It sucks being told that you're a bad GM. To be fair, however, my heart really wasn't into the story-aspect of the game anyway, and nobody seems to have minded my GMing before now, and I've run quite a few campaigns. But my main concern for this last little while has been the rules. And there are a lot of things about/in the rules that need to be addressed. But those issues will be addressed, I'm sure, in the upcoming weeks and months, as we are still playing, just with Jonny moving into the GM chair. It'll be good, too. He's a story guy, and he's been begging for something to do for a while now.
So, this blog will continue, and with full-color commentary, but from a player's perspective as opposed to a GM's.
And I'm considering re-naming the system to Redshirts, because it appears that there is a Red Shirt Games company out there, and I don't want there to be any confusion. Besides which, it's such a small change I doubt anybody would even notice. And, by taking the game from the character level to the company level, it makes more sense to pluralize it anyway.
Consider "Redshirts" and "Redshirts the Game" copyrighted, as of now.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Redshirt, Game Session 3
Wow. What an interesting game this is becoming. First of all, we had to finish up the two "away missions" from last week, which I hadn't had time to get to during the proper phase, which would have been during the post-game session last week. So we did it this week. There were two of these missions that the company had decided to take. The first was a "clean up the sewer rats" that were living in the sewers downtown. The name Sewer Rats was, of course, a euphemism for "undesirable people living in the sewers." Jonny had sent two of his people on the mission. I decided that it really shouldn't be too difficult, as my idea of these folk was that they were dirt poor, unarmed, &c. So I had Jonny roll against a T.N. of 11, which is an average task. He succeeded. That's a quick 5 marks for the company. Then the other mission, in which two characters, Jick the legless and Marty's seductress Kas attempted to get to the bottom of who those actors were who were out front performing really bad plays all day and night forever. Because each of them had gone their own separate ways to do the investigation, I let both Marty and Jonny roll. Marty's seductress came up empty, but Jick the legless managed to figure out that the black-clad bodyguards were from a company named Hamlet, which company specialized in personal protection &c.
Now, this did beg several questions about away missions, namely, how to determine the mission's difficulty, and then how to go about figuring out Target Numbers vs numbers of people involved, &c. This is going to be an ongoing issue, because quite frankly, I don't have it nailed down yet. These first couple were incredibly easy, because there really wasn't a chance of character injury involved, so we could conveniently ignore that part for now, and I had just given them basic Target Numbers. I will probably continue to do something like this from now on, the idea being that each "away mission" has a target number that must be beat, in order to succeed. The characters who go on said mission have a number of skills. I take the highest skill that seems (or that the player determines is how his character is proceeding) reasonable, and add that bonus to the roll. If there are any other characters that also have appropriate skills, then I figure add 1 for each additional character beyond the first. This way the bonuses to the roll don't balloon out of hand and get unmanageable too fast. That seems like a good way to proceed, at least for now, so we can get something testing. The real trouble comes with devising an "away mission combat mechanic." That will require some thought.
At any rate, we talked for quite a while about the game, and didn't get started playing until 730 or so, which left us with only about an hour and a half. Jonny was obviously anxious to get started, because he kept looking at the clock and pushing us to get going. So, we got the post-game from last week wrapped up, then moved on to the pre-game, in which Jonny decided to let 1 of his legless employees go (he had 2). I think it was Jick, but I'm not entirely sure. He then decided to hire another employee, and rolled up a character quick, and got a witch-doctor. Sweet. Somebody with Medicine, finally. Note that after all of this, Jonny had 5 characters (one of them legless), and Marty had 3 (remember that last session one of his characters received spinal damage and was paralyzed, and thus unemployable) because he opted not to hire anybody. The Company then had 5 marks left over, which was not enough to last another session without income, so they went looking for work.
At this point, I need to talk about something that, quite frankly, really surprised me. That was the reaction of both Jonny and Marty to the paralysis result on the Death&Dismemberment table. I mentioned it in my last post, but I think I stated it wrong and made it seem like Marty was upset at the loss of his character, when in reality it wasn't that his character was lost, but rather that he was paralyzed, which, according to both Jonny and Marty, raised a host of moral/ethical questions. Such as: this guy was an employee, now he's crippled and unable to take care of himself, what does the company do with him? Kill him? Leave him on the side of the road somewhere? What? I hadn't thought about that when coming up with the table, simply concerning myself with semi-realistic possible injuries, and let's face it, the possibility of sustaining spinal damage in a fight is very real. Marty and Jonny both made it seem like they would perhaps even prefer it if that were not a part of the table, as it was "too real," and dragged down the game-feeling. I'm not so sure. I can see where they're coming from, but at the same time, that's the entire point of the Death&Dismemberment, right? Is to give danger to combat, and personality to characters who survive? Like Jonny's legless people. I had honestly thought, when coming up with the table, that such characters would be little less than useless to the company. But Jonny decided to keep them, and made good use of Jick (granted, only for a session, before letting him go, but still), and I'm sure will make good use of the other guy. So now the character's still there, the company's still using him; it's color, it's personality. It's the same thing with the paralyzed character. What will the company do with him? I, as the GM, simply do not care. The company can do whatever they like with him. If they want to be stone-hearted bastards, then they can kill him or whatever. If they want to be a little more compassionate, then they can take care of him, as it was an injury suffered during the course of work. Of course, this second option would end up costing the company money (a bed in their facility/base, plus wages for the caretaker, plus food, &c), but that's the choice we make, right? Which are you, light-side or dark-side? I don't care. Just do it, and if it makes sense that there might be repercussions from the action, then I'll think about it. Just like I, as the GM, didn't care when in game session 1 the players killed/injured an innocent family in the Southland Downs. Just like I, as the GM, didn't care that the company took a job clearing homeless people (the Sewer Rats) out of their makeshift homes in the sewers (which plenty of people would consider to be entirely a-moral and bastardly). It's not my place to judge (at least not in an ethical capacity). It's my place to provide a game, and give the company opportunities.
Moving on; there were essentially 3 routes that the company could go: there was still the business with the Bad Actors, there was the Investigation&Vengeance Carswell mission, and there was the continuing bounty on the RVs in the Southland Downs. Jonny sent his legless character to go do research & investigate the Carswell business, and the rest of the characters went to apologize to Frank for beating him up in the first session. When they got to Frank's Place, they saw some Hamlet employees standing guard. That was the final piece they needed to definitively say that Frank was the source of the Bad Actors. Jonny's new Witch Doctor intimidated the guard at the door with his shrunken heads and incredibly racist witch-doctory antics, and they entered the building. Frank, upon seeing them, bolted for the back door, and the two Hamlet employees inside blocked the characters from going any further. To which they left a note, apologizing. And maybe some flowers. I don't know.
It was the intimidation part of this encounter that was fun, because it was the first time that we had actually used the social combat rules, which worked really well, I thought.
Then they went to the Downs, and found the Bonsai burning. They went to some bars and did some asking around, and it turned out that the RVs were in a turf-war with the Lone Rangers, and getting their asses kicked. They witness a couple of RVs gun down a Lone Ranger in the street with a crossbow and run off, and the characters take the dead Lone Ranger's mask and Marty's noble puts it on. They walk down the streets begging to get shot at, and eventually they do. The bolt misses, and most of the characters move to the door. Trell takes cover across the street and watches for the crossbowman to show his head again. He does, and Trell takes the shot. He rolls a 15, and even with a cover bonus the crossbowman takes a bolt and falls, dropping his crossbow out the window, which one of Marty's characters picks up. They move inside and intimidate the last opponent in there into giving up, which he does. They then interrogate him about the situation and offer to work for the RVs, to which the fellow takes them back to the RV base so they can talk to Big John. They convince Big John to hear their story, and Big John makes an offer of them taking over any of the money-making ventures that they can wrest away from the Lone Rangers, and moving 50% up the ladder to him. Marty and Jonny hesitate at this one, as they don't particularly want to be somebody else's employees.
And here's where it got really fun. Jonny wants to accept the deal but double-cross them later, and Marty decides that's not his cuppa, and fires a crossbow bolt point-blank into Big John's chest. It's fight time, and the characters are surrounded. They have 6 characters, and the RVs have 7 inside (6 troops and Big John) plus the 6 on watch outside. After the surprise round, the characters finish off Big John in the first real round, and proceed to butcher sundry RVs. After about the end of turn 2 or 3 I was thinking that if it continued, the RVs would have to start making morale rolls, because several of their number were down, and they were about to be outnumbered by the characters, even with their reinforcements. But then the table turned, and within 2 rounds or so both of Marty's characters were down, and one of Jonny's, leaving only 3, with 5 RVs in the warehouse and a couple yet outside. It really was amazing how fast the fight shifted, from the characters looking like they had it in the bag, to everybody going down like wheat and Jonny making the hard decision to abandon everybody who was already down, plus sacrifice one of his remaining standing characters, in order to give Trell the diminutive pig-herder/crossbowman and Malik the Witch Doctor the chance to hightail it out of there.
And then, when they all got back home, they were arrested. All of them, with the exception of the legless fellow of Jonny's who was doing investigations. The charge was Murder most foul, Attempted Murder most foul, Assault, Disturbing the city's peace, &c &c.
