Using Google+ Circles for Play by Post Style Game

There have been a lot of people talking about using Google+ functions as a means to run a roleplaying game.  Up until now, the most popular method, that I have heard of, has to be using the hangout ability to run a video-chat style game.  This kind of works like running Skype video chat, but with Google+.  I haven't had a chance to use the hangout ability of Google+ yet, but I hope to try it out soon.

However, I have started up a game of L5R with a few people from Twitter and a few from Google+.  We are experimenting with a game using the Circle functionality to try and run a pure PbP style game.  We'll see how it works out, but right now, here is basically how we are working it, and also what we are hoping to see with Google+ in the future that would make it work perfectly.

Each of the players in the group has set up an L5R Campaign Group Circle.  When I want a post to go out that is only relevant to the people in that game, I post it to that circle.  People who aren't playing in the game don't see these game related posts.  Easy enough.  Right?

Also, with the Google+ alert function, I can see when players have responded to a game post very easily.  If I'm on Gmail or using my reader, then things are very simple to just slide up to the G+ toolbar and respond to game posts quickly and easily.

The problem with this style of game using G+ right now is that when I want to browse my L5R Campaign Circle posts, then unfortunately, I also have to browse through all the non-game related posts by the members of the game (unless those other players are not sharing anything with me that is not game related).  The Circle function does not yet have a tag function, which would allow me to only view posts in that circle which are relevant to our game.

What we basically want is a way to tag all of our posts with #L5R; then, we want the ability, when we make our Circle, to only view posts from X people who make posts tagged with #L5R.  This essentially works like a reverse sharing function.  If that were installed, this PbP would be sooooooooo easy and very, very awesome.  As it stands right now, I still like it a lot.

Why Mix RPG Genres?

This month’s theme for the RPG Blogger Carnival is Mixing Genres. This month’s carnival is being hosted by… oh wait… I’m hosting the Carnival this month… damn. I really should have gotten these posts done earlier. This month has been a bit rough for me, but I’m going to plug ahead and try to get at least a few of my thoughts on this subject out there.

One of the first things that I ask myself when I think about mixing genres for a game is: why? Why are you doing this? You’re just going to make things harder on yourself. You have enough to do as it is. Do you really think you can pull it off?? Ok. That’s not exactly what I think about, but the “why?” question is a good one. To be a bit more precise, what you should be asking yourself is: “What effect are you trying to accomplish by mixing two or more genres together?” Basically, I think the reasons for genre mixing are as follows:

Just for Kicks
I really like mixing genres simply for the sake of doing it and having fun. Sometimes mixing two totally different, and wildly opposing genres together can be a total blast and really make for some fun gaming. It might not last very long as a campaign, and the effect of the game might wear off more quickly, but sometimes combining something like the Wild Wild West with Survival Horror can be quite enjoyable and really make for an entertaining game night for the whole group. These quirky, fun games, when pulled off right, can excite your players and generate a barrel of laughs for everyone.

The Unique Factor
Sometimes mixing genres can be something of a quest to find that unique niche to fill for your game. Actually, there are a lot of games that fall into this category that have made it big and are now fairly well known as household names in the RPG world. For example, “Shadowrun”, would fall into this category. “Shadowrun” combines the Cyberpunk world that you get in movies like “Bladerunner” with the Fantasy World of traditional D&D. One runner might be hacking a computer, while another runner might be going feral and hacking robots to bits with an axe. You get the picture. “Shadowrun” found that unique niche and was able to make something awesome out of it.

Combating Boredom with the Gentle Transition
Though this motivation is very similar to the one explained above, the reason the GM, or game creator decides to play this kind of game is very different. Sometimes game groups can get very, very stale. I’ve been playing RPG’s for almost 10 years now and I have seen a lot of groups fall apart because a campaign gets stale and nobody takes the time and effort to fix the problem. When the group gets tired of playing vanilla fantasy, maybe things need to get shaken up a bit. By mixing the fantasy genre, that you’ve been playing in for a long time, with something a bit different, things can change just enough that a game group gets saved without sacrificing the current campaign. Let’s say for example, that group X has been playing D&D 4e for almost 2 years and is getting pretty burned out. Well, looking at some of the game books out there which are compatible with D&D 4e, you find that Amethyst gives you enough rules to work with that you can transition your current campaign from being strict fantasy into something a bit different. With a little deft handling by a skilled GM, the characters can stay the same, but the world, and the plot of the campaign, shifts towards something totally different.

That is my brief take on the reasons to mix RPG Genres. If you have any other reasons of your own, feel free to leave some ideas in the comments. Thanks for sticking around this month!  Also, just a note.  Though I'm keeping the Carnival open for about one more week, just to catch any stragglers (such as myself) the new Carnival will be starting up soonish.  Make sure to give it plenty of attention!!

