (e.g., numbers, min-maxing, or gadgets) while the GM plays with another (e.g., story, morality, or themes). I ended that last post by admitting that I have been GMing, to my own frustration as if the answer is "no". The reason that this has brought me frustration is that I have recognized the different play goals between my players and myself, recognized that my job is to bring them enjoyment, and prioritized their fun over mine. This is frustrating because A) I'm just planning for their enjoyment not as much for my own and B) because I just don't get what they enjoy. Case in point, I tried to give my gadget monkey what I thought was an awesome reward at the end of the last campaign, a pile of loot, and he became the new Lord of the Blades. It didn't trip his switch at all, he only accepted the title long enough to pass it off to an NPC. Let me reiterate too that this difference does not exist with all of my players, only some and to varying degrees. I keep using the player I've referred to as Alphonse as my example because, it is with him that the difference with my own style is most stark.

The following are some thought experiments to help me consider ways in my play as the GM and the play of the players might be able to be different. The thought experiments are only experiments. I tend to brain storm this way, generate a lot of ideas, no matter how absurd,

Anthropologist Model
In this approach instead of insisting that players interact with story the way that I would (investment in NPC motivations, backgrounds, and feelings) , I could just accept that the players will interact with the NPCs in the way that they want to. In other words, I change my questions about the play of the PCs from, "When they interrogate the captives what will they ask?" to questions like, "Will the PCs interrogate the captives?" Here instead of being attached to the PCs interacting with the NPCs, the way I would, I switch to finding out whether and how they will interact at all. My play here becomes more direct between me and the players instead of fully immersed between me as NPC and the players as PCs. So, if the players do not interrogate the captives, I might then ask, "What would encourage the PCs in interrogate the captives?" or "If the captives start talking amongst themselves will the the player's PCs become more interested in them?"

Benefit: The benefit of the anthropologist model is that I stop trying to get others to play the way I want and start trying to be interested with the way that they play naturally. I then use the player's natural responses as the source of my amusement. I can dangle new elements in front of the players to test different responses. Do they respond more directly if one of their captives was forced into fighting them? Are they more sympathetic if one of the NPCs was only trying to get enough money to feed his/her family? Do they only care about the back story of guard #4 if guard #4 can tell them about a treasure in the mountains or a magic item owned by the BBEG?

Drawbacks: I might enjoy the above approach more than I have enjoyed GMing this group so far but I don't know if it would scratch my story itch. I really like the fully immersed interaction of NPC to PC roleplay. If this approach does work to bring me joy, I still would need enough game advancement elements (XP, items, gadgets) to satisfy their play and those elements would be extraneous to the anthropologist model.

Risks: The real risk is that I could slip into the mindset I had at the beginning of my Eberron campaign. I kept asking the question, "How would a real person respond given this PC's actions." This went down hill very quickly because one or more PCs kept doing things that were inadvertently threatening or coercive. When the world responded in kind, Alphonse in particular, did not like that one bit. So, while I experimented with different story elements, I'd have to maintain a priority on their enjoyment, drop elements that aren't causing them joy and not get too excited with playing an NPC or faction in a "realistic" fashion. It would be much more like trying and discarding toys until the cat gets interested in one rather than pestering the cat with a toy that scares it (thinking that the cat will eventually figure out how to play with it).

Dual Elements Model
There is nothing that says that gadgets and story are mutually exclusive. No reason both can't exist in the same game world. I know that Alphonse is not only capable of role playing but sometimes really enjoys it too. Why not create a world and use a system that balances both elements? Give a little, get a little. Good old fashioned compromise.

Benefits: Everyone could end up happy even if it may not be ideal for anyone as time and energy are devoted to one or the other set of play priorities.

Drawbacks: There are some competing elements. For example, I'm really interested in a low-magic world. And though it is true that "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" the span of magic items in a low-magic world will never be equal to what Alphonse is familiar with (e.g., swords from +1-+5 plus an additional set of enhancements like keen, bane, exploding, flaming, etc.). Finally, there is only so much time. Both at the table and in preparation, neither element would be experienced in its full glory.

Risks: I could try this and find myself on a slippery slope leading to more and more gadget focus, more and more numbers management, instead of world and story creation, because I'm a people person and I might try to satisfy continuing player interest in those elements. On the one hand knowing that risk may help me avoid it. On the other hand, the slide toward making the players happy is powerful and I may not be strong enough to avoid it even with knowledge of it.

The Competing Elements Model
As long as there are gadgets and powers to be had, the players will focus on them over story. But in the absence of gadgets, the story is the only thing to focus on so they will focus on it. In January 2010, we ended up short 2 players for a session of the Eberron campaign. I had 3 players at the table and no sense that we could just push through with Eberron. I pulled out my old GURPS "Caravan to Ein Arris" free adventure and we ran a few hours of that one shot adventure with almost no prep. The caravan never even left the city because we became so immersed. Though Alphonse was one of the 3 players, we rolled very few dice and the role playing was excellent. There was no time to min-max characters (I just gave them sheets), to vie for a particular magic item, or to advance a character. Everyone had a good time and this stands as one of my favorite sessions.

From this experience I wonder if I'm making too much out of the play interests of Alphonse, myself, and others [I probably am, even if this specific hypothesis is wrong]. Maybe, if I present the players with a game and characters without such numbers and gadgets to play with, they will just play with what is there. As one might if accustomed to playing PS3 but finding oneself at a friend's house without a PS3. So, instead of worrying about trying to separate my play from the player's play, or worrying that I need to satisfy their primary interest in gadgets, I could just pare down the system and the world so that the only elements to play with are those that interest me.

Benefits: I get out of this head trip, take the simple path, create a world and system that focus players on what interests me, everyone focuses on what is there, and off we ride into the sunset happily gaming ever after.

Drawbacks: If this hypothesis is true, there probably isn't any way to know except to test it out. To test it might reveal enjoyment in initial novelty but in long term we could find that it wouldn't scratch the itch for some players.

Risks: It probably isn't that simple even if there is an element of truth here. Alphonse will probably want gadgets, or continue to perceive the game in terms of points and powers. He and some other players may become bored or out right dissatisfied with the soap opera element of good dramatic role play over time. I could get very involved and relax into a story just as the novelty is wearing off for them.

Play to the Strengths Model
I've already stated that all the players in my game can role play and very well at that. The challenge is getting them to do so. I've been thinking a lot about my last post "How much are your characters like you?" I've come to the conclusion that the players, for example, Alphonse, are not averse to role playing. However, most of the role playing opportunities they have encountered have not been suited to their role playing potential.