All in all, this was not a good session for the company. They ended up losing (as in, dead, no chance to roll on the Death&Dismemberment table) 4 characters, plus those characters' equipment, plus not making any money, plus now 3 of the remaining 4 are in jail. The company's tally is now 5 marks. Granted, the company doesn't actually have to pay their employees while they're in jail, but one would expect that the proper back-wages were there once they got out.
The jail-time was because the street-fight right in front of their place of business from last week. But now I need to be careful, because it feels like I'm railroading, and that's not what I want to do. There must be options given to the players, even while most of their company is in jail.
Man, I can't wait for next week.
Now, this did beg several questions about away missions, namely, how to determine the mission's difficulty, and then how to go about figuring out Target Numbers vs numbers of people involved, &c. This is going to be an ongoing issue, because quite frankly, I don't have it nailed down yet. These first couple were incredibly easy, because there really wasn't a chance of character injury involved, so we could conveniently ignore that part for now, and I had just given them basic Target Numbers. I will probably continue to do something like this from now on, the idea being that each "away mission" has a target number that must be beat, in order to succeed. The characters who go on said mission have a number of skills. I take the highest skill that seems (or that the player determines is how his character is proceeding) reasonable, and add that bonus to the roll. If there are any other characters that also have appropriate skills, then I figure add 1 for each additional character beyond the first. This way the bonuses to the roll don't balloon out of hand and get unmanageable too fast. That seems like a good way to proceed, at least for now, so we can get something testing. The real trouble comes with devising an "away mission combat mechanic." That will require some thought.
At any rate, we talked for quite a while about the game, and didn't get started playing until 730 or so, which left us with only about an hour and a half. Jonny was obviously anxious to get started, because he kept looking at the clock and pushing us to get going. So, we got the post-game from last week wrapped up, then moved on to the pre-game, in which Jonny decided to let 1 of his legless employees go (he had 2). I think it was Jick, but I'm not entirely sure. He then decided to hire another employee, and rolled up a character quick, and got a witch-doctor. Sweet. Somebody with Medicine, finally. Note that after all of this, Jonny had 5 characters (one of them legless), and Marty had 3 (remember that last session one of his characters received spinal damage and was paralyzed, and thus unemployable) because he opted not to hire anybody. The Company then had 5 marks left over, which was not enough to last another session without income, so they went looking for work.
At this point, I need to talk about something that, quite frankly, really surprised me. That was the reaction of both Jonny and Marty to the paralysis result on the Death&Dismemberment table. I mentioned it in my last post, but I think I stated it wrong and made it seem like Marty was upset at the loss of his character, when in reality it wasn't that his character was lost, but rather that he was paralyzed, which, according to both Jonny and Marty, raised a host of moral/ethical questions. Such as: this guy was an employee, now he's crippled and unable to take care of himself, what does the company do with him? Kill him? Leave him on the side of the road somewhere? What? I hadn't thought about that when coming up with the table, simply concerning myself with semi-realistic possible injuries, and let's face it, the possibility of sustaining spinal damage in a fight is very real. Marty and Jonny both made it seem like they would perhaps even prefer it if that were not a part of the table, as it was "too real," and dragged down the game-feeling. I'm not so sure. I can see where they're coming from, but at the same time, that's the entire point of the Death&Dismemberment, right? Is to give danger to combat, and personality to characters who survive? Like Jonny's legless people. I had honestly thought, when coming up with the table, that such characters would be little less than useless to the company. But Jonny decided to keep them, and made good use of Jick (granted, only for a session, before letting him go, but still), and I'm sure will make good use of the other guy. So now the character's still there, the company's still using him; it's color, it's personality. It's the same thing with the paralyzed character. What will the company do with him? I, as the GM, simply do not care. The company can do whatever they like with him. If they want to be stone-hearted bastards, then they can kill him or whatever. If they want to be a little more compassionate, then they can take care of him, as it was an injury suffered during the course of work. Of course, this second option would end up costing the company money (a bed in their facility/base, plus wages for the caretaker, plus food, &c), but that's the choice we make, right? Which are you, light-side or dark-side? I don't care. Just do it, and if it makes sense that there might be repercussions from the action, then I'll think about it. Just like I, as the GM, didn't care when in game session 1 the players killed/injured an innocent family in the Southland Downs. Just like I, as the GM, didn't care that the company took a job clearing homeless people (the Sewer Rats) out of their makeshift homes in the sewers (which plenty of people would consider to be entirely a-moral and bastardly). It's not my place to judge (at least not in an ethical capacity). It's my place to provide a game, and give the company opportunities.
Moving on; there were essentially 3 routes that the company could go: there was still the business with the Bad Actors, there was the Investigation&Vengeance Carswell mission, and there was the continuing bounty on the RVs in the Southland Downs. Jonny sent his legless character to go do research & investigate the Carswell business, and the rest of the characters went to apologize to Frank for beating him up in the first session. When they got to Frank's Place, they saw some Hamlet employees standing guard. That was the final piece they needed to definitively say that Frank was the source of the Bad Actors. Jonny's new Witch Doctor intimidated the guard at the door with his shrunken heads and incredibly racist witch-doctory antics, and they entered the building. Frank, upon seeing them, bolted for the back door, and the two Hamlet employees inside blocked the characters from going any further. To which they left a note, apologizing. And maybe some flowers. I don't know.
It was the intimidation part of this encounter that was fun, because it was the first time that we had actually used the social combat rules, which worked really well, I thought.
Then they went to the Downs, and found the Bonsai burning. They went to some bars and did some asking around, and it turned out that the RVs were in a turf-war with the Lone Rangers, and getting their asses kicked. They witness a couple of RVs gun down a Lone Ranger in the street with a crossbow and run off, and the characters take the dead Lone Ranger's mask and Marty's noble puts it on. They walk down the streets begging to get shot at, and eventually they do. The bolt misses, and most of the characters move to the door. Trell takes cover across the street and watches for the crossbowman to show his head again. He does, and Trell takes the shot. He rolls a 15, and even with a cover bonus the crossbowman takes a bolt and falls, dropping his crossbow out the window, which one of Marty's characters picks up. They move inside and intimidate the last opponent in there into giving up, which he does. They then interrogate him about the situation and offer to work for the RVs, to which the fellow takes them back to the RV base so they can talk to Big John. They convince Big John to hear their story, and Big John makes an offer of them taking over any of the money-making ventures that they can wrest away from the Lone Rangers, and moving 50% up the ladder to him. Marty and Jonny hesitate at this one, as they don't particularly want to be somebody else's employees.
And here's where it got really fun. Jonny wants to accept the deal but double-cross them later, and Marty decides that's not his cuppa, and fires a crossbow bolt point-blank into Big John's chest. It's fight time, and the characters are surrounded. They have 6 characters, and the RVs have 7 inside (6 troops and Big John) plus the 6 on watch outside. After the surprise round, the characters finish off Big John in the first real round, and proceed to butcher sundry RVs. After about the end of turn 2 or 3 I was thinking that if it continued, the RVs would have to start making morale rolls, because several of their number were down, and they were about to be outnumbered by the characters, even with their reinforcements. But then the table turned, and within 2 rounds or so both of Marty's characters were down, and one of Jonny's, leaving only 3, with 5 RVs in the warehouse and a couple yet outside. It really was amazing how fast the fight shifted, from the characters looking like they had it in the bag, to everybody going down like wheat and Jonny making the hard decision to abandon everybody who was already down, plus sacrifice one of his remaining standing characters, in order to give Trell the diminutive pig-herder/crossbowman and Malik the Witch Doctor the chance to hightail it out of there.
And then, when they all got back home, they were arrested. All of them, with the exception of the legless fellow of Jonny's who was doing investigations. The charge was Murder most foul, Attempted Murder most foul, Assault, Disturbing the city's peace, &c &c.
All in all, this was not a good session for the company. They ended up losing (as in, dead, no chance to roll on the Death&Dismemberment table) 4 characters, plus those characters' equipment, plus not making any money, plus now 3 of the remaining 4 are in jail. The company's tally is now 5 marks. Granted, the company doesn't actually have to pay their employees while they're in jail, but one would expect that the proper back-wages were there once they got out.
The jail-time was because the street-fight right in front of their place of business from last week. But now I need to be careful, because it feels like I'm railroading, and that's not what I want to do. There must be options given to the players, even while most of their company is in jail.
Man, I can't wait for next week.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Redshirt, Game Session 2
This game session was something else. First, I had finally come up with a Death&Dismemberment table for the characters, so we started off the game with Jonny rolling for his 2 characters that had gone down in session 1. He ended up rolling knee injuries for both of them, but one was only a light wound, and that character recovered without incident. The other character, however, suffered a serious knee injury and ended up losing his leg from the knee down because there weren't any surgeons in the company. Bummer. There went the first casualty of the game.
Then we started off with a troupe of bad actors performing really bad plays right in front of the company's place of business. And they wouldn't stop. They worked in shifts, actually. And had bodyguards. Men wearing black.
One thing led to another, and before you know it, blood is being spilled on the streets of Midtown. 2 more characters went down this fight, one of Marty's and one of Jonny's. And the fight wasn't at all successful. The company won, but within a couple of hours more actors were back, with more bodyguards.
Except now blood had been spilled. In public. In Midtown, even.
