Savage Serenity Design Diary - Aye, Captain

I've decided to take up a project, or more accurately resurrect one that I'd begun some time agon.  Creating a Savage Worlds version of Serenity.

I know there's the Cortex version out there, but I really don't care for it.  And I do care for Savage Worlds.  However, I really want mechanical support for the conventions of Firefly.

If you haven't seen Firefly, stop reading my blog and go watch it right now!  It's a space western, a blend of hard sci-fi and the old west.  The quick version is that when Earth-That-Was couldn't support its people any more, they left, in search of a new system.  They found a cluster of several stars with dozens of worlds and hundreds of moons.  They terraformed them and settled.  The large central worlds had the bulk of the technology, and an Alliance between them became the dominant power.  The rim and border worlds on the frontier were poor and sparsely populated.  They tried to resist alliance control and were soundly beaten.  The grip of the Alliance is there, but still loose enough for some independent operators to make their way without anyone telling them what to do. 

That is the game I want to run, a ragtag group of people out in the Black making their way the only way they know how.  And that's just a little bit more than the Law will allow.

The first problem with running a game like this is that someone has to be the Captain.  And in my experience, just putting one PC in a position of authority over another is a recipe for disaster.  So here's how it's going to work in Savage Serenity.

During the first session, every player who wants to be Captain will present to the other players his Captain's concept, the name of his ship, and a description of their mission.  Maybe they're just like Mal, a bunch of good hearted (deep down) scoundrels who just want to be free.  Or they're a band of Browncoats, wanting to strike out at the Alliance.  Or a crew of Bounty Hunters, trying to make their fortune hunting dangerous criminals.  Every player votes for the Captain they want to sign up with.  Once that's decided, we then make the characters.

There's a little more to the Captain.  He'll have to take the Captain edge of course, which gives him a small Firefly-class transport ship.  If he takes any of the Leadership edges, he can apply their bonuses to his crew so long as they're following orders as well.  For the Crew, there's a new rule that is intended to defuse a situation.  If a player clearly disagrees with the Captain but he conceded 'Aye Captain' rather than arguing about it, he'll earn a Benny.  If the Captain works with his crew well and spends the entire session without needing to invoke 'Aye Captain', the Captain will receive an additional Benny at the start of the next session.

That's the basics of Captaining that I have down.  I'm contemplating imposing a -2 penalty to social rolls regarding jobs or the ship if anyone except the Captain tries to do it.  It will reinforce the role, and most people are going to want to deal with the Captain personally, not one of his crewmembers.

I still have a lot of work to do.  I have some ideas for keeping track of the food, drugs, fuel, and parts that a ship needs to keep flying.  There are stats to create for Alliance soldiers, Reavers, and all sorts of scoundrels.  I've done a lot as well, rules for creating Pilots and Mechanics as well as other ship roles, Edges and Hindrances made for Serenity, and skill clarifications.  I'll be posting about them soon, so if you're interested stay tuned!

"Mature" Gaming

It strikes me as funny that oftentimes when something says it is "Mature", it means there's going to be gratuitous sex, nudity, violence, and other subjects that are not appropriate for children.  Yet especially in gaming, it also means that these subjects will be handled in the most immature fashion possible.  I chose the image for this post because it is an excellent example of sexuality for the sake of sexuality, pure titillation with no real reflection on the material contained within.

This isn't an attack on Exalted, nearly every gaming company has been guilty of pumping out cheesecake from time to time.  I'm not really concerned with these images making otherwise appropriate games inappropriate for younger players, or turning off female players.  Those can certainly be real issues, but here I want to address one aspect of this problem.  Sexuality can indeed be a powerful tool to make for great games.

Many people are no doubt cringing at this thought.  We gather together with friends to have adventures and create fun stories in this hobby, and most of us don't relish the thought of roleplaying out flirtations at the table, or worse someone giving a blow-by-blow of an encounter.  You don't need rules here, like the laughable Book of Erotic Fantasy that has equipment lists of sex toys and special character classes for prostitutes.  That isn't something I'm interested in.

What I am interested in is conflict, as you'll know if you've read this blog or gamed with me.  Sex can bring about a lot of conflict and make for some interesting stories.  But we don't want it to devolve into creepsville.  So how can we get some good conflict and story out of a sex or love based subplot and keep it from being creepy?