Blogging from A to Z: O is for Opulence

Every player wants the best for his character.  They might not come right out and say it, but in their heads, they are thinking it.  Everybody wants to be rich, but we're not all that lucky.  So, maybe the closest thing we get to true wealth comes through our RPG characters.

Opulence comes when you get to that point of wealth where you can pretty much just stop asking how much things cost.  You've got the money to do whatever you want.  For most RPG characters, true Opulence is something that you're never going to pull off, mostly for reasons of game balance.  When it comes to games like D&D 4e for example, where your GP plays such a huge part in the power of your character, you're very unlikely to ever reach that point of wealth where you can start to gold plate your horses or buy yourself a yacht which comes equipped with a large golf course.  But man, wouldn't that be awesome?  Then again, a lot of D&D characters are going to be rolling in money by the time they hit Epic levels, and, in all honesty, you've probably got enough GP to buy yourself a small country by the time you get there (but still not a full set of 25th level items for all your slots).  That is the very odd fact of wealth in RPG's.  The stuff that has a value to your character, the magic items, etc. are very rarely actually something that screams "opulence".  Instead, Opulence is more often a sign of a character's fluff.  Opulence comes in the story rather than the "crunch".  That works too.

When your players reach that point in their careers that they should start seeing some serious wealth, give it to them.  You can always use factors such as item availability to limit your players ability to pick up more crunch specific magic items.  Let your players have that massive palatial estate which is completely manufactured out of human happiness.  Let them have the gold and the jewels.  That stuff is all just a sign of status and position, something that your characters earn through adventuring.  That is one seriously cool reward.  Let your characters' opulence also be used as a tool, or hook, for starting adventures.  Maybe somebody stole something of incredible personal value to one of your players, or maybe somebody came in and vandalized your PC's crazy cool mansion.  Use those opportunities as a chance to get an awesome adventure under way.

Blogging from A to Z: L is for Leveling Up

Well, I'm still sick, but i'm actually walking around again now.  Being bitten alive by killer Mosquitos then practically getting quarantined at the hospital for an hour or so has a very adverse affect on my will and ability to do much of anything but stay in bed and swat away the bugs.  But, now that I'm half alive again, thought I should probably get some of these "Blogging from A to Z" back posts out.  I may be behind, but I still feel like I can catch up.

In my book, L is for one thing, and one thing only: LEVELS!  But, how do levels play into a successful adventure.  Well, when building an adventure, or a campaign, you have to always be aware of the level of your players and the levels of the enemies, at least for the purpose of balance, and making the encounters enjoyable and entertaining for your players (at least this is the accepted train of thought for 4th edition D&D).  However, leveling up is an important thing to think about when you're plotting out a series of encounters.  Knowing when your players are going to level up can make for a very rewarding tool; when you know that your characters are going to "Ding" you can scale up your encounters in advance accordingly.  But, aside from just knowing when your players are going to level, you can be a bit more proactive with it.  Let's face it, you're the DM, if you want your players to level up, then for god sakes level them up.   I haven't had a lot of postive experience playing games at the lowest levels.  That may just be my experience, but I prefer my characters to be pretty damn powerful.  I think the same applies to most video games as well.  In World of Warcraft you don't see players sitting around at the low levels on purpose very often.  More often than not, players are going to power level as fast as they can in order to get to the top tier of the game where they can do some really, really epic stuff.  

Power leveling is not really a component of most pen and paper RPG's, but there is of course a way to get around that.  Power leveling is not in the hands of the players, it is is in the hands of the DM.  Forcing a level jump, in which players skip several levels in order to get to a greater power point is a very easy way of mimicking the "power leveling" process.  There are lots of ways to explain that story-wise; maybe the players take a break from adventuring to dedicate themselves to further training in order to hone their skills and develop new abilities.  Maybe the players down something so incredibly awesome, or fulfill the end goal of a quest so epic, that they immediately go through a big jump in power.  Go crazy.  Just remember, if your players aren't interested in leveling up quickly, or would like to simply level their character though the natural organic process of killing monsters and looting their treasure, then let them.  Don't get in the way of their fun.  But, if they show interest in skipping the entire 1-20 and simply getting on with their really, really epic destiny than skip all the stuff in the middle and just go right there. 

Blogging from A to Z: H is for Hope

Every player and every DM needs hope.  Hope is essential for both character and NPC's alike.  Do you have hope?  Without hope, you're pretty much doomed in the RPG world.  NPC's who are hopeless will turn to extreme measures in order to get hope back.  Try to take advantage of that as a plot device in your adventures in order to turn good NPC's temporarily evil, and thus give your players that pesky moral choice dilemma when they have to decide whether to kill or just maim said NPC (they'll most likely kill him if it that NPC doesn't really seem to matter).  If your players do kill the innocent NPC who has turned to dark side in order to regain his or her lost hope, lay the alignment smackdown on your NPC's and make them live up to that evil decision of theirs.

