Story-Flavoured Powdered Beverage

It's the final day of BrigadeCon's daily RPG prompts! Check out their site to see the full list, sign up for the online convention, and donate to Child's Play. I only started doing the prompts on day 10, so I will continue to do them into September (though I might do more than one a day on occasion).

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: best advice you were ever given for your game of choice. Strap in: this is a big and rambling one.

There are two concepts that changed the way I think about running games, and both of them come from D +Vincent Baker .

The first, from Dogs in the Vineyard, has spread widely: "say yes or roll the dice". Loads of intelligent people have written on this, and players with different philosophies have debated its merits and re- or mis-interpreted it. My own take on it is informed, I think, by trying to use the bloated skill systems of the 3rd ed d20 games.

I hope I'm not being hyperbolic when I say d20 had too many and too hyperspecific skills. It wasn't just stuff like Use Rope and Decipher Script, there were also skills with fill-in-the-blanks like Knowledge (_____) or Perform (_____) which effectively made the list simultaneously too specific -and- infinite. And the existence of these skills encourages their use, so even with advice like "use the Knowledge skills to drive the plot and give the players crucial information", you're basically telling players "roll to see if you get this information I want to give you". It's worse with the practical skills, because either they never come into play, or you're constantly rolling them (like perception or search checks in every. single. room.) so you're guaranteed to get a failure eventually; which again, ends up being "roll to see if you get this thing I want to give you".

Playing only within that paradigm, it took a hell of a mind twist to realize that I can just give the players things I want to give them. Whichever PC knows about the history of this region--they know the bit of trivia about this old ruin which could help them avoid a trap. They don't have to roll. The old sailor PC who would have 10 ranks in Use Rope? Why would they need to roll to see if they can moor a boat? PCs that are good at stuff should get to just do that stuff. This is just the "say yes" part of the advice!  It was probably the most revelatory for me, as it blurred away this assumption that skills must always be rolled.

The "or roll the dice" part took much longer to grasp, and I'm still figuring it out. This post on the old forge forums goes a little way towards explaining why--I think this way of playing doesn't work in every situation. I argue the key factor is that the system, players, and setting must support characters attempting to do things that they have a chance of failing -and- allowing interesting consequences for failing. In other words, the attempt should have a chance of getting the PC into trouble. The advice becomes something like "say yes, or throw rocks". This is different from asking for rolls when you want to drive the story forward--it's the reverse: drive the story forward whenever the PCs try something worth rolling for. And it's only worth rolling for when it would be interesting to fail. The classic example is to avoid rolling to pick a lock when there's no time pressure and no trap set. Rolling the dice should significantly affect the game.

The other concept comes from Apocalypse World: "play to find out what happens". This one's a little looser and there's lots of ways to use it. It reminds me of +Justin Alexander 's classic post, Don't Prep Plots. By creating situations, tricky or complex or dangerous ones, and then throwing the PCs into them, not only do we avoid all the problems of trying to railroad players through a specific sequence of events, we let the players -and- the GM discover a story. The value of surprise seems pretty obvious for players--the GM springing plot twists and sudden monsters on unsuspecting PCs is a pretty classic way to play--but what about for GMs?  Maybe random generators are fun partially because it means the GM doesn't know everything that will happen. Why not extend that further? Create a compelling situation, get the PCs in there, and play to find out what happens.

At this point, it's patently obvious that I have drunk, deeply, of the story games kool-aid. However, I think that these two bits of advice are applicable to any game and have the potential to improve the experience at your gaming table for everyone. Avoid making players do stuff that has no point and let them get on with what they're interested in rather than using them as pieces in "your story". This works in classic D&D just as well as the most pretentious Nordic LARP you can imagine, and games that bake it into the system (like Fate and Dungeon World) hit a real sweet spot of player- and character-driven gaming.

Atmospheric Conditions

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: describe the ideal game room if your budget were unlimited.

I'm a big fan of setting the right atmosphere for a game. I try to always have theme music and appropriate ambience playing for games I run. For some halloween one-shots in the past I've played around with everything from using only a glowing salt rock for lighting, to having players dress as their characters and hiding blood packs in my mouth to burst in coincidence with a hidden capgun going off. There's a pleasure in making the gaming environment theatrical.