Then the company split up, in order to maximize profit-making. 2 characters went to investigate who these actors and their bodyguards were, 2 took a job cleaning the sewer-rats out of Downtown sewers, and the last 2 answered a call put out by Leopold Carswell in the Village. This was the job that Marty and Jonny played.
Turns out that young girlie Carswell, Leopold's daughter, is missing. Find her. 5 marks for finding her, 5 marks for bringing her back safe. The characters searched high and low, discovered an illicit love-affair between girlie Carswell and some chap from outside the Village, and then discovered the bodies of young Carswell and her servant. Leopold agrees to pay them their 5 marks, for finding her, provided that they also find out who did this, and put an end to them. 10 additional marks on top of the 5 already promised if they do so.
And thus ended the session. Both Marty and Jonny rolled on the Death&Dismemberment table, for their 2 characters who went down in the fight with the actors, and Jonny rolled another knee wound. I had to laugh. That's 3 times he's rolled a damned knee wound. The odds of that are not likely at all. But of course this character also lost his leg, or can't walk properly without a crutch, or something. Because the party still didn't have a surgeon. Marty's character got spinal damage. Wouldn't have mattered if they had a surgeon or not, that character's toast. Definitively unemployable. Kind of a shame too, because I think Marty was sort of attached to him.
And that's all she wrote. The social combat needs work. Not that the idea is bad, but because I felt unprepared (again), without clear rules for it, and NPC attributes/skills laid out beforehand. We'll have to try it a third time and see if I can actually do it this time.
Repercussions/Consequences:
Then we started off with a troupe of bad actors performing really bad plays right in front of the company's place of business. And they wouldn't stop. They worked in shifts, actually. And had bodyguards. Men wearing black.
One thing led to another, and before you know it, blood is being spilled on the streets of Midtown. 2 more characters went down this fight, one of Marty's and one of Jonny's. And the fight wasn't at all successful. The company won, but within a couple of hours more actors were back, with more bodyguards.
Except now blood had been spilled. In public. In Midtown, even.
Then the company split up, in order to maximize profit-making. 2 characters went to investigate who these actors and their bodyguards were, 2 took a job cleaning the sewer-rats out of Downtown sewers, and the last 2 answered a call put out by Leopold Carswell in the Village. This was the job that Marty and Jonny played.
Turns out that young girlie Carswell, Leopold's daughter, is missing. Find her. 5 marks for finding her, 5 marks for bringing her back safe. The characters searched high and low, discovered an illicit love-affair between girlie Carswell and some chap from outside the Village, and then discovered the bodies of young Carswell and her servant. Leopold agrees to pay them their 5 marks, for finding her, provided that they also find out who did this, and put an end to them. 10 additional marks on top of the 5 already promised if they do so.
And thus ended the session. Both Marty and Jonny rolled on the Death&Dismemberment table, for their 2 characters who went down in the fight with the actors, and Jonny rolled another knee wound. I had to laugh. That's 3 times he's rolled a damned knee wound. The odds of that are not likely at all. But of course this character also lost his leg, or can't walk properly without a crutch, or something. Because the party still didn't have a surgeon. Marty's character got spinal damage. Wouldn't have mattered if they had a surgeon or not, that character's toast. Definitively unemployable. Kind of a shame too, because I think Marty was sort of attached to him.
And that's all she wrote. The social combat needs work. Not that the idea is bad, but because I felt unprepared (again), without clear rules for it, and NPC attributes/skills laid out beforehand. We'll have to try it a third time and see if I can actually do it this time.
Repercussions/Consequences:
- Coldstream is still out there somewhere, and it's only been 2 sessions since the company killed a bunch of them.
- The RVs are still out there, likewise (this one took Jonny and Marty by surprise, I think. Although I'm not sure why it should. What kind of self-respecting street gang only has 10 members? For that matter, what kind of self-respecting street gang goes by the name the Rusty Vaginas?).
- Now there's bodyguards wearing black who are dead/injured because of the company.
- A fight, with casualties, in broad daylight, with witnesses, in the streets of Midtown.
- 3 innocents injured/murdered in the Downs in session 1.
- Leopold Carswell, of the Carswell Penny fame, has been let down because the company failed to rescue his daughter. Even if the company manages to locate the murderers and kill them, that is still a 2nd-best resolution to the case.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Redshirt, Game Session I
And so the game itself began. Sorry, I said to Marty and Jonny, I'd like to do a sandbox-style campaign, but for this session I'm going to have to railroad you because I came all sorts of unprepared.
Which is true. And I would, normally, love to do a West-Marches open-ended style of campaign. But see, those campaigns take preparation. Quite a lot of it on the part of the GM. Which is something that I simply didn't have. Preparation, I mean. Completely unprepared, and if the reader will remember from the last post, I had exactly four lines written on a sheet of paper: Rusty Vaginas; Coldstream; Grayhair; and Security. The security line wasn't even accurate. It turned out to be more of a bounty-hunting, scalp them all kind of thing. But whatever.
Guys, I said at one point before the game started, I need a gang name.
Rusty Vaginas, said Jonny.
Sweet, said I, and walked away.
Then followed some minor investigation, a big combat, and a suspenseful twist at the end. And repercussions. Oh man are there going to be consequences for the characters' actions. For instance, I had put forward a go-to guy for them to seek out for their information. Look for Frank, I told them, at Frank's Place. He knows everything. That's a quote. He knows everything. A little bit later Frank is lying on the floor of his home bloodied and bruised and tortured for information. I guess Frank-Who-Knows-Everything isn't going to be a regular supporter of the cause. In fact, I'd say he downright despises the PCs at this point.
And then, in the course of bagging-and-tagging the Rusty Vaginas (a gang) for the bounties that the local PD had put on their heads, the PCs beat the ever-living crap out of a family that just happens to live next door to the Bonsai, the local dive that the gang hangs out at.
Eventually the PCs do manage to get into the bar, by taking down the three sentries standing at the door (and not doing it at all quietly) and then rushing into the bar from two directions, the front and the back. In the process of which one of Jonny's midgets took a crossbow bolt to the chest and stumbled back into the street from the doorway, knocked out of the fight. That was the only time the crossbow-wielding greyhair hit anything, even though he rolled something like four or five times. Which is good for Marty and Jonny, because man that crossbow puts out some damage.
So there were 7 PCs vs. 7 RVs. Granted, one PC (Marty's noble) stayed outside and didn't do anything. And I thought that the fight should have been hard, but it turns out it wasn't really, and two of Marty's characters went and held their own even though they were fighting with crutches (yes, you read that right. Crutches. They had gone and thrown their weapons, see, and couldn't get them back, and so were left with the only thing they had on hand: the beggar's crutches). Just when the PCs were about to triumph, in rush 8 more people, who demand the fighting to stop and everybody throw down their weapons. Jonny at this point groaned and said, You're trying to kill us, aren't you? But the PCs joined forces with the RVs and fought the newcomers, who within a couple of turns were routed and running away.
The end result of the fight? Another of Jonny's midgets went down. 7 RVs dead or dying, 2 RVs and 1 RV lieutenant surrendered, 4 Coldstream employees dead or dying, and 1 Coldstream employee surrendered (the rest of the Coldstream employees ran like little sissy-boys). Total loot tally, after bounty payment: 12gp, 10 Shortswords, 4 Longswords, and a single winch-action crossbow.
Now what to do with the two employees who went down? I decided, rather than simply have them as dead, that we really need a Death & Dismemberment Table. Who knows? Maybe they don't die. Maybe one of them gets a nasty scar instead, or loses an eye. All I know is it'll be fun. And random. Because random is, by definition, fun.
Tally of potential consequences: Frank despises them. Beat up an innocent family and potentially killed 1 member. Coldstream is now aware of a competing company (and is probably pissed about losing money/people on a job because of them). The Rusty Vaginas will probably be pissed that their best bar was raided (come on. Any decent gang has to have more than 10 members. Methinks this is not the last that the Company will hear from them).
So, all in all, a good game. Especially considering how woefully unprepared I was, and that I right away made mistakes (leaving out the social combat that I was looking forward to in this system and just having the players make a simple die-roll).
Which is true. And I would, normally, love to do a West-Marches open-ended style of campaign. But see, those campaigns take preparation. Quite a lot of it on the part of the GM. Which is something that I simply didn't have. Preparation, I mean. Completely unprepared, and if the reader will remember from the last post, I had exactly four lines written on a sheet of paper: Rusty Vaginas; Coldstream; Grayhair; and Security. The security line wasn't even accurate. It turned out to be more of a bounty-hunting, scalp them all kind of thing. But whatever.
Guys, I said at one point before the game started, I need a gang name.
Rusty Vaginas, said Jonny.
Sweet, said I, and walked away.
Then followed some minor investigation, a big combat, and a suspenseful twist at the end. And repercussions. Oh man are there going to be consequences for the characters' actions. For instance, I had put forward a go-to guy for them to seek out for their information. Look for Frank, I told them, at Frank's Place. He knows everything. That's a quote. He knows everything. A little bit later Frank is lying on the floor of his home bloodied and bruised and tortured for information. I guess Frank-Who-Knows-Everything isn't going to be a regular supporter of the cause. In fact, I'd say he downright despises the PCs at this point.