For example, most of the role playing opportunities that I have given the players have been negotiation oriented. Alphonse isn't a good negotiator IRL. He is good at schmoozing. He makes people comfortable and feel welcome. In the Eberron campaign, his best role playing was a nonconfrontational meeting with warforged refugees from the Mournland. They asked him to help them. It was emotional, it was a meeting between friends. There was nothing to negotiate, no one to convince, and no need to fast talk. On the other hand, if there's a need for fast talking, I've got two players that can do that. I've got another that would be good at convincing people to ally, help, or befriend. I've got another that is really good at laying out a good logical argument.

In the "Play to the Strengths Model" I encourage players to create characters that would interact with people the way that the players interact with the world. Alphonse can be a fixture in the local taverns. He can chat people up, make them feel at ease. Another couple of players can have social contacts that are more complicated and require more negotiation. Each character has a social niche, a social activity that s/he can do better than any other character.

Benefits: Every character has something to do in social situations and the player can pull it off (not just the numbers on the sheet).

Drawbacks: May encourage violation of the RPG axiom, "Don't split the party." Actually I'm okay with this. We'd just split the spotlight, shifting among players in turn like we do at the table for different combat turns. Player stumped? Next player's turn for the spot light. GM stumped? Same thing. Otherwise, it could be difficult to get players to play characters that match their personalities, this may take some player buy-in at char gen.

Risks: This would definitely require complicated world development and a complex series of preparations to figure out how each player can continue to have RPG opportunities in a variety of situations. In a murder mystery what does the carousing character do? At a festival of fools what does the uptight cleric do?

. . . Actually this one is sounding pretty good.

How much are your characters like you?

In the next couple of posts, I'm going to explore a couple of gaming ideas and questions that have been rolling around in my head. The questions in these posts are intended to help me go back to my GMing role at a later date with more enjoyment and continuing fun.

As I mentioned in my last post, my group started a new campaign just after I finished my Eberron campaign. The new system and world are Cyberpunk 2020. This is a gritty, nihilistic future where everyone is by my standards morally questionable, even the "good" guys if there are any. We were given character class choices across a wide range of options. To me there was no real choice, I had to play the fixer. A fast talking, slick, con artist who buys and sells for profit. All the other options would have started me down a path of gear inflation (bigger and better vehicles, medical supplies, or guns). I just couldn't care less about that stuff.

There is a player in my group, I'll call him Alfonse, who really gets into the stuff his character has. He describes his sniper rifle with a near mystical tone, amplifying his voice as he reaches the crescendo where he finally describes the 6d10 damage his .50 caliber slugs will do. Then he mimics the act of shooting and makes a whooshing sound mixed with harsh consonants. The noise and his gesticulations fall somewhere between those expected in ejaculation and those of gunshot recoil. He then laughs cathartically and pours over the book again to find add-ons and augmentations to said sniper rifle so that his character can shoot farther, more accurately, more powerfully, around corners, in the dark, upside down, underwater, through walls, without leaving a trace, or what ever. He is by profession a silicon valley engineer. Alfonse, narrates his latest computer or phone acquisition with the same spiritual rapture as that sniper rifle.

The parallels that I experience between his character and his person are not direct moral comparisons or comparisons of purpose. The parallels are more like comparisons of perception and world interpretation. That is, he continues to perceive the world through the same lenses. In his case, the quality and strength of gadgetry is a major source of excitement in both his pretend game world and in his real life. I could make less obvious connections between his real life frustrations with "fairness" and his in game perceptions of which NPCs are and are not "jerks" but this comparison would be less clear.

Now, in comparison, I am by nature, training, and profession interpersonally oriented. I focus on the quality and strength of interpersonal relationships. In games this leads me to being primarily interested in negotiation or interactions with PCs and NPCs. I am less oriented toward objects, technology, magic items etc. Even at the table, I pay a lot of attention (maybe too much) to the interactions between the players, their motivations and interests. This blogpost is a case in point.

I've had this conversation with a gamer friend and he argues for the opposite point. To him, his characters bear little reflection of himself. He points to their in-world actions, their in-world morality, roles, and professions. Though he and I consider the same characters and compare them to him, I again come back to the same thesis when I consider his characters. Though the characters differ from him in action and morality, their primary mode of interaction, status seeking, and purpose bears striking similarity to his own interpersonal style in real life. He, like his characters, is quick thinking, takes an interpersonal leadership role, and has the capacity to outwit just about anyone if verbally sparring.

This leads me to my main thesis. Though roleplaying games are fantasy worlds created in part for the relief of escapism, what we escape is the world we are in. We do not escape ourselves. Therefore, we are likely to enact (if not create) characters that continue to perceive the imaginary world in ways similar to the ways that we perceive our real world. In a sense, we will also recreate through our characters the same interpersonal experiences and relationships that we have as people. This may not be as clear in the interaction and relationship with the BBEG. How many of us, after all, work against an opponent or foe on a daily basis that we consider to be irredeemably evil? These tendencies will however be seen much more clearly in the character's relationship to PCs, NPCs, items, and to the player's general responses to the content of the game. Does the player ask for more detail about the magic ring on the finger of the mage or do you wonder more about why the mage is there and what he was trying to do?

If you accept this thesis, it leads to a major question about character creation. When creating a character should you acknowledge this limitation or try to use game mechanics to circumvent it? For example, if Alfonse, the gadget oriented player described above, wants to play a slick talking con artist, should he be allowed to? If allowed, what limitations do you place on or game mechanics do you use to supplement his lack of actual negotiation skill. At the table he might say to an adversary, "If you don't help us we'll hurt you financially" which lacks the finesse of a more positively oriented negotiation such as "If you help us we'll help you" or even a more veiled threat, "We need your help and you need us." If you point out to Alfonse that his negotiation is inelegant, he might say, "That's my limitation as a player, but the character phrases it better, what do you want me to roll?" Do you give him a penalty on the roll? Re-narrate his negotiation to coincide more closely with your perception of a skilled roll result?

Either way you compromise something. If you allow the character to be limited by the player's skill then you shoe horn the player into always playing a character that bears some interpersonal similarity to the player. If you don't then you move from roleplaying toward roll playing.

So, here is where I get on my soap box. I think that roleplaying games, like other forms of play, are a form of practice. The answer for the question of how to respond mechanically to the player's negotiation should be related not as much to some theoretical ideal for a GM or group. The answer to the mechanic used for negotiations should coincide with what the player is practicing while playing the game. So, when Alfonse creates the slick negotiator character, maybe the GM and the player have a conversation about the character to figure out what Alfonse the player is playing with in character creation.

