tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69634086030370489582024-03-02T00:34:38.774-08:00The Keep on the Gaming LandsMike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-74433428563575652972014-01-06T21:55:00.001-08:002014-01-06T21:55:44.331-08:00Prepping for Success<div>Last week, I wrote about working with success. By leaning into the players' success, you make your campaign more engaging and exciting. When you put your game on rails, you undermine the players' choices and shut down some of the chaos and unpredictability that make RPGs fun.</div><div><br></div><div>When it comes to handling sudden, unexpected successes, prep is one of your best tools. By putting some thought into how your game might play out ahead of time, you're ready to respond when the players do something crazy, exciting, and plot destroying.</div><div><br></div><div>To start with, always keep in mind how much damage the players might do to your plans. When creating important NPCs, always consider what might happen if that NPC is killed or otherwise rendered impotent.</div><div><br></div><div>For NPCs that wield power, remember that nature abhors a vacuum. If a the high priest of Asmodeus meets a sudden, bloody end at the characters' hands, how does the rest of the cult respond? Who seize power? What does the cult do to those who defeat its most powerful figures?</div><div><br></div><div>Keeping those questions in mind early keeps you ready to respond when things go off the rails. The more important a character, location, object, or whatever, the greater the repercussions to any sudden change to its status or condition.</div><div><br></div><div>It's important to think of your answers more in generalities than specific terms. If you try to be too specific, you can easily end up overwhelming yourself. It's enough to know that, upon the death of the high priest of Asmodeus, the clerics immediately beneath him gather allies and fight to the death for the right to rule. The new high priest might very well send the PCs a gift - a sword forged in Hell or a wand that projects infernal flames - too thank them for paving his path to power.</div><div><br></div><div>By thinking in generalities, you can ensure that you can quickly adapt your ideas to suit the specific situation at hand.</div><div><br></div><div>Be creative in your answers, seeding them with new adventures and plot twists. In fact, since you'll need to rely on them with things go sideways it's best to make them as easy to convert to the campaign's next adventure as possible.</div><div><br></div><div>Think of the dramatic outcome as the starting point of an adventure hook or story, the first act in the next adventure.</div><div><br></div><div>With your prep done ahead of time, your campaign can never go in an unexpected direction. By acknowledging that anything can happen, you're ready when it does.</div><div><br></div>Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-49485697409727635602014-01-03T16:07:00.001-08:002014-01-03T16:07:47.514-08:00Making Success Interesting, Part III<div>
The last two posts touched on making success interesting. The first one did the obligatory introduction and advised you to take a break and think, rather than panic, when faced with a character's sudden, dramatic success.</div>
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The second post advised you to approach the issue of the sudden, campaign-altering event on the campaign level. Don't screw up your campaign by trying to fix an event in a single session or adventure.</div>
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Now we're going to talk about a dark and treacherous path. You've decided to panic. You're going to start doing stuff right now, in the heat of the moment.</div>
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Here's what to do.</div>
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Don't just delete what happened, especially in a hamfisted way. That's terrible GMing regardless of your style.</div>
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Accept that your campaign is going off the rails.</div>
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Push it further off the rails.</div>
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If you've been GMing for more than a day or two, you probably already have more campaign ideas than you can possibly run. If what just happened is going to completely mess up all your plans, congratulations, your old campaign is dead. Long live the new campaign.<br />
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The hitch is that you're not really starting a new campaign, but your plans have been so blasted to pieces that you might as well adopt that mindset.</div>
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Wrap that story arc or campaign up, throw the players a little parade, and launch right into your next campaign. If this was the final battle or event of the campaign, well then who cares? You were going to end it anyway.<br />
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Otherwise, launch that campaign you've been thinking of right now.<br />
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Is it a different genre? Don't be concerned about that. Any story can fit into almost any genre. Kurowsawa's Seven Samurai has been retold as a western, a medieval epic, and a space opera. Seven Samurai actually relies on its time and place to make sense of its set up, and yet it's still easy to shift into almost any genre imaginable.</div>
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The point is this: The random crap that completely derails campaigns is only a problem if you insist that your campaign has to have rails. We all want to run more campaigns than we'll ever possibly cram into cram into our tabletop RPG time budget. This is an opportunity, not a tragedy.</div>
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At this stage, if the players have pushed things so far off course and into the realm of solving all the problems you threw in front of them, your old campaign is over. Start a new one inside this one.</div>
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Next time, we'll talk about prep and planning for flexibililty.</div>
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Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-78890244390527497242014-01-01T23:19:00.000-08:002014-01-02T20:34:03.729-08:00Making Success Interesting, Part II<div>
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"They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards."</div>
<br>Last time, I wrote about avoiding the urge to counter a player's success. If the game takes a sudden, dramatic turn in the players' favor, take a moment to collect your thoughts and think things over. It's easy to make a snap judgment that simply denies the players their victory.</div><div><br></div><div>So, you're taking a break, sipping your beverage of choice, and wracking your brain. What now? Take heart in the quote above. You're the GM. Any difficulties you face are only temporary.</div><div><br></div><div>To start with, success comes with consequences. This is a great rule to keep in mind for things like social checks and character influence, but it applies to things like dropping a balor with a single, lucky crit.</div><div><br></div><div>A lucky check or crit can spell the end of an adventure, but it's just one part of your campaign. As a GM, you're always playing the long game. Resist the urge to try to resolve things at the table in the current session. Great campaigns are what keep gaming groups going. Your goal is to make sure that this turn of events feeds into your campaign.</div><div><br></div><div>Hang some long-term consequences on to a great victory and make it all the more memorable and pivotal to your campaign. Take a step back, think about what's happening, and turn the event into the flashpoint for your campaign's next act.</div><div><br></div><div>It's actually pretty easy to implement, and best of all you don't need to think on your feet in the current session. Just play through the PC's epic victory, and work the consequences of their success into the next session.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Use a little aikido in your campaign. Don't fight against the character's success. Lean into it, turn your thoughts in its direction, and accelerate it out of the characters' control. Fighting against the flow of the game is the surest way to bring a campaign to a halt.</span></div><div><br></div><div>The PCs kill a balor. An alchemist tracks down the body and uses it to create a virulent poison used in a series of assassinations</div><div><br></div><div>The good-aligned PCs charm the socks off the evil warlord. He puts them in charge of sacking and burning a halfling village.</div>