And then, in the course of bagging-and-tagging the Rusty Vaginas (a gang) for the bounties that the local PD had put on their heads, the PCs beat the ever-living crap out of a family that just happens to live next door to the Bonsai, the local dive that the gang hangs out at.
Eventually the PCs do manage to get into the bar, by taking down the three sentries standing at the door (and not doing it at all quietly) and then rushing into the bar from two directions, the front and the back. In the process of which one of Jonny's midgets took a crossbow bolt to the chest and stumbled back into the street from the doorway, knocked out of the fight. That was the only time the crossbow-wielding greyhair hit anything, even though he rolled something like four or five times. Which is good for Marty and Jonny, because man that crossbow puts out some damage.
So there were 7 PCs vs. 7 RVs. Granted, one PC (Marty's noble) stayed outside and didn't do anything. And I thought that the fight should have been hard, but it turns out it wasn't really, and two of Marty's characters went and held their own even though they were fighting with crutches (yes, you read that right. Crutches. They had gone and thrown their weapons, see, and couldn't get them back, and so were left with the only thing they had on hand: the beggar's crutches). Just when the PCs were about to triumph, in rush 8 more people, who demand the fighting to stop and everybody throw down their weapons. Jonny at this point groaned and said, You're trying to kill us, aren't you? But the PCs joined forces with the RVs and fought the newcomers, who within a couple of turns were routed and running away.
The end result of the fight? Another of Jonny's midgets went down. 7 RVs dead or dying, 2 RVs and 1 RV lieutenant surrendered, 4 Coldstream employees dead or dying, and 1 Coldstream employee surrendered (the rest of the Coldstream employees ran like little sissy-boys). Total loot tally, after bounty payment: 12gp, 10 Shortswords, 4 Longswords, and a single winch-action crossbow.
Now what to do with the two employees who went down? I decided, rather than simply have them as dead, that we really need a Death & Dismemberment Table. Who knows? Maybe they don't die. Maybe one of them gets a nasty scar instead, or loses an eye. All I know is it'll be fun. And random. Because random is, by definition, fun.
Tally of potential consequences: Frank despises them. Beat up an innocent family and potentially killed 1 member. Coldstream is now aware of a competing company (and is probably pissed about losing money/people on a job because of them). The Rusty Vaginas will probably be pissed that their best bar was raided (come on. Any decent gang has to have more than 10 members. Methinks this is not the last that the Company will hear from them).
So, all in all, a good game. Especially considering how woefully unprepared I was, and that I right away made mistakes (leaving out the social combat that I was looking forward to in this system and just having the players make a simple die-roll).
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Redshirt, Game Session I Pregame
Not only was this the first time we, as a group, had met in three weeks, but this was also the first time that we took our homebrew rules out for a spin. And let me tell you, what a spin it was.
I was personally thrown for a loop right from the word go. We all met at Mayhem on the west side (our usual gaming haunt, which on Tuesday nights just happens to be populated mostly by Pokemon playing twelve year olds) and I set about rolling up the first of four characters, like we had discussed the last time we met. Except Marty said, What are you doing? You're running the adventure.
I didn't know how to take that, and figured he was pulling my leg, so I continued rolling up my chars. And Marty continued, No seriously. I'm rolling up characters. You're running the game.
I am?
Yep. You said that last time we met, that you'd take care of it.
Jonny chimed in, I don't remember this, but then again, we were pretty drunk.
Which is true. We were. I remember it fondly. But it left me in something of a predicament, because I didn't remember doing that at all. And it was obvious that Marty hadn't come prepared with an adventure, and so after some bitching and moaning I took a piece of paper and a pen and a drink and went outside to smoke and think about coming up with a quick adventure, using never-before-tested rules, while Jonny and Marty rolled up their four characters each.
And I did. By God, I did. And it included quite a bit, actually: some minor investigative/social interactions, a big fight, and a tension-building twist right at the end. Oh man, good stuff. And it took all of four lines on my piece of paper.
So the idea is, in our system, that the players do not play characters, per se. That is to say, they do play the characters, but they aren't actually the characters. You see what I'm getting at? They are, rather, the faceless corporation, the slave-drivers, the decision-makers. They each have a stable of characters, which they can pick and choose from for any particular mission. And so they rolled up their starting stable of characters, using our proprietary twelve-stat system, and rolled a background (which was, admittedly, taken from another game. We'll use it until we come up with our own background chart) I'm seriously liking this random background thing. It provides depth to a character right from the beginning. It's a springboard for character development, without being too constricting.
I was surprised at how long it took them to roll up four characters each, actually. I think it turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 30 minutes (I wasn't really paying attention. I just remember being surprised when I came back in after thinking about the scenario and they weren't finished). But then again, thinking about it, a great deal of that time was probably spent on remembering what the attributes were and writing them down on sheets by hand (I, being unprepared, hadn't come up with character sheets yet). So it'll probably get faster once everybody knows what they're doing.
Redshirt is a primarily d6 system. d6 are used in the actual gaming, while d10s are used in random table lookups, because d100 charts are by far the best. There are no other dice. So characters could probably get away with only bringing d6s, so long as the GM had some d10s for those occasions when they're needed, which aren't many.
There are 6 Primary Attributes, so far: Strength, Agility, Intuition, Reason, Guile, and Charisma. The player rolls 3d6 and compares the result to a standard Gygaxian attribute table: 3=-3, 4-5=-2, 6-8=-1, 9-12=0,13-15=1, 16-17=2, 18=3. The result is their score. So the character doesn't have a Strength of 7. He has a Strength of -1. 0 can be considered the human average.
There are additionally 6 Secondary Attributes: Health, Reaction, Morale, Willpower, Cool, and Presence. These are determined by simply adding 10 to their corresponding Primary Attribute. So a character with a -1 Strength would have a 9 Health. &c.
Then the characters roll on a background chart (d100 this time). Jonny got an Elven Sage, a Halfling Vagrant, a Dwarven Herder, and a Dwarven Blacksmith. Now, like I said before, we were using a table from a different game, and this raised some issues, because there are no demi-humans in the City. They're all just human. We took the results to mean that he had 3 height-challenged fellows (midgets) and a tall gangly skinny awkward guy. Sort of giantish, even. A natural basketball player. Which meant that his stable somewhat resembled a carnival. But whatever, that's cool.
Marty rolled a Beggar, a Blacksmith, a Woodcutter, and a Noble. Interesting. The beggar, as it turns out, was about the only person to have halfway-decent attributes, and that in his Guile and Charisma. Everybody else was pretty much average (0s in their scores). Note also that each character came with starting equipment as well, which was determined by their backgrounds. So the Herder had a Staff and a Sow. The Noble had a Longsword and a valuable Ring. &c.
And game on, baby.
I was personally thrown for a loop right from the word go. We all met at Mayhem on the west side (our usual gaming haunt, which on Tuesday nights just happens to be populated mostly by Pokemon playing twelve year olds) and I set about rolling up the first of four characters, like we had discussed the last time we met. Except Marty said, What are you doing? You're running the adventure.
I didn't know how to take that, and figured he was pulling my leg, so I continued rolling up my chars. And Marty continued, No seriously. I'm rolling up characters. You're running the game.
I am?
Yep. You said that last time we met, that you'd take care of it.
Jonny chimed in, I don't remember this, but then again, we were pretty drunk.
Which is true. We were. I remember it fondly. But it left me in something of a predicament, because I didn't remember doing that at all. And it was obvious that Marty hadn't come prepared with an adventure, and so after some bitching and moaning I took a piece of paper and a pen and a drink and went outside to smoke and think about coming up with a quick adventure, using never-before-tested rules, while Jonny and Marty rolled up their four characters each.
And I did. By God, I did. And it included quite a bit, actually: some minor investigative/social interactions, a big fight, and a tension-building twist right at the end. Oh man, good stuff. And it took all of four lines on my piece of paper.
So the idea is, in our system, that the players do not play characters, per se. That is to say, they do play the characters, but they aren't actually the characters. You see what I'm getting at? They are, rather, the faceless corporation, the slave-drivers, the decision-makers. They each have a stable of characters, which they can pick and choose from for any particular mission. And so they rolled up their starting stable of characters, using our proprietary twelve-stat system, and rolled a background (which was, admittedly, taken from another game. We'll use it until we come up with our own background chart) I'm seriously liking this random background thing. It provides depth to a character right from the beginning. It's a springboard for character development, without being too constricting.
I was surprised at how long it took them to roll up four characters each, actually. I think it turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 30 minutes (I wasn't really paying attention. I just remember being surprised when I came back in after thinking about the scenario and they weren't finished). But then again, thinking about it, a great deal of that time was probably spent on remembering what the attributes were and writing them down on sheets by hand (I, being unprepared, hadn't come up with character sheets yet). So it'll probably get faster once everybody knows what they're doing.
Redshirt is a primarily d6 system. d6 are used in the actual gaming, while d10s are used in random table lookups, because d100 charts are by far the best. There are no other dice. So characters could probably get away with only bringing d6s, so long as the GM had some d10s for those occasions when they're needed, which aren't many.