One attempt I'm particularly proud of was a way of setting up Dread. I'd hidden a speaker under the gaming table, attached to my phone so I could secretly play sound effects and loud musical cues, separately from themed ambience I was looping on my computer. One sound was a blood-curdling scream, and it absolutely made the players JUMP. It would be unfair to do that if the Dread jenga tower was on the gaming table, so I came up with an idea that you absolutely should try: I set up the tower low on a coffee table away from the gaming table. Players had to get up and leave the comfort of the group to try actions, and physically kneel or bend uncomfortably to move a piece. I'd also dimmed the lights and set up a cheap LED spot, shining diagonally from below at the top of the tower. This lit the blocks very dramatically, and also cast a shadow stretching across the ceiling over the gaming table. This shadow grew longer and less regular as the game progressed, a constant imposing reminder of the tower -literally- looming over the players. I think for horror games in particular establishing a tense atmosphere is important, and I think this way of setting up Dread went a long way toward accomplishing that.

So: my ideal gaming room would allow a huge amount of control over -atmosphere-. At minimum the table would be surrounded by speakers and theatrical lighting. This allows us to establish a mood with coloured gels and music, and highlight certain items or moments with spots and sound effects that come from specific locations. I would also love to control smell, using scents to evoke a musty old library or a dank cave (a trick used by museums and immersive theatre, already being explored in RPGs) But my budget is unlimited, so what else can we add?

Projection mapping would be great--on the walls, ceiling, and the tabletop itself. It'd have a library of different environments, and the tabletop projection in particular would be interactive, to display maps and control stuff like fog of war. Holographic tech might be interesting, but there's something about the physicality of objects that really feels good. So of course each PC would have a gorgeous, custom-sculpted mini, and key game items could be realized as props--old parchments and spellbooks, a legendary sword, a deadly puzzle from a dungeon...

The table would be large, and solid, and a beautiful carved and varnished piece of wood, with comfortable surfaces for writing on and rolling dice, and holders for items like character sheets and pens. The chairs would be as ergonomic and cool-looking as we could get them--maybe a different set for each different setting. The walls would have paintings and sculptures depicting people and events from past campaigns.

And fuck it, throw in a fog machine too--oh wouldn't that be lovely for an unexpected trip to Ravenloft. The point is, I would want every tool at my disposal to immerse the players in the game world and get that atmosphere dead-on right.

Myth Made Real

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: if you could host a game anywhere on earth, where would that be?

At a comfortable pub with large tables and a nice ambience, exactly equidistant between all of my players' homes. The beer would be good, the staff and clientele wouldn't mind lengthy gaming sessions, and it would be easy to get to.

Luckily, such a place already exists. (I just need to move back to Vancouver)

A Poor Education?

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what film/novel would you be most surprised a friend had not seen/read?

The only possible answer is Star Wars, because at this point I would wonder how they managed to avoid it. It's freakin' everywhere! It takes a special kind of bloody-mindedness to avoid a popular, long-running franchise that also has the marketing juggernaut of Disney behind it.

While I would be surprised, I wouldn't necessarily care all that much or be offended or anything like that. I mean, you do you. However, when people are inexplicably proud of avoiding something just because it's popular--that's annoying. Like all those memes on facebook that go "I haven't seen a single episode of Game of Thrones. HATERS GONNA HATE" or "Pokemon Go? I am an adult with a job and life!" Ok good for you I guess. Well done on avoiding a cultural touchstone? It's one thing to just not have got round to it or have no interest at all, but actively avoiding and then bragging is different.

By the way, here's some things that -I- haven't seen that might surprise my friends:

Jaws
Rocky 
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Fargo
Fight Club
anything by H.P. Lovecraft
the Exorcist
Stephen King's fiction
the Shining
Neil Gaiman's fiction
the Lord of the Rings books
the Earthsea trilogy
the Game of Thrones books
Frankenstein
Isaac Asimov's fiction
Dune
Ender's Game
Alien
either of the good Terminators
2001: A Space Oddysey (neither the film nor the book)
and I tried Neuromancer but stopped because I didn't like it.

I used to feel ashamed of not having experienced these things (thanks mostly to assholes that post memes like the ones I mention above). But really, who cares? I know the plot and tropes and cool scenes from many of them, thanks to the roiling vortex of pop culture knowledge and shared references. Hell, I even -own- a lot of these and just haven't got round to them. There's SO MUCH good stuff out there that, actually, I'd be surprised if someone HAD seen every piece of culture available. There's always more to discover!

Ancient Soviet Ruins

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: most unusual circumstance or location you've played in.