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<div>The PCs evade every trap in the Tomb of Bror and claim the Hammer of Damnation. The high priests of Jagra dispatch 33 unholy assassins to reclaim it.</div><div><br></div><div>Not only have you preserved the PCs' success, but you made it even more important by tying it into your campaign's larger story. By answering a tactical twist in your campaign with a strategic shift, you keep the characters and their successes (and failures) as a central piece in shaping the campaign.</div><div><br></div><div>Next time, what to do and what to avoid when you absolutely must respond to a game changing event in the midst of a session.</div><div><br></div>
Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-88542448211423626612014-01-01T22:52:00.002-08:002014-01-02T20:36:19.807-08:00Making Success Interesting, Part II had the chance to play Dungeon World over the holiday break. The game went well, even if we did mar it with our typical propensity to turn any RPG into the plot of a Marx brothers movie.<div>
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Dungeon World emphasizes making success interesting, which is a pretty nifty approach. A lot of RPGs and bloggers spill ink about making failure interesting. We've all heard the tale of the investigative adventure that went south because the players blew the Spot Hidden check they needed to advance the plot. In fact, Robin Laws designed an <a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/?page_id=672" target="_blank">entire RPG system</a> around that problem.</div>
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In my experience, making failure interesting is fairly easy once you understand why to do it. It doesn't even come into play in some campaign styles.</div>
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In a sand box campaign, a roadblock merely propels the group to some other path or location. Can't unlock a door in the Caves of Thuum? Then head over to the Burning Fortress and come back when you level up. In many ways, choke points and barriers help make a sandbox come to life. They encourage the kind of adventure browsing and strategic thinking that make sand boxes come to life. If there's no one, single path, you can't derail the campaign with a roadblock.</div>
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Even in more story oriented games, it doesn't take too much for a DM to set failure outcomes to keep the action moving forward. That blown Spot Hidden check in <i>Call of Cthulhu</i> gives you directions to the cultist's hideout, but you miss the clue that points to the the real, unguarded entrance to her base. Like I said above, I think most GMs learn to work around this once they see the underlying issue for what it is.</div>
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Making success interesting allows you to unclench your sphincter as a GM. It lets players feel cool about what they can do, while also driving the action forward. You don't have to worry about salting a player's success with failure, or fear for a spell or combo breaking your game.</div>
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My first, and most important piece of advice, is this: If your first reaction to player's die roll or action is to try and deny the success, stop the game. In the heat of the moment, it's easy to panic and try to derail the action. Maybe the players threaten to mess up your prepped material. Maybe they threaten to turn your carefully crafted, scary monster or NPC into a complete joke.</div>
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The first step to keeping things interesting is to never be afraid of pausing the game. Not everyone is awesome at thinking on their feet, and your first reaction is rarely the best possible one. As long as you don't pause the game too often, it's a great tool to catch your breath, think about things, and come up with a good idea.</div>
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Best of all, if your group is anything like mine pausing the action is easy. Call for a bathroom break. Stop to pour yourself a drink. If anything, the question of what will happen after that natural 20 on a Bluff check will only increase the players' anticipation and engagement with the game. The break gives you a mini clilffhanger while you sort out what to do.</div>
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So, the first rule is this: Don't panic. If you're about to panic, stop the game, get a fresh beverage, put your feet up, and take five. You're the GM. It's your right to pause the game whenever you want.</div>
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Tomorrow: Now that you've bought yourself some time, what the heck do you actually do?</div>
Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-10098681834642048632013-11-23T22:06:00.001-08:002013-11-23T22:10:57.925-08:00A Dungeon of Random TablesAs a DM, I like to improvise from a set of fairly loose notes. I like being surprised as a DM. On the other hand, improvising requires a level of energy and invention that's not always there.<br />
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To get around this issue, I designed a dungeon as a set of random tables. An entry in the dungeon looks like this:<br />
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<b>2. Audience Chamber</b><br />
Visitors to the cult's lair wait here until their audience with the high priest. There are four bedrolls, a barrel of water, a bucket, and a small cabinet stocked with food and drink (6 days worth) here.<br />
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1d6-2 visitors are here. (Allows for an empty room.)<br />
50/50 that they are simple hunters or trappers here to trade, or dark pilgrims seeking to join<br />
Use bandit stats for either<br />
Hunters aren't looking for a fight. Even chance that the cultists try to trick or attack PCs<br />
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This isn't rocket science, but it had two benefits to me in play.<br />
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First, it was fun as a DM not knowing what was in he room until the PCs entered it. It made the adventure more interesting to run, as I was as much an audience for it as the players.<br />
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Second, it makes for a very dynamic environment. It made the dungeon feel like a living place with only a small amount of effort on my part.<br />
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I used randomness in a few ways:<br />
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<li>Absence/presence of inhabitants, plus their numbers</li>
<li>Attitudes/general initial reaction (violence, talking, deception, flight)</li>
<li>State of traps and other features (recently trigger, broken, normal)</li>
<li>Odd events, like whether the two rival ogres in a room happen to be fighting when the PCs approach</li>
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Overall, so far in play it has worked well to make the dungeon come to life. As long as your dungeon map is reasonably non-linear, it can have interesting effects on the flow of play.</div>
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<br />Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-91001317500156380322013-08-22T19:56:00.001-07:002013-08-22T19:56:39.010-07:00Digital Toolkit: The Evernote DungeonRight before GenCon, I ran a dungeon crawl adventure using my iPad, a set of dice, and monster stat blocks written down on index cards.<br />
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On my iPad, I had GoodReader loaded up with PDFs of the rulebooks I needed to reference. For the adventure, I tried something different. I wrote up the dungeon using Evernote. It worked out pretty well.<br />
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If you're not familiar with Evernote, head over to its <a href="http://evernote.com/" target="_blank">web site</a> to get a basic overview. I've read that it started as someone's attempt to create an app to help keep track of a D&D campaign. Whether that's true or not, it's been invaluable in organizing my own campaigns.<br />
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For dungeons, here's how I use Evernote.<br />