I also hope that I will be better the day after tomorrow so that I can do a better post for the letter I.

Blogging from A to Z: F is for Freedom

I think that one of the most important things to making your adventure really, really fun and successful is by giving the players freedom.  I of course do not mean true freedom, but a sense of freedom at least.

No player likes to be railroaded.  This is true.  Unless you go into a game with everybody on exactly the same page about the game that they are going to play, you're not going to have many players who are begging to go on a completely pre-planned, pre-plotted linear adventure which works like a Dungeon Delve without any diversion from the single path leading from the entrance to the boss battle.  Nobody really wants to play those adventures if they are given a choice between the open, free adventure, and the railroad.  Sometimes you are forced to do one of them, because the DM has been slacking off on the job and doesn't having anything particularly fascinating prepared for the players (an experienced DM wouldn't let that stop him though... bust out those Random Tables man!).

But, I postulate (ooo big words) that even in the face of no preperation and the use of a published linear adventure, that a smart DM can still give his players the illusion of Freedom if he or she simply has the spine to try.  Sometimes, as a DM, you have a plot/story in your head that you really, really want your players to follow.

Taking Freedom away from your players is all about the illusion.  The better the illusion, the less they will feel that they have been violated in some way, or tricked by the DM.  You have to to play things cool.  Giving them two paths, like the illustration to the left, if a good way to get your players to call fowl on you, but put those paths a bit further apart, make them wind a lot more, and you're likely to have things work out just find.

Take for example adventure hooks; adventure hooks are a great way of creating the illusion of freedom of choice.  When you, as a DM, have a story that absolutely has to be told, and an adventure that you absolutely have to send your players on, prepare bucket loads of adventure hooks of all different kinds.   However, the trick to making really good adventure hooks is to keep them from all looking the same.  Don't simply throw the same hook, but with a different NPC/reward attached in front of the players over and over again.  Make the adventure hooks look significantly different from eachother, but the end result always sends them on the same grand adventure.  If you can master that, you're well on your way to being a fantastic DM.  I still haven't gotten that down, but I've been working on it.  A lot of my games still tend to feel a bit rail-roadish, but my players usually forgive me because they're really nice.  They see the fact that their freedom of choice is an illusion, but they're cool people who don't mind being led around.

E is for Epic... Epic Fail!!!

Today, for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge, I am here to talk about Epic, brought to you by the letter "E".  In RPG terms, especially D&D, Epic is used to denote the highest levels of a campaign, or adventure.  If you have played Epic D&D, especially in 3rd and 4th Edition, you know that this type of roleplaying puts your characters into such crazy high levels of power that they are fighting demons, dragons, and devils for breakfast.  Epic is the territory of the gods and it's pretty good from the top.

But, you know, Epic is something so far out of reach for most people, that I really don't want to focus on providing advice to people who are interested in running Epic Tier 4th Edition D&D games.  If you are interested, or looking for advice on that, you can get it elsewhere.  Let me direct you to Sly Flourish.  He has written an entire book about running Epic Tier games.  I haven't gotten a chance to read the book yet, but I'd really like to.

 What I do want to talk about today is the use of Epic in conjunction with my favorite internet popularized term, FAIL!!  In this case, Epic is used to mean "Impressively Great!" or "Of unusally great size or extent."  We can also use Epic with the word Win, for the combined, "Epic Win".  Now, let's take a break so we are all on the same page in terms of understanding the meaning of these terms.



Wasn't that lovely. I thought it would be easier to show that rather than simply try to explain what all of that means.  But, what does this mean for you and your RPG adventures?  Am I getting completely off track from my goal of providing advice for adventures??

Nope.

I think, that in every adventure you run, you need to leave enough room for their to be an Epic Fail once in a while.  Honestly, Epic failures of players are some of the most memorable things that you will ever see in RPG's.  Really, anything that stands out as being memorable to your players is a good thing.  Maybe you're familiar with the phrase "any publicity is good publicity" well, I think that kind of applies to this situation, but from a slightly twisted angle.  If your player digs himself a hole, or rolls so badly that it ends in an Epic Fail situation, than that player will absolutely remember that situation, and probably won't think badly of you, the DM, because of it.  Sure, that Epic Failure might result in character death, but, hell, it's a game right?  Sometimes, if the dice just roll all 1's, maybe that character really is destined to die.  Better let the dice gods win.