There are 6 Primary Attributes, so far: Strength, Agility, Intuition, Reason, Guile, and Charisma. The player rolls 3d6 and compares the result to a standard Gygaxian attribute table: 3=-3, 4-5=-2, 6-8=-1, 9-12=0,13-15=1, 16-17=2, 18=3. The result is their score. So the character doesn't have a Strength of 7. He has a Strength of -1. 0 can be considered the human average.
There are additionally 6 Secondary Attributes: Health, Reaction, Morale, Willpower, Cool, and Presence. These are determined by simply adding 10 to their corresponding Primary Attribute. So a character with a -1 Strength would have a 9 Health. &c.
Then the characters roll on a background chart (d100 this time). Jonny got an Elven Sage, a Halfling Vagrant, a Dwarven Herder, and a Dwarven Blacksmith. Now, like I said before, we were using a table from a different game, and this raised some issues, because there are no demi-humans in the City. They're all just human. We took the results to mean that he had 3 height-challenged fellows (midgets) and a tall gangly skinny awkward guy. Sort of giantish, even. A natural basketball player. Which meant that his stable somewhat resembled a carnival. But whatever, that's cool.
Marty rolled a Beggar, a Blacksmith, a Woodcutter, and a Noble. Interesting. The beggar, as it turns out, was about the only person to have halfway-decent attributes, and that in his Guile and Charisma. Everybody else was pretty much average (0s in their scores). Note also that each character came with starting equipment as well, which was determined by their backgrounds. So the Herder had a Staff and a Sow. The Noble had a Longsword and a valuable Ring. &c.
And game on, baby.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Musings on Game - Alignment, Part II
I last posted about alignment, and how much I disliked the concept. It is, in my mind, similar to the way certain Computer RPGs have a "Good/Evil" thing going on. Games like KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic), Neverwinter Nights and Fable come to mind. It's kind of interesting, in those games, because they do give you a choice of how to act, some decision-making control over social interactions and tasks, &c, but ultimately, it all boils down to a very basic black-and-white view of: "If you choose to be an ass you're an ass, and if you choose to act like Mother Theresa you're not". And that's good and evil, right there. Ridiculously simplistic.
But, after I wrote that post, I've been asking myself, what would you replace it with? There are really two options, in mind. You could replace it with nothing. That is, let players act how they act, and the DM determines repercussions. If you decide to steal from that poor shopkeeper and get caught, are you evil? He was poor. You have adamantium weapons. You got caught. Are you evil? What about if you then, because you got caught, decide to kill him to cover up the crime? Are you evil then? What if, before he gets killed, he shouts really loud and the night watch comes to investigate and sees you with the proverbial bloody knife in your hand? Are you then evil because you got caught? And what if, then, because you're by now level 10 and everybody knows that basic humans are supposed to be 0-level, you decide "I really don't want to go to jail because then the game would be over and I kind of like this character so fuck it, engarde Night Watchman!" and you proceed to hackandslash your way through the entire constabulary of this medieval fantasy town and you don't even breathe hard until you have to face Lord Whatsthenameofthistownanyway, who is considerably higher than level 0. Are you evil then? Because now you just sacked a town. When, in reality, all you wanted was to just keep playing the character that you'd grown kind of fond of? I mean, come on, I have an Adamantium Sword and was just trying to get the potion of whatsit for the guy over there. It's my quest, man!
See the problems? Anyway, I sidetracked a bit. So you could replace it with nothing at all. No alignment. Only consequences. Which, to be fair, is truly where the RPG experience is anyway. Nowadays, it goes something like this:
DM - "You just sacked a town. The king's going to be pissed when he hears about this. Oh, and Mikey, you're not a paladin anymore. That was kind of the very definition of not Lawful Good."
Mikey - "But I didn't even do anything until the guard showed up, and Joe the barbarian started getting his ass kicked and begged me for help. I helped my friend. THAT's the definition of Lawful Good."
DM - "Nope. You sacked a town and now you guys are going to have huge bounties on your heads and you will have to spend the rest of your days in Sherwood Forest."
Conrad the Half-Elven Ranger - "Sweet. I've always wanted to be Robin Hood. No worries, guys, I have Wilderness training. We'll be fine."
Mikey the ex-Paladin - Sure. We'll eat rats all day and I'll be a warrior. Great. Whatever.
As opposed to the not f'ing worrying about the good vs evil thing, and just letting them play. Because, let's face it, he did help his friends. And that is a pretty good thing to do, isn't it? I'd wager that it's kind of in the eye of the beholder.
OR, you could really come up with a convoluted cultural/religious separate worldviews system, wherein every God/Culture defines good and evil separately. In other words, if you're a worshipper of the Raven Queen, then what she considers to be acceptable and "good" is completely different than what Bahamut or Fizban or whoever considers to be acceptable and good and proper. Fizban/Zifban/nabzif/It's-been-way-too-long-since-I-read-those-books the avatar of the platinum dragon might frown on you randomly slaughtering passersby, but be perfectly fine with you killing everything that moves in the Goblin village over there. Gork and Mork might have a problem with you single-handedly thwarting the latest Waagh!, while the Raven Queen just loves it all. You see what I'm saying? In each case, you could have a "Good" character, or somebody who follows the cultural/religious tenets of his worldview, and yet in each case the decisions you make would be different.
And it's this point that I've been thinking about lately. A lot.
But, after I wrote that post, I've been asking myself, what would you replace it with? There are really two options, in mind. You could replace it with nothing. That is, let players act how they act, and the DM determines repercussions. If you decide to steal from that poor shopkeeper and get caught, are you evil? He was poor. You have adamantium weapons. You got caught. Are you evil? What about if you then, because you got caught, decide to kill him to cover up the crime? Are you evil then? What if, before he gets killed, he shouts really loud and the night watch comes to investigate and sees you with the proverbial bloody knife in your hand? Are you then evil because you got caught? And what if, then, because you're by now level 10 and everybody knows that basic humans are supposed to be 0-level, you decide "I really don't want to go to jail because then the game would be over and I kind of like this character so fuck it, engarde Night Watchman!" and you proceed to hackandslash your way through the entire constabulary of this medieval fantasy town and you don't even breathe hard until you have to face Lord Whatsthenameofthistownanyway, who is considerably higher than level 0. Are you evil then? Because now you just sacked a town. When, in reality, all you wanted was to just keep playing the character that you'd grown kind of fond of? I mean, come on, I have an Adamantium Sword and was just trying to get the potion of whatsit for the guy over there. It's my quest, man!
See the problems? Anyway, I sidetracked a bit. So you could replace it with nothing at all. No alignment. Only consequences. Which, to be fair, is truly where the RPG experience is anyway. Nowadays, it goes something like this:
DM - "You just sacked a town. The king's going to be pissed when he hears about this. Oh, and Mikey, you're not a paladin anymore. That was kind of the very definition of not Lawful Good."
Mikey - "But I didn't even do anything until the guard showed up, and Joe the barbarian started getting his ass kicked and begged me for help. I helped my friend. THAT's the definition of Lawful Good."
DM - "Nope. You sacked a town and now you guys are going to have huge bounties on your heads and you will have to spend the rest of your days in Sherwood Forest."
Conrad the Half-Elven Ranger - "Sweet. I've always wanted to be Robin Hood. No worries, guys, I have Wilderness training. We'll be fine."
Mikey the ex-Paladin - Sure. We'll eat rats all day and I'll be a warrior. Great. Whatever.
As opposed to the not f'ing worrying about the good vs evil thing, and just letting them play. Because, let's face it, he did help his friends. And that is a pretty good thing to do, isn't it? I'd wager that it's kind of in the eye of the beholder.
OR, you could really come up with a convoluted cultural/religious separate worldviews system, wherein every God/Culture defines good and evil separately. In other words, if you're a worshipper of the Raven Queen, then what she considers to be acceptable and "good" is completely different than what Bahamut or Fizban or whoever considers to be acceptable and good and proper. Fizban/Zifban/nabzif/It's-been-way-too-long-since-I-read-those-books the avatar of the platinum dragon might frown on you randomly slaughtering passersby, but be perfectly fine with you killing everything that moves in the Goblin village over there. Gork and Mork might have a problem with you single-handedly thwarting the latest Waagh!, while the Raven Queen just loves it all. You see what I'm saying? In each case, you could have a "Good" character, or somebody who follows the cultural/religious tenets of his worldview, and yet in each case the decisions you make would be different.
And it's this point that I've been thinking about lately. A lot.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Musings on Game - Alignment
Playing an EVIL character the other day got me thinking about Alignment in the D&D system, and how much it sucks. Yeah, I know. Another post on Alignment? Everybody knows that Alignment blows. Why write yet another post about it?
I don't know. Why do the makers of D&D insist on keeping the Alignment system in place when everybody and their mother hate it?
Way back when, the original D&D had a pretty simple Alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. It was probably somewhat influenced by Moorcock. The best thing to say about it was that it was easy. But, being a sometime player of D&D when I was a kid, I remember not really "getting it". What was Lawful, and what was Chaotic? Lawful represented a desire to uphold order and justice, and Chaotic represented a "frontier spirit" sort of thing, all for the good of the individual. I guess. I don't know. I always tried to interpret it in the spirit of Star Wars, but that led to the interesting conundrum that the Empire would have to be Lawful (at least by the time of A New Hope), and the Rebellion Chaotic. But the Empire is bad. And the Rebellion good. Right? Right?