Boy, I have played in a wide variety of very boring places. The university dorm common room, my dining room, my friends' dining rooms, and my living room (which also includes playing online).

Literally the only time I have not played in one of those situations was around this time last year. There was an extended family gathering in Poland to celebrate my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. We all went to a "health resort", which turned out to actually be a former soviet holiday camp. The architecture and food quality had not changed since the 60s. It was infested with wasps. We had to buy toilet paper and soap from the front desk. The woods outside contained an exercise trail that weaved through impressive old bunker-looking things:

My partner improvised a game for me in the lobby. Pretending to explore ancient Mayan ruins was a nice respite from this bizarre place. Though, it was on a pretty lake and the sun looked good reflected on the water. I should set a game there.

Improving the Geekosystem

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what hobbies go well with RPGs?

Role-playing has always existed in a geeky ecosystem (a geekosystem?) alongside sci-fi, horror, and fantasy novels, comics and movies, as well as board games and video games. These are obviously great interests and hobbies for role players--not just because they're fun but I think specifically because they provide shared background knowledge. It's easy to underestimate the importance of making sure everyone at the table understands the genre conventions of the games we play. When your group all have a passing familiarity with Tolkeinesque fantasy, that's a lot of groundwork already done!

There are some less common hobbies that dovetail with roleplaying in a very satisfying way. For rules-lite or even GM-less games, I can't express enough how good it is to have a feel for improv. More and more I'm seeing crossover of improv comedy and theatre with RPGs, from the structured explorations of Nordic LARP to the celebrity/comedian players in show games like Tabletop and Harmonquest.

Now, these might be a little esoteric, but the basic principles of improv are so obviously applicable to role-playing in general I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long for people to realize it and start formalizing it in games (like Fiasco) and GMing advice (like in Graham Walmsley's excellent Play Unsafe).

Even a totally basic memory for the phrase "yes and" can, I believe, improve and transform your play. If there's one thing that trying improv as a hobby can give to roleplaying, it's this: accept what is offered, and build on it. Players will try to do things or make assumptions about the world. Roll with it! Make it hard and make it interesting, but accept it. The same goes for the players responding to the GM. Accept the GM's world as presented, and add to it. We don't have to contradict anything already established as important--play within the constraints you've set up yourselves! Improv as a hobby is great for anyone at the table--not just the GM.

A Character Reference

The final week of BrigadeCon's #RPGaDay2016 begins today. BrigadeCon is an online convention taking place at the end of October, and the RPG Brigade raises money for the Child's Play charity. If you'd like to give some games and toys to hospitalized kids, please consider registering and donating.

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what makes for a good character?

This is a ridiculously huge question. It's easily the biggest of the prompts, considering that it's of interest to basically all of storytelling in general and not just roleplaying. Of course it is a key question for RPGs and comes up everywhere--just the other day Craig Dedrick posted on Gnome Stew about creating a character via a solo session.

To focus my answer, I want to riff on that a little: the player collaborating with the GM to create a PC. Craig suggests starting with a sketch of the PC when they're young and playing through key scenes of their life as they grow--sort of like a game of Microscope focused on just one character. As the PC grows up, the player and the GM adjust the PC's abilities and stats based on what's happened in their life. At the end of the process, you have a fully realized character.

This method of character creation has all sorts of handy side-effects. It allows the GM to build the PC directly into the setting, history, and plot of the game. It allows the player to tell the GM through play what they're interested in and what sort of a person the PC is. It ties the stats and abilities of the character to their backstory. It's quite a clever way to make character creation into actual gaming time that also ensures the PC exhibits some elements of good characters.

The first of those elements is consistency.

A good character fits into the world. This doesn't mean that the player can't be creative and play whatever they want, just that they need to tie the PC into the setting in a logical way. Eberron has Warforged because someone wanted to play robots in a fantasy setting, and it totally works. This does require both player and GM to be flexible--there is some negotiation involved in fitting a character concept into the game.

Internal consistency is also important. The PC's abilities and statistics should reflect their background and their current status. This could be as simple as ensuring your fighter has high Str, but it also includes the fighter with a high Int because they wanted to be a wizard but got bullied into being a fighter, as well as the aspects generated by having adventures with the other PCs in Fate's Phase Trio, and the Instincts and Beliefs that drive characters in the Burning Wheel.

Characters should -make sense-, by fitting into the game in a consistent way.

The second element is a clear goal.