I read something on a forum for writers one time, and I think it applies here.  "Never let two of your characters sleep together unless one of them has a jealous lover."  Obviously with RPGs we don't 'let' our characters do anything.  But the principle still stands.  Bob really likes Alice, but she's with Dave.  Bob might try to convince Alice to leave Dave, or try some plot to make Dave look like a jerk.  Dave might get wind of this and punch Bob in the face.  Carol might see all this and decide Bob is a great guy and try to help him get Alice, even though she really likes him.

The point is that all this is interesting and could be great fodder for a game.  Bob's player awkwardly flirting with the GM is not, nor is a description of Bob having sex with Alice.  Consider that much of flirting is body language anyway, and don't bring too much of it to the table.  A little bit goes a long way.  As for graphic scenes, a simple fade to black is sufficient.

Once you get into the fantasy realm most of our games take place in, you can use the conventions of the genre to still get the same kind of stories without going all graphic.  In my current World of Darkness game, the vampire PC met a vampire fan.  He let her feed from him, making her a ghoul and blood bonded to him.  This isn't a free NPC extra character though.  The ghoul behaves exactly like a crazy, clingy partner.  She's no doubt in love with him, but that doesn't mean she doesn't cause problems.  She demands to know where he was, pops up at the wrong time, and generally makes the PC's life difficult.  He puts up with it not only for the daytime help but because she lets him feed when he needs it.  It works wonderfully and she's been one of my favorite monkey wrenches.

I also think this works best if the player in question is interested in the plotline.  Don't try to force it, but if a romance comes up it can be a great opportunity to introduce drama and conflict into the character's life.  If they aren't interested in that sort of story, so be it.  There are plenty of other sources of drama.

Actor vs Author

Roleplaying games are funny things.  Two people can both play roleplaying games, and it would seem they share the same hobby.  They gather with friends and use rules to create stories.  But depending on how they look at the game and their role in it they can have vastly different preferences and experiences, and in fact would likely not enjoy each others games very much.  This isn't a bad thing, and doesn't mean that one is playing right and the other wrong.  One area of difference that often goes unspoken is whether they look at themselves as an Actor or an Author.

A vast majority of articles on RPGs have to do with being  GM.  And its a hard, intimidating job that is essential to the hobby.  This one is about players, and how understanding what you want out of a game and how you look at gaming is an important part of that.  It's important for GMs as well, because you want to know your players.  Odds are, you've got a little of both.

Actors enjoy the game through roleplaying another person, often in dangerous or fantastic situations.  Background and history are important to them, as they give them a guideline to who this fictional person is and what decisions they would make.  Internal consistency is vital as well.  If the game world doesn't make sense and have context its harder for them to understand both their character and the larger world they live in.  To an Actor, the primary question they ask when faced with a difficult choice is "What would my character do?"

Authors, on the other hand, don't put as much into their individual character as they do the story that is created.  They need to know about the concepts and genre the game is based on, what kinds of conflicts the GM intends to introduce, and how the other characters relate to them.  Their primary question is 'What would make for a cool story?", regardless of how much sense it makes for the character.  People do nonsensical things all the time, and to an Author creating a fun, memorable story is more important that sticking to a consistent character.

Even the same decision could come about from these different stances.  Let's imagine John the Actor and Dave the Author both have characters in a game.  They have traveled through dangerous lands and fought their way to the Overlord's castle.  The overlord explains that he sent his armies because the ancient laws mandate that he should be king, and the current nobility disregard his claim.   John's character has long kept to the old laws, and followed them to the letter.  He decides to join with the overlord, against his companion's wishes.  To John, he is simply being true to his character.  Dave also decides to side with the Overlord.  His character doesn't care anything for the ancient laws, but he thinks if two of them decide the Overlord is right it would make for a cooler story.  The two of them either have to convince the rest of the party of his claim, agree to back down, or some other conflict.

Understanding yourself, and your players, can reduce the conflict a group sees.  It also reflects what kind of mechanics each player will likely enjoy.  Actors will be more likely to enjoy systems with a solid mechanical grounding, where the rules reflect a fantasy world laws of physics, such as GURPS or D&D 3rd Edition.  Authors tend to favor systems with metagame mechanics such as FATE or Savage Worlds.  Both of these have special points that can be spent to provide plot immunity or introduction of plot twists by players.  Most systems can accommodate both.

So where do you stand?  Actor or Author?