GM: Alfonse, are you playing this character because you want to improve your negotiation skills or because you want to roll dice and make negotiations work?
[Note that this comment does not state the GM's opinion that Alfonse is poor at negotiation. The phrasing above could just as easily be used with a player that is already skilled at negotiation but wants to improve that skill further.]
Alfonse: I really want to roll dice and make it work.
GM: Okay, so let's imagine we're at the table, rpging an interaction, and your dice roll high but your words seem less skilled to me. Do you want me to ignore that disparity and just make the dice work miraculously, re-narrate your words to something that seems more consonant to me with the die roll, or something else.
Alfonse: What about modifying the die roll by the skill of my words?
GM: Well, that could work but it means that my opinion could really nerf a good roll. Would you want that?
Alfonse: Um, not really. But I don't much like the idea that you might re-narrate either.
GM: So, let's just go with the roll as is?
Alfonse: Yeah, that'll work.

In this imaginary dialogue, Alfonse's play practice is similar to what Alfonse enjoys as a person; maximizing numbers, powers, toys, and tools. His orientation to the play is depicted in the discussion of a mechanic for the character's skill. The aspect that he is interested in is the capacity of the number on his sheet, earned by effort and dedicated consciously to that purpose, to change the game world.

The challenge for gaming groups is that GMs often chose to be GMs because they want to play with story, narrative, moral, or interactive elements. The GM may be dissatisfied with participating in someone else's number play (often referred to derogatorily as min-maxing) and prefer a more so called "pure" form of role playing. Now, if that difference is true in your group, as it is in mine, then next question becomes whether or not the GM needs to gain the participation of the other players to play with story elements above, Phrased another way, can the GM can play with one thing (e.g., story and morality) and the player another (numbers and gadgets). I don't have any idea about the answer to that yet. I'm sure that I've been GMing so far as if the answer is "no" leading me to frustration. In the next post, I'm going to consider that question further.

Campaign Conclusion

SUMMARY

If you haven't read it, it will be helpful to read the cast of characters for this final battle.

The Final Battle seemed to go well. Everything seemed to happen pretty fast. The PCs buffed while Screw got the crowd riled up with a little political speech and announcing the execution of the rogue PC's mother. That roleplaying hook didn't seem to have much impact, the rogue simply said, "Don't same her, kill the Lord of the Blades." Screw's speech ended with by announcing the arrival of the Lord of the Blades to conduct the execution. The Lord of the Blades emerged onto the dais and killed the rogue's mother while the PCs took another round to buff themselves. The PCs entered the scene by using Dimension Door to jump directly to the top of the dais. They had been told that the Lord of the Blades and screw were up there. They dimension doored right on top of the bad guys. What I thought was going to be a wide open fight with a lot of flying and long distance movement, ended up being a toe-to toe slug fest.

The weather effects ended up being enjoyable and effective at frustrating the PCs a little. The background of the riot that broke out of the attendant warforged populace seemed to the PCs to be an interesting element but never really came to the forefront until the end of the battle.

Sequence of Events
One of the many buff spells that the mage and cleric cast on the PCs was Invisibilty Sphere. The PCs, used Dimension Door to bamf to the top of the dais sight unseen. Because they didn't know where they were going this led them to dimension door right on top of the Lord of the Blades, Screw, two level 8 Barbarian Warforged, and the 2 supercharged iron defenders that heel the Lord of the Blades. The mage was dimension doored on top of one of the iron defenders. I tried to use this an an excuse to put him out of harms way and also out of sight instead of within arms reach of the Lord of the Blades. I did this inelegantly by trying to make up an on the spot interpretation of the spell but he ended up using my words against me to confirm that he would like to be within 10 feet of the Lord of the Blades. I said, "Ok, I'm not going to argue over it". The bad guys used a Dispelling Screen (from the Spell Compendium) to protect them from the crowd of warforged they were addressing. So when the party dimension doored right on top of the bad guys, they split the party. Cleric, rogue, and mage (all invisible) were standing within reach of the Lord of the Blades on on the same side of the Dispelling Screen as the bad guys. That left the warforged fighter (not invisible) and the human ranger (invisible) on the opposite side of the dispelling screen.

The warforged fighter did a good job of calling out the Lord of the Blades and challenging him to fight for the control of the Lord of the Blades. Then the fighter did a funny thing. . . he backed up and moved further down the dais. . . away from the Lord of the Blades. He did this because the Dimension Door placed him right next to the Lord of the Blades but with the dispelling screen between them. I think he was trying to lure the Lord of the Blades through the dispelling screen. Well, that wasn't going to happen.

The Lord of the Blades in this world (Ranger 6-Blackguard 4-Spell warped) has a pretty good spot check. Despite the fact that so many in the party had Invisibility Sphere cast on them before using Ddoor, the Lord of the Blades, made the DC20 spot check to tell that there was something there in two of the squares next to him. Unfortunately, for the PCs, this was the rogue and the cleric. Since the Lord of the Blades had poison on each weapon, he divided the attacks between them. The 50% miss chance helped from invisibility helped them avoid the slaughter it could have been but both took one attack and required the fort saves v. poison. The rogue failed hers and took 4 points of strength damage. The cleric made his save.

The mage cast Resilient Sphere on Screw thinking that the spell's description, "Nothing can pass through the sphere, inside or out" meant that Screw could not use dimension door t get out of the sphere. This was a tough call for me. On the one hand, I know that he intended to isolate the artificer and reading the spell description it seems clear, "The sphere contains its subject for the spell’s duration." I took this decision slowly. I read the spell's descriptor (Evocation [Force]), the spell's level (4), and decided this is a level 4 version of the Wall of Force, and that it is not a dimensional anchor in addition to being a miniature wall of force. I let Screw out by using dimension door. The protest was minor signaling to me that this was at least a reasonable interpretation of the spell.

The Lord of the Blades did end up killing the mage who's invisibility had dropped upon casting the resilient sphere. The ranger, with a host of buff spells on himself and his bow, did 58 points of damage against the Lord of the Blades in a single attack! His arrows did not have their spells dispelled by the dispelling screen, and the criticals were not averted by the Lord of the Blades' 25% chance to negate a critical hit from being warforged. This caused ranger's invisibility to drop. The cleric stayed invisible through most of the battle. The rogue, with depleted strength use aid another and flanking to give the fighter +2 bonuses once the fighter had used a magic item for a quick dimension leap to the inside of the dispelling screen. From there it was pure slug fest. The fighter and the Lord of the Blades whacked away at one another. In the end, I think the only reason that the Lord of the Blades didn't kill the fighter was because of the 58 points of damage the ranger had done already. Plus, I think I forgot to use the Rending Gauntlets (Magic Item Compendium) when the Lord of the Blades hit with both weapons in one round. Considering that this was the only thing I think I missed in a very complex magic item filled combat, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Anyway, the PCs killed the Lord of the Blades first. Once he was dead, Screw dimension doored again to the inside of the creation forge to try to take the schemas away then to live to fight another day.