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<li>I create a new notebook, using the dungeon's name as the notebook's name. For multiple levels in a single dungeon, I create multiple notebooks.</li>
<li>I grab an image of the dungeon map and pop that in as the first note in the notebook. I also insert any general notes about the dungeon in this note, like random encounter tables. I use a leading character in the note's title that ensures that it's in the notebook's top position.</li>
<li>During the game, I keep that note open to track where the party travels and such.</li>
<li>I create a separate note for each dungeon room, and inside that note write down all the typical stuff you normally need to run that chamber. The irritating thing is that using letters instead of numbers makes it easier, as Evernote breaks out notes in separate rows for each letter of the alphabet, by note title. Numbers work OK, but you end up with all of your notes shelved into a single row.</li>
<li>In play, I close out the dungeon map note and open the corresponding room note when the characters enter an area.</li>
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So that's basically it. I don't bother with monster stat blocks in the notes, instead handling them the old fashioned way via hand written index cards or print outs.</div>
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So, that's my experience with mapping dungeons in Evernote. It worked out well in play.</div>
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Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-56665153171627668132013-08-19T19:16:00.002-07:002013-08-19T19:16:53.336-07:00GenCon Wrap Up Part I: Avoiding Con CrudOr: Why I am happy to shake hands at a con.<br />
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The last con crud I picked up was in 2008, and I'm pretty sure it was from a meal. I've been to dozens of shows over that time, shook a lot of hands, and even had a roommate come down with the flu in mid-con. So what's the secret? It's super simple.<br />
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<li>Hydrate. Drink plenty of water, soda, or whatever.</li>
<li>Aim for six hours of sleep each night. I try to avoid caffeine after mid-afternoon to help with this rule.</li>
<li>Eat well. I eat at least one salad per day and fruit whenever I can. You can usually find a place in the con center selling apples or bananas alongside breakfast foods.</li>
<li>Wash your hands. Hot water, soap, and recite the alphabet A to Z to time scrubbing.</li>
<li>Resist the urge to touch your face, eyes, and nose. You can't catch a cold from germs hanging out on your hands. Those little buggers need an entry vector. Don't give them one.</li>
<li>Assume no one else is washing their hands. It's kind of paranoid, but it's an easy way to remind myself to avoid touching my face and to wash up before eating. All it takes is That Guy to shake your hand before you chow down on an apple.</li>
<li>I know some people don't shake hands, but really if you do all this stuff you don't need to worry about. Even if you avoid handshaking, you're still exposed to tons of stuff that you can only counter by washing your hands and taking care of yourself.</li>
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Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-19988004648775041212013-08-18T18:11:00.003-07:002013-08-18T18:11:42.966-07:00GenCon ResolutionsA lot of us use the New Year as a marker for various resolutions. We make promises to ourselves, usually regarding things that are supposed to make us better people. Almost always, a New Year's resolution comes salted with a sense of challenge or reluctance. We never resolve to eat more chocolate or watch more TV. We instead plant a flag in the ground and swear to do something we know is out of our comfort zone.<div>
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I think that's dumb. Life is hard enough as it is. I say we make resolutions to do fun things, and use GenCon as the yearly marker for how we're doing.</div>
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Here are my GenCon 2013 resolutions:</div>
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<li>Keep my "for fun" D&D game going for the entire year.</li>
<li>Start a second campaign that hits at least level 10.</li>
<li>Play at least six RPGs I haven't tried before (new editions count).</li>
<li>Play at least four miniatures games.</li>
<li>Paint the miniatures I bought at GenCon: a pack of bullywugs, a set of beast men, and a set of three barbarians.</li>
<li>Use the painted beast men in at least one RPG or miniatures game.</li>
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What's on your list?</div>
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Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-45241851024207625122011-04-05T23:17:00.000-07:002011-04-05T23:57:17.843-07:00Aedric, Sire of Beast and Storm<div>As the gods crafted mortals in their own image, so too did Aedric craft the beasts in his. The strongest of the gods had little use for words, so his children could not speak. He fought with his fists and teeth, and so too did his children rely on tooth, claw, and talon.</div><div><br /></div><div>In time, Aedric's children came to hunt the humanoids crafted by the other gods. The crude spears they clutched did little to ward away the griffons, chimera, and other beasts Aedric had crafted. The other gods grew angry. Looking upon Aedric's creations, they crafted a mighty spell to undo their power.</div><div><br /><div>Each of Aedric's creations were split asunder, their power scattered across their new forms. The soaring griffon yielded the eagle and the lion. The vicious ferreg gave rise to owls and bears. Hydras split into swarms of snakes, while perytons spawned deer and vultures. All of the most common creatures of the world so arose.</div><div><br /></div><div>Few of Aedric's children escaped this scourge. Only the most common of them survived, and stories persist of truly terrible beasts that still lurk in forgotten corners of the world. Each and every last animal can trace its roots to Aedric's brood, and few can imagine what creatures they once formed.</div><div><br /></div><div>For his part, Aedric swore revenge against the gods and their children. He threw himself into the sky and transformed into a swirling vortex of air to rend and tear the first cities to rubble. Before the gods could stop him, he become one with the cloudy, peaceful sky. Thus, the first storm ravaged the land. Since that day, Aedric appears again and again to punish the land, rising from the serene clouds to deal his punishment before fading again before his brethren can catch and punish him. Over the long years his wrath has faded, but at times it boils up again into a blizzard or hurricane.</div><div><br /></div><div>Needless to say, the worship of Aedric is at best met with suspicion and fear if not outright persecution. As the lord of storms and beasts, he offers his worshippers protection from his wrath and the brute, physical power his creations embody. His clerics forswear metal armor and prefer simple cudgels, clubs, and maces to more sophisticated weapons. More tellingly, they refuse to bathe, cut their hair, or engage in similar trappings of civilized behavior. To the clerics of Aedric, embracing the way of the beast is key to achieving their god's inner mysteries.</div><div><br /></div><div>In battle, the lesser priests can take on the forms of common beasts. The more powerful of his followers can adopt the forms of his true children, such as hydras and griffons. The highest ranking clerics conjure air elementals and take the form of terrible, living storms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Aedric's clerics war against the other gods' mortal followers, though they can set aside their grudge if a greater threat presents itself. In particular, they view gnolls, manticores, and other abominations spawned by The Defiler as a heretical mockery of Aedric's creations.</div><div><br /></div><div>Aedric's worship flourishes in the distant barbaric lands, far from the Realm of Ten Cities. Rumors persist of hidden cults that lurk in the cities, plotting to unleash a great invasion of beasts to overrun the civilized realm.</div></div>Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-9361243821804899912010-10-24T21:07:00.000-07:002010-10-24T21:09:52.924-07:00Games are Idioms(Originally posted on EN World, but re-posted here since people on that site seemed to like it.)<br /><br />I think you can learn a lot about a game by listening to how people describe it after they play it. It shows you how they interact with, see, and process the game.