A good character has something they want. It doesn't have to be complicated: maybe the adventurer just wants to acquire as much treasure as possible and retire in a lavish stronghold. Maybe the aging and grizzled warrior wants to die gloriously in battle. Maybe the PC wants to find his missing brother, or cure the townsfolk of lycanthropy, or become CEO of the company. The character's goals can be linked with their internal consistency as well--they want the things they want because of who they are and where they are.

The point is that PCs with clear goals allow the GM to create obstacles. If I know where you want to go, I can put things in the way. This is how grand adventures are generated--characters struggling to get what they want.

The third element is being active.

A good character actively tries to accomplish their goal. They want something and they are going to work to get it. There's not much point in making a PC who is going to stay home and wait around. Of course, they can be reluctant. Bilbo certainly didn't want to go on an adventure at first. Maybe the PC's goal is just to get back home. But the character needs to attempt to do things, not to just give up, otherwise there's no story.

A solid PC is part of the setting and has a personal history. They know what they want, and they try hard to get it. All of these elements are linked, and if they can be generated all in one go through collaboration with the GM, then all the better for the game.

I Have a Gift

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what game are you most likely to give as a gift?

I don't think I've ever given a roleplaying game as a gift (unless board/card games with a strong narrative count, like the FFG LotR LCG). I've known enough gamers that it's not like I don't have anyone to whom I could gift an RPG. Perhaps taste in games is something so individual that it's even harder than usual to determine what gift to give. After all, you don't want to give someone a gift they don't want--or that they already have. If a friend is interested enough in roleplaying that giving them a sourcebook or a core rulebook would be sensible, they might already have it somewhere--or they specifically don't have it because they're not into it. It amplifies the natural difficulty with gift-giving (which I obviously also overthink).

However, this changes when there's no money involved. If I don't have to buy the game, the risk of somehow "getting it wrong" is diminished. There's so many cool games and supplements available for free, and it's fun to share them. I find myself evangelizing certain systems because of cool setting details or an interesting mechanic, and I'll send people a copy of the PDF or a link to the SRD. I don't know if that counts as a gift, but it feels like the spirit is the same: hey, I think you'd like this!

As specificity is the soul of narrative: the games I send to people most often are probably Fate (usually to show people how cool the Phase Trio is, or to pick out some interesting advice from the System Toolkit) and Lasers & Feelings (because it's just so small and silly and perfect). Hey--you should try them out!

The Shard of Mirabilis

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: share one of your best Worst Luck stories.

After joining the gaming group I had stumbled upon in university, I rolled up my very first PC. He was a monk named Den, made using some options from Oriental Adventures and trying to use 3rd ed tripping rules effectively. Essentially Den could quickly move around the battlefield, tripping multiple enemies to give bonuses to the other PCs and occupying the big bad while still easily avoiding wizard AOEs with lovely monk reflexes.

Or at least, that's what he was intended to do. See, I have this transparent purple d20 that must be cursed. Whenever the roll mattered, I don't think it ever got above 13, and I swear it was weighted towards a critical fail. Den would often trip himself instead of the enemies, and most of his multiple attacks were wasted by rotten luck. This happened often enough that the DM and I came up with plot to explain it. Den's parents were killed when he was young (shut up he was my first PC) by shapeshifting beings who live on the other side of mirrors. His father's final attack before death shattered the mirror-man Mirabilis, who cursed Den and his father's whole family line. Breaking a mirror gives you bad luck; breaking a mirror-man is far worse. Den carried a shard of Mirabilis on a cord around his neck, which once per day let him re-reroll a d20--so long as it landed on 13 or under. The rest of the time, he just had to live with bad luck.

To Be Quite Frank, I Don't Like Elevators

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: supposedly random game events that keep occurring.

I rely on random generators to add variety to my games now, but I didn't used to. This question has a clarification on the BrigadeCon site: "Tense outcomes are resolved using dice or other randomizers in the majority of our hobby's games, and devices such as charts, or lists are popular in some types of games. What random series of events or outcomes in your game ended up feeling not at all random?"

One of the bizarrely regular "random" events I remember is actually the result of -not- using random generation. Whenever the PC's met an otherwise unimportant NPC and wanted to know their name, I would just make something up. And it turns out that the most random name I can think of is "Frank". Once my players had met about five or six Franks, across several different games, they started to just assume any NPC would be named Frank. Often I'd just roll with it, and the cheeky bastards would make a big deal of how many jobs this one Frank must have, given that he's a cab driver, security guard, shopkeeper AND arms dealer.