The PCs went immediately into the forge. There they had to descend 80 feet to the bottom to get to the control panel from which Screw was trying to liberate the creation schemas. On their way down a well placed Vortex of Teeth (Spell Compendium) hit the fighter and the ranger. Then one of the funniest things I have ever seen in an RPG happened. The fighter jumped down 60 feet onto Screw. Screw avoided this aerial bombing with a reflex save and took 1/2 damage, the fighter took the full 6d6 damage and cracked the creation schema for the forge releasing a tremendous amount of arcane energy (5d4+5 to him, 4d4+4 to all within 5ft, 3d4+3 to all with 10 feet, etc.). This meant that Screw was pretty singed by the force bolts. The rest of the party retreated to the top of the forge to get above the vortex of teeth. Screw and the fighter battled more to get away from the sparks of force erupting from the control panel than with each other. However, once they were both far enough away, screw hit the fighter with an empowered lesser orb of acid dropping the fighter to exactly -9 hit points. I did not count that or plan for it, that was all luck. Reveling in his survival and thinking now only of escape, Screw prepared to use his wand of dimension door again. The ranger from 80 feet up fired a final volley of arrows. One of those arrows penetrated Screw's metallic skull and burst through his ball bearing cervical spine.

The rogue took the secondary damage from the poison just as the combat ended. She was reduced to 2 strength. The fighter was repaired and then the PCs emerged from the underground forge to find the warforged populace rioting had with those favorable to the PCs winning. The fighter was repaired but didn't really care for his new title, "Lord of the Blades". We finished up the campaign with a little negotiation with the siege army they didn't like that much either. The warforged fighter didn't like that he was supposed to surrender the the general or the fact that not surrendering re-moralized many of the warforged he had fought to rescue. Apparently, I just don't get what makes that player tick. The mage was resurrected the next day as the PCs were now 9th level.

In the end, everything seemed to go well. The PCs, definitely felt the situation was deadly and seemed to cheer each other for their successes. Every player had a pivotal role to play. Even the poisoned rogue used aid another to make the difference for the fighter's final round against the Lord of the Blades. What I can't figure out is why I kept feeling feeling that it was a little lack luster and every was just glad to be done with it. Poop!

Modular Preparation: In Action part 2

Almost 2 months between games. We played last at the beginning of June and then again at the end of July. In between sessions, the players interrogated a captive warforged by email and began exploring the acid trap (point B on the map described in this post). It took them two and a half hours to complete the acid trap at the beginning of the session. I'm definitely going to take note of the conversion from my primary play tester, my six year old, to my players. As I mentioned in my last post, my 6 year old got through the trap in 5 minutes. My players took 3.5 hours plus email time between sessions.

The PCs also took an extra day to heal the rogue of her disease and ability drain from the previous session.

After the acid trap, my players moved on to room D, one sorceror and 2 warforged titans. This room was a McGuffin. If you've read Ender's Game then you know that the enemy's gate is down. The players approached this room through a 5 ft. wide hallway and the exit to the room was 5 ft. wide as well. The Warforged Titans on the other hand are 15x15 ft. huge creatures. The easiest way through this combat was to focus combat attacks against the artificer while using superior mobility to get to the exit and avoid the titans entirely (win by getting to the enemy gate). Instead of taking this approach, the rogue snuck up once to scan the room and got away with it. She reported back to the party and tried to scout again but the second time she spotted and was spotted by the artificer. The artificer then set up one of the titans close enough to the door to be in striking range if the PCs approached the door way again. The rogue then stealthily approached the doorway a third time and got whacked pretty hard (titans do 2d8+9 damage) plus she drew the artificer into casting a lightning bolt down the hallway. While the PCs rearranged themselves in the hallway, the artificer cast a second lightning bolt into the hallway. Each bolt hit every one of the PCs to devastating effect. They didn't leave him alive long after that.

The PC warforged took up front position in the hallway and was trying to attack the titans but instead set himself up for taking full attacks and one charge. The charge was deadly because titans have the Powerful Charge feat (+3d6 damage on a successful attack). Slowly, the PCs ratcheted up the warforge's AC with buff spells from the cleric and combat expertise. Meanwhile, the wizard kept casting fireballs from the back ranks. The PCs defeated the titans eventually but had spent themselves through most of their magical resources. They took a day to rest after this combat which could have just been a passing bit of scenery.

The next encounter after the warforged was originally encounter F, a skull watch spell from the Spell Compendium. When the enemy warforged rogue escaped, last session, he notified the defenders of the tunnels that the PCs were approaching from that direction. So, the warforged necromancer ambush at point E switched to point F. In the tunnel, the PCs were walking by piles of dead bodies at random intervals along tunnel path. The rogue began doing her job, searching every pile. I had fun making up descriptions of the piles to the macabre enjoyment of all. I was just about the push the GM-fast-forward button to get the to pile where the rogue would find the ambush. Unfortunately, the other players began telling her to stop searching every pile. Her next comment was hilarious, "But don't you know that the first pile I don't search will be the one with undead in it?" It wasn't but it felt like it to the PCs because I did fast forward then. They walked along the tunnel ignoring the piles of bodies. I had them show me their marching order and roll spot checks. The only one who spotted the first pile with undead in it was the cleric, in the middle of the line up. He saw the eyes of the zombie ogre on top of the pile move to track him. But then, to my shock, he decided to keep walking! He didn't alert the party of the zombie until the next turn which put them right inside the jaws of the ambush. The necromancer shouted "Now!" and we rolled initiative.

Long story short, the necromancer, blinded two members of the party, they escaped from the ambush, killed the necromancer, destroyed the undead, and took a lot of damage from a gray render zombie. They scurried down the tunnels together, away from an small band of reinforcements and into the safety of Chiron's secret tunnels. They got pretty excited because now they know that the final battle is all the remains.

My Reactions to the Session
First. the good side. I think that all the time I spent to consider all the elements of every encounter in these tunnels really paid off. Because of all the details, I knew how PC actions in one part would affect the encounter in another part. This led to an easy flow in my own mind about what to narrate and how the combatants might fight.

Another thing that was a strong point in this session was that every character had something to do. The rogue did a lot of sneaking and scouting which balances the fact that since they're fighting warforged, she isn't as effective in combat. The cleric was imbued with the power of his god a couple of times and able to convert spells to conjuration [healing] despite being in the Mournlands. He played this up and tried to commune with his god during one of the rest periods to learn more about when he could expect this. The ranger, though blind, kept firing his arrows guided by the wizard and ended up stealing a kill from the PC fighter. He reported later this was one of his favorite parts. The wizard had plenty of opportunity to do some blasting and continued his role in the group as kill-stealing vulture, repeatedly killing high hit point targets with magic missile. The warforged tank was the only one who could go toe to toe with either the titans or the gray render zombie and both encounters encouraged him to do just that.