What 4th Edition Does Right

If you've been reading this blog, you might conclude that I'm a drama craving story fiend.  And you'd be right.  You might also conclude that 4th edition D&D is not something I would be too interested in.  That isn't true.  While D&D is more hack and slashy than I tend to prefer, there are some things that I think they did right.  And in the right hands, the rules can give a drama and conflict guy like me some fun tools to play with.

So what do I like so much?  See, I'm not much of a D&D fan these days.  Don't get me wrong, its the granddaddy of them all and the Lingua Franca of the gaming world.  I've just played so much over the years that orcs, elves, and potions of healing are old hat.  If I'm going to do something fantasy, I want to do something different.

I happen to think 4e is a poor choice for a traditional dungeon crawl.  The fights take too long to resolve, so that completing a dungeon would take ages.  However, the fights are also fun, and I like fun.  I prefer not to look at it as a dungeon crawl, multiple fights in a session game, but a system that will provide for a big dramatic fight at the climax.  If you use the DDI tools, whipping up encounters on the fly is easy as cake, which matches my style well.

There's also the dissasociated mechanics, which is a big plus in my book.  All mechanics are disassociated, its just that some games try not to admit it.  Healing surges are a great example, and are nothing more than a way to meter out hit points rather than one big pile of them.  Action points are another.  The game lends itself very well to reskinning.  Classes are all about how your character deals with combat, and its no trouble at all to change the trappings around.

I like the reduced skill list as well.  One thing I didn't care for were all the separate skills in 3.x.  Spot, Listen, AND Notice?  I need three different 'notice shit' scores?  Climb, Jump, Tumbling, and Swim?  The bad part is that 99% of the time if you made a character with one you would take them all, and keep them maxed out as well.  The changes to trained/untrained and smaller list did what all the mucking about with skill points achieved for almost all 3.x characters.

Skill Challenges are an interesting idea.  I use the Obsidian Skill Challenge alternative, which is a little more satisfactory.  They aren't fundamentally different from an extended action in success level systems, though the real innovation is stake setting.  If you do this well, this happens, or if you fail that happens.  The idea of allowing characters to use different skills on the same resolution is interesting as well, and has application in a lot of other games.

The other thing I really like is the famous Page 42.  Some have criticized the game for being too constraining, that if an action isn't a power then it isn't worth doing.  To fix this you need a strong dose of Page 42.  This page in the DMG has a chart of default damage ranges and difficulty numbers to use as a rule of thumb for thinking outside the box.  I use it liberally, and think the next time I run a 4e game I'll print out some extra action cards that say At-Will, Do Something Crazy!  See Page 42!  You want to leg sweep the goblin?  Crash through a window to surprise the guild master?  Throw your cloak over the bad guy's eyes?  We'll figure it out.

However, the game is lacking in personality definition.  This isn't something new, but universal to D&D.  When I make a D&D character, of any edition, I feel like I know very well what this character can do, but nearly no idea of who they are.  I generally use a Dread style questionnaire, each list customized to the character.  But then I've been doing that for every game I run lately that isn't a one-shot.

I'm sure someone will want to debate me in the comments, nothing brings out disagreement like different versions of D&D.  To me, I like that it has a fun tactical game and outside of that is pretty rules light and freeform.  It isn't my one and only and I don't play it that often, but they got enough things right to keep me interested in it.  I'd love a chance to play more often.

Dread: Great Game or Greatest Game

I've talked about gaming in general, today I want to get specific.  Dread is an "indie" RPG.  The book is short and the gameplay is simple, but it has innovative mechanics that make it one of the best one-shot games I've ever played.

Rather than dice or other randomizers, the game uses a Jenga tower (or any stacking block game, but most people use Jenga).  The tower is stacked in the middle of the table and represents the only real game mechanics.

The game is intended for horror and survival type games.  The rules are simple.  When your character wants to do something risky or uncertain, the GM will have you pull one or more blocks.  If you pull and set the blocks back on top, you succeed.  If you refuse to pull or change your mind, you fail.  If you knock the tower over, game over for you.  Your character will be stabbed in the face as the killer jumps out of nowhere, or collapse from a fatal heart attack from the fright, or go running off screaming into the night.  The details are up to the GM to come up with, but the end result is the same.  You're out of the game.  The tower is rebuilt (with some blocks removed), and the game continues.