Now, don't assume that I am saying you should outright encourage your players to fail so that they will remember your games, but give them the opportunity to fail in creative and horrible ways so that those fails wills be EPIC enough that they remember them.  A great way to make this possible is through the creative use of random tables.  You might be familiar with Critical Hit and Fumble Charts; many RPG's don't integrate these directly into the rules, as is the case with 3rd and 4th edition D&D, but most gamers have their own house rules for how to use these charts in a home game.  Check out this article on Critical Hits and Fumbles and you can get a pretty good idea of how you might be able to incorporate these kind of rules into your game.

I'm a big advocate of even going beyond just critical hit and fumble charts by using items that generate random  effects.  You might be familiar with the Deck of Many Things (who am I kidding, of course you are familiar with it) or the Wand of Wonders.  These old school items have their roots way back in D&D and are seeing a lot more focus now that the D&D encounters series is putting them into the foreground of the hobby again.  Items like this are just made of Epic Fail/Win.  They can generate some really, really awesome results.  Chances are, if players remember the Epic Fail that occurred in a specific adventure, they will remember the adventure a lot better.  You might have heard R.A. Salvatore recount his Wubba Wubba story regarding his experience with the Wand of Wonders. If you haven't, go listen to it.  If that isn't a great example of EPIC Fail, I don't know what is. (the audio on that video is only so-so, there is a better version available on the WotC podcast, but I'm not sure exactly which one it was... too long ago. Regardless, check it out.)

    

D is for Delightfully Dark and Dreary Dungeons of Doom... and Dragons

(whew alliteration is rough)

Well, D is a pretty important letter in this world of ours.  Hell, the entire RPG world was built on two very important D's:  Dungeons and Dragons.  Sorry, couldn't help but dedicate this day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to these two important aspects in roleplaying.  But, I'm not going to go on about history (mainly because I'm an uneducated swine who has only recently begun his study of the game's roots).  Today, I want to focus on how I think you should use these two elements in your Adventure to the end result of great victory.

Dungeons

While Dungeons can of course just be places for evil wiards to hang out and store all of their magical goodies, a Dungeon can really be any type of closed, designated area, that you want to let your players explore.  There are lots of different ways to build a Dungeon, but, I'm probably the last one who should be writing an article about that, mainly because I rarely ever build a dungeons for myself.  I did however do a little bit of hunting and have found some resources which might prove useful to you in your quest to make dungeons fun and interesting in your adventure.

Building a Better RPG Dungeon

RPG Design: Building the Perfect Dungeon

There are lots of great inspirational resources out there.  For example, the One Page Dungeon Contest is a great place to get loads of cool dungeons that you can use as short adventure "side treks" between the core path of your campaign.  Given my post yesterday, in relation to this month being National Cartography Month, it might be a good time for you to sit down and draw up some cool dungeons to put on display, or to use in your games.

Dragons

I'm a big proponent of using Dragons in games.  Not just a little bit, but a lot a bit.  Dragons are fun and exciting and make for not only great BBEG's, but also can sometimes make for some really, really great henchmen.  Sometimes, at lower levels, I will use Dragons as henchman for more powerful enemies that are still to awesome to show up yet in the story of the adventure.  This usually works out pretty well, especially in games featuring players new to the game, who don't really understand, and aren't really prepared to take on more powerful, challenging and tactical fights (this is coming from my experiences DM'ing 3rd and 4th Edition D&D).

Considering the wealth of Dragon breads out there, you can go through an entire adventure and never make the party face the same species of dragon twice.  Purple Dragons are some of my personal favorites, but the all powerful Red Dragons are a general crowd pleaser at the game table.  Don't be afraid to make entire campaigns set around Dragons in the world either.  There is a reason these baddies have been around for so long.  They can fit perfectly into that final End Boss roll.  Take them for a spin once in a while and let your adventures thank you for it.

Oh... on a side note, Dragon Chow Dice Bags are awesome and you should really check out the DragonAge RPG and DragonAge Legends, the facebook game.  I reviewed it and I loved it. I need more friends to play with, so make a character and start leveling up, you're already behind...  C'MON!!!

OK.  That's enough for today, come back tomorrow.  Please!

C is for Choices, too many of them...

Today, I had a hard time thinning things down to one topic.  There were simply too many choices for a blog entry that started with the letter "C", so I wanted to actually talk about 3!  WOW!! So, here we go.

Cartography

I would be amiss to forget the fact that this month, Dyson Logos, of A Character for Every Game, is hosting the RPG Blog Carnival.  This month's topic is, as you guest it, about Circuses... jk.  It's about Cartography, i.e. Map Making.  I'm way amateur at it, but Dyson is a pro! If you haven't used/seen his geomorphs yet, you're doing the internet wrong!!!