Another recurring element in pretty much all of my modern games was established as the result of a random roll in the first adventure I ever ran (barring an aborted one-shot which ended in about 20 minutes after a single skeleton TPK'd my roommates). To introduce the setting and tone of my d20 Modern dark urban campaign The City, I ran a prequel one-shot where the PCs were agents of Department 7 investigating power outages at an underground research facility. As they took the elevator down into the sub-basements, I rolled percentile dice to see if anything went wrong. And it did, spectacularly. The power outage and an electrical storm combined to short out the brake system, sending it plummeting all the way down and dealing significant damage to the PCs who didn't make their reflex saves. Purely by accident, it was a pretty awesome way to get them down into the basement with no turning back.

That would have been the end of it, but once The City campaign actually started, the PCs would often end up in elevators. I rolled every time, and -every time- something went wrong, from simply getting stuck to getting attacked by monsters during a blackout as the elevator screeches downwards. My players eventually just stopped taking elevators. I should have some horrible things happen on the stairs...

My random event check was mostly based on intuition: I'd roll d% and vaguely intuit that something really bad would happen 15% of the time, and negative up to 30%-50% depending on the situation. But given that I enjoy making an "elevator check", let's have a table! (and because I've been messing around with normal distributions for random generation lately, let's do that too)

2d6	Elevator Mishap
2	roll twice and combine
3	CABLES SNAP—the elevator plummets!
4	a ghostly elevator attendant manifests and will only take you to the non-existent 13th floor
5	odourless red mist begins seeping in through the vents
6	a Cheeky Urchin has pressed all the buttons before the PCs got in
7	the elevator arrives at the expected floor
8	men in black suits have suddenly always been in the elevator
9	bad wiring—the buttons electrify and deal 1d6 shock damage
10	emergency brake activates, the elevator screeches to a halt between floors
11	the elevator becomes sentient and is attempting to eat the PCs
12	roll twice and combine

There's Only One Old Faithful

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what was your group's funniest rule misinterpretation?

I don't know if this says more about my memory or my gaming group, but I'm struggling to think of any rules misinterpretations that we didn't just correct or handwave.

Most of the funny misinterpretations I can recall are like the Dread Gazebo; where there's a miscommunication or lack of understanding between GM and players. Sometimes it's just a simple slip-up that we latch onto and use to mess with the person making the error. We tried playing Rifts once, and the GM had pre-written character sheets for us rather than make us go through the agony of generating Rifts characters ourselves. His hasty writing was difficult to read, and amongst our belongings were a "snipper rifle" and a "geiser counter". Obviously these became a running gag, and items that showed up in other games. All part of the rich tapestry of shared references for nerd social cohesion.

A Critical Hit

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: most challenging but rewarding system you've learned.

By far the most complex system I've played regularly is D&D 3-3.5. The amount of feats, prestige classes, and subsystems for things like grappling just sent my head spinning. And since it was my first proper experience with roleplaying, I tried to learn it all so I could "play it right".

While I no longer think it's a system I'd want to run again (and Pathfinder doesn't really appeal either), I'm -glad- that there was so much complexity. It gave something interesting to engage in, and the promise of the same sort of strategic depth that Magic: the Gathering had. I'm not sure I would have stayed interested in roleplaying if not for that perceived depth. You can probably tell by my hedging language that I no longer believe this. I think the rules were bloated and the depth illusory, especially once you got into the OGL d20 third-party supplements. The enormous success of 3rd ed and the OGL spawned an incredible ecosystem of games.

Once I had a grasp of d20, there was this whole wide world of other settings and games built on it, and through them I discovered the enormous variety in tabletop gaming. The separation of system and setting really intrigued me, and I think some of the design decisions I like in games is related to that, as is an enduring interest in generic game systems. Expanding beyond D&D was possible because I could try running d20 Modern and Mutants and Masterminds--a trail of breadcrumbs leading to different types of games.

I also don't think I would be as interested in story games and rules-lite systems if I wasn't responding to the crunchiness of 3.5 (and later, 4e). I wouldn't have as broad an interest in roleplaying games either. And I might not even have kept roleplaying in the first place! So thanks, 3rd ed, for being a useful stepping stone.

On-the-Job Training

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what's the best way to learn a new game?