Right. It didn't make any flipping sense. Then out comes AD&D, and their whole 9 alignment system, which introduced Good and Evil. Now you could be Chaotic, but still be Good at the same time. And you could be Lawful, but still be Evil. So there you go. The Rebellion = Chaotic Good, and the Empire = Lawful Evil. But still, after a little bit of thought, that system sucked too.
I mean, what sort of person is ONLY good? Which one of us has not been a dick to somebody else at some point in our lives? What, that's not good and evil? That's just too personal? Alrighty then. So what defines evil? Comic books sometimes make it out to be a killing vs non-killing thing. If you take a life, you're evil. You're a villain. If you don't take a life, you're a good guy. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. How about assassination, then? That seems pretty clear. You kill a person for no other reason than pure unadulterated profit. Evil, right? Not necessarily. What about a sniper, in the military? Alright, not working for profit. Working for patriotism, supposedly. But assassinating people, regardless. So soldiers in a war = good, but mercenaries in a war = bad. What's the difference? Patriotism. Law and order vs Ego and the profit motive. In other words, Lawful vs Chaotic. Not good and evil. So, what's evil then? Good question. It has always been my belief that there is no such thing as good and evil, that these terms are societal constructs/labels that are used to control behavior (which is a post and a half all by itself, so we won't get into that here). But the game already has a set of labels to define whether your anti-social or not: Lawful and Chaotic. So then, aren't Good and Evil, in the terms of the game, redundant?
It would seem so. Or at least, in D&D 4E it would, because they've gotten rid of 6 of the 9 alignments. Now there's only Lawful Good, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic Evil. In other words, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, being redundant terms, are REALLY REALLY Good or REALLY REALLY Evil. Whatever. Nobody's going to play a Lawful Good character as it should be played, and nobody's going to play a Chaotic Evil character as it should be played, so what's the point?
There is no point. Alignment sucks, it always has. Let the players play what they want to play, how they want to play. Don't force them into a moral straightjacket, especially when the definition of that morality is a slippery thing, and evil to the character might not be evil to the DM might not be evil to anybody else.
I mean, I played an Evil character a couple of days ago. What was the most evil thing I could think of to do, short of killing other players, which is always always a great big no no? I didn't help out a merchant in need, and then I peed in the fountain. In public.
I don't know. Why do the makers of D&D insist on keeping the Alignment system in place when everybody and their mother hate it?
Way back when, the original D&D had a pretty simple Alignment system: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. It was probably somewhat influenced by Moorcock. The best thing to say about it was that it was easy. But, being a sometime player of D&D when I was a kid, I remember not really "getting it". What was Lawful, and what was Chaotic? Lawful represented a desire to uphold order and justice, and Chaotic represented a "frontier spirit" sort of thing, all for the good of the individual. I guess. I don't know. I always tried to interpret it in the spirit of Star Wars, but that led to the interesting conundrum that the Empire would have to be Lawful (at least by the time of A New Hope), and the Rebellion Chaotic. But the Empire is bad. And the Rebellion good. Right? Right?
Right. It didn't make any flipping sense. Then out comes AD&D, and their whole 9 alignment system, which introduced Good and Evil. Now you could be Chaotic, but still be Good at the same time. And you could be Lawful, but still be Evil. So there you go. The Rebellion = Chaotic Good, and the Empire = Lawful Evil. But still, after a little bit of thought, that system sucked too.
I mean, what sort of person is ONLY good? Which one of us has not been a dick to somebody else at some point in our lives? What, that's not good and evil? That's just too personal? Alrighty then. So what defines evil? Comic books sometimes make it out to be a killing vs non-killing thing. If you take a life, you're evil. You're a villain. If you don't take a life, you're a good guy. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. How about assassination, then? That seems pretty clear. You kill a person for no other reason than pure unadulterated profit. Evil, right? Not necessarily. What about a sniper, in the military? Alright, not working for profit. Working for patriotism, supposedly. But assassinating people, regardless. So soldiers in a war = good, but mercenaries in a war = bad. What's the difference? Patriotism. Law and order vs Ego and the profit motive. In other words, Lawful vs Chaotic. Not good and evil. So, what's evil then? Good question. It has always been my belief that there is no such thing as good and evil, that these terms are societal constructs/labels that are used to control behavior (which is a post and a half all by itself, so we won't get into that here). But the game already has a set of labels to define whether your anti-social or not: Lawful and Chaotic. So then, aren't Good and Evil, in the terms of the game, redundant?
It would seem so. Or at least, in D&D 4E it would, because they've gotten rid of 6 of the 9 alignments. Now there's only Lawful Good, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic Evil. In other words, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, being redundant terms, are REALLY REALLY Good or REALLY REALLY Evil. Whatever. Nobody's going to play a Lawful Good character as it should be played, and nobody's going to play a Chaotic Evil character as it should be played, so what's the point?
There is no point. Alignment sucks, it always has. Let the players play what they want to play, how they want to play. Don't force them into a moral straightjacket, especially when the definition of that morality is a slippery thing, and evil to the character might not be evil to the DM might not be evil to anybody else.
I mean, I played an Evil character a couple of days ago. What was the most evil thing I could think of to do, short of killing other players, which is always always a great big no no? I didn't help out a merchant in need, and then I peed in the fountain. In public.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
D&D Encounters
So last night was my first ever experience playing "D&D Encounters". It was at the local FLGS, Mayhem, and was huge. By huge I mean to say, entirely too many players and not enough DMs.
I had been into Mayhem before and seen these posters and advertisements for the Encounters thing, and had my interest piqued. Talked to the owner of the store about it, he said it starts at 6, no you don't have bring anything, &c &c.
I then convinced a friend to join me, and off we went, bringing absolutely nothing to the game except our formidable presences. No pencils, no dice, no little plastic pre-painted miniatures, no characters. That's right. Nothing. Except soda. And booze. Can't forget the booze.
We arrived, Jonny said something about needing to take a dump the size of Guam and ran off, and I sat down at the table. Give it to me, I said.
Give you what?
Whatever it is that you have to give.
And thus I received a Sentinel character and mismatched dice. Bummer.
A druid? This sucks, I said. Give me something else.
I have a Thief, a player said.
Ah crap, I replied. Nobody has anything decent?
I have a Warpriest, somebody else said.
Alright, give me the Warpriest. No way in hell am I going with a pansy fluffy-bunny-loving Druid for my first game.
Jonny came back. What do I get, he asked.
I have a Blackguard, the same person who offered me the Warpriest said.
Well hold on just a minute. How long have we been going around and around about this? Why didn't you guys just offer me the damned Blackguard at the beginning. I'll take that.
I guess I'll take the Warpriest, Jonny said.
Sloppy seconds, I replied.
Ouch.
I took a look around the table, which was actually three tables pushed together to form one big table. There were, by the time we started playing, nine players, including Jonny and myself. This does not include the DM, who had one full side of the table all to himself, because of his damned big DM Screen set up over there. So nine players, around three sides of a table. It was a tight fit, let me tell you. Which is, apparently, exactly how Jonny likes 'em.
Player impressions: um, yeah. The DM seemed confident, even with that many players. Cool. Counting the DM and Jonny and I, there were two other players who looked to be in their 30's. Which left five players who might have been in high school. Egads. Youngsters. Hoodlums. Ruffians. I remember what it was like back then. Punks and Yobs, manno. I was suddenly tingly with fear.
Not really. One of the youngsters talked about how the Drow were, like, his favorite race ever. I almost asked him if it was a cross between a Lion and a Tiger and reknowned for its magical properties. That didn't seem like the wise thing to do, however, in a group that I didn't know, and so studied the five sheets of paper that were given to me for my character. A Vryloka Blackguard. Vryloka? What's a Vryloka? I turn to the last page, where racial feats and crap were listed. Undead something something. Aha. I'm a sort-of kind-of vampire. A Vryloka is to Vampire what Tiefling is to Devil. I get it. I always did hate the concept of Tieflings. I suppose now I'll have to hate the concept of Vryloka too. Except I'm playing one. Great. And what's a Blackguard? Honestly, even now, after playing through that game, I don't know what a Blackguard is. Evil. That's what I know. How do I know? because it said so up on the top of the page. Evil Vryloka Blackguard.
I was pondering what a Blackguard was when the fellow to my right began cackling. That's right, cackling. He stopped. Then he started again. And then he stopped. And then he did it again. I almost walked out it was so fucking disturbingly mind-numbingly anti-social and creepy. Except it wasn't Halloween anti-social. It was more of a "I don't have any friends and this is why" anti-social. And then I figured out that he did it whenever somebody else came into the game room looking like they wanted to play D&D. It was a psychological trigger or something, the sound of that door opening. Like a human Pavlov dog that was trained to cackle every time the door opened.
A youngish couple came over to our table and asked to play and were turned away. But in the course of that, the girl in the couple (yes, there was a girl, and yes, she was turned away) stated that she wanted to play a healer. Which started a discussion around our table about whether or not we had any. Turned out we did. Two of them. One played by Jonny, the Warpriest, and another played by a 30-something to Jonny's left, another Warpriest.