This is interesting mechanically because it is essentially resource management.  There are a number of blocks that can be safely pulled, and after that doing a pull becomes more and more risky.  Further, this is a shared resource.  Everyone pulls from the same tower.  Early in the game, pulls are easy so most players are willing to take risks.  As the game goes on, the pulls become more intense as everyone waits to see if someone will finally bite the dust.  Essentially you are rewarded for acting early in the game, and punished for acting later.  Our first game of Dread ended with the killer knocked down and the tower ready to fall.  They wanted to tie him up and walk back to town, and I told them I needed a pull to get close enough to do it.  One by one each player poked and prodded at the tower, deciding that they couldn't make a pull.  In game, this translated to the group of college students standing around the killer, none of them able to get up the nerve to tie him up.  Ultimately, they chose to murder him in cold blood rather than get close enough to do what they all agreed was 'the right thing.'

The tower gets all the attention, but there's a second part to the game I feel is almost as important.  The Questionnaire.  Character generation in Dread is pretty simple.  The GM will have prepared some archetypes with a list of questions.  In a game where a group of college kids is spending the weekend at a remote cabin, you might be able to choose from The Fratboy, The Computer Nerd, The Cheerleader, and so on.  Each will have 13 questions to be answered essay style.  The questions can be straightforward but the ones that work best are leading, such as "Why did you tell (other character) that you couldn't study last week, even though you had nothing going on?", "Are you going to tell (other character), your boyfriend, that you cheated on him?", or "Even though everyone heard you tell (NPC that is now dead) that you wanted to kill them, why should they believe that you're innocent?"

The Questionnaire serves a couple of purposes.  First, it allows the GM to set up a situation for story.  He can put in questions that will drive conflict between characters, or ones that will get the character invested in the scenario.  He can even mine them for ideas.  I ran a Christmas game about a dysfunctional family's Christmas dinner, and while I liked the concept I didn't have an idea for an antagonist.  So I asked everyone "Who do you think is trying to kill you?" and took the best one.

The other purpose is that it quickly get the player invested in the character.  The Questionnaire helps bring a character to life, even if its one that you're only going to be playing for a few hours.  The times I've played it certainly felt like a character I've had for a lot longer, and can often set up relationships between characters.

If you want to try Dread you can buy it here.  You might be thinking that if the rules are so simple you don't need a book.  Truthfully, its not a game you refer to the book a lot.  But I recommend it to everyone.  It has three good premade episodes in it, as well as great advice for running a horror game of any kind.

Dread is a great game in general, and for running one-shot or con games, it is the Greatest Game.

Next post, I'll be talking about what Dread has to do with 4th Edition D&D.  :)

Law & Order: RPG

 In the Roleplaying Game System, the game is played by two separate, yet equally important groups.  The GMs who set the stage, and the Players who decide the course of action.  These are their stories.

What does Law & Order have to do with gaming?  Pacing.  Pacing refers to the speed of plot, how fast actions unfold or take to resolve.  A fast paced game goes from scene to scene, while a slow paced game builds its action to an exciting climax.

The key to any good story is conflict.  One character wants something very badly, and another stands in their way.  Combat, even in the most hack and slash game, is a perfect example.  Your heroes are exploring a mysterious cave, and a band of foul orcs appears.  The orcs want the PCs to die.  The PCs want to not die.  This is a very basic conflict (and runs afoul of deciding a course of action for the PCs), but  it works.  Other conflicts are not so clear cut, but they drive story in the same way.  Maybe this is the orcs' traditional territory, and the PCs are invaders.  Maybe the orcs work for some other agent.  This opens up more possibilities, but the essence is the same.  These orcs present a problem, and one that we need to address.

And more than one conflict can go on at a time.  Maybe the Bard knows this tribe's history, and if an accord can be reached he's convinced they'll honor it.  But the Ranger's brother was killed by orcs and he's out for revenge.  Now we have a conflict between characters.  Or perhaps there's a couple of factions back at the human castle.  The Duke wants them killed off or driven out, but the Castellan says that if peace could be made his Lord would listen and they could be a powerful ally.  Maybe the orcs aren't raiding out of maliciousness, but a band of ogres has displaced them.  Maybe the PCs should go after the ogres.  But will the orcs return to their old territory?  You can get a lot of story by changing the focus from "can I kill the bad guys" to "What happens if I kill these guys" or "What if I don't kill these guys".

