Why I like P&P so much...

P&P is the generic term I apply to Pen & Paper roleplaying games.  Like Dungeons & Dragons et al.  For the record - and perhaps because it will provide you with some kind of vague insight into my character - I cut my RPG teeth on D&D.  I started roleplaying at the tender age of 10, with Basic Dungeons & Dragons.  Subsequently I played Expert D&D, AD&D to second edition.  And then in no particular order: MERP, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Dark Space, Call of Cthulhu, Shadow Run, Paranoia, Toon, Cyberspace, and a bunch of others I can no longer quite remember.

But for me, P&P is all about the narrative, the atmosphere, the story, the freedom you provide the players to do (or attempt) whatever they wish.  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

And it is for those reasons that I now use my own game system.  It is very loosely based on Rolemaster, just because IMHO RM delivers the most encompassing, and in my experience flexible system across multiple genres.  (I have never played GURPS).

Anyway, my gamesystem bears little resemblance to RM these days, I still use a few basic RM tables, but I have essentially distilled RM's (and its genre variants) 1000s of pages into a handful of tables (predominantly combat orientated).

More importantly what I have done is created a world (to focus purely on my Fantasy exploits) with a history that now covers six Ages.  A change in Age being a significant event which shifts the world in a new direction.

My, that was a long and largely unnecessary introduction to this: Why I like P&P so much...

No other form of entertainment provides such a collaboration between auteur and audience.

P&P sessions have provided me (and hopefully my players) with some of the most memorable scenes and experiences ever.  I can look back and recall numerous instances of high adventure, tension, humour, excitement and disaster that have been delivered by P&P which easily rate among the best books I've read, films I've scene, video games I've played, etc.  And made all the more potent because I was either playing in those games, or (more typically) was GMing them.

One of the things I hope to achieve with this blog is to give you some insight into the techniques I employ to deliver those moments.  Some of which will be by illustrating specific elements I have used (like the Oneironaut pendant).  And some will be by discussing what I have learnt form other games, what works well, what doesn't work so well.  And much of it will be at a meta level of game design.  i.e. no specific events, or elements, but general 'best practices'.

Though one should always bear in mind:  no matter how grandiose I might sound from time to time, the one over-riding caveat to all this is that it is very much IMHO.

Architecture Scrolls & The Oneironautic Pendant

Okay, so I really should start with an explanation of how I handle magic in my P&P games.  But I'm not going to.  That's for another post in its own right.  But just so as you know, it isn't your standard fare.

Two magic items that I have featured in numerous games, but which have never been used (much to my frustration) by any of my players are Architecture Scrolls, and The Oneironautic Pendant.

Architecture Scrolls are a very basic idea, but with a potentially very interesting application.  Basically, Architecture Scrolls allow the user to create passageways, rooms, chambers, traps, stairways, essentially all the features of dungeons (and some special features too, like subterranean forests and the like). This provides players with the opportunity to effectively magically and pretty much instantly create their own dungeon environment (a la Dungeon Keeper classic video game, which I belief inspired me, though its hard to recall precisely that far back.  But there is some bleed over the other way, video to P&P, credit where credit's due).

My original intention was to enable players to create their own subterranean lair, and provide for a kind of reversal of fortunes, having NPCs try to invade their dungeon, rather than the other way around.  When I get around to posting more of my P&P ideas, you'll notice I have a predeliction for turning standard concepts on their heads, because in my experience, such simple notions can indeed create the framework for some great situations and some highly enjoyable games.

But as I thought more upon these scrolls I realised also that a canny player might use them to break into an existing dungeon and circumnavigate certain elements or features.

So you can imagine my disappointment that, despite having included these items in at least half a dozen of my games over the last decade, not one player or party has yet to make use of them.  Partly my fault I suppose for not setting the right conditions.  But partly theirs for being pack rats and hanging on to every single one-shot item in case they can find a more appropriate use for it at some undisclosed event in the future.

The next item is far more subtle, and also dates back about a decade or more.  I considered a pendant (it has always appeared as pendant in my games, though its form is largely irrelevant).  I considered a pendant bestowed upon its wearer the ability to appear as a character in a target's dream.  The limitations on what a target was (had to be known to the wearer, or had to been previously touched, blah, whatever) varied from game to game, but the essentials remained the same.  Many of my magic items develop in power, so what players believe they do in the firstplace, may not, and generally isn't, the full extent of their power.

Oneironaut, by the way, comes from the Greek, and means Dream Voyager, so quite fitting, though to imbed the item firmly in the mileau of my gameworld (I've been developing the same one since I was about 17) I tend not to call in that in the actual game, but make up a name from a fantasy language that translated means roughly the same.

So this pendant to begin with bestows the power to enter another's dream.  This in itself is an interesting concept I think.  And could be used in all sorts of ways:  i.e. to give someone nightmares, to prior influence someone's reaction to you, either favourably or otherwise.  To appear as an omen to someone, only to rock up in the flesh a day or week or month later.  All sorts of cool shit.

But as the Oneironaut uses the item more and more, they begin to realise that they can control and modify more and more aspects of another's dream, until they become dream architects, constructing the entire dream reality for the target.