To which I might have said, If I was playing a character class named Warpriest, and somebody asked me to heal them, I'd be pissed. Good thing I chose the Blackguard.
And the game was on. It was Episode 1 of the first chapter of the new Neverwinter cycle, apparently. And we're in a market, with markety things happening everywhere. A markety cart broke down and Jonny rushes in to help get it unstuck, but it turned out he couldn't. His Athletics skill just sucked, apparently. He exhorted all the players to help, me first, but of course I refused. Somebody asked, Doesn't anybody have the Athletics skill? Another player pointed at me, but nobody noticed. Of course I had the Athletics skill. I'm a tank. But I'm EVIL, why the hell would I help a broken markety cart? Instead I just pondered the fact that I was the only tank in the group.
Talk and talk and more talk about a new king of Neverwinter and a big fight that happened in a tomb or something (it was, apparently, handled in the prelude, which was last Saturday, which both Jonny and I missed). Then it was Surprise Round time, everybody get the minis, everybody roll initiative, game on. Where are all the minis going? So-and-so was over by the halfling selling pies, several people were by the dwarf selling God-knows-what, and several people were over by the broken cart. Where are you at, Ranger?
Staring over the Ocean.
Good answer, I thought.
Where are you at, Blackguard?
Peeing in the fountain.
Wait. What? Where are you?
By the damned fountain. All alone. The only other guy by me is this dude by the Halfling pie-seller. Sweet.
Up pop the critters. 10 of them from the sewer entrances, to which both my Blackguard and Guy-standing-by-Halfling were closest, and 4 fiery Drake things over by the Ranger-staring-into-the-ocean. Even better, I thought. The tank is gonna wade in here and start killing ash zombie things, and laugh as he shrugs aside their blows.
Zip Zap Boom two rounds later and everything is dead, including a second wave of 10 ash zombie things; the rightful king of Neverwinter shows up and leaves; and a fiery White Dragon lands in the market, threatening to end our pathetic 1st-level lives.
And if you thought that the description of the fight was too short, that's how the actual fight felt. Seriously. Two rounds. I got to swing my flail TWICE. But it was definitely long enough for me to realize that playing a Blackguard sucks. Or at least, playing that Blackguard the way it was built sucked. Or maybe playing a tank sucks. Or maybe quite simply having that many players sucks. Or maybe all of the above.
I don't know. I suppose I'll have to build my own character and go back next week to find out. I'm thinking a greataxe fighter with Power Attack and Cleave. Yeah. Tanky but hitty at the same time.
I had been into Mayhem before and seen these posters and advertisements for the Encounters thing, and had my interest piqued. Talked to the owner of the store about it, he said it starts at 6, no you don't have bring anything, &c &c.
I then convinced a friend to join me, and off we went, bringing absolutely nothing to the game except our formidable presences. No pencils, no dice, no little plastic pre-painted miniatures, no characters. That's right. Nothing. Except soda. And booze. Can't forget the booze.
We arrived, Jonny said something about needing to take a dump the size of Guam and ran off, and I sat down at the table. Give it to me, I said.
Give you what?
Whatever it is that you have to give.
And thus I received a Sentinel character and mismatched dice. Bummer.
A druid? This sucks, I said. Give me something else.
I have a Thief, a player said.
Ah crap, I replied. Nobody has anything decent?
I have a Warpriest, somebody else said.
Alright, give me the Warpriest. No way in hell am I going with a pansy fluffy-bunny-loving Druid for my first game.
Jonny came back. What do I get, he asked.
I have a Blackguard, the same person who offered me the Warpriest said.
Well hold on just a minute. How long have we been going around and around about this? Why didn't you guys just offer me the damned Blackguard at the beginning. I'll take that.
I guess I'll take the Warpriest, Jonny said.
Sloppy seconds, I replied.
Ouch.
I took a look around the table, which was actually three tables pushed together to form one big table. There were, by the time we started playing, nine players, including Jonny and myself. This does not include the DM, who had one full side of the table all to himself, because of his damned big DM Screen set up over there. So nine players, around three sides of a table. It was a tight fit, let me tell you. Which is, apparently, exactly how Jonny likes 'em.
Player impressions: um, yeah. The DM seemed confident, even with that many players. Cool. Counting the DM and Jonny and I, there were two other players who looked to be in their 30's. Which left five players who might have been in high school. Egads. Youngsters. Hoodlums. Ruffians. I remember what it was like back then. Punks and Yobs, manno. I was suddenly tingly with fear.
Not really. One of the youngsters talked about how the Drow were, like, his favorite race ever. I almost asked him if it was a cross between a Lion and a Tiger and reknowned for its magical properties. That didn't seem like the wise thing to do, however, in a group that I didn't know, and so studied the five sheets of paper that were given to me for my character. A Vryloka Blackguard. Vryloka? What's a Vryloka? I turn to the last page, where racial feats and crap were listed. Undead something something. Aha. I'm a sort-of kind-of vampire. A Vryloka is to Vampire what Tiefling is to Devil. I get it. I always did hate the concept of Tieflings. I suppose now I'll have to hate the concept of Vryloka too. Except I'm playing one. Great. And what's a Blackguard? Honestly, even now, after playing through that game, I don't know what a Blackguard is. Evil. That's what I know. How do I know? because it said so up on the top of the page. Evil Vryloka Blackguard.
I was pondering what a Blackguard was when the fellow to my right began cackling. That's right, cackling. He stopped. Then he started again. And then he stopped. And then he did it again. I almost walked out it was so fucking disturbingly mind-numbingly anti-social and creepy. Except it wasn't Halloween anti-social. It was more of a "I don't have any friends and this is why" anti-social. And then I figured out that he did it whenever somebody else came into the game room looking like they wanted to play D&D. It was a psychological trigger or something, the sound of that door opening. Like a human Pavlov dog that was trained to cackle every time the door opened.
A youngish couple came over to our table and asked to play and were turned away. But in the course of that, the girl in the couple (yes, there was a girl, and yes, she was turned away) stated that she wanted to play a healer. Which started a discussion around our table about whether or not we had any. Turned out we did. Two of them. One played by Jonny, the Warpriest, and another played by a 30-something to Jonny's left, another Warpriest.
To which I might have said, If I was playing a character class named Warpriest, and somebody asked me to heal them, I'd be pissed. Good thing I chose the Blackguard.
And the game was on. It was Episode 1 of the first chapter of the new Neverwinter cycle, apparently. And we're in a market, with markety things happening everywhere. A markety cart broke down and Jonny rushes in to help get it unstuck, but it turned out he couldn't. His Athletics skill just sucked, apparently. He exhorted all the players to help, me first, but of course I refused. Somebody asked, Doesn't anybody have the Athletics skill? Another player pointed at me, but nobody noticed. Of course I had the Athletics skill. I'm a tank. But I'm EVIL, why the hell would I help a broken markety cart? Instead I just pondered the fact that I was the only tank in the group.
Talk and talk and more talk about a new king of Neverwinter and a big fight that happened in a tomb or something (it was, apparently, handled in the prelude, which was last Saturday, which both Jonny and I missed). Then it was Surprise Round time, everybody get the minis, everybody roll initiative, game on. Where are all the minis going? So-and-so was over by the halfling selling pies, several people were by the dwarf selling God-knows-what, and several people were over by the broken cart. Where are you at, Ranger?
Staring over the Ocean.
Good answer, I thought.
Where are you at, Blackguard?
Peeing in the fountain.
Wait. What? Where are you?
By the damned fountain. All alone. The only other guy by me is this dude by the Halfling pie-seller. Sweet.
Up pop the critters. 10 of them from the sewer entrances, to which both my Blackguard and Guy-standing-by-Halfling were closest, and 4 fiery Drake things over by the Ranger-staring-into-the-ocean. Even better, I thought. The tank is gonna wade in here and start killing ash zombie things, and laugh as he shrugs aside their blows.
Zip Zap Boom two rounds later and everything is dead, including a second wave of 10 ash zombie things; the rightful king of Neverwinter shows up and leaves; and a fiery White Dragon lands in the market, threatening to end our pathetic 1st-level lives.
And if you thought that the description of the fight was too short, that's how the actual fight felt. Seriously. Two rounds. I got to swing my flail TWICE. But it was definitely long enough for me to realize that playing a Blackguard sucks. Or at least, playing that Blackguard the way it was built sucked. Or maybe playing a tank sucks. Or maybe quite simply having that many players sucks. Or maybe all of the above.
I don't know. I suppose I'll have to build my own character and go back next week to find out. I'm thinking a greataxe fighter with Power Attack and Cleave. Yeah. Tanky but hitty at the same time.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Musings on Game - AC
Armor Class (AC) has never made any sense to me. I understand that, like all things in D&D, it's an abstraction. But if you think about it even a little bit, it all falls apart. In the game, it goes something like this: Creature A is attacking Creature B. Creature A needs to roll a certain number, which consists of a formula involving Creature B's AC, and then is modified by Creature A's attack bonus, whatever that might be, if it even exists. In other words, #-to-hit = AC-modified. If the roll hits, then damage is applied, determined by whatever weapon/spell/whatever Creature A is using.
