Stop Hiding Your Numbers!

This is something I’ve learned from the Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings RPGs, both from Fantasy Flight Games.  Due to the weird dice in both of those games, the players always know the difficulty of any roll they make.  In Star Wars, it’s because the difficulty is defined by the “bad dice” that are part of the roll, while in L5R, it’s because after rolling, the player has to choose which dice to keep.  Does he want lots of bonus successes, or does he want to get a special effect using Opportunities? Is he willing to suffer a lot of Strife to succeed?

Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?

Obviously most games don’t have these fiddly bits, but I’ve noticed a few interesting things happen when the player knows the Difficulty before the roll.  First of all, it’s faster.  When looking at the weird dice in these games, most people assume it will slow down play.  It does a little for the first session or two, while people learn the symbols and how to use them.  But after that, things speed up.  A lot. The way many of us play games like D&D, a simple skill or attack roll goes like this:

“Okay, I’m attacking the Orc Chief.”

“Ok, roll it.”

“22?”

“That’s a hit.”

“Okay, for 12 damage.  How’s he looking?”

“He’s pretty hurt.”

That’s a lot of back-and-forth that doesn’t need to be there.  If the player knows the Armor Class of the Orc Chief, it goes a lot faster (and if he knows how many Hit Points it has, it goes even faster than that).

“Okay, I’m attacking the Orc Chief (rolls a 22 against AC 16, doing 12 damage).  I lunge at him with my sword, which bites into his shoulder painfully for 12 damage!  Not much out of 93, but it’s something!”

See that? The player rolls and tells you what happens.  It also leads into my next point, which is that it makes the game more narrative.  One of the most common complaints I hear from GMs is that their players don’t get into the narrative aspect of combat and die rolls.  Well, this is the easiest way to change that.  When you throw out that needless back and forth, the player can narrate the results much more easily.

It also allows the players to make more informed decisions, including realizing when they’re overmatched. Another of the most common complaints is that PCs never run from combat until it’s too late.  Of course they don’t!  They’ve been kicking ass all day, why should they run when you tell them “This guy seems tough”?  Then the fighter drops, and then the cleric who tries to heal him, and soon you have a dead party on your hands.  They players are pissed at you for throwing such a nasty monster at them, and you’re irritated that they didn’t pick up on your lame clues that they were out of their league.  If they know the creature’s AC, they know exactly their odds of hitting it, and if they know its HP, they have a rough idea of how many attacks it will take to kill it.

"So, what, like 100 Hit Points?"

Side bonus: It helps eliminate fudging the results.  We all know fudging is bad, but we do it anyway, usually in the Players’ favor. If they know the AC and HP, they ave to earn all that damage.  Hell, roll your dice in the open, and they’ll know exactly how much trouble they’re in.

Okay, let me cut off your counter-arguments right here.

“It breaks the sense of mystery!”

A couple of numbers are not a mystery.  We’re talking basic stats every creature in the game has.  Things like mind control or curses can be surprise mysteries, and you don’t have to tell the players every ability their adversaries have.

“It’s unrealistic for them to know exactly how much health a monster has.”

It’s unrealistic to represent health with a number, but we’ve all accepted that.  I’m not a very good Martial Artist, but when I’m sparing or grappling, I know immediately if I’m at a significant advantage or disadvantage.  Most RPG characters are professional warriors of one sort or another.  They’re going to know what’s what pretty damn fast.

“It breaks the immersion.”

It does the opposite.  Remember my first point?  The player tells you what happens.  They make their own roll and immediately describe the results.  Not everyone is going to be descriptive with it, but that’s more about the player.  Those who are inclined will do so.  if they know the enemy’s HP, they can even say, “I cleave the goblin’s head clean from his body.”  That’s much more fun and immersive.

I focus on Dungeons and Dragons here because it's the most popular, but I think this is a good change for basically any game. If you want to hold back a little, you can hide repetitive target numbers like Armor Class until the first attack is made, or Hit Points until the first bit of damage is dealt, but I wouldn't hide it any longer than that. Simple targets like leaping a chasm or climbing a wall should be told up front. The more informed the players are, they more fun they'll have, and the less work you have to do to feed them numerical information hidden in conversational terms.