<br /><br />For instance, last weekend I played Carcassonne. I had some lucky draws I was able to exploit by managing my meeples well. I was able to keep churning through cities and roads, completing stuff at a steady enough pace that I was able to drop some farmers early without hurting myself in the late game. My opponent built a couple of huge cities to narrow my lead, but my edge in farmers sealed the game.<br /><br />Compare that to a description of our lunchtime Keep on the Borderlands game from Tuesday. The characters had been ambushed by wererats at the Stumbling Giant (the tavern in the keep) the session before. With the help of the guards, they figured out that the wererats posed as halfling merchants and had visited the keep several times before. Oddly enough, though the guards at the gate reported that the halflings always left with a heavily laden wagon, the gnomes they traded with never sold them all that much copper and silver ore. The gnomes were surprised at the guards' description of the loaded wagon.<br /><br />The PCs had arranged a meeting with the keep's ruler. Unknown to them, the ruler's trusted advisor disguised himself and sought out the PCs to question them. Faced with an inquisitive stranger, the party's wizard slashed the man's arm with a knife to see if the non-silver blade would deal any lasted damage.<br /><br />It did, and the session ended with the characters entered the ruler's audience chamber to find the "wandering tracker" they had harassed standing at his side.<br /><br />If you look at my second description, I think it's something you find for most RPGs and other immersive games. I'd describe playing Mass Effect in a similar manner. There's something very important there, a mode of thinking and experiencing the game that the mechanics should support. It's definitely something that influences the Essentials process and a lot of my design.<br /><br />It's something that I think of as the game's metaphor, or its idiom. To an outsider, D&D is a few people sitting around a table, rolling dice, consulting books, speaking in funny voices, and maybe pushing miniatures around a grid. To the people in the game, it's a tense expedition into an ancient ruin, made all the more deadly by the bloodthirsty, recently awakened vampire that stalks the tombs they explore. That's an important part of the game. Without it, the game is little more than what it appears to be on the surface.<!-- google_ad_section_end -->Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-15191967607955987022010-05-23T13:31:00.000-07:002010-05-23T13:49:00.104-07:00What You Know, Who You KnowThere was a thread on EN World a few months back about the role of sages in D&D. In AD&D, there was a fair amount of material in the <span style="font-style: italic;">DMG </span>about the services offered by experts in various fields. If the characters needed to learn the history of the Forgotten City of Thar, they could plunk down some cash and hire the services of an expert.<br /><br />Over the years, that sort of expertise has shifted from NPCs to characters. Non-weapon proficiencies, and later the skill system integrated into D&D, gave the characters the opportunity to become experts themselves. The sage as an important element of the game faded away.<br /><br />On one hand, that makes things easier at the table. The DM can salt a dungeon or other location with strange runes, crumbling statues, and other bits that allow for skill checks as a way to add depth, background, and hints to the game.<br /><br />On the other hand, sages provided a few nice benefits. They are a great way to give the party an interesting, non-combat challenge, a fun NPC to interact with, and a world that feels like a living, active place outside of the immediate bounds of an adventure. They set up a plausible situation where the PCs have to make an NPC happy in order to achieve their goals.<br /><br />There's a rather easy way to combine the two approaches, giving the characters the benefits of skills like Arcana or History while making sages (and similar NPCs) useful, interesting resources. Simply put, most experts combine off the cuff knowledge with a thorough understanding of how to find an answer. That can easily extend to the PCs.<br /><br />When the characters discover strange runes carved on to a seemingly impenetrable steel door, a skill check points the way to the expert that can tell them about the runes. The character's knowledge isn't absolute, but it does carry with it an understanding of the experts, important books, and other lore surrounding the topic.<br /><br />Even better, you can frame that knowledge with an <a href="http://www.jonathantweet.com/gamestaxis.html">interesting choice.</a> Perhaps the characters can recall two experts who might know about the runes. Yulgash the Exile's knowledge is unmatched, but he dwells in the Forest of Brambles ever since the townsfolk caught his servants pillaging the graveyard. Tharan the Radiant is a close second, but as a high priest of Pholtus any inquiries to him might generate unwanted entanglements. <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps/7485-Check-for-Traps-Judging-the-Game">Giving the characters real options</a> is an important part of D&D, and this is one more way to introduce that.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-20513776238794624082010-04-22T23:52:00.001-07:002010-04-23T00:12:12.175-07:00I Am Not a StorytellerMy monthly AD&D campaign has confirmed something I suspected after observing my two 4e campaigns.<br /><br />I am not a storyteller. I do not like establishing plots or events before we sit down to start playing. I like drawing maps and making notes about what lives where and why. I like sketching out NPCs. I like putting together fictional environments with all sorts of events on the verge of kicking off. But I don't actually like writing about those events, and I'll gleefully hack things to pieces and rearrange them to suit whatever idea pops into my head.<br /><br />I am the god of this tiny, virtual universe, and if I decide at moment the characters enter the dungeon that there are three-headed kobolds there instead of the cyborgs I wrote about in my notes, there's no power in all the cosmos that can contradict me.<br /><br />I DM because I want to see what will happen next, maybe as much as the players. Hell, probably even more than them. That interplay around the table, the unraveling of plans, the sudden bursts of inspiration, all of those things are what keep me coming back to the table.<br /><br />That probably also explains why my #1 pet peeve is a player who quotes rules to me. Think the rulebook has all the answers? Then let's see that rulebook run a campaign!<br /><br />The AD&D game really brought this all home to me. It's been a lot of fun, in part because I didn't take it all too seriously. It also helps that I have some great players. Erik Mona is a roleplaying MVP in my book. He's exactly the kind of player I like having at my table. His character is always doing something interesting, even if Stephen's character keeps murdering the NPCs he tries to interact with.<br /><br />On another note, playing AD&D has been an interesting experience. I've found that I run it much like I did back in the day. The players use the character options from the Player's Handbook, I use the monsters and magic items from the DMG, but the rules I use behind the screen are basically OD&D/BD&D and lots of fiat.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-4374884982805965792010-03-17T22:09:00.000-07:002010-03-17T22:19:42.382-07:00How Hammerfast Got a Hex MapA few reviewers and forumites have noticed that Hammerfast, a book I wrote that just released this month, has a hex map in it. The hex map details the area around Hammerfast.<br /><br />I believe that this is the first hex map in an official, non-magazine D&D release in a really long time. I'm not sure if a hex map ever appeared in a 3e book. I'm sure the magazines printed one at some point, but I can't recall a specific issue or adventure.<br /><br />Some folks might think that the hex map is there as a call out to old school gaming. The truth is actually far more sinister, far more intriguing, and far more shocking.<br /><br />Actually, it isn't. The story behind the hex map is reasonably boring. This is it:<br /><br />In writing the book, I realized I had to create a map of the area around Hammerfast. I suck at drawing. I'm really, really bad at it. I also hate freeform outdoor maps with scales measured in inches or whatever random increment the designer picks. They're useless to me. If I need to know the distance between East Farmbutt and Castle Hamfist, I don't want to break out a ruler. I want to count hexes.