The must-have features of a next-gen MMO, part I

Here's one of my random posts about MMOs, rather than P&P.

To be honest I love to drone on about this subject, and have considered starting up a new blog for this topic alone.  But one blog is enough for any man.  So I'll restrict myself to the odd meandering thought in the direction of video gaming RPGs.

I'll also keep it short.

1. Rag-doll physics.  For too long MMOs have featured no real physical interaction between PC and mobs. This is most obvious and most disappointing when a PC is in combat against some massive beast.  You seem them, standing at the beast's ankles, slashing away, with totally unrealistic interaction with the beasts massive size.

Take a page out of the awe-inspiring Shadow of the Colossus's book.  The little fella in that game literally had to scale each beast to get to the weak-spot before he could do any real damage.

What I want to see is a dragon knock you flying with one sweep of it's massive tail.  I want to see bodies tumbling through the air and laying in a heap, stunned, broken, dashed.

IMHO rag-doll physics allowing for proper interactions with enemies of disproportionate sizes is a must for a next-gen game.  Admittedly the above examples are somewhat fantasy-focused but its fairly obvious how the same can be applied to sci-fi, horror, whatever.

2. Deformable landscapes.  Spells, heavy weapons, however serious damage is inflicted it should leave a mark on the natural world or unshielded structures.

3. Interactivity with structures.  In many ways this is kind of an extension of deformable landscapes, but what I want to see is a little sneak-thief being able to scale the wall of a building.  Add some of that Assassins' Creed / Prince of Persia virtue into MMOs and have people be able to utilise structures to their advantage.  Dovetailing nicely with rag-doll physics, parties should have to think cleverly about how they approach killing large beasts.  Climbing pillars so they can leap onto the back of a beast, providing an opportunity to hit a weak-spot a la Shadow of the Colossus, or toppling over pillars so they come crashing down on a beast's head.  Rather than the WoW approach of having the party do what often ends up as some intricate dance around a boss - up the ante of such games by ramping up the realism provided by the combination of these three points.

There is obviously a lot more that could be said about this subject, hence the part 1 appellation.  But these points, among others, are at the core of it.

pilch out.

RPG T-Shirt idea...

A picture of a d20 twenty side up, and the words:
This is how I roll.
Made me laugh.  Well, smile a little bit, at least.

The Rosenbaum Frequency

The Rosenbaum Frequency is my basis for my sci-fi genre setting.

My sci-fi genre universe is a little unconventional.  FTL drives haven't been invented, and vast regions of space lay unexplored.  People have managed to populate other systems however, because of a concept called the Rosenbaum Frequency.

Every object has a dicrete and measurable Rosenbaum Frequency ('Rofe' value) which defines its position in space-time.  And simply by physically moving an object, its Rofe will change.  Researchers then developed a device which emitted a field which in turn could influence the Rofe of whatever was placed inside the field.

The net result of doing this was to instantly transport the affected object to the location dictated by this new frequency.  I.e. teleportation / displacement could be achieved without the need for any molecular disassembly or matter transference.  Because the rules of the Rosenbaum Frequency dictate than an object with a Rofe value of X must be in position X.  The trouble is, there seems to be no relationship between locations close in space-time and their corresponding frequencies.  I.e. two people standing next to each other, occupying very close-by space will very likely exhibit vastly different Rosenbaum Frequencies.  And only slightly modifying the frequency can potentially displace an object to the other side of the galaxy / universe / wherever.  And that might well be inside a sun / asteroid / whatever.  So its a hazardous and wholly random process.

So the diaspora of Terrans to the stars in my universe didn't happen by the typical means, but by labs altering the Rofe's of probes at random, and sending them off to places at random, and recording what happened.  In many cases of course they simply recorded dead space, or distant stars, but in some cases they found systems with inhabitable worlds.  And of course in some instances the probe was lost, presumed instantly destroyed.  On rare occassions, alien life was witnessed.

The probes were fitted with pre-programmed Rofe field generators, so they could be recalled.  And communication with the probes was via what I call a Paired Quark Dictor (PQD) sometimes referred to as a Tangle Comm.  Because any force applied to one of a pair of entangled quarks affects the other quark as if it had been directly applied to it.  In physics terms the concept of quantum entanglement.

The concept of quantum entanglement nicely validates the notion of instantaneous communication over any distance.  One quark from an entangled pair is embedded in the PQD housed within the probe.  Any data the probe records is translated into binary and communicated by inducing a simple up and down oscillation of the quark it contains.  Back in the lab, the matched quark oscillates simultaneously in precisely the same manner as its entangled buddy, and thus produces a real-time binary data stream which is re-encoded back into audio/video and whatever mulit-spectrum data the probe is programmed to record.

So in this way tiny (mostly unrelated) fragments of the universe were mapped.  Many probes were lost of course, but by pure chance some systems were discovered which could support human life.  So earth's overcrowding and environmental issues were circumnavigated by colonists who were 'freq'd' or 'freaked' off to distant worlds discovered by the probes.

In some cases wealthy individuals paid vast sums of money to have private worlds located for them, and the race was on for different labs, funded by different corporations to find the most fabulous worlds imaginable.

But sometimes, they found other things....

System vs. Setting

Okay, so something occurred to me recently.

As some of you may be aware I've been indulging myself in a little P&P RPG research of late, and from this two gems have emerged...

Firstly, Ars Magica. This is quite simply a great idea for a roleplaying game setting.  And the first game I have ever come across that makes me want to take their world and play it as it is (and I'm only 30 odd pages into the rulebook).  And that is not my usual M.O. by any standard.  Typically, I flit through RPGs and pick up on little ideas here and there and incorporate them into my own game system or setting. I have a penchant for creating my own source material where possible.  Partly because I live in a dream world, and partly because I don't like my players knowing anything about the setting save for what I tell them, i.e. no 'outside' knowledge of monsters, enemies, places or histories, etc.  But Ars Magica is such a brilliantly simple and fantastically engaging setting that I'm already thinking about running a de facto session, just to see how it plays.  True, I have taken a few concepts I like and worked them into an alternative 6th Age history of my own fantasy world setting but this is only adds further kudos to the game.  It has some great ideas.  It is founded upon great ideas.  And I eagerly await running my first session.  If you don't know about Ars Magica, check it out, you won't be disappointed.  If you are disappointed, check yourself over for lobotomy scars forthwith.

The second game I have purchased recently (yet to be delivered, and I drool in antici... pation) is Changeling: The Lost.  It bears a similarity to Ars in that they are both set in the real world... in a manner of speaking.  Or an alternate version of the real world, where certain fantastical elements are true.  When I read a little about Changeling it reminded me of Suzanna Clark's superb novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - which I loved - so I just had to get it.  The setting is, again, enticing.

But all this got me to thinking...  System vs. Setting.

I think I'm right in saying that both of these games won awards.  I can't be bothered to check.  If you want to dispute this, you check it.  I know Ars for certain is generally regarded as having the best magic system of any RPG, and worth taking a look at for that alone.  Especially from my stance where I have put considerable effort into making magick as weird and special as I can in my fantasy games, and not simply trotting down the same old tired path.  Take a look at my posts on my approach to magick if you're vaguely interested in... well... my approach to magick (in RPGs).

But for me, system and setting are two very different things.  Yes, there are links.  Of course there are crossovers.  Games like Call of Cthulhu deserve a sanity stat.  Games like Blood and Honour deserve an honour stat.  But generally settings are, and should be, system non-specific.  With all due respect to the authors of Ars, when I play it, I'll be using my own, tweaked, homebrew system.  I'm going to play-test their game setting, whilst play-testing my new system.

The approach I'm taking with my new system is that, like any decent system, it should be IMHO applicable (with admittedly minor tweaks) to any setting.  As I have mentioned before, if I run a horror game, I use my own system, but I drop in a simple sanity mechanic to cover the insanity side of things.  Essential for a good horror game I would say.  But a decent system should be versatile enough to handle anything you throw at it.  And also flexible enough to handle the odd genre-specific mechanic addendum.

RPG systems basically govern the same sort of tasks pretty much regardless of setting: character generation, character development, task resolution, and combat.  That sort of thing.  The system handles how you roll the dice.  Everything else is setting and should never be constrained by the system.  Monitored, moderated, but never manipulated. Setting is first and foremost.

Complex actions...

Considering my new dice-pool system a bit more, and I realise that again, for the sake of expediency, the results of complex actions can be determined by a single roll of multiple dice.

For example, a player wishes to climb a cliff.  The cliff is craggy and covered in vegetation making it reasonably easy to climb.  But it is 200 feet high.  So climbing will take some time.

Because of the ease of climb, the player only needs to roll a four or more to succeed.  They have four ranks in climb, meaning they get to roll four dice in their pool.  But as the cliff is 200 feet high, the player needs to get at least three fours.

In this situation the game is now making use of the possibility of multiple successes to determine a complex action.  This robust mechanic also provides the GM with a lot of information from which to interpret success or failure.  Imagine the player rolls only two fours, but rolled a tweak die of 19.  I'd interpret that as the PC made it up the first two thirds of the cliff (two of three successes obtained) and then slipped and fell.  However, the tweak roll of 19 suggests they manage to grab hold of a tangled root on the way down.  They strain their shoulder a little (as this should be incorporated into further actions involving that shoulder - i.e. combat, or climbing or swimming will now be slightly harder for them - they need a five rather than a four).