Second, on the bad side, The encounters in this session were very challenging. In itself this would be fine and appropriate for the approach to a campaign end. One thing that I'm a little dissatisfied with though was that the encounters required healing despite the PCs being in the Mournlands. For example, during the combat with the titans, the warforged PC was reduced to something like 11 hit points, given the damage the titans were dishing per round, that was easily death in one round. At that point I told the cleric that as promised by his god, the cleric's healing powers were with him now when he really needed it. I allowed one opportunity to convert a spell before that effect dissipated but still it felt a bit too Deus Ex Machina for my tastes. After the encounter with the necromancer, the two blinded PCs required Remove Blindness/Deafness. The only way they are going to get that is through the power of the cleric's God again, miraculously granting the cleric two of those spells before preparing his spells for the final battle. I had considered making Chiron level 5 instead of level 4 (therefore able to cast 3rd level spells) when the PCs encountered him and giving his this ability. However, that would violate the GM rule to not let an NPC outshine a PC. Still it left a bad taste in my mouth to use this Dues Ex Machina effect not once but twice to make sure they have the combat capacities they need for the final combat.

Next Session
Before we ended the session, I showed the PCs the dais upon which the final battle will take place because Chiron described it to them. This was an awesome moment and showing them the scene created a great cliff hanger. They oohed and ahed appropriately as I put the pieces together but when I put the quarters in for the stairs and showed them how the leads balance on the quarters, they were dumbfounded. That was an awesome GM moment. They also started asking questions about the Lord of the Blades and his combat abilities. A few truths and a few red herrings later and they were really scared. This campaign will be finished in the next session. Then I get a little break.

Creating the Final Battle: Plot

Finishing this series of entries, I'm going to explain some of the plot elements in the final battle as they relate to each of the PCs. My thinking is that each character should have something on the line in the final battle so the player is really invested. I'll start with the least developed character.

The player of the wizard makes almost zero distinction between himself and his character. Beyond a vague physical description (which was essentially, "Me but taller") there was no character background for his character. He has said little ever about character goals. But he has been somewhat loot driven and responded a little to magic items placed specifically for his character directly. Here are the three elements that I included which I thought would appeal to his character. First, the loot on the "lackey behind the bad guy" is a pile of wands. This won't motivate him to get into the combat but will motivate him during the combat. Second, the characters have been offered a large sum of 200,000 GP (far above that expected for the level) if they kill the Lord of the Blades. The player's response was one of the few times that he was clearly in character, "Sweet, I'm gonna build a tower." Third, one path to the final combat or an epilogue following shortly after the combat is a trip to one of two creation forges created by the Lord of the Blades. In this forge, he will quickly discern that in addition to runes of artifice and creation, there are also planar runes. I'll describe the forge in something like the following terms, "It is a working marvel of arcane and planar knowledge that could expand your knowledge of both domains far beyond your current levels". These three hooks will hopefully give him something memorable for the end of the campaign.

The player running the cleric character is new to the group. He has done a reasonable job playing up the ethos and keeping others from performing unjust actions. His attendance is difficult to count on but I've planned a few elements to tie in for his character. Some will be larger if he is there and smaller if he isn't. Two sessions ago I gave the cleric a vision of his god while preparing his spells for the day. The major D'oh! moment that session was that the player wasn't there the session but I still played it up taking the spot light away from the PCs who were there. There will be a brief reprise of that vision and the sense of embodying his God during the final battle as he gains the ability to cast Conjuration [Healing] subtype spells even though they are in the Mournland. Second, presuming a victory, he will have converts to the Sovereign Host. Third, an NPC who guides the players to the final battle will also be a cleric and appeal to his sense of justice to expand on the explanation of the need for the Lord of the Blades to be killed.

The ranger is played by the player who usually excels at roleplaying and tends to be much less crunch driven than the others. He was absent a couple of sessions due to work commitments and I realized in planning the final battle that I hadn't included enough elements in the entire campaign that utilized the back story he wrote for his character. So, I read his back story again and have included a couple of guards near the final battle that are his first favored enemy type (which ties in with his back story). The character also has a distinguishing facial feature (CHA:6=uuuugly) and a world view that anyone who treats him badly about it is a bad person. So, the BBEG and lackey will definitely taunt him about this feature. In addition, a captive I'll describe in the next paragraph will respond positively to the character despite his ugliness if they free her and that character is still alive.

The rogue is played by the fiancee of the warforged member of the party. She is a member of House Orien and a dragon marked heir. Her mother has figured prominently in earlier sessions. About 5 or 6 sessions ago, I gave the party an opportunity to find out that the rogues' mother had been kidnapped by the Lord of the Blades and brought to the Mournland as a direct result of hiring the party for earlier missions. The players didn't get curious enough to find this out but I'll be giving them the information as they go through the dungeon crawl on their way to the final battle. If that doesn't intensify the conflict enough, I'm putting a public execution of said mother as the precipitating event for the final battle. The rogue will be invested at that point if not before.

I've saved the central character for last. The character is a warforged, fighter 6/ranger 1. He was at first very reluctant to fight against his own people on this mission until he learned what the Lord of the Blades was doing to his people. Now he is facing this mission as regrettable but necessary. The roleplaying scene between this character and warforged refugees who has escaped from the Lord of the Blades was some of the best roleplaying of the entire campaign. He even took a level of ranger so that he could get Favored Enemy: Warforged specifically for fighting against the Lord of the Blades. So, his investment is a little bit of a given. I've got a couple of scenes to characterize more concretely the cruelty of the Lord of the Blades even against warforged as the PCs get closer to the final battle. There will be some pre-encounter indications from NPCs that there is hope that cutting down the villainous leader will be liberating for the warforged who remain. And, if all goes well (and I hope it does, and I'm the GM so I can help it go well) he will be named the new Lord of the Blades when he and the party defeat the Lord of the Blades and he'll have the capacity to use negotiation to turn back the army sent to destroy Forge. This will, I think, be a surprising but also happy ending for him despite some of the tragic elements that will also come from their victory.

I hope that these 2-3 ties per character will help make the Final Battle thrilling and enjoyable for the players. The purpose of this series of posts is to expose all of the elements of the Final Battle. I'm posting them now to enhance the learning that I gain from this experience because when I do the postmortem after the last die roll, I can review which element(s) did and didn't work and consider how I can enhance my planning for future campaign endings.

Second to last session?

I'm putting the series about Creating the Final Battle on hold for this post as I discuss our gaming session from Saturday. This session was a lot of fun but it was also a reminder of the reasons that I am looking for some new gaming experiences in the near future.