<br /><br />When I drew the map I created it on a sheet of hex paper. When I submitted the art order, the art director asked me if I was serious. I said yes. I ranted a little about needing use a ruler to measure the distance between East Farmbutt and Castle Hamfist. I don't think anyone really cared. They just wanted to make sure that was my intention.<br /><br />So, that's why there's a hex map in Hammerfast. And when the characters decide to tramp around the wilds surrounding the city, you don't need to use a ruler to figure out how long it will take them to go from one end of the map to another.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-79551762611298177732010-02-28T12:13:00.000-08:002010-02-28T12:28:10.491-08:00A Tale of Two House RulesLast week I posted two of the house rules I was going to use for my AD&D/OSRIC game. We played yesterday, and I'll have a full recap later. For now I want to talk about the house rules and how they went. In short, one of them worked so well that I can't imagine not using it. The other I never even used, because once we started playing I didn't care enough to bother with it.<br /><br />Delta's Target 20 system was nearly flawless for use in combat. I'll use it whenever I play AD&D or OD&D. It kept things moving quickly, especially once I had the player's ACs memorized.<br /><br />The really nice thing is that it kept questions and downtime to a minimum. When a character attacked, I reminded the player of the target's AC and that was it. After that it was die roll, and either an immediate damage roll or an announced miss.<br /><br />There were plenty of times when I didn't even bother with the math. If the die came up a 17 or higher, I knew it was a hit. I didn't ask if the players had the same experience, but I suspect they did. We were moving through combat rounds at a breakneck pace.<br /><br />In contrast, I didn't bother with the initiative rules. At least, not yet. I think there was a grand total of one spell cast in combat (<span style="font-style: italic;">bless, </span>by Rob's half-orc fighter/cleric), and the initiative system really focuses on spells and keeping casters on their toes. With that insight in mind, I might tinker with it a little more and focus exclusively on casting.<br /><br />Oddly enough, after years of running iterative initiative having everyone roll each round was fun and interesting. There were plenty of times, at least from behind the DM's screen, that initiative order was a big part of the tension. With things moving so quickly, I just had each player roll a d6 and act on that segment, starting with 1 and running simultaneous actions in the event of ties.<br /><br />My experience with these house rules brought to mind an old essay by Vincent Baker. I'd link to it, but I can't for the life of me think of any terms that might bring it up on Google. In essence, Vincent argues that each rule a designer adds to a game should make the game more enjoyable. The best design is one that, if the players use all the rules, they have the most fun.<br /><br />Obviously, that's a platonic ideal, but in play the two house rules showed that principle in action. Delta's rules made things move faster and let us get in more orc-bashing. My initiative rules would've brought the game to a halt and forced players to do math that had a dubious potential for making things more interesting. Thus, one rule lived, and one rule died.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-90110852594172948032010-02-23T17:17:00.001-08:002010-02-23T17:54:05.177-08:00OSRIC House RulesI'm running OSRIC this weekend, and like any DM worth his salt I'm adding house rules to the game. Here's what I'm using:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1. <a href="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/">Delta's Target 20 System:</a></span> To me, this is a no-brainer. It sounds incredibly easy to use and keeps the descending AC system in place. I'm not going to go with the rules for thief skills and saving throws, but for attack rolls it looks great.<br /><br />I linked to Delta's blog, and you can find the rules download there on the right hand margin of the page.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Initiative:</span> OSRIC gets a lot right, but I'm not crazy about the basic initiative mechanic. In OSRIC, each side rolls to determine the segment on which the *other* acts. That's counter-intuitive to me. I appreciate how the mechanic functions, but I can't embrace it.<br /><br />I also have to admit that I always loved speed factor for, frankly, inexplicable reasons. So, that's what I'm using! Here are the rules I'm going to use. If they crash and burn in play, I'll just go back to the OSRIC version.<br /><br />* Each PC or group of monsters rolls a d6 for initiative.<br />* The result is the segment on which you decide what you want to do.<br />* When you make your choice, you add your action's speed to your initiative. The result is the segment on which you act.<br />* If more than one person tries to act on the same segment, the action is simultaneous.<br />* If your initiative goes into double digits, subtract 10, and that's when you act on the next round.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Modifiers</span><br />Dagger, other small weapons: +0<br />One handed melee weapons: +1<br />Two handed melee weapons: +2<br />Loaded crossbow: +0<br />Unloaded crossbow: +3 (includes time needed to load; you can load and not shoot for +3)<br />Thrown weapon or bow: +1<br /><br />Movement: This is a little tricky. You can move 1/10th your speed per segment and take another action, adding the modifier at the end of your movement to determine when the action takes place.<br /><br />Special Polearm Rule: If you have a polearm and an enemy charges you, you can immediately attack it on that segment but that costs you your turn that round.<br /><br />Delay: You can delay your action by as much as you want.<br /><br />Spell Casting: Modifier equals the spell's casting time in segments. You're considered casting the spell from the time of your base initiative until the segment on which you cast the spell. If you're hit between those two segments but not during them, the spell is lost.<br /><br />Everything Else: DM's judgment. I'm toying with some weird items and gear the PCs could find for sale in Cort, the town I made up for the game, like a mini-ballista called an ogre stopper that is +0 to fire when loaded, but +20 to load and fire.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-83268111079085357032010-02-11T20:09:00.001-08:002010-02-11T20:12:13.578-08:00Keeping Tiles in PlaceI wouldn't be surprised if this is old news to anyone, but I recently started using toolbox liners as a base for dungeon tiles and Paizo's map packs. They're very handy for keeping individual tiles in place, especially if you play on a kitchen table or other glossy, finished surface.<br /><br />I haven't had as much slipping with dungeon tiles, since they're a fairly thick stock, but the liners really come into their own with the map pack tiles. Those tiles are fairly thin and slide like butter on a tabletop. With the toolbox liner, they stay nice and snug. I originally tried mounting the on foam board, but the liner makes that pointless work.<br /><br />Anyway, hopefully someone will find that useful.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-58391363579251151822010-02-08T23:20:00.000-08:002010-02-08T23:22:54.294-08:00Tonight's Session in PicturesI snapped a few photos of tonight's session. Here are two of them:<br /><br /><table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0-ZM78z3WglK5ACoLLd7QA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqUzErv_CcMKah7sk7nrVcM0CXGuxxvSqo7rfpfaXF8laXhlN1P6kGl_ls-PL6dD0nQwR-I1fV2oQSEKGcrW6uJYNRfuxjyu0La4s1Oe4usWhMucT8yiJ8qmI4QkR7yLwvBkfI76Blqw/s800/IMG_0030.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/mearls/GamingPhotos?feat=embedwebsite">Gaming Photos</a></td></tr></table><br /><br />The warden does her job, keeping the githyanki busy while the rest of the party seizes control of the ship's helm. The warden would be stunned by a githyanki knight, be she'd get her revenge by leaping on to the forecastle and critting him twice in a row.<br /><br /><table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SnX2X8SExpZrXlMfLDbpIQ?