I'm liking this new system.  =D

But in the example above, what would an epic fail on the tweak die conclude?  Well, say the player made all of the rolls needed to climb the cliff, but rolled a tweak of 1.  The tweak cannot indicate a fall, as the player succeeded in their rolls.  Remember, the dice pool indicates success or failure.  And the tweak die tweaks those results.  In this situation, I'd look at the bigger picture.  For example, lets says that the player was climbing the cliff in order to catch someone.  You could thus say that despite them climbing the cliff, they crest the top just in time to see their quarry escape by horse.  Or be rescued by masked riders.  Or indeed, you could have them merely waiting at the top of the cliff to strike the player when they are at their most prone.  Or another creature, incidental, is waiting for them.  So despite having made the climb, the epic fail on the tweak die illustrates that something bad has happened, that the bigger goal is now in jeopardy.

Dire Peril

I'm not sure if I like this idea or not.  Too early to tell, but the fact that I'm on the fence suggests I ought to play-test it.  I just came across this notion whilst watching a YouTube video of John Wick being interviewed.  I was pleased to hear John talk about combat in a similar way to how I view it (watch from 5:10 onwards to avoid the guff).  But he also brings up this concept of Dire Peril.

And it seems to tie-in with what I was discussing in my last post about occassionally overtly rolling dice in front of players to determine the outcome of the combat.  Wicky talks about having a rule where his players cannot die, unless he begins a scene by saying: Dire Peril.  The players then know that the safety is off and they can die in this scene.  I kind of like the idea, as I can see how it would make players cautious and nervous - and thus create tension.  But I'm unhappy about the 'at all other times the players are safe' vibe.

As said, I'll have to play-test this and see how it works.  I'd prefer to use Dire Peril on the fly, perhaps saying it as I reach for my dice and roll them overtly before the players.  And of course virtually any action can involve Dire Peril, not just combat.  Climbing a cliff can be hazardous, after all.

Dire Peril!

It has a nice ring to it.  Although it somehow conjures images of schlock-horror 50s B-movie sci-fi flicks.  There is definitely something to it, though.

I shall report back.

Narrative over mechanics - Revenge of the Number

Players that have had some involvement in my games will probably tell you that I am forever striving for a decent combat system.  A combat system which does not slow-up the game, but which is yet authentic, realistic and dangerous - whilst also being flexible.

Can this be achieved?

My current take on it - a take that has been developing over the last ten years or so, is that combat should be intrepetive, like all game rules, IMHO.  Looking up tables, adding and subtracting a variety of bonuses etc. etc. all slows down the game into a number-crunching nightmare that steals the passion and excitement from the scene.  Yet I still believe it is important to have a final, random, dangerous element - so anyone entering into combat cannot be sure they won't die, or lose a limb or whatever.  Part of the enjoyment of roleplaying is not quite knowing where the story is going, and this is almost as true for the GM as it is for the players.  For the players, they are exploring a world, a narrative, and they really don't (or shouldn't) know what's in store for them.  But for the GM, the players, by their actions which of course the GM does not dictate, also modify the story.  But the dice do this also.  Through the success or failure of the players' actions, and to a certain extent, the actions of NPCs too - the story can shift and change dramatically.

As a GM I tend to use dice rolls in a variety of ways.  Firstly, in order to propel the story forward, the majority of incidental rolls (players finding stuff, overhearing stuff etc.) if its required to happen to drive the story forward and keep the pace going I employ the 'Gygax Rule' and roll the dice just for the sound of it.  Effectively ignoring the result.  Sometimes I need a little inspiration myself though, and if its not critical to drive the narrative forward, and I determine that a little randomness can provide for an interesting divergence or outcome, I will roll the dice and allow that randomness to tweak the direction things are going in.  How an NPC reacts to the players' behaviour for example (if its not critical to the story).  Barmaids fancying the dashing paladin, or the quirky mage, that kind of thing.  And then, at some critical tense scenes, I deliberately go against the grain, and roll the dice right in front of the players so there is no hiding it.  Because contrary to what John Wick says, drama can be derived from randomness, and I have witnessed many a heroic death brought about by the dice.

So as I strive to make combat effective, thrilling and yet dangerous -this is how I achieve it:

For the sake of expediency, combat rolls are heavily interpreted, I don't use table or charts and I pad out the dice results with description.  As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, I use a 'tweak die' to generically influence how successful something was.  So the basic rolls determine success or failure, and the tweak dice determine the extent of the success or failure.  As combat is a fluid thing, one decent success, or epic failure can lead you into an advantageous position, or a leave you prone to further mishaps.  I use the dice rolls to embellish and describe the combat events that occur.  And this necessarily leads on to dramatic fights.  A series of fails can eventually lead a player to the point where the next blow from the enemy could be devastating.  And this is where the drama and story-telling come in.  After a series of four failed rolls, or poor tweaks the player is on his back, having been disarmed and his attacker looms over him, sword raised to finish him off - and it is that point that I will roll directly in front of the other players - but it is also at that point that another player can intervene, turn, and hurl their own axe at the looming attacker.

Such descriptions cannot be achieved when counting hit points.  I don't think.  Hit points take into account all that drama but distil it down into a mere integer.  What I'm suggesting is removing the numbers and interpreting the results of the dice, descriptively.

Play-testing awaits.

Messiah scenario idea...

I've been toying with this idea for a number of years.  When I say toying, I mean considering vaguely from time to time, but not doing anything about it - including writing notes, so it is only a vague-formed notion.

The idea is that the players are tasked with protecting a young girl, maybe 7-8 years old, who is allegedly the earthly form of a god, or perhaps the offspring of a god, on her journey to a distant place where she may fulfil her birthright.  The girl's protectors, in order to try and keep the girl safe have hired, with the promise of great reward and arcane treasures, a band of experienced adventurers from a distant land.  The distant land bit is important, because the hirelings have to be of a sufficiently different culture as to have little understanding of the religion the men adhere to.  Nor any prophecies concerning the girl.  The reason for this, is that the girl is actually evil.  The men appear to be good.  Very gracious and in all manners and appearances benevolent. And the girl too, appears good.  Blonde hair, flowing white dress, beatific smile - the classic hallmarks of benevolence and corruptability.

The game starts with the PCs waiting on the roadside, on an out-of-the-way road on the border between two lands.  The girl's escort are to bring her here covertly, under cover of darkness, so she can be whisked away into foreign realms and kept safe, until the location of the distant place she is to be brought to has been revealed - scholars are investigating that element concurrently.  The escorts suggest to the PCs that they keep moving, as far away as possible, because the girl has many dark and eldritch enemies (actually good and wholesome enemies).

They provide the party with an artefact which will enable communication at a distance.  But the artefact should only be used occassionally.  It also requires a roaring fire.

I use a skill called 'arcana' in my fantasy game world, which is essentially lore regarding enchanted artefacts, because every magick item has a history, was created by someone, used by people and potentially in various important events.  The magick communication device (I'm considering a statuette one has to place in embers, and which then speaks in a deep booming voice - not the voice of the communicator on 'the other end' - similar statue), if a player wishes to, and rolls a high enough score against their arcana skill, they know that such a device was created by X for Y but lost many years ago, suppossedly fallen into the hands of darkness.  This is a clue to the fact that the people who have hired them may not be precisely whom they appear to be, and not necessarily benign.

To create tension, whilst this initial exchange is taking place, two dozen riders come storming in to take (or kill) the girl.  The riders must be in sufficient number to cause the party concern as to whether they should stay and fight.  To build this tension up, have a couple of the escorts fall early on in the conflict, and the leader instruct the party to go.  Thus the game kicks off early on with a chase scene.  And as the PCs look back they see the escorts battle with some of the riders, but most begin to pursue the girl (and the PCs) indicating what their true goal is.  The players are experienced though, and should be able to dispatch and evade - though not easily - their pursuers.

After putting some distance between them and their pursuers, the party will eventually make camp against a developing storm.  Storms in my fantasy games are also an indication that people are using magick - the more powerful the magick, the more violent the storm.  This knowledge is common to any spellcasters and rumours/omens to non-spellcasters, but such information should be relayed to players in their background notes, and thus not drawn attention to overtly within the game.  This makes it a slightly more subtle clue than if one was to explicitly state it at the time.

During the night a winged beast attacks the camp.  It has been summoned by the Order the riders belong to, and its task is to slay the child.  The PCs must obviously protect her. Describe the roaring winds and the beating wings and the foul breath of the beast.

The game continues in such a way with the various hostile encounters in various forms and guises, all with the objective of killing the child.  These are intended to be the 'action scenes' used to surprise and alarm the players.  But each, must have some sort of clue as to what they are really dealing with.

Clues as to the true nature of the child must also come in the form of incidental scenes.  A mad beggar woman on the outskirts of the town (with the gift of trueseeing) recoils in horror when she sees the child.  A very close likeness of the child must be present in an ancient text in a church they stop and shelter at along the way.  The church itself the child says is 'creepy'. As I consider this scenario idea more, I will concentrate initially on two things:

1)Scenes of Action - how are the forces of light realistically tracking the child, and sending forces against her?
2)Clues - what incidental occurrences can be employed to hint at the true nature of the child?