Healing Wounds and suffering Strain

I'm not a fan of stimpacks. Really not a fan of healing potions in general, but they feel extra out-of-place in Star Wars. With that thought, I'm considering taking a page from the new L5R rpg, and allowing characters to heal themselves by taking certain actions in combat.

Essentially, you would make a Resilience roll against a difficulty of 2 (probably). Each success would heal a single Wound, though you can't reduce it below half your threshold. Advantage can be spent as usual, so you might be able to recover Strain while you're at it, or concentrate on Defense while you catch a breath.

This has the added bonus of making Resilience a much better skill. Because honestly, it hasn't come up much. Maybe at all.

On to Strain!

As it stands, if you exceed your Strain threshold, you basically pass out.

How boring.

Let's take another page from L5R, this time with the Unmask mechanic. When you exceed your Strain threshold, you can respond in several ways. Each will have some drawbacks, because it really shouldn't be a good thing, but in some cases it might actually save your bacon. I don't have mechanics worked out for any of these, they're just ideas.

First, you can retreat. In a social situation, this would basically mean you head to the punch bowl and sulk. In a combat situation, you probably turn and run. In any case, you're pretty much done contributing to the scene. You'll probably suffer Conflict for abandoning your friends and allies.

You may also decide to stand firm. This is gonna be a tough choice, and it may well mean you die taking a last stand. Your actions will not be dictated, but you'll have some fat penalties.

Finally, we pull ourselves a scene from Return of the Jedi, as Vader taunts Luke:

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side... then perhaps she will!"

I think it's safe to say that Vader rolled enough successes on his Coercion roll to push Luke over his threshold. Luke's player decides to Give in to Your Anger and lays a healthy beat-down. Taking this option will cause a lot of Conflict, and and any Crits (incoming or outgoing) will be much more severe. This is a dangerous option. You may kill your enemy, but you may also get slaughtered.

The Trial of Jason Shaw, Part 1

   Hmm... looks like my last update was almost exactly a year ago, about how rad Guild Wars 2 is. I wonder what could have possibly eaten up all my nerd time since then.  *ahem*
   So when last we left our tale, Jason Shaw found himself imprisoned for the attempted murder of a kid (just go read two episodes ago).  The followup was played a couple of months ago, so this is largely from foggy memory, but I wanna keep this up.

   Part one was the email I sent his player, to clue him in that something especially unpleasant was going on.  It reads thus:

   Your first awareness is a searing red glow hammering on your eyelids.  The ache of that glow travels along your consciousness into your head, which feels like John Henry is inside, making bets again.  A cough refocuses everything in your chest, where you’re quite certain most of your ribs are broken, and one of your lungs is exhaling more blood than air.  With effort, you manage to spit a thick clot past your lips.  Thank God for little victories.  Weary with the exertion, you begin to slip back into sweet oblivion.
     "Ah knows yer in there, Shaw.  Open yer fuckin’ eyes.”  The voice rasps into your ears.  As you decipher the words, you can’t help but wonder how a crow could live to be seventy years old after a life working in the coal mines and chain smoking cigars.  Slowly your eyes peel slightly open, and the red glow becomes a lantern, painfully bright in the darkness.  In its illumination, you can make out several men, tied to posts on the dirt floor of the barn.  The slightest attempt at movement reveals you to be similarly restrained, as well as sending a fresh wave of agony over you.  The rhythm of John Henry’s Hammer continues, as excruciating as ever, but also sounding suspiciously like the tap-tap of rain on the barn roof.
     “Atta boy,” cackles the crow again, from somewhere near the lantern.  Something about that voice is familiar, but you’re unable to place it. “Ya better have more fight in ya than that.”    You call to mind the feeling of frostbitten fingers and toes.  The wet pain in your lungs becomes the stabbing of frigid breath as you suck desperately for one more icy breath.
     A second, smaller light pulls itself from the lantern, growing slightly, slowly, revealing a small white candle, held by long pale fingers, the nails cracked and blackened.   Unseen feet shuffle through the dirt and straw as the candle bobs closer, and whispered words come unbidden from your lips.
     "He lights his way with the candlestick.”
     The shuffling stops.  “That’s right.  Very good.  You know, Shaw, I was beginning to think that after all this time, you wouldn’t remember me.”  The candle drops lower, and into its glow a face appears.  Pale and sickly, framed by uneven, greasy black hair and beard.  A thin, crooked nose perches above thin lips, which peel back into a grin of yellow and black broken teeth.  The face cocks an eyebrow of wire brush, and you look into those eyes.  Blackness.  The pupil fills those orbs, with but a tiny glimpse of yellowish white at the corners.  Staring up into that face, those eyes, your mind reels.  You’ve seen him before, but it’s as though you’re trying to grasp a forgotten dream, or a nightmare you thought you had locked away.  The smile fades.
     "Still not gettin’ it?  Ah know, ah know.  An awful lot has happened.  An’ look at you, so big and tough.  Thought you din’t need me no more, din’t ya?  Well, Jason, ah don’t hold a grudge.  We found each other again, and we can put everythin’ right.”  The man scowls. “But ya gotta remember!  You know who ah am but ya forgot!”
     He looks up, listening.  Outside you can hear the pounding of hooves, the rattle of a wagon.  That foul face turns back to you.  “You ain’t got much time, boy!  They gonna string you up!  Iffen yer lucky they give you a trial first.  You better set yer mind to rememberin’, or ah can’t help ya.”
     Voices and footsteps draw nearer to the barn.
     "Time for me to go, Shaw.”  With a quick breath, the candle is out, and for a brief moment only the distant lantern shines in the dark barn.  Then the light of early morning breaks in as the large door is pulled open and several armed men enter.  The man with the crow’s voice is gone, his still smoking candle lying at your feet.
     “That’s the one that tried to shoot my boy, Sheriff,” you hear a woman call out. 
     A stern man with a large mustache hunkers down in front of you, inspecting your wounds and countenance.   “Boy.  You’re in a whole heap o’ trouble.”

That oughta wrap up part one.  Part 2 will follow soon.

Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event Impressions

This one ain't about tabletop gaming.  Sorry for that.

Anyway, I've been looking forward to Guild Wars 2 for a long time.  Like a lot of folks, I like MMOs, but I also hate MMOs.  There were plenty of times when I had an absolute blast playing World of Warcraft with this chica and her husband, but trying to actually make those moments happen was a royal bitch, and not usually successful.  Fortune forbid we actually try and get one more person in on the action, or maybe check the Auction House on another character while waiting for someone a thousand miles away to coordinate their day with ours.  Couple that with travel times, pre-adventure prep work, clearing out your inventory, and outleveling your friends, and you spend much more time trying to play than you do playing.

Guild Wars 2 aims to fix all that, and after playing the beta this weekend, I think they may have succeeded.  Not 100%, but they've cut out a lot of the barriers.

Okay, the good news (and I guess I better bullet-point it, since there's a lot of good news):

The game is solid and good.  Aside from any other details, arguments about what should be which way, that statement stands.  It's fun, it's attractive, it's humorous (not overly), and it's not riddled with bugs.

·         No monthly fee, which is good for more reasons than me being a cheapskate.  The most important reason is that removing that $15/month eliminates most of the need for a grind.  It's still going to take a while to hit that level cap, but you're not going to, say, queue up your crafting panel to make 100 steel ingots, go have lunch, and come back before it finishes.

·         Combat is faster, and positioning makes a difference.  You still have a skill bar, but your attacks are just 1-5.  6 is your self-heal, 7 and up are utility skills.  F1 is often a special skill that you want to have readily available, but that's pretty much it.  No more of this.  You know what that is, and that is bullshit.  You can dodge, and use your fellow players for cover (suck it up, Guardian!).  In action, it still plays more like an MMO than a first-person shooter, but it doesn't have that same sort of automated feeling.  Also, there are a lot of push/pull effects, which are sadly lacking in MMOs.  I think one of my favorite combos with Earl of Preston, my human warrior (I'll be making him again for the full game, if anyone wants to be Duke of Ted) was thus:  Kick the enemy, pushing him away and knocking him over.  Then I throw my offhand sword at him, impaling him for a Bleed effect.  Then I Leap at him with my axe, closing the distance and spending my adrenaline for lots of damage.  Then I rip my sword out of him, ending the Bleed but dealing a great deal of extra pain.  FUN!