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOKO4j3rVTil1wE5dYAzf1sprx3FDPGLBkEXdzR0N4KkBaVQaQ2_MYGvKvr5Ev8X427SHe1Cbl6TzTFtGiqYIYvOiZWBGxd40sIb-Y1kyQZ2ICskW_l6MNK3SKQq1d4a91E0S4-B0eiw/s800/IMG_0040.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/mearls/GamingPhotos?feat=embedwebsite">Gaming Photos</a></td></tr></table><br /><br />Later on, the party tangled with an enormous dragon. While the warden didn't enjoy being in the dragon's jaws, she did provide flanking for the eladrin avenger on the far side of the wyrm (and vice versa).Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-61810026568703112682010-02-03T17:33:00.000-08:002010-02-03T17:56:02.281-08:00Build Your Adventures in OD&DAs those of you who follow me on Twitter might know, I wrote up a dungeon for OD&D to run at this year's D&D Experience. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to run it at the con. However, I learned a useful lesson going forward: From now on, when I design an adventure I'll first approach it as if I'm running it using OD&D.<br /><br />This approach might seem a little weird, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. OD&D keeps characters simple. They don't have loads of spells, abilities, or magic items. The monsters are built in a similar way. An orc swings its sword or fires its bow at you, and that's about it. Critters like beholders and dragons are a little more complex, but they're the exception, not the norm. There are no skills to roll, just descriptions of what a character tries to do.<br /><br />When you pull those things back, you're left with only one option for making a dungeon or adventure interesting: Compelling locations, mysteries, puzzles, weird phenomena, *stuff* that the PCs can poke, prod, and inspect. These are all the things that make D&D compelling. They show off the spontaneity, immersion, and creativity that arise in the exchange among players and DM.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">In Search of the Unknown</span> is a great example of this effect in action. The dungeon in that adventure is empty of monsters and treasure. The DM is supposed to add that stuff. Instead, it features an overgrown garden of massive mushrooms, a chamber of mysterious pools, hidden chambers, details and color that suggest the dungeon's history, and other elements that make it an interesting place to explore. Reading the adventure, even without monsters and treasures, is fun. You want to know what's in the next room.<br /><br />That's what this approach embraces, creating a dungeon environment that's interesting without any monsters around. It builds an environment that encourages the players to think of the scene from their character's point of view and act appropriately. It adds enough detail to get things started, and relies on the players choices, rather than the mechanics of skill checks or powers, to drive the action.<br /><br />Once you have those details nailed down, you can then go back and add in monsters, treasure, skill DCs, and what not as appropriate. If you are running 4e, this approach has probably already yielded some interesting dungeon features that the monsters (and the PCs) can use when a fight breaks out, but you should also have plenty of areas for exploration and experimentation, nice changes of pace from the funhouse effect of one fight after another.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-67794251147458471702010-01-18T11:20:00.000-08:002010-01-18T11:58:59.890-08:00Swinginess and BalanceThere's a thread over at EN World where a poster asks what "swingy" means in terms of D&D. Here's the definition for it that I use:<br /><br />A swingy system is one where a single bad or good die roll dictates the outcome of an encounter for a player or the entire group. If you roll a 1 on your save against a ghoul's paralysis, you're out of the fight unless the cleric has the right spell to get you back on your feet. As with almost everything in RPG design, a swingy mechanic has its strengths and weaknesses.<br /><br />The biggest problem with a swingy game is that it produces outcomes that crowd out the rest of the system. 3e had a huge emphasis on pre-fight buffs and spells taken specifically to counter rare but catastrophic outcomes. It really favored players, because it was far more likely that they could plan and optimize to take advantage of the system's swing rather than fall victim to it. The reverse was true for DMs, who have multiple critters to manage and villains to create from scratch.<br /><br />However, swing has a huge benefit. It makes every die roll tense and dramatic. It drives players to the edge of their seats and keeps them there. If you look at 4e, with its efforts to reduce swing, you see a common criticism of overly long fights and battles that are decided long before they finish. Some of that might come from encounter design, but at its root the critics are pointing out the lack of swing in the game.<br /><br />Personally, I like tense die rolls, but I don't want all my rolls to have that tension. For instance, gnolls in 4e get a big damage bonus if they gang up on a PC. In one fight in my Temple of Elemental Evil game, the gnolls spread out to engage the characters. Once the fighter was bloodied, though, the gnolls used their next turn to move over to him (taking opportunity attacks along the way) and wallop him from barely bloodied to below 0 hit points. That had exactly the tension I like. When the first gnoll hit for a lot more damage than normal, the players all leaned in to watch the next two attack rolls. In 4e, that swing is moved from a single die roll (Save or die!) to a series of die rolls (If two of these three gnolls hit the fighter, or if you blow your next two saving throws, it's lights out).<br /><br />Oddly enough, while balance and swing may seem like polar opposites they go hand in hand. A perfectly balanced system would be dull and a wildly unbalanced one leaves players and DMs essentially inventing their own game. By the same token, a wildly swingy game might as well use a coin flip to resolve entire battles, while one without any swing is as fun as watching paint dry. Both are boring.<br /><br />Balance establishes a level playing field between characters and gives a DM a clear sense of a critter's strength compared to the PC. Swing steps in and throws all that stuff out of whack on a session by session basis. It determines that in this fight, the rogue is the hero who leaps over the crowd of orcs and skewers the evil priest with his rapier, while the fighter stumbles around with a dark mantle stuck to his head. It lets the 6 Intelligence cleric spout out the answer to the Lorekeeper's question on arcane theory while the wizard sputters and flails. It makes for memorable moments, because it produce rare, interesting, and big moments.<br /><br />Balance sets the stage for swing. In a well-designed game, the players cannot control or eliminate swing. It's the wild card that reminds them that the best laid plans sometimes fall apart, while even the most hopeless struggle can turn on a die roll or two. It's the unpredictable element that makes games exciting.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-14637138973490918062010-01-16T19:26:00.001-08:002010-01-16T19:32:13.054-08:00How to Lose PlayersRiffing off <A HREF="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-lose-players-part-i.html">James Raggi's idea.</A><br /><br />Here's one for 3e/Pathfinder DM's:<br /><br />The local temple known for selling <span style="font-style:italic;">wands of cure light wounds</span> has been infiltrated by a cultist of the death god. The <span style="font-style:italic;">wands</span> seem to work as normal, but 24 hours after receiving his first heal from it, a character takes 1 point of Constitution damage per <span style="font-style:italic;">cure</span> he received from it in the prior 24 hours.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-86326886276833894372010-01-12T13:42:00.000-08:002010-01-12T14:49:58.646-08:00The Issue of Game BalanceGame balance is the hobgoblin of the D&D designer's mind. It's a shiv to the ego's gut, a reminder that even the best design will spring a hole. While balance has always been an issue, it's really important when you look at D&D post-2e's splats and skills and power. That's when players had enough choices, and enough control over those choices, that they could easily build huge gaps in power between them. You could build broken characters in earlier editions, but the DM (by design, IMO) had a lot more power to reign things in. It's a lot easier for a DM to say "Your wand runs out of charges" than "The wand is out of charges, you can't buy it anymore, and that feat you're using is gone."