In public areas, out of sight of the PCs, the child will also attempt to illustrate her tendencies.  Essentially, bad stuff happens around her.  Dogs bark, cats hiss and flee.  Ravens alight in her vicinity.  But such reactions must be handled with subtlety.

If the players realise who she is, they may attempt to kill her, but killing the physical embodiment of a god is no easy task, and in fact takes either special weapons, or special places, or special rituals.  I feel there should be multiple options to kill her, but all take some planning and involvement, and will be dogged by her supporters on the one hand - and also by naive do-gooders on the other.  What I mean by this is as soon as the players realise the child is evil and attempt to do her in, some passers-by will only see grown men doing something bad to a child and attempt to intervene.

If the players never cotton on to the fact that the child is evil.  Then they will eventually be tasked to take her to some ancient place, at a specific time (conjunction of the planets etc.) where they are to perform a ritual of 'raising' or some such thing, where she 'matures' and takes on all sorts of additional powers.  At this point the players are asked by her if they wish to bow down and worship her.  Those that do gain benefits but become tainted and evil.  Those that don't have to flee or be slain.

Thats the rough idea for now.  Any suggestions are welcome!

Bag-space in MMOs...

Right, okay, fine.  So this is one of my occassional divergent posts into the realms of videogame RPGs, but I've recently being playing Lord of the Rings Online (basically WoW with better graphics) in irregular doses.  And again they've screwed up how bag-space is handled (as does WoW, as does every other videogame RPG that I can recall off the top of my head).

And it is quite simple to get right:

Firstly, from a usability point of view, the player needs only ONE window to view the items they carry.  We should not be forced to remember which of possibly several bags we have put something in. And we should not have to open all of them to look for it.  We should be able to open one window, and SORT by a variety of different features: alphabetically, date/time added, item type (weapon, armour, quest, consumable etc.) and so forth.  And the window should include a SEARCH box, so if worse comes to worse and you can't see what you're looking for at a glance, you can search for it.  Basically, if you're going to make an RPG run on a computer, learn from what good applications and websites have evolved into and utilise those tried and tested features.  One window for all your pack/bag space added together, in a list.

This does not, and should not, disrupt features of game mechanics involving offering the player a variety of upgradeable bag options.  Imagine in a fantasy setting.  As a designer you may wish the player to start out with a small pack (say 12 'units') and one small pouch (say 4 units).  You allow a player to carry upto 4 pouches, two on each hip; one pack and pockets on some leg clothing, and pockets on some chest clothing.

As they progress through the game they have the option of acquiring and upgrading these various items which add bag-space.  All bag-space is, in effect, a single integer relating to the amount of equipment a character can carry.  A unit may be considered a combination of size and weight.  So big, light items may take up just as many units as small heavy ones.

As mentioned previously, all bag-space is cumulative and accessible via one single window, which a player can access with a click of a button and can sort through and arrange in different views.

For the sake of facilitating a player in combining some potentially disparate items in their pack.  You may wish to provide a secondary 'manipulate' or 'handle' window.  Allowing a player to drag items from their bag-space into a window, perform a secondary search, drag something else into the 'manipulate' window and so on, where they can be combined etc.

If you want to be clever, once one item has been dragged into the manipulate window, you may wish to automatically search on the contents of their bag-space to find items they may wish to combine with the first item.  Or even cleverer - automatically search only for items which the character knows (via their skills) can be combined with the first - so you're not revealing secret recipes in the game, unless the character has the relevant skill/training/knowledge whatever.

Secondly, we should not have to play 'pack tetris' by having to shuffle items around so they fit in the space provided (not a problem for WoW or LOTRO, but is for others games, tho their names for the moment escape me - Fallen Earth?). Any item should just be a line in the bag-space window.  You can still tag it with a pretty icon as a visual reminder of what it is, if you feel the need.

The method I describe here, I humbly put to you, is FAR SUPERIOR to anything in the games mentioned above, and AFAIK, in any computer-based RPG I have played.  So when are RPG developers (Blizzard, Turbine, whomever) going to cotton-on and start providing a pack system which is actually effective and presents decent usability?

Also, and something I have yet to overtly witness in such games are the inclusion of enchanted packs etc, which dramatically increase bag-space.  Such RPGs are typically unrealistic in that they allow players to walk around with a dozen broadswords, a dozen shields and three full suits of plate mail in their packs.  I'm suggesting being a little more realistic to begin with, and then provide increasingly larger enchanted packs and pouches that effectively at ultimate levels do away with the need to sort out your bag-space ever again (within reason).  For the sake of databases becoming unwieldy and unmanageable I expect a finite limit should be included somewhere.

The most important thing tho, is one window, that is both sortable and searchable.  Enabling players to find what they want in their bag-space, quickly and efficiently, allowing them to play the game more, and fiddle with the interface less.

peas out.

The Frankenstein game...

Just quickly while I think of it.  Another interesting game I'm looking forward to running is what I have jotted down in my notebook as 'The Frankenstein game'.

I came up with the idea after reading Gustav Meyrink's classic: The Golem.  Having been written in 1914, and its subject matter, lends itself very nicely to a vaguely off-piste Cthulhu offering.

I haven't decided yet whether to set the game in and around Lovecraft's fictional Miskatonic University. Or make use of some old maps of London and have them at Imperial College or perhaps Guy's Hospital as that way I could set some of the game around spooky old post-Ripper Whitechapel, an area I know well as I used to live one street away from the site of the Ripper's second murder.

The basic idea is this: The PCs are all medical students.   One Jewish PC discovers a sheaf of papers when helping his local community to tidy up an old synagogue damaged in a vicious storm.  The papers, incased in the stone altar that was cracked in two by a falling tree reveal the Jewish legend of the Golem, but a variant form of this myth which talks about constructing a golem from flesh, not clay.

And so the game sees the players locate and hire suitable premises for their experiments, and then they begin grave robbing in order to obtain body parts to assemble into the shape of a monstrous man.  Requiring fresher parts, they begin raiding the hospital morgue and eventually turn to murder in the smoggy gas-lit streets at midnight.

This is admittedly the bare bones of an idea for a game, but I think it has legs. :-)
Especially if you allow the players to create their golems with multiple limbs, beast claws from london zoo and generally go more Reanimator/Cthulhu with it.

A game in which the players are, arguably, the bad guys, can commit grave-robbing, body-snatching, and murder and create a monster they can control(?) sounds like a lot of fun to me!

Player training...

O and the arrogance continues!  So something else than transpired in my recent dialogue with other roleplayers over at RPG.net was the backgrounds of an intended bunch of PCs in a cyberpunk game - which you'll have a vague idea about if you read my last post.

In this scenario the players are all supposed to be police officers.  Nothing wrong with that.  Quite fitting for a cyberpunk game.  But it got me to thinking.  As mentioned in my last post, making the PCs police provides a number of advantages in terms of controlling the game, on the part of the GM.  But in order for it to work, seem realistic and not frustrate players, players have to know how to act like police.  And this is where it's important to work with your players, pre-game and prepare them for their roles.

When I run a game, I generally spend a considerable amount of time working with the players in developing characters and backgrounds that are engaging, intriguing, and as rich and detailed as I hope the game enviroment is.  Again, much of this comes down to that all important essential - preparation.  As a GM your job does not stop at crafting the adventure, or rather, taking an active role in helping each player craft their character is part of crafting the adventure.

And I don't just mean, provide the players with interesting backgrounds, so they have an idea of who they are, where they come from, and what some of their drivers, motives and aspirations are.  Of course you have to do all that.  But depending on what they are, you may have to offer some guidance there too.  And this might be something of an education for both of you (player and GM).

Let's take the above example of PCs as police officers.  Now police officers have training.  And just as you'd expect in any decent police movie, a degree of realism - and this is typically generated by the scriptwriters and director having some knowledge of police procedures etc. to make the narrative authentic. It will also require the actors to do some research to get into character.  The lessons that can be learnt here is that if you're running a game and want your players to be police (or any other specific role) do enough research on that role so that it becomes authentic.  And also, where necessary educate your players.

A couple of hours researching crime-scene procedure online, and maybe watching a couple of classic cop films and taking notes will mean that not only do your NPC police officers act with coherence, you can also remind the players (prior to the game) that they should be doing things like: dusting for prints; cross-referencing images obtained from security footage with the FBI database; looking for bullet trajectories to ascertain where the shooter was; sealing off a crime scene to preserve evidence; so and so forth.

Preparation is nine tenths of the battle.  And it makes your game more interesting, more gripping... more enjoyable.

Collaborative post on RPG.net

I've recently begun posting on RPG.net, collaborating with a few others on the generic design of a cyberpunk scenario.  Some interesting points have been made, and if you can drag yourself away from fraternizing with ladies whose surnames are all .jpg, I recommend checking RPG.net in general, and this thread specifically.