I really like his blog, and he's always kind of enough to drop me a comment once in a while.  I had promised to do an adventure, or an encounter, or something with some of his Geomorphs and I think that this month, I am finally going to get around to it, given that Cartography is our Topic of choice this month.

If you are looking for some cool maps for your game, or some tips on how to make maps, I definitely recommend you checking out the Cartographer's Guild.  I'm a member on their forums and they have some great tips for improving your mapping skills, especially the digital ones.  I troll that forum more than I post there, but it is definitely a great resource for GM's.


Common Sense
Considering my goal for this month of providing information relevant to improving your adventures, I think one of the most important things to always consider, when playing any RPG is the idea of "Common Sense" and what that actually entails.

I particularly like this motivational poster.  There are so many people that complain about how their campaigns get ruined by stupid people that act in ridiculous ways just because they are playing a RPG.  I think a lot of GM's maybe approach this the wrong way; sure, some players might be persistent, but in every game that I have every played, whenever a player comes up and spits out some line about how he is going to stab NPC X and take all of his stuff, I, as a GM, quickly use my "Common Sense" assume this fool is simply screwing about, and then /ignore him in real life.  Said players actions in the game are quickly ignored and passed over as he/she is quickly considered to be disrespectful and daft git in the real world.  Nobody likes playing with that guy.  What is also pretty nice is that if you use your common sense as a GM when dealing with these jerks, they will quickly tire of being ignored (since all they were trying to do in the first place is get attention) and then use their common sense in the game.  They will cease to be disruptive and you can move on with the bloody adventure.  OK.  Rant over.  Common sense rules people.  Use it.

Can and Cannot

This ties, to some extent, in with the above, Common Sense, advice.  There are some things that you can do in the game and there are some things that you cannot do in the game.   As a DM, running an adventure, really become familiar with what your personal guidelines for Can and Cannot is.

If you aren't interested in reading the following i.e. TLDR - If it's fun = Can ; If it's not fun = Cannot.

Ok.  Explanation.

If something adds fun to the game for everyone at the table, including you as the GM, that to me is an automatic can.  You should go and give your players everything they want, in game one, of course, but for example, if all the players came to me and said that they wanted to start with one additional feet at level 1, when we were playing D&D 4e, I would have no problem with that.  Everyone is on the same playing field and I can up the difficulty level of the opponents accordingly.  Everyone has a right old fun time.

Another example.  If someone says that they want to re-skin (change the thematic elements) X of a race/class/power/etc. in order to make their character into Y, but aren't really interested in changing anything mechanical, I will almost always say "YES!" to that.  This kind of thematic change shows that a player is taking special interest in the story and flavor of his character and is dedicated to making the game lost lasting.  These are the kind of players you really want to have.

However, on the flip side of the last example, if a different player said he or she wanted to change Rule Z so that he was an ever-living bad mother $%&$%&#R than I would almost definitely tell that person that he or she cannot do that because it would spoil everybody's sense of fairness and fun.  Thematically, virtually anything can be explained through the use of good story telling, but you can't explain away the feeling a group of players get when they have just had their adventure ruined by some jerk who insisted on playing a Beholder, got the permission of the GM, and then death rayed all the enemies without the rest of the group getting to have any fun.

I hope that my 3 C's today have proved interesting.  Go, Game and Prosper!!

World Building Tips @ Stargazer's World Pt. 8

Oh... yea! My new world building post is up on Stargazer's World.  You should go check out : World Building Part 8 - Kicking Off Your Homebrew Setting Campaign.  Enjoy!

Shadows of thier Former Selves - Ghost PC's ala Demon's Souls



This week, I mentioned that the Sequel to Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, would be coming out in 2011 and I may have mentioned in a comment that I am working on something of a Demon’s Souls Pen-and-Paper based clone. That is one of the many side-projects for a campaign on my current to-do list (which just keeps getting longer and longer).



The Blue Dude is Dead... Ghost Form FTW



One of the core ideas behind Demon’s Souls video game is the idea that death is not an end, but simply an obstacle to your character. When you die, your spirit leaves your body, you lose some of your max health and you get to go into the dungeon again as a ghost in order to retrieve your body and all of your lost exp.

I like that idea a lot. One of the cool things about ghosts, at least in mythology, is the idea that the spirit refuses to pass on as long if it is leaving its work unfulfilled; I find that this would make a great hook for the players and provide a reason for you as the DM to turn your players into ghosts after they die, instead of simply killing them off. Let’s face it, your players are the center of whatever world you are playing in. They have some epic destiny that they are all headed for right from the get-go. So, why should they be allowed to die off?

