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).
Thursday, September 29, 2011
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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