So what does all this have to do with Law & Order?  Good pacing allows you to focus on these conflicts.  In the TV show, they have the Doink Doink.  There's a crime scene, a prostitute was stabbed in an alley, a patrolman finding the body.  Doink Doink.  Benson and Stabler have arrived on the scene, questioning the other prostitutes.  One of them said there was a customer that was giving her a hard time last night, and they took down his license plate number.  Doink Doink.  The detectives are knocking on the guy's door, wanting to ask him some questions.

It doesn't show you Benson and Stabler getting the call, getting to their car, and driving across town.  The Doink Doink takes care of all that.  It cuts to the next interesting scene where some conflict plays out.  Too often games can get bogged down in minutia.  If what is going on doesn't introduce, explore, or resolve a conflict, you are wasting time.  Cut to the chase, get on with it.

That being said, that doesn't mean the pace should always be breakneck.  It might, if you're running a pulp adventure or action movie style game.  Other games benefit from a slower pace, but that doesn't mean the Doink Doink won't help.  In a horror game for instance, building up tension is very important.  It leads to other tools.  Investigation benefits greatly, after all the tool came from a criminal show!  Slowly give them pieces of the puzzle, and if they want to look into something else, cut right on over.

This style of game benefits greatly from running on the fly.  Like my friend muutus once said, you can have a great game even if the characters decide they aren't interested in the current goings-on and all want to go to a bar.  Fine by me.  Just introduce a conflict at the bar.  Maybe they run into one of the big bad's henchmen.  Or there's some other conflict you can play on.  If a character is shy and bumbling, having a girl hit on him can be great fun.  If a character is a tough guy, have some drunk get in his face.  See if he'll throw down in a bar, risking injury and arrest.  If they want to go to the bar, that's great - throw some conflict at them and have fun!

...And I Punch Him In The Face!

 A reader comment to yesterday's blog brought part of the problem of running a story-oriented game to light.

"I agree that the story is the thing...but it seems like no matter how I craft a story the reaction from the "story craving PCs" is invariably, "I punch this guy in the face while he's monologuing!!""

I'm sure we've all been there.  You want to tell an epic story, the kind your players will pump their fists and cheer when it's all done, but they don't seem to care.  Their eyes glaze over when the sage talks about the ancient history of his people, they can't remember the name of the guy they're supposed to get the thing from, and when the villain is giving his speech during the big climax, one of them says 'I punch him in the face while he's talking!'

What's wrong with these players?  Even in the given example, they say they want story but they aren't reacting well.  The problem is that they don't want your story, they want their story.  Your job as GM is not to tell a story, but to set up an environment where they can create a story.

So why punch him in the head?  Well, the player might be a jerk but I'll assume that you're playing with friends and your friends aren't jerks.  I would suspect the cause would be that the player feels he is going to have to fight the Big Bad Evil Guy.  Therefore, what the guy says is unimportant, and he might even take him unawares.  The guy is Evil with a capital E, so he's going to need killing one way or another.  This common setup in RPGs presumes an outcome from a scene, which is where the problem starts.

The way I run games, I don't like to have too many assumptions about what is going to happen.  I provide the PCs with a situation, and leave it to them to resolve.  There are certainly adversaries, but rarely are they Capital E Evil.  They have an agenda that conflicts with the PCs or that the PCs finds objectionable.  They might face them down in mortal combat.  They might trick or manipulate him into giving up his agenda, or promise him something in exchange.  Or do any number of things.

The trick to running a game like this is to be willing to trust yourself.  You have to let go of writing pages of notes and plans and contingency plans.  If you find yourself writing 'if the PCs do this, that, but if they do that, this other thing' stop.  You are second guessing your players.  Just set up the situation, the characters involved, and play it out by the seat of your pants.  They will likely come up with something you would never have thought of anyway, so don't worry about it.

I will note that this is easier in some systems than in others.  For this to work, you need to have a system that is easy to run on the fly.  If your system of choice doesn't have good mook rules, make some up.  You'll need them.  And if you're playing something complicated, know it well enough to fake your way through a stat block.  I did this many times in 3e D&D.  I knew the system well enough to eyeball a BAB, damage bonus, and hit points.  Anything else I'd make up on the spot.  Feats, ability scores, spells, you name it.  Your players will never notice, I promise.

There's a lot more to this, naturally.  One of the reasons I started this blog was to analyze what it is I do in gaming and try to explain it all.  Hope some of you are interested to read it.  :)