Resurrection has been in RPG’s and video games for a long, long time, but playing ghost characters doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular. There are all kinds of mechanical problems that you have to deal with, especially with D&D 4e when you want to run a ghost as a PC, but, why not just ignore most of that?? I like what Demon’s Souls does with their ghost modes. You lose a bunch of maximum health and have penalties when you die in ghost mode, but those penalties are much less than those you would face by actually losing your real body and dying that way. If you dye while in any of the game worlds, you face a host of penalties including shifting the alignment of the world in a particular direction; if you get killed by another player, you might even lose stats because of that death, but dying in ghost form is just a speed bump. You simply need to go retrieve your body and reclaim the exp that is still hooked up to your corpse.

I think thematically, this fits really well with D&D characters. You have your destiny, it needs to be fulfilled, and not even death is going to stop you. 4e also makes it easy to implement something like the Demon’s Souls system – if your player dies, one round after he drops, let him rise up as a ghost. Make his or her max health equal to his or her bloodied value and maybe restrict them only to at-will powers instead of letting them use dailies and encounters and action points (hey, they did die); but, other than that, let them play as normal. Don’t let them walk through walls like Casper, and don’t let them possess people, but let them keep on keeping on. When the fight ends, a little spiritual jolt is enough to implant them into their body again and function, once again, as normal.

Try this method out and see how it goes. I think it might need some play-testing to make it fair (and balanced) but I think thematically, it could work fine.

The Dungeon Mom - Avoiding the DM Safety Net

In my quest to go “old school” recently, I have been experimenting with the way I design encounters and build game sessions and it got me thinking about the “old school” feel that a lot of people talk about in conjunction with the OSR. Now, there are certainly DM’s that play 4e ruthlessly and enjoy killing their players; I tend not to kill anybody, but I certainly knock someone unconscious about once a game night. That is really enough for me. But one of the things I noticed about my games is that the players aren’t really that afraid when they play, well, the monsters can sometimes be frightening, but the thing that they fear the least is… me. The DM. That is a problem.


I think there comes a point in every game where you need to ask yourself: Have your players fallen into the DM safety net? I think there are a lot of DM’s and a lot more D&D players who don’t believe that the DM will actually go out for blood in their games; unless as a DM you tend to be ruthless, unforgiving, and renowned for killing players without rhyme or reason, this can happen very quickly. I find the DM safety net to be a problem for several reasons.
If the players expect that you will not kill them, they start playing less intelligently. If for example, the players believe that regardless of what they do, you won’t pull the trigger on their characters, than they have very little need to actually think. Stupid players and stupid actions should be rewarded with painful results. D&D may be a game, but it’s a thinking game to some extent. We are playing in the world of the imagination; if your players stop using theirs than you have a problem.

There is a certain amount of reckless or careless behavior when the players believe that they won’t “lose” the game. If you make them believe that their characters are immortal, than damage doesn’t really matter anymore. That just isn’t any fun now is it??

But there is a fine line that has to be drawn between being the DM that is merciless and out for blood and the hen-mother DM who doesn’t want to see any harm come to her precious players. Neither of those two sides are much fun, so you need to be careful how you play things.

In my experience the best way to walk that tightrope and keep from falling off is to create the illusion that you, as a DM, are not actually in control. When the players know that you as a DM have the power of God, things easily go one of the two ways that I talked about above, but if they think that you aren’t in nearly as much control as you actually are, than they begin to become blind to the safety net that you actually have out for them. If they can’t see the net, than they will think and act like there is no net there at all.

I think there are a few easy and fun ways that you can make this work. One of the best ways to keep your players from thinking that you will save them is to roll dice out in the open, at least for combat. I know a lot of DM’s still like rolling behind the screen, because that means you can hide stuff from your players, but honestly, that can easily lead you towards the Tyrant/Mom role that I talked about above. If you roll your dice in the open, your players will know that you aren’t fudging anything; sure, some of them might start doing math out loud at the table…. I say let them. That is even more scary. When your players see you roll a 3, then hit them, and then on a damage roll of a 1 do something like 15 points of DMG, they are going to be hauling their butts out of that encounter as quickly as can be. That is intimidation. Now, you don’t actually have to let the dice matter – you can add imaginary numbers, subtract imaginary numbers and do whatever you want in your head, but rolling in the open gives the illusion of fairness and equality; this is not something that you are necessarily intent on being. You want to be sly and cunning. You want your players to fear you, not because you are out to get them, but because you simply don’t care. If you as a DM are playing god, you are not the smiting god of the old testament, you are an apathetic god who doesn’t care if one of his creations ends up as lunch for a dragon. Trust me, that is far more frightening.