The best thing about this session was that every player was able to attend. We caught those who were absent up on the events from the last session and they began exploring the monastery. Two of the players were convinced that there was "loot" in the well from the tentacle monster that had attacked them in the last session. I had forgotten about this conviction when planning for the session so while they discussed amongst themselves how to get down the well, I hunted for some magic items to put in a pile. As they explored I improvised a magic device that held a water elemental in place to pump water up from the water table up into the well shaft. They eventually decided not to pursue the contents of the well after encountering the water elemental's power (I'm not really sure why) but by the time they had gotten that far, I had already planned to have a water troll guarding the player created loot pile.

The players seemed to enjoy the search process. Which makes that part of the session a success in my mind. However, this is the kind of thing that doesn't really make GMing a lot of fun for me. Generating loot, figuring out how much to allow without unbalancing the party for their level, finding an encounter that they can tackle. Too many of these are calculations or looking up tables. D&D lends itself to this kind of thinking for the players and the GM. Because the balance of these elements is so precarious, you can't really tinker with them without risking major consequences to what would otherwise be some of the more useful aspects of that game like Encounter Level calculations.

Later in the session, the players successfully avoided being led into a trap. Some warforged scouts were set up near the monastery the players were hiding in. If the players had approached the scouting party straight on the scouts would have run and pursuing PCs would have been led into an encounter with a Cadaver Collector. This CR12 monster is far beyond the capabilities of the party so the marker for success for the encounter was escaping alive. The players were smart and looped around to approach the trap from the north instead. This meant their ranger who was scouting ahead spotted the Cadaver Collector first and had ample opportunity to warn the party (the wizard was able to identify it) and they swiftly used every means of running away they could. I debated having the party encounter the warforged scouts first even though the PCs came from the north. However, I decided to let them experience an easier encounter because they had planned well.

This was one experience where I felt that I had really done a good job of managing the game well. As the party split into 3 groups (Dimension Door and two people flying in opposite directions) to get away from the Cadaver Collector, plus managing where the Cadaver Collector was on the ground, where each of the warforged scouts was on the ground, and who might be able to see whom from where, I created a small excel spreadsheet which provided each group of characters an (x,y) grid with the point from which the PCs started being (0,0). Then I just marked for each set of moves how many squares north or south and how many east or west. It ended up being fairly easy.

These two encounters were the whole of the roleplaying (or is that rollplaying in this case?) for the evening and we spent the next 3 hours with the players leveling up their character to level seven and acquiring the magic items to complete the final mission. Though now that I think about it, I realize that at the group's regular pace, we may have more than one session left.

The process of acquiring magic items stunk for me. It required many metagame conversations with the players to explain things that I had given in game reasons for. I also had to repeat myself several times about why I was letting them acquire items now and how much they could acquire. I also had to say "no" several times which I tend not to enjoy as a GM. A couple of the players were asking for magic items that would be very unbalancing for every remaining encounter (like weapons with the bane versus warforged special ability). These metagame discussions bog me down. As I said to one of the players that gave me a ride home, "Those aren't the kind of conversations that I'm most interested in as a GM."

All that remains in the campaign is a short dungeon crawl through tunnels, an encounter with an NPC that I anticipate will be fun, and the Final Battle.

A good session: Behind the scenes

I ran a session on the 5th of December. I think it went very well. The mission the players spent time on was to attack a small tower defended by warforged, without letting any final messengers (from the Eberron campaign book) escape. When I first planned the mission, I thought that two of the defenders would have final messengers. As the players began talking about the mission and began examining the difficulty I decided to only have one defender with a final messanger. As they spent more and more hours on planning and came up with a plan that would likely eliminate a chance of failure (multiple redundant contingencies) I considered putting the second final messenger back in. I decided not to do this to allow the players to succeed well given their deep planning (which they don't often do). Once they scouted the tower (with the rouge under the effects of Fly, Gaseous Form, and Invisibility) they confirmed that there was only one final messenger. Once they began the assault, one of the player's used a magic item that granted a once per day use of True Strike (+20 to attack) and they destroyed the Final Messenger in the first round, on the first shot. I hadn't know about that item so in the end, the mission was too easy. But, it didn't really matter.

In the future, I might hold a tighter reign on magic items. I already have a process that reduces where they can purchase from without consulting me but it seems that even if the item is approved, they will have better experiences if I know about the item. I might require a review of all items before the player can confirm a purchase from now on.

Rules-wise, I did make detailed notes about the creatures and NPCs that I was running, continued to go more slowly when multiple modifiers are affecting a roll, reviewed briefly and carefully each ability before an encounter, and then briefly again before each first use of a power. This reduced the obvious and painful rules errors on my part to zero for the session.

However, if I was to pinpoint the process that contributed the most to the sharp uptick in the satisfaction at the table, I would definitely cite the players accomplishing their secret player missions. Each player received a secret mission to accomplish during the session. If the player accomplished a mission, they received an extra action point usable this session only. Here are the mission with explanation in case anyone is interested:

Player #1 [Wizard, Veteran Player]: In the 2-3 hours of strategy discussions last session the other players overlooked one simple potential obstacle. Your secret mission is to not allow the tower assault to be ruined because you and the players didn’t think about a basic (a level one party could do it) precaution against this assault. Do it nicely and in character. [They hadn't thought of Alarm and it took several hours of review by this player to figure it out. At first, he was certain they would have thought of it. I added the part about doing it nicely because he can be kind of snarky. We appreciate him for that snark but I didn't want to trigger snarky condescension through a mission.]

Player #2 [Rogue, New to P&P, Girlfriend of Player #3]: Go to the PHB, page 160. Read the section on “Readied Actions”. Your secret mission in today’s session is to suggest a readied action or to use one yourself. The readied action doesn’t have to go off it just needs to be readied to accomplish this mission. [Since giving her rule oriented missions like this she has become a much more active and valued member in strategy discussions.]

Player #3 [Warforged Fighter, Veteran]: Two Secret Missions Today (and the potential for 2-action points):

First Secret Mission: Continue to roleplay the discomfort you are having about killing/attacking warforged. In the strategy discussions, consider ways that more warforged can be captured instead of killed once the main objective of eliminating the Final Messenger is covered. Once you’ve got some disabled and or captured, roleplay an appropriate set of actions after the combat as well.

Second Secret Mission: Do 3 things (hold up a single finger to me when you’ve done one and wait for me to nod to acknowledge it) in character or out, to enhance and improve the enjoyment other people have of today’s gaming experience. Examples:

(A) Suggest a way someone might use their character’s skill(s) to maximum effect.
(B) Encourage someone to stay positive/optimistic about the coming missions
(C) Encourage an optimistic interpretation of the past (like the Ziggurat mission).
(D) If [Player 1 or 5, who had been absent to last session] ask about the last two sessions, offer an account of the in game events without emphasizing your frustration with those sessions (because it can taint their perspective of the present and bring the group down)
(E) Express in character appreciation for another character’s skill/service
(F) Suggest an end to pointless argument/debate about the past by keeping the focus on the present and future planning

[This was the player that had been frustrated and angry several times in the previous sessions. In my opinion, these positive action oriented missions really helped refocus the energy and reset a positive tone at the table. They also allowed me reward him for it.]