I made a post earlier today which loosely discussed the importance for a GM to have a reason for things happening in their scenarios, and having subsequently considered it some more, realised that what I'm actually talking about is preparation.  Preparation for a games master is everything.  It means your players can go off piste without too much worry, because you're game environment is so detailed, everything seems potentially a part of the narrative.  Preparation gives depths to your stories, your environments, your histories and your characters.  Preparation means you can have four interwoven storylines emerging rather than one - so as to avoid the need to overtly railroad your players.

In the extract below (from RPG.net) I'm talking about the need for having a reason why a particular city (the setting for a proposed cyberpunk genre game) is experiencing high degrees of civil unrest.  I appreciate I'm probably commiting some narcissistic cardinal sin by quoting myself, but I'm really only doing so in order to segue deftly onto a whole piece on preparation.  And besides, before we get blogged down in a meta-argument about the pseudo-intellectual self-mastubatory nature of blogging in general, I'm just going to lay on like MacDuff:

"Firstly, for the sake of atmosphere / intrigue, cohesiveness and making things seem as real as possible, there should be a reason why this civil unrest is occuring.

And I would look to the real world for inspiration. Governments (especially the US) create civil unrest all the time - predominantly in third world nations. They call it 'destabilization' and it gives them new excuses to keep the war machine going, and reasons for passing serious laws like the (otherwise unlawful) detainment-without-proof of suspected terrorists. In a cyberpunk setting, where often the fractures between populaces are not on an inter-country basis, but an intra-country basis, its easy to transplant the exact same agenda. Especially in a genre which typically evinces a shift from government dominance to corporate dominance. The underlying reason behind the civil unrest could be because the local government wants to destabilize the city, so it can pass more stringent laws and put in place a draconian military rule; or a mega-corp wants to destabilize to illustrate just how weak the government is so it can take over the city and turn it into 'Mega-Corp Metro' (not an actual name suggestion ). Or indeed the military could be doing it, so they themselves can become the ruling power and start to dominate everything.

I have an issue in general with 3-4 stories [in a single scenario], and that is: in a single scenario, the GM should strive (IMHO) to tell one story (with the help of the players), else they are in danger of not having any cohesive plot and will be wandering around virtually aimlessly between one potential storyline and another. This is okay in a campaign where you can ultimately tie multiple stories together, or have the party wander off and complete a side mission and then pull back to the main thread. But in a single scenario, its best to keep them [the players] heading in a single direction so you have more control in meting out the drama, suspense, tension, denouement. Furthermore it is more in keeping with the way a police department works [the PCs are all police]: you guys investigate the trouble at the old mill; you guys investigate the explosion that derailed the metro train; and you guys investigate the murder at the steelworks. You know? Police teams are given one assignment at a time. The other GREAT narrative device provided by having the players as police, is that it makes it very easy for the GM to keep them on track. Any time they are stuck, advise them to check back in with their superiors who can advise them on how to proceed. When doing this, ALWAYS give the players at least two options (with each potentially furthering the story), thus keeping them heading in the right direction, though on different branches of resolution. Utilising such a technique is a godsend to the GM as it is realistic and thus nicely sidesteps being seen as railroady.

But what you can do here, and again IMHO should do, is present a backdrop rich enough that the players understand there are more things going on. Have them know that whilst they're investigating the metro train disaster, something at the old mill that their colleagues are investigating, links up. The same man spotted in both scenes. This is a great way for them to compare notes with some NPCs and have the NPCs realistically impart some useful information to the PCs - which can drive the plot forward, and which they may have missed. This is what I call a 'narrative safety loop'.

Also, present characters in this single scenario which don't really amount to anything, but may crop up again in a later game. This adds great depth to your game environment. Someone whom appears to be a nobody in this first game, is actually a significant player in scenario number two."

Again, apologies for the shameless self-quoting. 

Do check out RPG.net, some great stuff there.

I will be going into more detail about some techniques I use to generate narrative and detail when planning a game.  Perhaps someone, somewhere will find it useful.  But I'm not holding my breath.

peas out

Intervention

In my last post I loosely outlined some new mechanics I have been considering for a new game system.  In writing it I started pondering what I feel is another interesting concept.

I talked briefly about GM intervention, and what a no-no it is, IMHO. However, nothing kills a game faster than killing off all the PCs.  As illustrated in: How not to handle death.

So what can a GM (or game mechanics) do when it looks like a PC is going to die?  Well, as I have said before, sometimes you just got to go with it, and a PC death leads to a memorable scene in a game.  But I have been considering an alternative mechanic to sidestep some PC death situations in a viable manner.

I like bonus dice and I like bonus points.  So how about a very rare type of bonus. An intervention point.  This can be considered an intervention by the gods in most fantasy based games.  Intervention by some higher intelligences in some more futuristic / realistic based games.  Or just sheer luck.  Bestow them on players very rarely.  Never more than one at a time.  And perhaps bestow them on the party rather than an individual player.  That way the party has to decide when to use them.  Also, considering John Wick's 'let the players' decide the outcome' mechanic.  Which I personally feel is fraught with danger, but still kinda like the idea of if meted out in ultra-small doses.  If the party has earned an intervention point, a prophecy point, an alternative universe point, whatever you want to call it, if a situation results in the death of one or more party members, then the party can decide to spend that point and they decide how the deaths are avoided.  With GM approval of course.

I plan to test this.

A new game system in the making...

So I've been thinking of a totally new game system.  Yes, that means ditching my beloved, overhauled, Homebrew version of rolemaster and going with something new.  Something rules-light (actually my Homebrew system is very rules-light), and as story-focused as I have a penchant to be.  It'll be interpretive, because that's the direction I've always been heading (and largely encompassed).  And its going to feature:

d10s! - cos I have a bag of 'em.  Plus they just smack of RPG better than a d6.

It's going to be a dice pool game.  Because I think picking up a fistful of dice, and rolling them all is fun.  Plus that gives a lot of freedom in terms of throwing in extra dice for particular reasons... luck points, fate points, bonus dice, blah blah blah.  Don't worry, I'll expand on all this in another, more lucid post.

It's going to have bonuses to those dice.  So the player will end up rolling xd10+y... i.e. say you have three ranks in a skill, thats 3d10. A basic success chance is a 6 on any of those d10.  The harder the action - and several elements come into play there - the higher than success number is.  But a player can modify their rolls in a number of ways, and add dice to the pool in a number of ways.  So another example might be: try and get 12 or more on 6d10+3.  i.e. a player need only get a 9 or more (with the +3) to score 12 and succeed in that action.

On top of that, I want to include a d20. For no other reason than a d20 for me (probably because I cut my teeth on D&D, back in the day), signifies roleplaying.  Despite the fact that I have not used a d20 in any of my games for years... decades even.  When that 20 comes up, its a special moment, and one I want to include.

So the d20 will work like this:  You roll a d20 as a modifier to any action.  It signifies critical success... or failure.  It's the 'tweak' die.  The higher or lower the number indicates a tweak to the success or failure of the dice pool.  Furthermore a critical is obtained when a 20 is rolled (or a 1 in the sake of critical failure).  At the GMs discretion these numbers may be modified - i.e. a critical is afforded on a roll of 19 or 20, failure on a 1-3 etc. Regardless of a critical, if the tweak die is higher than twice the number required to succeed, the player earns a bonus point from the action which they may use in a future roll.

If a 20 is obtained and the dice pool has been a success - then the action is deemed to be a critical success. In this case the result is extremely beneficial to the player and they get a bonus die and bonus point (which can be added to a future dice pool), i.e. a 1d10+1.  The bonus die and the bonus point are considered separate entities and do not need to be used together.  These bonuses derived from critical success are referred to as being 'on a roll'.

If the dice pool (xd10+y) roll was a success, but the tweak (d20) roll was a 1 indicating critical failure, then the action still succeeds, but the player is left in an awkward position.

For example, a PC attempts to make a jump between rooftops.  The player has 4 ranks in jump so gets to roll 4d10 by default.  As a standard manouevre a roll of 6 or more on any of the dice would indicate success.  However the distance is quite far, so the GM states a roll of 7 is requried. The GM also determines because they are being chased (+1), are wounded from a previous encounter (+1) and its raining (+1); the action is complicated by a further +3, resulting in a 10 being the success marker.  The player determines that this is an essential action for their character, and from their bonus pool adds two more dice and two more points to the equation.  So they're intending to roll a 6d10+2.  The +2 means the result of any dice is raised by 2. So now the player has 6 chances to roll and 8 or more, with 8+2 = 10 = success.  They roll and get and 8 and a 9 (as well as some lower numbers) and so success has been achieved!  However, the d20 tweak roll they make at the same time comes up 1.  This means that despite them having made the jump, something bad has happened.  To determine how bad, the GM looks at the lowest number they rolled - in this case a 2 - and interprets that as them having taken some damage from a poor landing.  A 3 or 4 may have indicated some non-essential piece of equipment was damaged from a poor landing.  If a 1 was present, then maybe something important was dropped into the street below.

In this way perfect flexibility can be brought to bear on interpeting the outcome.  Such rules-light games are fast to play, not bogged down by multiple table checking, and the mechanics hinge upon the imagination of the GM and the players - which is what makes roleplaying so special.  Such rules-light systems harness what is special about Pen & Paper, and what makes it a unique form of entertainment -  i.e. a collaboration of imaginations.