One of the other neat ways that I find to put the fear of god in your players is to bring random encounter tables to the game session and make it OBVIOUS that you intend on using them at some point during the session if the time arises. You might even let your players get a glimpse of said table and point out the fact that some of the encounters on there are quite a bit higher than their average PC level, but don’t actually let them see what is on it. Then, next time your players set up camp… this is when you start to roll some dice behind the screen. Shuffle your papers up, start pulling out minis. Play it like you didn’t know that was coming; maybe you want to make some off hand remark like, “ouch!” or “this is gonna be fun *snicker snicker*”. Play the encounters up like that and your players are going to think that something horrible and random just came out to play – that is when you drop in the premade encounter tailored specifically for the party which is just about the right skill level to make a fun and exciting fight. They will play smart and win and you should make a note and praise them afterwards for working intelligently and cunningly to defeat your bad little minions. You might also get some OSR points for actually using these tables during your session.

I hope you got something out of this advice. I have found these techniques to be remarkably useful in the past and have scared a few players into thinking that I was out for the characters throats, when I actually wasn’t…. of course there were times that I actually was out for my PC’s throats, but those PC’s always end up dead. Very little illusion there.

Classic Traveler - Using Subsector Creation rules for...

So… did you think I was done talking about Classic Traveller??? Huh??? Did you? Nope, I’m not. Today I want to start talking about the subsector mapping rules that are used their and one possible application that I see for them in a different sci-fi based game.

Over the last couple weeks, I have been pretty busy, but I have gone back to the Classic Traveller books a bit more as I have been exploring a new game on my horizon – Rogue Trader. I know that game has been out for a while, but hell, like I always say, I’m slow. Sorry. Rogue Trader was another of my purchases back during Christmas and I can say that I love it so far. Everything about the Core book is over-flowing with awesome, except for the fact that they don’t really give a clear and easy way of making a portion of space for you to send your starships hurtling through.

So, for that, I opened up my Classic Traveller PDF and gave things a look see. I really like how easy it is to make a Subsector using Traveller. You use an 8x10 hex grid, some dice, and a couple pages of tables and rules and you have yourself pretty much everything you need. Once again here, I love the fact that so much of the Traveller experience is so easily randomized. Not having so spend hours upon hours pondering over the composition of the universe makes me feel a very, very big sense of relief.

The other really nice thing about this rules system is that so much of the Subsector and World creation rules is not based around any mechanics, but rather around fluff and story mechanics. Apart from the presence of Gas Giants, which provide a benefit for starships in refueling, which might not work so well in Rogue Trader, the majority of these rules are very fluffy and provide an easy way to describe not only planetary and stellar systems, but also a great way of figuring out the composition of the world’s within those systems. Whether you are rolling for planetary population, government, atmosphere, or whatever, you can make your world simply and easily and relatively mechanics free.

Translating all this over to Rogue Trader then simply becomes an application of 40K terms and Rogue Trader Mechanics. Once a world gets generated, all you really need to do is figure out what kind of world that would be – is it a death world? A hive world? Maybe neither. Maybe that world is an imperial world and has military installations of the Imperium of Man. You can do pretty much whatever you want with the Classic Traveller Subsector creation rules, which provide a great baseline for conversion into Rogue Trader. The Universe, after all, isn’t that much different. Though the Rogue Trader version might use distance in a different way, nothing fundamentally has to change there either; honestly, all that you would really need to do is sprinkle some threats around your Subsector which are 40K in theme and you are rolling.

For all those Rogue Trader players out there, you will want to go back and give the Classic Traveller rules a try if you are going to GM. If you are a fan of Classic Traveller and are thinking about playing a new sci-fi game, you might want to pick up Rogue Trader and try it out.

D&D 4e Combat Modes inspired by Shooter Multiplayer

Most feedback about 4e that I read out there in the blogosphere attacks the issue of combat encounters and failure in those encounters from either of two general camps: 1) the DM’s are pretty sure that going into the encounter the players are going to get out of it fine, so making the encounter is simply about making it interesting and 2) Challenges and combat encounters should be designed to challenge the players and should be potentially lethal, the TPK becomes the win condition for a DM vs. Players environment. That is all well and good, but I think a lot of people miss out on a lot when the end result of an encounter is either the death/retreat/surrender of all monsters involved, or the death/retreat/surrender of the players. I hardly ever read about combat encounters which are designed with other purposes, but I honestly think that these “other” style of combat encounters provide the most interesting opportunities for both interesting role-play as well as truly tactical combat by the players. Today, I want to talk about some of the video-game inspired combat encounter styles.

I am a video-gamer. I enjoy my PS3 on a daily basis and other than RPG’s, which you can pretty much figure that I love, I really like RTS games as well as shooters. I haven’t gotten a chance to play Black-ops yet, but I am a big player of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. One of the great things that is offered in that game is a real plethora of game styles. I think a lot of those game styles would be very well suited for a game of D&D around the table rolling dice. Maybe you could think about running combat encounters in some of these shooter game based styles.