Player #4 [Ranger, veteran player, also GMs]: The last two sessions have been kind of tense, dissatisfaction has been running pretty high. As someone who hasn’t been here you bring the gift of not being caught in that negativity. Your secret mission is to do some things that might lighten the mood and to try to help the group keep a positive-optimistic take on the upcoming missions. The attempt is enough to succeed in the secret mission. I’m not holding you accountable for changing other people. [This person is the default leader of the players. He communicates clearly and because of his experience as a GM can sometimes help players consider that there are things on the other side of the GM screen to make sense of what is happening. He might have even done this without this mission but I wanted to help focus some intention around to make sure of it. It was then also a bonus to reward him for it.]

Player #5 [Cleric, Veteran player, second session with this group]: Your secret mission today is to add [your character's] religious considerations to the planning. This is more likely to come into play during the second mission but if you can include it before that, I’ll count it. [This is more or less just an encouragement to try to lift the bar for roleplaying at the table and introduce him to expectations when I'm GMing. It rewards him for learning the table culture.]

As Obama would say, "Now let me be clear," it wasn't the fact that I gave them the missions, but the fact that the players accepted them and accomplished them that I think led to the increase in satisfaction. From that perspective, I really have to attribute the success to the player's willing acceptance of this mechanism. This might not work for every group. However, I love it. I've used this strategy successfully with two groups now and it gives me a small degree of conscious influence on player group cohesion, cumulative rule knowledge, depth of roleplaying, and mission success. I think it helps that I use reward only, no punishment, to gain that influence.

Despite the satisfaction in the session, few things were accomplished (the mission mentioned above and one random encounter with 4 Vaath from the Book of Vile Darkness). It looks like at least 3 more sessions before this campaign is over. The Psi-marine campaign is delayed yet again.

Irony: Improved mechanics. . .decreased satisfaction

So in the last session, I really did accept my limitations and used 3 strategies to make up for my weaknesses.

First, I relied more on the player's familiarity with the rules to help me runs things correctly. Here is an example. I had three rangers tracking the party (the party knew about this) and came up with a track DC that seemed too low so I asked the players to look at the rules and tell me what DC they would assign to tracking them. This openness to hearing from them seemed to work very well. It allowed players to correct my mistakes without generating a me v. them tone at the table.

Second, I copied a d20srd monster entry into my e-notes, file, I also copied the description of the type, special abilities, etc. It made for a longer entry but I didn't miss as many things as I ran the monsters.

Third, I went more slowly. Instead of really pushing to make the combat faster, I waited, considered, and looked things up more often.

The irony is that as successful as these strategies were in reducing my rules mistakes, one of my players was much less satisfied about the session though not for this reason.

He was frustrated because I had the PCs were brought to meet a general under armed guard (loss of control and heavy handed direction of his character frustrates him to high heaven). I did this because I asked what was most likely given that the PCs approached at night, fully armed, in the middle of a war zone, and the military was fighting small guerrilla groups of 4-5. *sigh* so much for my most frequent GM algorithm, "What makes sense here?" It got to the point where he accused me of railroading the party and we had to pause the play for about an hour while I tried to figure out which parts of the GM curtain I could pull back without revealing too much.

The accusation of railroading was particularly hard for me because I agreed to run this campaign on modules up to level 6 when the group didn't have a GM. I said explicitly that the campaign would be on the rails because I didn't have time to plan more than that. Once the player's reached level 6 I said I have a little more time so I stopped running the game on a strictly linear path but that I am also trying to bring the story to a close so I sent out a long email about how the game would be run on converging plot lines and that they could decide which set of rails they'd like to get on to take them to the finish line. So, in light of my multiple attempts to set up the expectation of some railroading (and asking for patience for it) and granting freedom when I could grant more freedom ("which set of rails would you like to be on to the conclusion of the campaign?") it was a hard accusation to take.

This conflict has placed me back in the question that I've asked several times recently, "Where is the line between loyalty to my friends and trying a different gaming group to try to increase my enjoyment of the little free time I have?" Anyway, long story short, I got him to calm down and give me a little break and everything went better after that.

Now I've got my group planning an assault on a guard tower that they have the layout for. The session slowed to a halt as they entered a more Shadowrun style of planning, reading their abilities, coming up with contingencies, and so forth.

I've made it clear that I'm not sure that I'm ready to run my Psi-Marine campaign with this group. I think my GMing style and the group's needs may not match enough to maximize enjoyment for all involved. I'll keep considering these things as we get closer to the end of this campaign.

Ending a Campaign

A post in three parts:

PART ONE:
Okay. NOW, I'm ready to begin the campaign. Sort of.

The other GM in my group has been running his campaign for a few sessions and I haven't pressed to have the wheel again. Now, he has asked for break so I'm up. However, first I have to finish my Eberron campaign. I started running this campaign when we were in a pinch, no GM, an upcoming gaming day and no one to step in. I had GMed before but not for my regular group and not D&D. So I ran the beginning adventure out of the back of the Eberron campaign guide. The characters are now fifth level and have nearly completed the "Whispers of the Vampire's Blade" adventure. I have been running all of the adventure modules as is with one exception. That exception is that all of the adventures have had to do with the PCs trying to get a schema including this one. Now they're going to get this schema in the next session (on the 24th of Oct.) and defeat Lucan the Vampire. That's when they learn that what the schema are and why every one on the continent is after them. I expect it will take at least 3 sessions to finish the Eberron campaign.

PART TWO:
In the meantime, I've been looking over everything for my Fudge campaign. I think it is really ready. I recently picked up the information outline for the different planetary alliances and began filling out the ones for the Merchant League, Religious Separatists, Free Colonies, and Pirate Coalition. That time away from the campaign creation process really helped to let me come back to the campaign and rule documents with fresh eyes. For one thing it only took me an hour to type up two of those information documents. The other reason that the time away from active creation helped is that I saw that the to-do list made several months ago are much more work than necessary. So, now I'm going to run a short one shot to play test the mechanics, then we'll have a rules learning initial adventure with no mortality possibilities. From there I've got several plots threads to weave depending on the player's interests.

PART THREE:
I've been looking on nearbygamers.com and other gamer ad services looking for other more narrative gamers. It feels a little bit like surfing personals ads though in a committed relationship. I feel torn right now between loyalty to my friends with whom I've been gaming for 7 years and the possibility of gaming in a style I'd enjoy more. I don't really have time to just add a new group on the side so it feels like a dilemma. In reality, there's no way I'm walking away from my friends and the game with them. So, most likely I'll just keep going the way I am for another decade or so when my schedule is a little more relaxed and self directed.