On with the example: if the outcome of such an action fails - nothing 8 or above is rolled, but the tweak die comes up as a 20, it means the action failed, but something nevertheless beneficial happens.  In this example, the PC does not make the jump, misses the other rooftop and plummets down, but lands in a passing haycart.  Again the GM can take a look at the dice pool rolls for some inspiration or guidance.  Because this was a critical success the GM looks at how high the dice were ( though clearly not enough to warrant success in the desired action).  In this example we can say the player had terrible rolls, nothing above a 3, so the GM decides that the passing cart was actually transporting manure, not hay, and the PC is now rather stinky!

In the case of very poor dice pool rolls resulting in a failure of the attempted action, and a critical failure (1) generated by the tweak die, the PC is in a rather tricky situation:  They didn't make the jump and suffered a critical failure to boot, which could be translated as landing badly in the street below.  The intrepetive scale here, I would suggest, is based on what the 'scene' was trying to deliver.  In our example the PC was being chased across rooftops, so the ultimate failure here would be capture.  So this is essentially what is delivered by a critically failed action.  However, the GM does have a requirement to present an interesting, atmospheric and thrilling story.  So whilst they can suggest the player falls to their death, I would suggest avoiding that outcome in all but the most dramatic moments.  I.e. if they 100s of feet up and fell, it might be difficult to realistically avoid death.  And now we come to a potential cardinal sin of GMing.  Despite the fact that IMHO PC deaths should be rare and handled with care, they MUST be delivered if the situation requires it.  One cannot shy away from these moments.  Because nothing ruins atmosphere and verisimilitude faster than GM intervention.  By that I mean when a GM unrealistically pulls a PC out from a certain death situation.  If players feel they cannot die, it removes risk and tension, which results in a lack of excitement and a lack of atmosphere.

In the above example of a critical failure, the interpretive scale has PC death at one end, and something along the lines of a sprained ankle on the other, with broken bones, unconsciousness and capture somewhere in between.  As a GM, one should strive to deliver the next thrilling scene, which in this case might just be the PC hobbling off down a dark alley, having evaded the pursuers (as they're on the rooftops above) but now the PC is wounded and in a bad neighbourhood.

These, as basic mechanics, I think will be a lot of fun. They are of course intended to work for non-combative actions.

The 'Legion' game...

So continuing from my last post about the kidnapping scenario idea.  In the first paragraph I mentioned my 'Legion' scenario idea, and wanted to expand on that a little.  As an unorthodox scenario it necessarily has some atypical elements which need to be considered.

First up, types of daemons:

Due to the unusual nature of the game, I feel it would be most successful with smaller numbers of players.  But at least two of course. Three to four would be my preference, five or more may start getting troublesome due to the probable perceived 'downtime' of (temporarily) subjucated entities.  Although it is considered that all entities will be able to converse - with potential multiple conversations going on in one head.

So the sorts of daemons that might be fun to play in such a game are those concerned with:

Blood - This entity is attracted to and grows stronger in the presence of blood, blood-letting, drawn blood, and any situation where blood is present.  You may want them to have vampiric tendencies or capabilities.  They are also (i would suggest) immune to infections of the blood whilst dominant. So, they get bonuses to their 'control rolls' whilst in the presence of blood - from battlefields and infirmaries to paper-cuts or menstruarion.  Yes, that feisty bar-girl just might bring out the daemon in you.  If you're gamesystem or gameworld has a pre-developed daemon which fits this (or any of the other archetypes below) you may want to use it.  But I tend to make all my stuff up.  And if it works, keep it, and give it a history, and tie it into the legends of my gameworld.

Sex - This entity is probably the force behind succubi and/or incubi visitations.  Acts of lust or blatant sexuality will trigger this influence, and prime its powers of seduction.  You may also wish to go gender-specific with it.  Make the daemon a succubus or incubus, and thus have a target gender for your affections.  In my games, the base idea behind such entities is they wish to impregnate, or be impregnated, so that they may produce a half-daemon offspring whose natural world via birth is the prime material plane and thus they cannot be banished from it.  That said, I see no reason why such an entity cannot revel in 'sex in general' and thus flirt with members of the same sex either.  If you want a player to play this seductive entity I would suggest making the host a young adult - we don't condone any pre-teen perversions here!

Violence - This entity is chaotic, barbaric, psychotic and likely bezerk to boot.  It thrives - and it thus likely to manifest - in situations where violence (or at least aggression) is present.  It will endeavour to create these situations where possible, or be attracted to and found in locales exhibiting them.  So this ranges from battlefields to bar-room brawls, but also some sporting events if reflected in your world: Jousts, bareknuckle boxing / fight clubs etc... or even combat training grounds or scenes of domestic violence.

Fire - This entity seeks out and encourages the flame.  So from bonfires to episodes of arson, this pyromanic entity will thrive whenever naked flames are present.  Thus in some cases even a candle might be enough to trigger its dominance and thus control over the host.

Love - Do all daemons have to be bad?  No. It may be fun stroke interesting to throw this one into the mix.  Perhaps as the counterpoint to sex or violence.  The love daemon thrives on genuine displays of affection.  Whether romantic love; the love between siblings; or parent and child...  or you can even extend it to other forms of love like gustatory or the love of fine art.  Either way, should add an interesting dimension to what would be without it, a faily dark and negative entourage.

Mischief - Although possibly more difficult to engage with, the idea behind this entity is a creature which thrives on practical jokes and generally causing havoc.  Accidents may be a useful trigger which can then be exploited.

Death - The obvious necromantic angle, but one which would be foolish to overlook.  This beast is there to carry you over.  It thrives on the point where life ceases to be and when consciousness drifts to the other realms (depending upon you gameworld).  This entity will thrive in exposure to death, and perhaps in areas attributed to death, like graveyards, mausoleums and charnel houses.

So now we have some basis for events which may allow, certain daemons to have a chance to become dominant, and perhaps even have bonuses to their rolls for dominance.  I'd also suggest using these archetypes to trigger ideas for special abilities.  Furthermore, when a special ability is being used, or a trigger event is being witnessed and a daemon comes into dominance, this act should be visibly signified in the host somehow.  Shadows creep around the boy when then in the presence of death and the death-daemon takes hold.  The eyes go black.  Just as they do when that daemon commits murder through the boy.  The canine fangs elongate and the boy begins to drool when the blood-daemon is present at a blood-letting.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Draw up a list of abilities, behaviours and triggers for each daemonic type.

So, how does a particular daemon exhort control over the host? Well, the way I'm thinking is a straight-forward battle of wills.  Quite simply, each 'entity' rolls the dice (I'm deliberately keeping this system-neutral in case you want to run a similar game), and the highest roll dominates.  As has been mentioned, you can add bonuses if any 'trigger events' are manifesting at the time.  You should also allow for daemons to willingly relinquish control in favour of another daemon at a particular time.  For example: the way I see this game developing is after awhile, the various 'Legion' daemons will have to start cooperating (at least for the most part) and a fairly typical party behaviour should emerge.  A constant battle for control will draw unwanted attention to the host, and in the long-run it would probably suit all parties to go unnoticed for most of the time until they can trigger some form of special event.  And to this end you need to give each daemon a specific goal - these can emerge during the game, or be present and in mind from the off.  i.e. the sex daemon's aim is to impregnate 13 women.  The death daemon's aim is to deliver 11 souls (read: kill 11 people).  And so on.  Give them objectives.

Start the game with a roll for dominance, and any time the host encounters a trigger event, give the corresponding daemon(s) a chance to take dominance.  The host passes a burning building, such a sizeable fire should give the fire daemon a bonus to take control.  The host wanders onto a battlefield, here violence and death abound, so both these daemons get a chance to take over.

I think this game has a lot of mileage in terms of creating an atmosphere of 'dubious collaboration'. And should be a lot of fun as the players attempt to develop and exploit their various triggers in search of more control in order to exact their particular agendas.

What it isn't is straight-forward.  But that should never deter anyone.

Kidnapping game...

As some of you miscreants might know, I have a penchant for coming up with unorthodox scenarios for games.  One of my favourites, which I haven't had the opportunity to run yet, is a fantasy game in which each PC is a daemon summoned by a sorcerer and all bound schizophrenically (a la Legion) to the same host body.  In this case to the body of a young boy.

So the gist of it is: one physical form, several personalities. Thus all players attempt to vie for control of the host.  Each daemon has its own triggers which may at particular times make it more powerful and more able to dominate the other daemons and control the host.  But I'm not gong to talk about that here.  That's for another post.

The game idea I want to discuss here, revolves around a kidnapping.

Now, this should be a great idea for a quick, one-off game, maybe lasting a day (perhaps two).  And shouldn't take (relatively) too much prep.

Each player plays a character who is an ex-con of some sort.  Let them within reason decide who they want to be.  With the only real caveat that they must have all spent time in the same prison.  Prison is how they know each other.  Shortly after release, they decide to commit a kidnapping to get some money.  Why they need the money should ideally be explored - comments welcome, I've only just come up with this idea.

These PCs are on the whole a pretty bad bunch, as they need to be the sort of people that would realistically commit a kidnapping, and thus inflict such a horrible experience on another human being.