What I like about this concept is that it temporarily turns the table on the usual player-GM dynamic.  Enabling players the chance to, for a facet of the game at least, create a situation - and have me as the GM, playing an NPC (that's Non Player Character for you non P&Pers... though why the hell you would have read this far if you need NPC explaining is beyond me) forced to react to that situation, essentially turning the dynamic on its head.  Trend as previously mentioned.

This concept has always enthralled me.  But again, I'll be buggered if any player has ever done anything with it!

Anyway, posts to come, just to whet (as in sharpen) your appetites:  How I handle magic, and a brief history of magic in my games.

pilch out (and off to bed, after I've had a slug of celebratory calvados).  Yeehar!

Games I have played recently....

The Witcher
Assassins Creed II
just about to start Bioshock

...yes I know these are all old (well oldish) games, but I'm catching up on some classics that passed me by whilst I had my head in the sand.

I'll give the lowdown on what I thought about the first two soon enough.  But for my next post I'm going to talk you through a couple more classic magic items which have featured in numerous P&P games I've run over the years.  I started this blog with a post about The Homunculus Jar.  And this next post will be adding to that subject... (i.e. magic items for P&P games).

O, and in case you didn't know, had forgotten, or are deluded... P&P is still the best gaming experience you can ever imagine.  Don't get me wrong, I love video games, but P&P is the heart and soul of the gaming process.  This is a universal truth.  Make no mistake.

So the good news is...

...I presented to a potential investor this morning, and he's agreed to put £50k into my business.  This is very good news.  And despite what you may be thinking is on-message, because my business is developing video games.  Small ones at first, just to showcase my concept.  From tiny acorns and all that....

Be back soon...

...I meant about two years later. Yes, its a cosmic timescale I work to. Anyway. Despite this blog allegedly being about P&P roleplaying, it is also going to be about games design, and some deconstruction of video games. I'll probably end up changing the title again. But I'll leave it as it is for now, just to mislead you all.

O, just for the record, I haven't played WoW in months. Just can't bring myself to waste my time on a game whose endgame is so gimped. I mean, I really don't want to spend 5 hours trawling through a 25-man raid along with five other mages, on the off-chance that a boss drops the one item I'm so desperately after - the only item I need to improve my character - just for another mage to roll higher than me. Not my idea of fun. And a fatal flaw in game design, revealed by the fact that I, and several of my previous WoW-playing friends have all stopped playing because of this one mechanism.

I would go as far to say that any game that requires you to do the same thing over and over again, and restricts your play to having to do just one thing as a route to get one particular facet of advancement is making a mistake.

I don't mind that, Such-And-Such A Wand Of Terrible Doom only drops from Flaming Dave Doomhead. But there should be another wand of the same power obtainable elsewhere.

But hell, don't get me started on WoW's flaws, I need to go to bed, its been a long day, and that is the subject of another post.

I only really rocked up here today to announce two things. I'm switching this blog back on. And I'm going to commit to it.

There I said it.

pilch out

A while since my last post...

...I know, I know...

But I'm in a quandry you see. I'm in the process of getting funding for a start-up... or at least putting the initial elements down on paper in order to build a business plan.

So things have been pretty busy.

Be back soon.

Name change!

This is fairly typical of me. But I was never happy with the name I chose for this blog when I first set it up. So I've now changed it. But for how long?

It's been a cutler-three days since I last posted. But coming today... a bunch of thoughts I had whilst playing Hellgate. Bet you can't wait.

What's the point of it all?

I'll be trying to achieve two things with this blog. Firstly, I'll be critiquing games I'm playing or have played, and as a result of that I will then be positing ideas for improvement.

I'll also be doing a third thing, which is talking generally about ideas I have for games.

So for my next post I'll be taking a closer look at Hellgate.

Bye for now.

Mission trees - cause & effect

I've been talking a lot about mission design recently. And I know I'm setting myself up for an example. Don't worry, it's coming. I'll post in the near future a whole mission tree showing how missions should lead on from one another, and how mission success and failure should present different possibilities to the player.

And I'll also illustrate how these mission trees can be generated with a degree of randomness, so that a whole army of mission scriptors need not be employed by games companies.

I'll reveal all, soon.

More on missions...

The thing is, with game design, the more you can create an atmosphere of interaction with the gameworld, the more enthralling the game will be. The more the players will feel like they are directly contributing to the greater outcome.

For MMOs I would say this is essential.

Hellgate doesn't really achieve this. The single player storyline is fairly typical, ultimately contrived, presents no real opportunity of failure and offers a railroaded principle mission stream.

The only vague surprise is Murmur's acquisition of dark power at the end. The game would have been so much more if the missions you achieved or failed altered the necessary direction you could take.

Imagine if one of the arrogant NPCs turned against you, because of your success? But wouldn't turn against you if you failed one of their missions? Just mocked you instead.

That would work well.

Essentially what I'm talking about here is greater degree of cause and effect in missions.

Something I wanted from the GTA3s, is a greater degree of public response to my actions within the gameworld. I'll give you an example. If I kill twenty or more of a particular type of citizen, it would be great to hear a news flash on the radio warning citizens of Liberty City that a serial killer is on the loose targeting whichever type you killed.

The technology is there already, the police radio says things like 'last seen driving eastbound in a blue...' whatever. And this works really well, giving the player an impression that they are interacting with a real living city. My message to Rockstar North: Do it more. Do it more.