Okay, I think that's all the gaming marbles rolling around in my head.

Adventure Percolator

My adaptation of the Fudge rules are currently being reviewed by my players. So far I'm counting one very good sign. Each of the three players who have looked at the rules very closely have started telling me about the character they would like to create with the system. I take this as a good sign because it means that they aren't finding rules they hate or mechanics they can't stand. It also means they are getting even more invested in the campaign.

That gives me a lull in the world building and rules creation. So, I've been paying attention to adventures. Planning to improvise.

In my GURPS campaign I started the campaign with 1 person totally new to PnP RPGs and another who hadn't played in nearly a decade. To introduce roleplaying, I spent the first 2 sessions in an introductory adventure designed to teach the rules. In this campaign I don't think I need to spend that long introducing the rules because I have mostly veteran players. I'm planning one session for rules exploration. In this case, the rule teaching session will be a "friendly" competition to test the PC psi-marine squad against an existing mundane marine squad. The competition will take place aboard ship. The competition will include 3 contests to explore the 4 main rule sets; short range, single pilot, ship-to-ship combat; hand-to-hand combat; and a laser tag game that takes place on a deck of their home ship to simulate small arms combat. There will of course be some roleplaying opportunities during the competition and I've designed each test to allow for some psionic action so they can test their psionic skills during the competitions.

So where do I take the players after that? In my GURPS campaign, I tried leaving the world totally open. "Here's my world, pick a direction" I told my players. I think I was a little naive. It was my first time GMing. They followed a plot line, then when it got tough, they dropped it like a stone, went off on another direction, and by that time I decided to put them on a set of rails for a little while. I'm not looking to repeat my mistakes.

This time I've got my different factions and I'm looking to allow a little exploration of each faction but I've also got an overarching plot in mind to bring the players to explore the themes of the campaign: Loyalty, sacrifice, and the nature of a psionic identity.

The instructional competition mission mentioned above will include mid-level roleplaying but little fear of death. So, after that mission, I'm sending the PCs on a high adrenaline hostage recovery mission. I'm not always going to alternate like this back and forth between roleplaying and shoot-'em-up, but I want to show all the players early that there's something in the campaign for them. From there I'm going have a few missions that expose the players to some of the different factions in the galaxy. The majority of those missions have at least a small hint to a larger campaign arc (including those themes mentioned before).

What I'm doing is touring the campaign world (using the in game lever of military obedience to require the players to follow along). I'm also trawling the players for their interests. I know vaguely what the 3 major chapters of the campaign arc are but they can each be played out anywhere. I'll be waiting for the players to tell me where they want to play that arc out. Once they give me that sense, I bring them on the rails to the location they are interested in and set them free to play out their characters within the arc. That's the plan anyway.

So, how do I organize all this? I use the outline format in Word. Each roman numeral is an adventure. Some of the sub-sections are fleshed out, others less so. After each mission I look at the existing mission seeds and choose one mission to use two sessions ahead. After fleshing that session out I go back and look at the next session and see if I need to add any foreshadowing to that session. Here's another way of seeing this just in case this paragraph is confusing.

1. End one mission.
2. The next session is already planned and foreshadowed.
3. Choose a mission seed to expand and use two sessions ahead.
4. Review the preplanned session in #2 above and add foreshadowing for #3.

It creates a fairly seamless flow for a story arc and lets me improvise things within a session without being concerned that I'm messing things up down the road because I haven't built the road yet. And it doesn't leave everything totally open because I have these mission seeds percolating. When the players take a left turn I didn't plan, I can shove one of these percolating missions in their way with a few minor tweaks either to buy time to adapt or (if I think fast enough) I can adapt it to suit their purposes on the fly.

Who to game with? Part II

So, in my last post I presented the gaming styles that I'm interested in as a GM and the playing styles of the gamers in my existing group. There are some clear ways in which there isn't a perfect match between my GMing desires and my players. There are two philosophies about how to resolve these apparent differences. The first philosophy is the first rule of GMing as proposed by one of my friends, "Give the players what they want". In this philosophy I have two choices, run a game that my players want, or get a new batch of players to play the game I want to run. In the second philosophy I observe the wisdom of many collective GMs and prevent burnout by focusing on the game I'm interested in. This doesn't necessarily conflict with philosophy number one, it just trends toward getting the group of players that are willing to play the game I want to run.

The problem with abstract philosophies like this though is that they don't take the human element into account. In my situation it boils down to this: I don't want to eliminate my time with my friends by creating a new gaming group to play out my ideal vision for a campaign style nor am I willing to decrease my enjoyment of my gaming time by totally sacrificing my ideal vision for campaign style to accommodate the first preference of my existing group of potential players (who are also my friends). In other words, my goal in creating the campaign is to find a way to both have the style of game I'm interested in and to generate a game that my players will enjoy. The trick is to find a way of accomplishing those goals and I think that this human principle will be one of the guiding motivations in the subsequent discussions. How can I generate and maintain story deep enough to bring me joy and provide enough power, crunch, and butt kick and that my players motivated in that direction will still be interested.

So are some of the ways I'm hoping this gaming group can come together. (1) The cross over player will be leaving the groups and moving out of the area in a few months. This is a big key because as mentioned he is very opinionated about GMing. Without him in the group, things I do outside of his style will not be objected to immediately drawing more focus and attention of the other power gamers to those points. This will allow me the freedom I need to develop a GMing style outside of his expectations and more in line with my own. Also, without him as the ring leader of discontent, I hope to be able to meet the needs of the other power gamers and to focus on story. (2) I really want to find a way to bring Man 3 from the GM group (remember he's the Method actor/Storyteller) over to the player group. This will add another actor/story teller combo over to the group and balance out of the two remaining power gamers. Even if (1) and (2) don't happen I think it is still possible for me to have the GMing experience I'm looking for provided that I do the following step. (3) Introduction and expectation setting at the beginning of the campaign. I think that this is going to be huge in terms of preventing dissatisfaction and in helping everyone co-create a gaming experience with the same goals in mind. The introduction should include everything from the gaming world, the tone (horror, tragic, or heroic), the power level progression, the presence or absence of character death, the reward system (e.g., storytelling emphasis), and a few more elements.

In order to accomplish this communication, I will have to be clear first about what I want so that I can present it and once I'm clear and I'm ready to bring my ideas to the group, I need to be ready for their input. Again allowing them to cocreate expectations but from the initial position and trajectory that can satisfy my GMing desires. The next few posts will be my process of getting clear about the elements that I'll need to communicate to my group in order to make the expectations of the players fit the campaign I'm willing to run.