The beginning of the game involves the ex-cons meeting up and discussing the initial planning of the kidnapping.  Everything is important about this phase, right down to where they are when they're first discussing the plans.  The game can then evolve into target selection, safehouse selection, whom amongst them are performing which roles.

The bulk of the work in defining the 'adventure' will be by the players.  As the GM, you'll need to know what sort of things can likely go wrong.  What sort of things can tie people together, link people to scenes, etc.  A list of these 'trigger points' should be defined prior to the game, and the GM should make notes on possible trigger points as they arise from player discussion.

There should also be a few key scenes that the GM should 'pull out of the bag' should the players' situation lead to them.  Police chases etc.  A list of these potential scenes should be defined by the GM prior to the game also - and any that may arise mid-game should also be noted.

Lastly, some of the players should have hidden agendas.  These should be worked out with a few key players beforehand, and kept very secret.

My name is Richard and I'm a roleplayer...

...tonight I have done something special.  I have announced in my hometown that I am interested in setting up an RPG group.  We'll see where this leads.  O, we'll see alright.

I've introduced people to roleplaying before, but I tend to play with a subset of the staple roleplayers I've gamed with for years.  I have never really played with strangers.  Let's give it a go.

The important elements of combat...

Okay, continuing from my last post, I - for my own benefit really - am going to list what I think the important elements of combat are, and what a good combat system should endeavour to achieve.  I still think I might be trying to reinvent the wheel, as I expect smart people have already done this, and I should just get out there and try some new game systems.  (Have I mentioned the D6 system yet?  Must try the D6 system... I've got a thing for d10s though.  Maybe I'll just read the D6 system, and turn it into the D10 system, to make use of the 126 d10s I have lying about).

So, what must a combat system cater for?

• The skill of the attacker
• The skill of the defender
• Situational modifiers like weather, position, surprise etc.
• Multiple attackers or defenders
• Speed of resolution
• Bleeding rules
• Stun rules
• KO rules
• Death rules
• The random element
• Luck of the Gods (bonuses added by the players when they need them most)
• Armour
• Targeted strikes ("I'm aiming for his legs")

Now, firstly, can all these be distilled (read: simplified) into a single roll?  Probably, yes.  (Note to self: must check out the D6 system).  But if so, how do we cater for complex mechanics like bleeding and stuns?

Okay, for the sake of exploring this notion, I'm going to go out on a limb here.  I'm itching to try a new system (D6! D6!).  And I'm liking the sound of these systems that use multiple dice.  Like.  You have six skills ranks in something, and so you roll six dice. Maybe luck of the gods, can add some extra dice into the mix.  So say you roll eight dice.  Maybe you need to get higher than a 4 to succeed, on any one of them.  For a flat skill check like climbing a wall.  But in combat damage is being dealt.  Hit points are being lost.  Extreme successes should result in criticals - criticals can be extra damage, but they can also be bleeding or stuns.  Screw this post.  I'm going in to town tomorrow and I'm going to buy the D6 system.

And I'm also going to talk to the geeks behing the desk about combat, and see if they suggest any other systems which deal with combat well.

In the meantime, I'm going to find some geeky RPG forum and ask what other people think are good combat systems.

I feel a change coming on.

Combat evolved... or maybe just overhauled

So, as you may have picked up by now. I use my own system.  But I still rely on the odd Rolemaster (RM) table.  I'm going to check out GURPS soon, and probably the D6 system, as I haven't played either of those, but in the meantime, I'm in a position to try out my new combat system.

Combat in RM is a bit too lengthy for me.  Roll d% add your combat score, subtract enemy defense bonus check table, and if that gives you a critical, roll again on the critical and check result.  I've been wanting to for some time resolve this far more quickly, and ideally with one roll.  Trouble is, there are many elements to factor in.

Also, the issue I have with RM is, even if you roll a natural 100, because you roll again on the critical table, you can roll an 01 then, and ended up with a worthless critical.  A critical in name only.  A critical that isn't a critical at all.  That is perhaps the suckingest.

So this is what I'm thinking:  after winning initiative (if appropriate) attacking player rolls d100 and adds their attack bonus (from whatever weapon they are wielding) and the enemy also rolls and adds their their defense bonus to their roll (they may also at this point parry with a portion of their attack bonus, but if they do so, they only have the remaining attack bonus, when its their turn to attack).

Also, at this point, any extra bonuses the player has, can be added to the roll.  And the GM may apply any modifiers applicable to the situation, i.e. +10 due to superior positioning, -10 due to inclement weather (have you tried duelling during heavy rain, you're certainly not at your best).

The result of this formula is directly applied to the critical table, i.e. any positive result.  The attackers roll + attack bonus + modifiers is greater than the defenders roll + defense bonus + any modifiers the result is damage done.  Also, RM's exciting 'open ended' rules apply, though modified.  If a natural 100 is rolled, the player may roll again and at that to their result too.  This is in itself open ended, i.e. if the player rolls a second natural 100, they may roll for a third time.

If the defender wins.  Their 'excess' - how many points over the attack they were - may be added to their next initiative roll.  Initiative is rolled between every bout of combat.  So combat follows the format of:

Both parties roll initiative (adding any applicable bonuses, reflexes, quick draw, etc.) whomever wins becomes the 'attacker'.

If more than one enemy is attacking a defender, the defenders roll is divided between the attackers, as they see fit.  i.e. you can choose to be more cautious and defend yourself more thoroughly against one particular attacker.

I'm going to visit my Dutch friend Joost soon.  I hope to test the system with him.  If it works, great.  If it doesn't, I'm tempted to try a far simpler system without any funky critical tables.  Back to the good old days of straight hit points and double damage.  All the detail takes place in the imagination anyway.  It's all interpretive.  I'm not sure thats even a word.  But what I mean is, over the last ten years I've moved further and further away from actual printed rules, and closer and closer to rolling dice, adding bonuses, and interpreting what has occured.  I'm not sure I even need a table to say his leg is severed.

The serpent game...

Okay, so I've had this game in the pipe for quite some time and haven't gotten around to running it yet.  I normally have at least three games on the back burner.  And by that I mean the bulk of each written so it would only take me a couple of days to get up to speed and roll one out if I need to.  But this particular game I'm going to give you the background for is one of my favourites, and I want to take this opportunity to discuss it, primarily because it underpins important concepts in preparation.  And GMing is all about preparation.  Even a good off the cuff ad lib adventure is generally only any good because the GM running it has such a previous body of work to draw upon, they can take a few memorable story lines, a few memorable characters and a few memorable scenes and just string the thing along, resurrecting previously used material, and mixing it up for a new audience.

Anyway, I, as is my want, digress... onto The Serpent Game.

This is a fantasy game set during the 3rd Age of my gameworld, when the sorcerers were rising to the height of their power (having disposed of almost all the nobles and the monarchy at the end of the 2nd Age).

Off the western coast of the principle continent, ten miles out to sea lay a large volcanic (fortunately quite stable, very dormant) chunk of fertile land which people from all sorts of backgrounds had settled on and lived in relative harmony.  The name of the island is Senjaket - which roughly translates from the tongue of its inhabitants as The Isle of Free People.  This name being a legacy from the 2nd Age when travellers first settled there seeking refuge from the draconian laws of the established monarchy present on the mainland.  Senjaket opened its arms to anyone, regardless of race or background, as long as they considered all islanders equal, and agreed to abide by their laws.

Leylines course all over my gameworld, providing sorcerers with natural arcane energy.  For the record, no leylines cross Senjaket.  The nearest node (a minor conjunction of two leylines) occurs at the Mage Tower raised from the sea roughly halfway towards the mainland shore.  It is usual for sorcerers to construct towers from which to work magick at any conjunction (crossing of leylines).

Senjaket is a sort of horseshoe shaped island, with the 'prongs' of the horseshoe pointing east. I'll sketch a little picture of it for you, when I get around to it. In the prong's of the 'horseshoe' is a natural deepwater bay, and the islanders have created a structure of wharfs and jettys to dock the many boats and ships which seek harbour there.  The island itself is predominantly rocky, with cliffs running all around it.  On the western (oceanward) side, the cliffs rise an impressive 1000 feet or more from the crashing waves and the land is quite mountainous.  Heading eastwards these mountains fall away to hills which in turn give way to dense woods as the land slopes gently down toward the bay.  Much of the centre of the island has subsequently been given over to farmsteads and the rich volcanic land is extremely fertile.  A smaller cliff of only 100 feet or so overlooks the bay, and the vast majority of the island's stone structures are built atop this cliff and project back towards the mountains forming a highway down the centre.  The cliffs overlooking the bay are also punctuated by many interconnected caves which have all been taken over and used as shops, inns, storage chambers and in some cases dwellings.  At the base of the cliffs, are myriad wooden structures, inns, brothels, warehouses, shipyards, boatfitters, fishing stores etc.  At the end of each 'prong' is a lighthouse, which serve to mark out the passage for night-time sailings.  The deep bay itself has had some defenses constructed.  Stone bars, risen by mages which almost break the surface of the water at low-tide, make entering the harbour (without prior knowledge of their locations) treacherous.