·         Travel is almost instant.  Do you REALLY need to run back to town and stash some crap in the bank before taking on the next instance?  Fine, pay your 15 copper, teleport anywhere you've been before, stash your crap, then teleport back.  You will have to sit through a loading screen, but as long as you know where you're going, you then have maybe a 10 second walk to a bank or whatever you need, then you're done.  This makes it a lot easier for groups to get together.

·         You don't have to be on the same server as your friends.  I'm told WoW has something like this now, but this was the biggest killer for me back in the day.  My friends and I were scattered across multiple servers, and... gods, you all know what that means.  It means starting over any time you realize that a friend plays the same game you do.  In GW2 you have a friends list, and you can go join them on their server as a guest, and it's just that simple.

·         Speaking of servers, there's a Server Overflow.  When the area you're in is just too crowded (as the starting areas were all weekend) you're bumped into a little side server.  Your friends can come, too.  There are still plenty of folks about, so you hang out here, playing the game, until some room opens up.  No more sitting in a queue.

·         Short-term grouping is easy.  You just stay near each other.  No more having to decide whether to work with or against someone you meet in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere.  You don't have to party up, and you don't have to share.  He hits the zombie, you hit the zombie, you both get full credit and full loot.  This approach to grouping comes in handy when scores of angry centaurs start charging a watch tower, and a dozen people rally to drive them off, reviving those who fall (did I mention that anyone can revive the fallen?)  So start spamming those AoE powers, people!

·         Level adjustment.  Let's say I'm hells of slow at leveling ('cause I am).  Let's say Robbie is hells of fast ('cause he is).  He sees I'm on and decides to come help me with kicking ass.  When he comes to my area, his effective level drops.  He still has all of his sweet powers, but he's not going to one-shot everything we see.  Also, he's earning loot and experience to match his real level.  Nice.

·         Asura.  None of the races are lame, but the Asura are awesome.  Think Dragonlance Gnomes with their weird genius and inventions, give them more magical power, ridiculous arrogance, a slightly sinister streak, and then make them that weird combination of hideous/adorable.  Kinda like Yoda in his younger days.  I found myself giggling with glee the whole time I played Gonff Mausrauber, my notorious gunslinger.  Bonus:  While playing an Asura, a key NPC in your personal story is voiced by Felicia Day.

·         No FedEx quests, and escort quests aren't BS.  I had a quest where I was helping my buddy escape from an evil Asura prison.  He was defeated on the way out.  No problem.  I walked over and revived him, and he ran out the door with me.  Go back and read that.  He died, and I didn't have to start over.  He FUCKING RAN!  Following me!  Not the plod of an old man with bad knees through quicksand that they have in every goddamn MMO I've seen!

The Not As Good News:

·         It's still an MMO.  If you just don't like MMOs at all, it's probably not for you.  If you like MMOs, but don't like a lot of the baggage, it might be for you.

·         It's a little confusing in some places.  There's still a month to go before release, and a lot of this could be solved with some tooltips or something, so hopefully this won't be as much of an issue.  But there it is.  You can start crafting right off the bat, but it's complicated and weird, and they don't really explain it to you.  That's the biggest "how does this work?" sort of issue, as the rest is introduced pretty slowly.  Hil managed alright with the opening scenario, but felt like they threw her into the deep end before she could really get a handle on her powers.

·         The big fights lead to lag.  Each opening scenario (I wouldn't call it a tutorial, see above) has a climax against a big bad mofo of a monster.  This is pretty rad, but you're often side by side with a dozen or so allies, so a lot of powers and nifty effects are flying about, and things can chug a bit.  This might just be my issue, since I'm barely hitting those system requirements.  For those interested, here's what I'm running:

AMD Athlon XP Dual Core, 2.1 GHz

3 Gigs RAM

nVidia GeForce 8600 GT, 256 megs RAM

Windows 7

·         PC only.  Luc, stop playing with your daddy's fruit box and get a real computer.