FFA/Team Deathmatch/Bloodbath
These are the typical encounters that you see in standard D&D games. The win condition for these type of games is simple – kill everything; the side with the most kills wins. With games like D&D, players aren’t likely to respawn in the middle of combat in order to continue the battle until the end of some imposed time limit, but they are likely to go until one side drops, this side is usually not the players unless your DM is a real jerk who has enough friends that his game can change players every week.

Capture the Flag
This style of combat is one of the easiest I think to run, but I don’t see it used nearly enough. One team has to capture the opposing team’s flag and bring it back to a designated point on the map. How easy would this be to run in a D&D game? C’mon. The flag doesn’t have to be a flag per-se. It could be anything from an enchanted skull, or some kind of magical text/tome. The battlefield itself, in an encounter like this might span an entire city. The players have to get into the enemy base, steal the object of importance, then get it back to the city guards before they are caught and captured by a group of Thieves sent to retrieve their stolen, stolen merchandise. This might be going on while at the same time another group is trying to move into the player’s base of operations and make off with something important of theirs.

Take and Hold/King of the Hill/Global Thermonuclear War
This type of combat forces the players/enemies to take and hold a certain point on the map for a set period of time in order to win the combat. I think this type of combat encounter makes for a great opportunity for some fantastic tactical combat. Each round that the players, and the players alone, occupy a certain zone on the map, they rank up a point. The players need to achieve 3-5 points in order to win the combat, but counter to that, if the enemies do the same thing, the players end up losing. I could see this in a D&D style game, by having the players attempting to defend a crucial ritual casting zone. Presence in the zone for a certain number of round allows direct communication with a player’s/enemies deity. Both sides want the zone, and the ability to talk with a god, but while the players are fighting over the zone, the ritual doesn’t know who to target, so it won’t proceed.


Shoot the Messenger/VIP
I don’t see this in games so much, but essentially this style of combat forces the players to attempt to kill a certain priority individual in a given amount of time, before that individual can either escape, or gain some critical power. I could see this style of combat being GREAT for D&D. The PC’s have been given critical advice that a messenger, carrying an important letter which will band two cults of Orcus together, creating a much larger and more formidable force. However, when the PC’s finally encounter the messenger, the realize that he is in disguise – all the individuals in the messenger’s party look and dress alike. The messengers, and his look-alikes all spit and run when they are confronted and attacked by the PC’s. Now, the players have to figure which one of the messengers is the real one and get him before he has a chance to slip out of their grasp and get away.

Search and Destroy/Sabotage/Bomb-Mode
In this style of combat, one side controls a “bomb” and has to plant it somewhere in the enemies territory, while the other side has to try and disarm the bomb or prevent it from getting planted in the first place. I feel like this style of combat could be very easy to pull off. The players might be on either side; I could see either one being very fun and interesting. Perhaps in one version of this combat style, the players possess a powerful relic which, when planted in the Necropolis somewhere, has the power of bringing down the light of Pelor (or some other random good deity) and destroying said Necropolis. The undead forces of this evil citadel come at the players in endless waves trying to keep them from detonating this relic. On the flip side of things, perhaps a group of cultists is planning to summon in demons somewhere within the PC’s stronghold or home city. The players have to scramble to find where this is taking place and then stop it from happening. You see this type of combat a bit in D&D, but now image if it is all done in initiative and your players have only rounds to stop it from happening. That might get them hopped up in their pants.

Snipes & Knives a.k.a. Limitation modes
This one goes back to CS. I like the idea of having limited power/weapon combats. Though these type of combats may ultimately be decided like the typical Bloodbath type of combat, they are interesting in that certain powers/combos simply don’t work in the combat itself. This one would be easy to implement, but might not be so fun for your players. Think about taking all their weapons/implements away and making them fight a combat or two bare fisted. Or, think about having everything for a day cost more effort. Maybe all of your players at-will powers become encounters, encounters become dailies, etc. This could lead to some interesting happenings. You could also think about magical barriers which prohibit certain types of magic from crossing them – that might get on a player’s nerves if you pick on a single power source. Or, maybe you want to make the entire combat done only with longbows, and have your players trying to snipe people from really, really far away. That could be fun.

What all of these different combat format options provide is a way for you to end combat in a failure, but not by killing all the players involved. You see this thought process in the way skill challenges are developed now. Those challenges provide the players with the pass to success, which, when achieved, grants the players a cleaner path to success in a particular adventure path, but failure does not mean the end of all things for the PC's. If you use these type of combat encounters, rather than the simple Kill or Be Killed Deathmatch style combats, you have the option of making failure much more interesting and having the results of failure mean that you end up with interesting roleplay encounters and more varied encounters to come. I hope that you take these ideas and roll with them in your games. I know I will.