The island is self-sufficient.  Farmers grow crops and raise livestock, but the bulk of the island's wealth comes from its fishing trade.  The waters around the island are the breeding grounds for an array of different serpent species, and some naturalists come here just to observe and study them.  I based some of the concepts of this island on the Whaling community of Nantucket, after reading In the Heart of the Sea which I heartily recommend.  Its a great sourcebook for RPGs.  Like many historical works, take what works for you, warp it into your setting.  Seem original when in fact you're a terrible thief.  =)

The populace of the island are governed by a council comprised of a few nobles (literally ex-noblemen which fled during the war of the 2nd Age) and some notable members of the community, a couple of farmers, sea captains, a resident mage. The council are on the whole a pretty decent bunch.  They mete out the law via the island's enforcing militia, which are known as constables.

The island has a practise of asking every man and woman sometime between the age of 17 and 19, to spend one year as a constable.  Those that function well in the role are asked to stay on for an additional year as a special constable.  And it is hoped some will remain beyond that.

Each year the island holds a festival.  The festival, held at the beginning of summe,r marks the return of the serpents to their breeding grounds in the waters around the island.  At the end of autumn both young and mature serpents migrate south to warmer waters, returning each summer to breed.  A large contigent of the island is involved in the serpenting trade.  From boat builders to sailors and all the shops and stores that support such an industry.  Serpents are hunted on great 'serpenting' ships, mounted with massive ballistae.  Serpents caught are largely 'processed' on the vessel out at sea.  And the vast majority of each serpent has its uses.  Its flesh is sought after, and its skull contains a light viscous oil which is highly flammable.  Serpents also contain a variety of glands and organs which can be used in various medical and alchemical pursuits.  Some serpents are venomous, and the toxins of such beasts is also harvested.  Sailors may also take the fangs of serpents and turn these massive curved teeth into weapons, swords, knives and arrowheads.  Very little of a serpent is wasted, and even the remnants which are cast back into the water acts as chum, bait attracting more serpents, because like wasps, a dying serpent will release a chemical which attracts others and whips them into a frenzy.  This is particularly true of an egg-carrying female.

In the run-up to the annual Slangwha festival, the town atop the cliffs, overlooking the bay, is painted in bright colours and adorned with flowers and lanterns.  Townsfolk make costumes, the most magnificent of which are the 'slangwhadooks' literally 'paper serpents' - which are the equivalent of those chinese dragons - several people wearing a massive serpent 'puppet come costume' running and leaping through the streets.  The festival is also famous for its drummers, which sit poised, waiting to play, until the first bellow of the first male serpent calling for a mate is heard on the island, and then all the drummers begin, pounding out their rhythms on the animal skins, and there follows singing and dancing; street entertainers and of course the Slangwhadooks charging over the terraced streets and flat rooftops.

The festival attracts many mainlanders, visitors and merchants a like, with boats arriving every day for at least the preceding week.  At festival time the island hosts one of the most magnificent markets as travellers come to sample the freshest serpents around (and bring their fine wares in exchange)  because, of course, when the serpents are heard and the festival begins, serpenting boats also take to the waters.  But in those early days, when the serpents return to their breeding grounds, hunting is strictly controlled.  Only a handful of vessels take to the water and hunt.  Allowing the bulk of serpents to breed and renew their stocks.

And so it is that the game is placed against the colourful backdrop.  All the player-characters are young men and women who have been engaged in their first year as special constables.  Their job is to police the festival and keep everyone safe, as the festival attracts criminals as well as visitors and merchants.  Having provided the players with this backdrop, the game will start just prior to the first serpent bellow, and the drumming.  But it is not long after that a human scream is heard and the players find themselves investigating a gruesome murder, the first of many to come.

...(post unfinished)...

The strangest character I ever played...

I think I've mentioned before how I have a few recurring themes that crop up in a lot of my games, across a variety of genres.  And this is body-swapping, or indeed, mind/soul absorption (which is essentially body swapping turned on its head).  Body swapping is the idea that you can transfer your consciousness between bodies.  Thus you can radically change your appearance, but retain your mental (and depending on the genre), spiritual, magickal and/or psionic capabilities.  This theme has cropped up in numerous of my games, in a variety of ways.

I have even convinced other GMs to incorporate this notion into their games, to let me player a character with that kind of ability.  Perhaps the strangest of these characters was a relatively small blob of psionic jelly.  This was an example of a strange kind of alien that existed in one of my brother's sci-fi games.  Arguably the best game he ever ran (to date, I'm still hopeful he'll run another, but its been several years now).

In his game, my character, as said, was this blob of jelly.  I communicated telepathically (with limited range, a few metres).  I could change colour a bit, a kind of chameleonic ability.  And I could sludge around slowly.  I could seep through small cracks, and in fact through most porous materials...stick on walls and ceilings, but I was prone to all sorts of physical attacks.  Especially fire and acid, extreme cold and a variety of other chemicals.  Slashing, crushing and puncturing damage didn't effect me an awful lot, as I could kind of divide around the blow and then join up again.  Unless the weapon used to inflict the damage was so large it cut me in two and then swept one half of me away so I couldn't readily join up again.  I was slow moving and could form rough shapes, produce pseudopodia, little jellied tentacles with which to grasp and ensnare things.  O, and if I formed a sphere I was a little larger than a grapefruit... or a little smaller than a football.  I could also change my density a little, sink or swim.  And adjust my adhesive qualities, so I could roll like a ball if needed, or spread myself really thin over a fairly large surface area, and elastically 'ping' myself short distances.  Useful if I ever needed to jump off a tall building, as I could kind of turn myself into a sort of parachute by stretching myself into a thin sheet of jelly with dense corners which I could then tuck under and join up beneath me.  Technically, I should have also been able to make myself into a bubble, and then filter out any heavier-than-air gases, and retain any lighter-than-air gases so that I could effectively fly, or at least be blown along by the wind.  Though this I never tried.

Anyway, so that was pretty much the extent to my physical makeup.  However, I had a really neat trick.  I could 'merge' with organic, carbon-based lifeforms and spread myself throughout their bodies and inside their cells, effectively 'blending' with another creature.  In this state I could mimic organs in the host that had failed.  I could improve cellular and organ action to slightly improve the capabilities of the host.  And most importantly I can act like an internal medic repairing damaged cells, detoxifying the body and generally protecting it.  I could communicate with the host via telepathy.  And I could perform all sorts of intricate functions within the brain so I could supress the host consciousness - effectively putting the host into a trance, or a deep sleep or a coma.  In this state I could begin to slowly repair errant brain functions.

And this was my character.  Actually, this was more like my race.  My character was a psychiatrist, which used its unusual biological makeup to cure mental patients of their various illnesses.

As far as all the other players and player-characters were concerned, my character was a human pilot.  Nothing too out of the ordinary.  In actual fact, the human pilot they saw was a mass murderer and my patient, undergoing extensive 'therapy'.  I had blended with the pilot several months ago and had supressed the consciousness whilst I carried out my 'therapy' - curing him of his homicidal tendencies.

This act of consciousness supression worked well on a patient given a particular cocktail of drugs designed for the task, but in most cases, against an unwilling host, the process of attempting to dominate the host and supress the host consciousness and effectively take over the body was a difficult procedure. Virtually impossible if they were conscious at the time, as the process of osmosis took a couple of minutes during which time an active target could just run away.

So the other players thought I was a human pilot, where in fact what they saw as my character was my patient, and I was a blob of jelly within the pilot, attempting to cure him.

The game was excellent.  All the characters had intricate backstories, hidden agendas, belonged to secret societies and no one was quite who they seemed.  My blob was a pacifist - a common trait among the jelly race, and my special task was to prevent the research, design and construction of an organic weapon which could fire a psionic beam at enemy ships and kills all the organic crew within, whilst bypassing all metal, mineral or non-psionic energy structures.  So the threat was high.  A single fast fighter equipped with such a weapon could effectively take down a massive dreadnaught.  As the dreadnaught's shields would be ignored by the psion-beam.

Many of the other PCs had agendas to steal the weapon once it had been developed.  As far as I recall, I was the only character there who wanted to destroy the weapon.  One night I supressed the consciousness of my host, and ensured he was in a deep coma.  I then sludged out of his body, risking exposure and death if caught.  Lots of PCs had laser weapons which caused me a lot of damage.  I then sludged down into the soil and painfully slowly crept through the earth until I was beneath the scientist's (one of the PCs) hut.  I then seeped up through the soil and into the scientist's hut... this was all in the middle of the night by the way.  Once in the hut I sludged slowly over to the bunk where the scientist was sleeping.  And then I risked an unwilling merge.  I warmed myself up to body temperature first, so as not to wake up my target when I first touched him.  I then slowly blended with him and began the battle of wills to take over his mind.  It was a difficult task requiring many checks but I eventually succeeded.  Once within the body of the scientist I spent the next few hours (whilst most of the PCs slept and some were guarding the camp) smashing up the laboratory.  Destroying all computer equipment, and generally wrecking everything, making sure it was irrevocably ruined.
I then set fire to the place, just to be sure and left the scientist asleep whilst I exited his body and seeped once more into the earth - making my way back to where I'd left my patient, the human pilot, in a coma.  Pretty soon the scientist awoke to the smell of burning and saw his lab had been wrecked.  Needless to say he wasn't happy.