·         No World PvP.  So Luc can't stab people in the back while they're questing to ruin their day.  Maybe this should be in the "Good" heading, but I know at least one A-hole for whom this is a major selling point.

Deadlands Father's Day Special

I should probably post up the previous adventures of the Carrot Stick Heroes, as I call them, but I have enough trouble getting up the will to write this much.  Someday... someday.


Anyway, I like running holiday games.  We've had A Very Deadlands Christmas, where the posse fought the Granch at the top of mount Crumpet, and a Mexican Day of the Dead, where they took a trip to Teotehuacan and pushed an Aztec mummy down about a million stairs.  Fun stuff.  Fathers' Day being all about what I wanna do, I called in some folks and had a heartwarming family game.


Deadlands Father’s Day Special

In the previous adventure, the posse recovered the Amulet of Rahashimir from the Wailing Pit after defeating the earthen guardian and the Half-ogre, Ox.  It was in this pit that they discovered a strange glyph on the wall, though they remain unclear as to its purpose.  With night falling quickly and a storm coming in, the posse sought shelter at a nearby farmhouse.  They were met by Sherilyn Conway and her 10-year-old son, Jamie, who eyed the newcomers suspiciously.  Stella Moreau (played by my wife, Hil), being of the gentler sex and not requiring much space, was offered a bed in the house, while Father Fergus (Played by Matt), Dr. Schlear (Dagon), Jason Shaw (Luc), and Samuel Kraeger (Kiah, standing in for Brian) took the hayloft in the barn.  That is, the barn that was standing.  Another stood not far off, the roof falling in.

Late that night, Stella was awakened by footfalls outside her door.  She and some of the menfolk then heard the front door of the house shutting, and watched young Jamie sneaking out through the drizzling rain with a lantern, to the collapsing barn.  Jason Shaw slipped from the loft and followed, silent as a shadow.  He could hear the boy within the barn, speaking quietly, but could hear no response other than occasional clanks of metal.  Retrieving the other men, they knocked on the barn door, then entered.  Inside they found a nervous Jamie Conway and a great deal of rubble.  Remnants of letters, scraped away, could be seen scratched into the dirt floor.  The posse, familiar with all manner of devilry, suspected witchcraft.  Their confidence was not helped by the nervous child refusing to speak.  Father Fergus stepped forward, his staff flaring with holy light, and a large shape in the rubble lurched forward threateningly.  The whirr of a steam gatling began its ominous whistle, and Jason Shaw made a terrible blunder.

Assuming the child was directly controlling the automaton, he pointed his gun at Jamie and fired, to the horror of his companions (If I haven't pointed it out already, Luc is an asshole).  Two gunshots rang out as Jamie scrambled frantically among the rubble, then the mighty machine charged.  Its large steel claw ripped into his shoulder, bringing him low.  In a moment of panic, Sam fired his pistol at the metal man, the bullets bouncing off uselessly.  Dr. Schlear felt he had a clever idea when he grabbed the lantern from the peg on the wall, hurling it at the machine.  He failed to account for the fact that he only had one eye, and it wasn’t very good.  Nor had he spent much time throwing objects at other objects.  The lantern hit a post, and flaming oil splashed everywhere, igniting the old straw strewn everywhere.  Jamie Conway bolted from the barn, while Father Fergus called a great windstorm into the barn.  The wind whipped up the flames and the entire barn began to go up.  Everyone fled, though the automaton kept right on top of Jason, slashing away with its clawed hand.  Stella stepped from the house, carrying her “Inverted Lighting Rod.”  Seeing her companion on the ground being attacked by a metal monster, she aimed at the machine and fired.  Again, the thing’s armor proved too resilient, and the shot was ineffective.  Young Jamie, running to the house, grabbed at her weapon, screaming, “Don’t kill him!  He’s my Pa!”