The problem I have with it is two-fold. First, since when does wearing Plate Armor make you harder to hit than being completely unencumbered? The opposite, in my mind, must be true. A person wearing in excess of fifty pounds of armor wouldn't move as fast as somebody who wasn't, and then must be easier to be hit. In D&D these sorts of questions arose, at least in my mind, when a player wanted to cast a "touch" spell against an opponent. Many times did I think, you mean all I have to do is touch this walking tin-can and the spell goes off? So how come it doesn't because I can't roll that absurdly high number?
Second, wouldn't wearing a bunch of armor minimize what damage did get through? I once read a news story about a lady in NYC who was shot on the subway, but she was wearing so many layers of fur coats that the bullet stopped before it actually penetrated her body. Wouldn't the same thing be true when dealing with slice&dice weapons, against leather and mail armor? Of course it would.
Now, in D&D, once it has been determined that you hit, your damage is not affected at all. If you're wielding a longsword, you do 1-8 damage. Period. This seems backwards to me. Armor should not affect the chances to be hit (or if it does, to increase said chances), but rather affect the damage roll.
Am I wrong on this? Let me know.
Next up: Demi-humans. Or magic. Or maybe something else. I don't know.
The problem I have with it is two-fold. First, since when does wearing Plate Armor make you harder to hit than being completely unencumbered? The opposite, in my mind, must be true. A person wearing in excess of fifty pounds of armor wouldn't move as fast as somebody who wasn't, and then must be easier to be hit. In D&D these sorts of questions arose, at least in my mind, when a player wanted to cast a "touch" spell against an opponent. Many times did I think, you mean all I have to do is touch this walking tin-can and the spell goes off? So how come it doesn't because I can't roll that absurdly high number?
Second, wouldn't wearing a bunch of armor minimize what damage did get through? I once read a news story about a lady in NYC who was shot on the subway, but she was wearing so many layers of fur coats that the bullet stopped before it actually penetrated her body. Wouldn't the same thing be true when dealing with slice&dice weapons, against leather and mail armor? Of course it would.
Now, in D&D, once it has been determined that you hit, your damage is not affected at all. If you're wielding a longsword, you do 1-8 damage. Period. This seems backwards to me. Armor should not affect the chances to be hit (or if it does, to increase said chances), but rather affect the damage roll.
Am I wrong on this? Let me know.
Next up: Demi-humans. Or magic. Or maybe something else. I don't know.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Musings on Game - HP
Why design a roleplaying game? The reasons, for me, are many.
I first started playing roleplaying games when I was about 13. At the time, for lack of a roleplaying group to be a part of, I subjected my two younger brothers to my immature Dungeon Mastering. I made mistakes, quite a lot actually, but learned how to be a better DM with every one of them. In High School I joined a roleplaying group, and we played every Saturday night until we discovered the joys of alcohol and women, and suddenly roleplaying went by the wayside. I never did give up gaming, though. I simply switched from tabletop RPGs to tabletop miniatures, and card games, and board games, and video games. Quite a lot of gaming, it occurs to me as I look back at it now. Fast forward quite a few years (I'd rather not discuss exactly how many), and a friend of mine convinced me to get back into tabletop RPGs. That was on the order of three or four years ago. During that time, I've done a lot of thinking about what I like and what I don't like about the RPGs that I've played (not many, as it turns out. D&D, AD&D 1st & 2nd eds., D&D 4E, 1st or 2nd edition Shadowrun, and 4th ed. Shadowrun. I have, however, read complete many many other game systems rules. So many that I will not post them all here).
So what don't I like, then? And please, excuse my ramblings. They may seem slipshod and hit-or-miss, but for the time being I'm just putting it all out there. And, there are so many things (which is why I'm doing this blog, in order to organize all of it) that I will probably end up stretching this over a series of posts.
1) I don't like Hit Points. I never have. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand the need for them. I just don't like them. Why? Because, at least as they are used in D&D (and subsequently every Computer RPG ever made), they give rise to a phenomenon where a character at a certain level need no longer fear the lethality of a crossbow (or insert favored weapon here). Arrow to chest? No problem, I've got 63 more hp. Bring it, gobbos! Yeah, I know. It's an abstraction. But an abstraction of what, exactly? Morale? I've heard that one. And it doesn't make any sense. In Dungeons and Dragons, a character's defenses are given a score. And their health is given a score. If I were to bypass a creature's defenses, and lower their health, then they have taken damage. At first level, that was great. A hit from a longsword was often enough to cleave the pesky critter in twain. But you try that same thing at 5th level, fighting a 5th level creature, and suddenly your hit from said longsword doesn't do crap. You still hit the pesky critter. You still bypassed its defenses. You are still using the same weapon, with the same strength, as you did before, but now it means less. A LOT less. Sweet. I hit the Fiery Whatsit and did 11 damage. Now I only need to do that 17 more times. Man, this is great. I sure am glad I leveled up so I can fight these great evils that have also leveled up just like me.
I recognized this problem even when I was fairly new to the world of RPGs, although I didn't know exactly what it was that was bothering me. All I knew was that it didn't take very long before I didn't want my PCs to advance beyond the 3rd level. The 3rd level seemed about perfect to me. It was enough that the PCs weren't being taken down by fuzzy bunnies, but not too much that certain creatures (such as the quintessential kobolds and goblins) were no longer a threat. Of course, you can't do that as a DM. Character growth is one of the essential aspects of any RPG, and how do you grow as a character if the DM caps you at level 3?
And then I discovered Shadowrun. Shadowrun, in many ways, blew my mind. But the way that most affected me was the idea of static HP. Everybody got 10 Health, and that was it. No more, no less, ever. Suddenly a whole new world opened up to me. Holy crap, I thought. Holy mother-loving crap. Of course, it didn't take long before I recognized that Shadowrun was a flawed system itself, and I found the aforementioned joys of women & booze, which took all of my attention away from games. At least for a little while.
Next up: AC (Armor Class)
I first started playing roleplaying games when I was about 13. At the time, for lack of a roleplaying group to be a part of, I subjected my two younger brothers to my immature Dungeon Mastering. I made mistakes, quite a lot actually, but learned how to be a better DM with every one of them. In High School I joined a roleplaying group, and we played every Saturday night until we discovered the joys of alcohol and women, and suddenly roleplaying went by the wayside. I never did give up gaming, though. I simply switched from tabletop RPGs to tabletop miniatures, and card games, and board games, and video games. Quite a lot of gaming, it occurs to me as I look back at it now. Fast forward quite a few years (I'd rather not discuss exactly how many), and a friend of mine convinced me to get back into tabletop RPGs. That was on the order of three or four years ago. During that time, I've done a lot of thinking about what I like and what I don't like about the RPGs that I've played (not many, as it turns out. D&D, AD&D 1st & 2nd eds., D&D 4E, 1st or 2nd edition Shadowrun, and 4th ed. Shadowrun. I have, however, read complete many many other game systems rules. So many that I will not post them all here).
So what don't I like, then? And please, excuse my ramblings. They may seem slipshod and hit-or-miss, but for the time being I'm just putting it all out there. And, there are so many things (which is why I'm doing this blog, in order to organize all of it) that I will probably end up stretching this over a series of posts.
1) I don't like Hit Points. I never have. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand the need for them. I just don't like them. Why? Because, at least as they are used in D&D (and subsequently every Computer RPG ever made), they give rise to a phenomenon where a character at a certain level need no longer fear the lethality of a crossbow (or insert favored weapon here). Arrow to chest? No problem, I've got 63 more hp. Bring it, gobbos! Yeah, I know. It's an abstraction. But an abstraction of what, exactly? Morale? I've heard that one. And it doesn't make any sense. In Dungeons and Dragons, a character's defenses are given a score. And their health is given a score. If I were to bypass a creature's defenses, and lower their health, then they have taken damage. At first level, that was great. A hit from a longsword was often enough to cleave the pesky critter in twain. But you try that same thing at 5th level, fighting a 5th level creature, and suddenly your hit from said longsword doesn't do crap. You still hit the pesky critter. You still bypassed its defenses. You are still using the same weapon, with the same strength, as you did before, but now it means less. A LOT less. Sweet. I hit the Fiery Whatsit and did 11 damage. Now I only need to do that 17 more times. Man, this is great. I sure am glad I leveled up so I can fight these great evils that have also leveled up just like me.
I recognized this problem even when I was fairly new to the world of RPGs, although I didn't know exactly what it was that was bothering me. All I knew was that it didn't take very long before I didn't want my PCs to advance beyond the 3rd level. The 3rd level seemed about perfect to me. It was enough that the PCs weren't being taken down by fuzzy bunnies, but not too much that certain creatures (such as the quintessential kobolds and goblins) were no longer a threat. Of course, you can't do that as a DM. Character growth is one of the essential aspects of any RPG, and how do you grow as a character if the DM caps you at level 3?
And then I discovered Shadowrun. Shadowrun, in many ways, blew my mind. But the way that most affected me was the idea of static HP. Everybody got 10 Health, and that was it. No more, no less, ever. Suddenly a whole new world opened up to me. Holy crap, I thought. Holy mother-loving crap. Of course, it didn't take long before I recognized that Shadowrun was a flawed system itself, and I found the aforementioned joys of women & booze, which took all of my attention away from games. At least for a little while.
Next up: AC (Armor Class)
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