Great game.

My Key Words need trimming...

...I think I need to get rid of at least half of my Key Words. My Key Word Cloud is pretty much unusable.  What's a good limit on keywords, anyone know?

How not to handle death...

So, continuing from my last two posts, on the theme of death... -actually I should point out I've just come back from the pub so I'll lay in the apologies up front if this post goes awry- here's how not to handle death.

The following excerpt is from a MegaTraveller game played several years ago.

So the party had fought their way to the top of a ultra-high-rise building whose top few floors were above cloud level.  Barricaded in the office of an executive whom we had planned to kidnap, with extensive (and homicidal) security en route, we considered various escape plans.  It all looked pretty bad.  A rift had already begun to form between our party of four with two players pairing off against the other two.

My character had an AG harness (which essentially meant he could fly).  I did some calculations and realised the power output of the harness was sufficient enough that the device would effectively slow the descent of three people, if used only as a parachute.  And then only as a HALO jump, as it would drain its batteries rapidly.  My character also had a wall-charge, a shaped explosive device which would blow out a hole in an armoured wall.

So, with tensions rising in the high altitude penthouse office and the party divide causing as much threat to each other as the imminent threat from the security pounding up the stairs (we had killed the elevators by this time). I decided to blow a hole out of the bulletproof window.  So whilst the party was setting up for a firefight with the rapidly inbound security, I set up a timer on my wall-charge and placed it on the window behind me.  I realised the pressure at this altitude would mean we might be sucked out of the window if we stood next to it.  As the timer counted down, I grabbed hold of the executive we were supposed to kidnap, and my buddy (played by the inimitable Chris Hart).

Just before the security got to the office, the explosive went off, blowing a massive hole in the window, and the pressure differential began to suck us out.  Having hold of the executive, and my buddy - with the trust of the other two PCs drawn heavily into question, and blatant hostility coming from one - I jumped out of the window, expediting what the pressure was aiming to do anyway.  Dragging the other two with me, we plummeted through the clouds.

Having now effectively stranded the remaining two party members, the more hostile of the two took umbrage and fired out of the window at us.  Fortunately at freefall speed, we were soon enveloped in clouds and out of his sight, still we heard the gauss needles zip past us.

When ground rush began to kick in I whacked the AG on emergency full power and the harness kicked in.  It took all my strength to keep hold of the other two.  (Strength check made).

We landed in the parking lot, and as the bulk of the security was now several thousand feet above us, engaged in a firefight in the penthouse office of the exec I had just kidnapped, it was a relatively easy stroll to lead him at gunpoint to our waiting groundcar.  Thus ending that session.

Apologies for being long-winded, but that's all backstory.

The next session resumed with us (myself, my buddy, and the kidnapped exec) driving into the starport, with a view to getting the exec aboard our spaceship and blasting off.  I can't even remember why we were trying to kidnap him now.  We got to our ship only to find that the two PCs we had left behind to duke it out with the security were already  onboard the ship!  To this day I still don't know how they'd got there ahead of us.  We had freefalled out of the building and drove straight to the starport, but still they had managed to get there ahead of us.  This was my first questioning of the GM's coherence.  It just made no sense that the other two PCs could have got to the ship before us, and I thought he had done it, purely to tie up the two disparate parties.  My first warning is this: as a GM you have all the power to do whatever you want, BUT YOU MUST MAKE IT COHERENT!  Have a reason for it.  An explicable reason.  Even if you don't explain it straight away, it needs to be plausible, possible.  Events in games which defy explanation and look to the players that you threw them in just to get yourself out of a sticky situation only serve to piss players off.  PLAN EVERYTHING!  (...this is actually impossible of course) but where possible, PLAN EVERYTHING! ...or at least have escape routes / interventions that you can logically throw in.

So... there was naturally some frostiness between us (me and my buddy - with exec in tow) and the other two PCs.  Regardless, we blast off and get the hell out of orbit and into jumpspace before the security start chasing down their kidnapped exec.

I realised it was just a matter of time before the particularly hostile party member came for us, so with much deliberation I decided to jump the gun.

My character was a computer whizz (computers 6 in MegaTraveller terms). He made most computer whizz's look retarded.  And so I set about re-writing the ship's computer to vac the ship whilst we were in deep space.  What I did was set the computer to open up the bay doors (in the ships hull) and then every internal door except for my stateroom door, my buddy's stateroom door, and that of the brig where the exec was being held.  These doors would remain locked, and the ship would vac for 5 minutes before all doors were sealed again.

I had to make several checks against my computer skill to do this, but made them all.  So now we just waited (it was all on a timer).

Prior to the designated time, my buddy and I retired to our staterooms.  As an added precaution I climbed into my vac-suit too.  So I had my own air-supply, just incase something went wrong.

It was at this point that the GM finally seemed to realise we were poised to dispose of half the party (under the remit, as far as we were concerned, they would come for us sooner or later).  So at the horrifying thought that I was about to kill two other PCs, he threw a rather ill-thought-out spanner in the works.  He said an emergency alarm went off.  Now, my character with computers 6 had already made several rolls to make sure I made the necessary changes to the ship's computer to set up the vac protocol.  But somehow I had missed this final alarm.  So one minute before the vac was scheduled to take place, an alarm sounded announcing it was imminent.  WARNING! DANGER! SHIP VAC IN T-MINUS 60 SECONDS AND COUNTING.

What did the other players do?  Well the hostile one, took offense at this imminent ship-vac and pulled out his gauss rifle and shredded out stateroom doors with it.  My buddy hadn't had the foresight to don his vac-suit so was now in danger of being deprived of oxygen for the five minutes the ship would be exposed to space.  So he fled his stateroom in an effort to secure himself somewhere else.  As he left his stateroom he was shot by the hostile PC and rendered unconcious and bleeding to death.  Without rapid assistance he would die.  So having seen all this on the security monitors I had piped to my stateroom, I crept out of my stateroom and went to his assistance.  I managed to creep up on the hostile PC and shot him at point blank range in the small of the back with my shotgun.  But alas, shotguns have a low penetration, and his body armour absorbed the majority of the damage.  The hostile PC was stunned a little, but nevertheless, turned round and shot me with his gauss rifle at close range - crippling my character, rendering him immobile.  By this time the countdown was at T-minus 30 seconds and two of the party were down.  One unconcious and bleeding to death, the other conscious but immobile.  The two remaining party members knew nothing about computers, or the ship's safety systems or much else for that matter.  So they waited, 30 long and drawn-out seconds for the ship's doors to open, and all and sundry were flushed out into space.

In trying to prevent one half of the party summarily wiping out the other, the GM had shortsightedly ushered us all to our deep-space graves.  I sometimes think about that lone exec, imprisoned in our brig, on an otherwise empty ship, lost in deep space.  I guess he must have starved to death.  And probably 200 years later our ghost ship would be found by pirates, or salvagers and boarded and they'd wonder: what happened here?

But there's a warning in this tale.  As a GM if you have to think very carefully about the repercussions of your actions.  One can very easily let things get out of hand.  Like party-rifts.  And once they're in place.  Chances are PCs will start dying.  PC's after all, are generally the most dangerous things in the game.  And when such hostilities do commence, one needs, as a GM, to think very carefully about the repercussions of not just what the players want to do.  But also what you, as the GM, say are the net result of their actions.

I still believe to this day that the GM in that game put that alarm in to give the other two players a chance.  Because without it they would be without warning flushed into space.  But in doing so, set up a pattern of events which lead that game to end ubruptly, and well-short of the story mark.  None of us saw how the game was supposed to end.  None of us got much more than about half of the story.

Sometimes, as a GM you have to let PC's die.  Always you have to think ahead carefully and map out the likely results of actions.  Its kind of in the job description.

Still, a memorable ending to what was a highly enjoyable game.  It still brings a smile to my face.  In a forgotten universe somewhere, there is a ghost ship with a skeleton in its brig.  And no other crew.  And the last entry into the flight computer is a command which told the ship to vac.

If I were GM, how would I have handled things differently?

Well, sometimes its hard to avoid intra-party feuds. Thinking back, in the case of that game, the hostile party member was the root cause of numerous party feuds and PC deaths across multiple games.  It would be difficult to manage him out of most of those situations (which he seemed to enjoy), short of not inviting him to play.  (Lesson X - choose your players carefully).  That said, intra-party feuds are not always a bad thing and can result in some fantastically tense and atmospheric games.  I recall one game in particular which my brother ran, in which all seven players had hidden agendas and secret societies and all manner of subterfuge which pitted most of us against most of us.  But that's for another post.

It is my belief that the game went wrong when the other half of the party that was left stranded in the office, managed miraculously to arrive at the our spaceship ahead of us.  The feud was already underway, and could not be helped considering who was playing.  But it was the GM's decision to blur reason and have us all wind up on the ship at the same time.

With the feud in place I would be tempted to have the other half of the party pursue us.  Run a dual game with the same story now revolving around two competing half-parties.  That could have been good fun.

As a GM, once you let a feud develop to a point where a dice-roll can and may cause the death of one PC at the hands of another.  You must have something pretty special up your sleeve not to just roll with it.  Because it either smacks of GM intervention, or the PC's die.  And in this case, both.