<br /><br />A lot of gamers really don't care about game balance, and that's OK. A lot of DMs have learned over the years to fiddle with the game to keep things even, and that's a godsend to many designers. Your audience is trained to forgive mistakes!<br /><br />There are also plenty of players and DMs who have no use for game balance. If things are out of whack, their playstyle is such that it doesn't matter. Who cares if the berserker can kick anything's ass in melee, if the campaign is a mash-up of <span style="font-style:italic;">Romeo and Juliet</span> crossed with <span style="font-style:italic;">The Longest Yard</span>. Fighting isn't the point, so all those unbalanced fighting abilities the berserker uses don't matter.<br /><br />If you do like combat, though, then game balance is very important. A DM needs the system to provide some framework for building encounters, or at least judging their difficulty. If each class has wildly different combat abilities and the game doesn't account for that, the system falls apart and the DM's judgment and experience have to take over. That probably means lots of trial, lots of error, and hopefully a patient enough group that a DM learns to balance the game using his own set of metrics. Of course, if a few PCs die and classes rotate in and out of the group, the balance act starts all over again.<br /><br />So, some players and DMs don't care for game balance, but others want and need it. In fact, a lot of people want it. And the really nice thing is that a well-balanced game doesn't take anything away from people who don't care about balance, while making people who do care about it happy. The key is making the people who don't care about balance happy, and that's another bundle of trouble.<br /><br />A <span style="font-weight:bold;">well-balanced</span> game means more than simply making all options equal. A well balanced game offers a lot of distinct choices and vivid options, without *needlessly* restricting them. That's really the trick - where does that needless line rest? 4e catches a lot of heat for this. For some people, wizard spells that obviated skills were bad because they replaced rogues in those critical situations where the rogue had a chance to shine. Others didn't care, or rarely had rogues in the party, or had enough chances for the rogue to shine that the wizard didn't steal them all.<br /><br />It's a tough line to draw, because D&D is really a large number of games placed under one umbrella. Some people like lots of combat in their D&D, others enjoy free-form roleplay with teh occasional die roll. To attempt to distill D&D down into one experience that makes everyone happy is difficult.<br /><br />In a way, though, game balance has to draw lines and partition things. Game balance exists at least in part within the context of a specific campaign. When you try to balance the game, you have to create a sort of platonic ideal of a campaign and work from there. Do some people think it's cool that wizard spells make skills worthless? Sure, but that might not be the baseline you design to.<br /><br />Balancing D&D is hard and boring. Few people will thank you for it when, by some miracle, you get it right. Everyone will tell you how you've messed up, either by nerfing things, making things bland by balancing them, or taking away toys they liked playing with. It's precisely the job that designers are paid to do so that individual DMs aren't stuck with it.<br /><br />At the end of the day, though, if you balance the game just right everyone's happy. The guys who don't care about balance get lots of options and toys to play with, because you picked the right lines and didn't take away stuff they liked. People who like the challenge of breaking the game work harder to bust the game's math. They have a steeper mountain to climb! The players in the middle get to have fun picking options based on what looks fun, interesting, or that fits a character concept. You're not stuck with a lame character because you think it would be fun to play a samurai. DMs get to run engaging campaigns without taking on too much work that the designer left for him.<br /><br />So, that's why designer should keep tilting at the game balance windmill. It's hard, rarely rewarding work, but that's what we're paid to do. We take on the tough, boring tasks so DMs can spend their time doing the fun work of running a D&D campaign.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-10110145239901177942010-01-07T17:05:00.000-08:002010-01-07T17:19:23.000-08:00Kill the Planes: The AbyssWhile I realize that the planes have a long tradition in both fantasy and D&D, I don't particularly like them. The idea of going to another world is interesting and all, but why bother setting all that interesting stuff somewhere else? Why not just cram it all into the world?<br /><br />For instance, the Abyss is a scary place. It's filled with demons and extends far below the normal planar realms to who knows where. The thing is, though, by placing it into this planar structure you rob it of some of its value. Clear out part of your setting, punch a huge hole in your world, and voila, there's the Abyss.<br /><br />That may seem like a bad idea. After all, what stops the demons from overrunning the world? When you think about it, though, you face all the same questions if you anchor the Abyss in the planes. The frame of reference shifts, sure, but the basic concept is the same.<br /><br />Instead, the Abyss is a yawning pit one hundred miles wide. It drops deep into the earth, far deeper than anyone has delved. It cuts into the Underdark, and demons emerge both there and at the surface to kill and maraud. A number of ancient fortresses watch over it, but few of those are still manned by the orders of paladins that built them. Today, many are now occupied by renegade wizards, necromancers, and demonologists.<br /><br />As one travels down the narrow ledges that circle the Abyss's outer rim, one can see great spires of black rock that rise through the Abyss's central void. Here, demon lords battle for territory along narrow, stone bridges and within the chambers and caverns that honeycomb the spires. Here and there, gates along the Abyss's wall lead to massive caverns warped and changed by the Abyss's influence. These layers are shaped by the demon lords that claim them and range from howling, frozen wastes to verdant jungles. Miniature suns hang in their skies, creating proto-worlds within the stone of the earth.<br /><br />Luckily, the mightiest demons need the aid of mortal spellcasters to leave the Abyss for any period of time. It is a place infused with great magic, and without it they would die like a fish removed from the water. Still, legends tell of a time when a great, red comet will split the sky and herald the rise of demonkind. According to the legends, this comet is the Queen of Chaos, the mother of all demons banished in eons past by the gods to the outer realms of the sky. When she returns, she will lead her children on an endless war of conquest across the world.<br /><br />The lands near the Abyss's rim are demon-haunted and mostly abandoned. Cultists, wanderers, and madmen make their homes there, as do many gnoll packs that can reach the size of armies. The gnolls will forever remain a thorn in the side of the realm, as even the most ardent paladin would think twice before leading an army into the Abyssal lands to slay them.<br /><br />The Underdark is so dangerous because, by whatever strange laws govern the Abyss's power, the mightiest demons can enter it through the Abyss's lowest precincts. This makes travel there perilous at best, and it also provides the drow with easy access to demonic aid.<br /><br />Placing the Abyss in the world opens up a lot of potential for adventure. What if the Abyss's influence starts to grow? What secrets are in the fortresses that once watched over it? Low level characters can venture into the twisted lands around it and maybe even its uppermost layers, while a journey into the Underdark can turn into an excursion to the Abyss with one wrong turn.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-58521755649089678222009-08-28T17:38:00.001-07:002009-08-28T17:46:57.036-07:00More On ResistancesI've been thinking a bit about resistances lately, and I think I figured out a solution that I like. I'm sure someone else has come up with this before, so apologies if I'm stealing ideas here. Anyway, here's my idea:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Energy Mastery Feats</span><br />Energy mastery feats represent a character's specific training with, affinity for, or close bond with a specific type of energy. They offer two benefits. First, they give a damage bonus when you use your chosen damage type.