Of course, in all the hubbub, little attention had been paid to the horses and wagon that had just come up the drive.  That attention was seized when the leader of the wagon team called, “There it is, boys!  Take it down!  No witnesses!”  The newcomers drew their gatling pistols and opened fire on the automaton.  The night erupted in gunfire, but the barrage did little more than pockmark the metal man’s thick plating.  Jason Shaw, however, was not so lucky.  Lacerated by the claws and taking several bullets, he collapsed in the mud.  Despite their impressive automatic pistols and their “Leave no Witnesses” attitude, the gunmen were quickly dispached, the last of them pinned to the ground under the automaton’s claw.  As the posse approached, holding up their hands peacefully to appease the furious golem, Stella Moreau noticed a great deal of fluid leaking  from the automaton.  Opening a panel on its back, the group discovered a number of guages and dials, all indicating one thing.  The Ghost Rock boiler on this machine was about to blow.  Working frantically, Dr Schlear and Stella Moreau put their scientific skills together and prevented the whole thing from going up in a fireball.
Five of the six gunmen survived the fight, and were taken captive, while an unconscious Jason Shaw was given similar treatment.  He had always been a loose cannon, but it seems the posse felt he had gone too far this time, attempting to shoot an unarmed child (yeah, ya think?).

So that’s where the group stands right now.  Five thugs from a Hellstromme Industries cleanup crew and one half-dead companion.  The tentative plan at the moment is to turn the lot of them in to the authorities on charges of attempted murder.  There are a lot of complications, though, since the automaton is legally the property of Hellstromme Industries, a rich corporation, and Jason Shaw has been part and parcel to a lot of quasi-legal activities of the group.

This should be fun.  I get to run a legal drama!

GM Sheet Follow-Up

There have been a few folks interested in modifications to the GM sheet, including one for Rippers. I've uploaded the Word documents to Google Docs, you can get the links here and here. Hack away at 'em, folks.

Cheat Sheets are a GM's Best Friend

I have a hard time spreading the love when I'm running a game. About three-quarters of the way through, I realize one player has dominated most of the spotlight, several others have had some neat moments, and one has just been quiet, making rolls when called for and little else. It also seems that quite often, the bad stuff all happens to one person. This is usually a result of bad luck, but since I think I need to get a little meaner as a GM, I need to spread the hurt around as well.

Now, add to this my desire to encourage certain types of behavior, and that's a lot of tiny little things to keep track of in my head. My head is not good at that. Usually when I run a game, I jot down some notes about the PCs. I've taken that idea a step further, added stuff I think will be helpful, and cleaned it all up into a handy GM's Character Sheet. If you just want the sheet, you can get it here. If you'd like some explanation, here's the breakdown:

The vital stats are pretty self-explanatory. The key is at the bottom. Spotlight and Ire are reminders to myself to get everyone in on the action. When someone gets a decent bit of spotlight, I'll mark it off. As the game goes on, I pay attention to who hasn't had it yet, and try to give them a moment to shine. I don't mind if some people have a bit more spotlight than others, as long as everyone gets to feel important. Ire is the same way, but it's bad news. When a character gets mauled by zombies, blows up their Weird Science device, or has some other lousy luck, I'll check that box off. Later, when I have some nasty thing to spring, and I don't know who to spring it on, I can just see who hasn't had any GM Ire.

Note that if I spring something bad on a character, and they survive unscathed, I'm still going to check off the box. Sometimes the dice hate you, but that doesn't mean the lucky guy always has to get jumped by the ghouls skulking in the shadows.

Below Spotlight and Ire are a couple more checkboxes. These are reminders of Benny awards. I want to encourage Roleplaying, Heroism, Teamwork, and Panache (that is to say, badassery). Leaping from a train onto a steam wagon to take out the banditos on it is pretty rad, and deserves a benny (before the attempt is made, so that it's more likely to succeed). Each only has one checkbox, but there's plenty of room for more checks underneath. Now I just need to remember to mention these boxes to the players, so we all know what will get bennies.

That's pretty much it. If you like it, hate it, or have ideas, there's a comment section down below. If you'd like to tweak it, make a note of that and I can post the Word document or a Google Doc, and you can go nuts. Plagiarize at will. I doubt this is where I'm gonna make my first million.