<br /><br />Second, if a creature resists or is immune to that energy type, you gain an added bonus against it. It's basically the reverse of the idea of giving a monster a boost when you blast it with its favored energy type. So, here's an example:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Dark Soul Devourer</span><br />You get a +2 bonus to damage rolls when you inflict necrotic damage.<br />If you hit a creature and its necrotic resistance or immunity reduces your attack's damage, that creature is dazed until the end of your next turn.<br /><br />That's not necessarily the exact mechanic I'd use, but it gets to what I'm talking about. My initial idea for this specific feat was to describe someone whose soul was tainted with necrotic energy, and in harming undead (or whatever) they draw the undead creature's life force (such as it is) into their own. But, it's Friday, I'm about to head home, and it's been a long day. You're getting what you paid for!Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-6523636279705894742009-08-18T21:53:00.000-07:002009-08-18T22:42:53.036-07:00I Went to GenConFor the first time since 1999, I went to GenCon as a plain old gamer. No press pass, no looking for freelance work, no manning a booth for me. I played a bunch of games and just did what I wanted to do.<br /><br />Of course, I picked up a sinus infection before the con, so I had to take it easy on myself. I'm not sure I made it to more than one of the events I originally signed up for, but it was easy enough to cash in my tickets for generics and system credit. I guess that means I have to go again next year, since I have $8 worth of event ticket credit!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Thursday:</span> I ended up cruising the dealer's hall in the morning and ate lunch with the indomitable Rob Schwalb. That afternoon I played a game of Chainmail, the pre-D&D miniatures game. The game was a blast, and it's pretty nifty that I can now say I've played it.<br /><br />That night, I ran a D&D game for a bunch of friends. They tracked down a necromancer who had stolen a sacred relic, battled orcs and bandits, and managed to survive despite at one point having 7 hit points between 4 characters. Good times!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Friday:</span> More gaming, starting with a miniatures game. <A HREF="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39663">Song of Drums and Shakos</A> is a Napoleonics skirmish game. In 2 hours, I learned the rules from scratch and got in two games. Highly recommended, along with the fantasy version <A HREF="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30804">Song of Blades and Heroes</A>.<br /><br />Once the game wrapped up, I launched an ultimately fruitless quest to find 15mm Napoleonic and fantasy minis in the exhibitor's hall. After lunch with Paul Tevis, I got in a session of the BattleTech grinder. I had an <span style="font-style:italic;">UrbanMech</span> shot out from under me and lost a <span style="font-style:italic;">Hunchback</span> to a back shot from a <span style="font-style:italic;">Cicada</span> that nailed the 'back's ammo bin. After that, I took to the field in one of my all-time favorite 'mechs, the <span style="font-style:italic;">Axman</span> (not the lame LRM-15 variant, but the original AC/20 configuration) and made up for lost ground. I cored a <span style="font-style:italic;">Warhammer</span>, ripped a <span style="font-style:italic;">Raven</span> in half, and killed an <span style="font-style:italic;">Enforcer</span> with a single AC shot to its ammo bin.<br /><br />That evening was dinner at Buca with friends and wandering the con and chatting for the rest of the night.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Saturday:</span> This was my D&D day, with an RPGA game from 8 AM to 4 PM. We had an all-changeling party, which was fun, and my barbarian was perfect for a city inexplicable built around a giant pillar of fire. His basic hook is that's he's dumb but overly thoughtful and rages when stuff doesn't make sense to him. With an 8 Int, that's fairly often.<br /><br />After the game was a late lunch, another circuit of the dealer's hall, and dinner and drinks with a number of game industry folks. We swapped stories about pets and weird fans. Good times!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Sunday:</span> The final day of GenCon always has a bit of a melancholy tinge to it, at least for me. I played some more BattleTech with a friend, took care of a little last minute shopping and trades, and then headed to the airport. Between ice cream at the terminal and a nifty, final conversation about gaming with a few folks, it was a good end to the con.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Loot:</span> Of course, half of the fun of GenCon is browsing what's essentially a giant, gamer's mall.<br /><br />I bought/traded for:<br /><br />1. A few of the Pathfinder metal minis and one of the few flip-mats I don't already own from Paizo. Can't wait to see the Reaper Pathfinder line!<br /><br />2. A bunch of Reaper minis. I love browsing their booth at the show.<br /><br />3. A pile of Shadowrun and BattleTech books. The SR Seattle book is pretty nifty.<br /><br />4. Eclipse Phase! I can't wait to dig into this game. It looks really interesting, and what I've read so far has me wanting to play it.<br /><br />5. A Dragon Dice starter set. I've wanted to check out this game since it first came out, and the starter was less than $20, so why not?<br /><br />6. Who Would Win? from Gorilla Games. I picked this up based on a recommendation from Monte Cook. It looks like a great party game.<br /><br />7. <A HREF="http://www.facebook.com/pages/ACTION-CASTLE-a-parsely-game/105047937599">Action Castle!</A> My major failure at the con was my inability to convince anyone to play this.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Honorable Mention:</span> <A HREF="http://www.gamingpaper.com/">Gaming Paper</A>. I didn't actually buy a roll, since I didn't think it would fit in my luggage, but I was really impressed by it. It's more than just simple paper. It has a parchment/scroll-like texture to it, giving it a pretty nifty feel. I'm going to order some once my gaming budget regenerates.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">MIA Award:</span> 15 mm Napoleonics and fantasy figures. I didn't find any at the show! Of course, I didn't exactly spend hours searching (I had games to play!) but I figured there had to be some somewhere.Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963408603037048958.post-63869363795300718332009-08-06T18:16:00.000-07:002009-08-06T18:30:36.569-07:00GenCon 2009I'm heading to GenCon as a gamer this year, rather than as a pro, so I'm playing lots of games and goofing off the entire show. Good times!<br /><br />Here's my current gaming schedule:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Thursday</span><br />9 AM to 1 PM: BattleTech - Chaos Style<br />2 PM to 6 PM: Battlestations - Pirates of Trundlia<br />9 PM to 1 AM: Horror Hero<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Friday</span><br />10 AM to 12 PM: Song of Drums and Shako - Eggs for the Major<br />2 PM to 6 PM: Shadowrun - Mr. Johnson's Table<br />7 PM to 9 PM: Dragon Dice - Novice Event<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Saturday</span><br />8 AM to 4 PM: D&D - Stirring the Embers<br /><br />I have tickets for a few other events, but I think I'm going to cash them out. Also, this schedule is by no means final. I signed up for stuff, but if other things come up I'll switch stuff around. I figured I'd fill my schedule and try new games as a default in case nothing else comes up.<br /><br />I'm also planning on bringing a few games and stuff to run if the chance comes up. My plan is to bring a 4e conversion of the first d20 adventure, Three Days to Kill, plus another adventure or two. I might bring a copy of the 1st level of Monte's Dungeon-A-Day dungeon and run a 4e version on the fly. I'll have characters, minis, and everything I need on hand in my handy little haversack.<br /><br />Other Games: Jungle Speed, Shab-al-hiri Roach, a few decks of TCGs (L5R, Magic), and maybe a few card games.<br /><br />So, are you going to GenCon? What are you looking forward to?Mike Mearlshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18338840534913321057noreply@blogger.com10