When I get interested in a system, my first step is to look for a set of free quick-start rules. A read-through of these is usually quite short and gives a good feel for the core elements of the system, as well as the tone and key themes of the setting. This is an option for a good amount of systems, and sometimes the free rules are quite extensive (like with D&D 5e Basic). Even if there's no quickstart, the full rulebook might contain a sample session, or lots of sidebars highlighting key concepts. Probably the best way to learn a game thoroughly is to start with a well-designed rulebook!

Unfortunately not all systems have a quick-start, sample adventure, or particularly helpful design. In these situations, I look for a cheat sheet of the most important rules. Often these will be created by players rather than included in the rulebook, so the first place I look is G+ communities for the game or in the files section on RPGGeek. I also find that the cheat sheet gives a quick visual overview of how crunchy a game system is, and similarly I can get a sense of how much there is to learn by seeing the number of rules questions/clarifications I can find for the game on rpg.stackexchange.

More often than not, after a look at a quickstart and/or a cheat sheet we should just start playing and see how it goes, though this can be difficult if the players aren't comfortable with winging it. Sometimes I'll solo a session of the game to get a feel, and make notes of details to look up later for clarification. Ultimately, it's desirable to pick it up as we go, and handwave anything we're not sure about. I'm not overly concerned with running the system exactly as written, and the more rules there are to learn the less likely I am to want to learn it in the first place. Perhaps particularly complex rule systems can't be learned just through play--I can't imagine just picking up Rifts--but who's got the time for that anymore? Rules-lite and good summary design is the way to go!

Pacing Back and Forth

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what innovation could RPG groups gain the most benefit from?

This is a pretty big question, so the prompt includes a further clarification: whether it is technological, related to game mechanics, or to social dynamics, what could best help improve the play experience?

More and more often in the past five years or so, I've seen narrative mechanics taking a central role in games. Now that's not to say that game mechanics haven't always directed the kinds of stories that could be told. Usually it's done implicitly, by what kinds of classes and subsystems are included--for instance D&D in its various forms is pretty focused on swords & sorcery adventures with action-oriented danger and combat. The stories emerge out of players following the through-line of "I think this is what my character would do". But there can be mechanics operating at a different layer, outside of the story. These are explicit subsystems built into the game that directly influence the direction of the narrative.

One tactic is to make character motivations have mechanical effects. Even original D&D did this, with DMs awarding XP for good roleplaying, or paladins and clerics losing abilities for behaving against their alignment. Games like Burning Wheel make motivations a core part of gameplay, turning "I think this is what my character would do" into an explicit mechanic to drive decisions. Similarly, characters in Fate have aspects, and not only can players make decisions in line with their aspects to get bonuses to their rolls, the GM also makes decisions based on character aspects to drive the plot.

The plot can also be influenced by narrative mechanics outside of character motivations: consider the example of fate points or bennies.  Players get a limited amount of tokens, and can spend them to make changes to the story, like in Savage Worlds or Mutants & Masterminds. The GM can award tokens to players, for good roleplaying or reaching key moments. Fate takes this a step further, turning it into an economy where narrative control is constantly traded back and forth between GM and players. The decisions aren't just about "I think this is what my character would do" anymore; now there's also "I think this is where the story would go".

I'm not sure we could really call these "innovations", as it's clear they're well-established and varied in style across different game systems. So let's narrow in on one narrative mechanic that I think is yet to be fully explored: pacing.

One of the problems I have consistently had as a GM is moving the story along without simply railroading the players (and I doubt I'm alone in that). The PCs flounder in a scene, a battle takes overly long, random wilderness encounters seem unrelated and uninteresting... part of this for sure is avoided by good session prep and PCs who have clear goals--by having direction. However, how do you decide when to end a scene, or whether or not to skip over some travel or downtime, or even which PCs to focus on? How do you decide when the monsters attack, or if the villain uses the device? These are decisions about the -pacing- of the story, and most of the time it just comes down to the intuition of the GM (with some player input) about when to move things along.

Just like the other narrative mechanics above, pacing has always been there, implicit in the rules. D&D had random generation tables for encounters and stocking dungeons which set up how often certain types of events would occur in the stories generated by playing D&D. Justin Alexander has written about the pacing inherent in dungeon-crawling over at The Alexandrian, and a great series on pacing in general. It has rock-solid advice for how to structure scenes in your games to keep things moving, and can really help you develop your intuition about when to end a scene or what sorts of events to focus on.

So, the innovation: we can make explicit narrative mechanics for pacing as well. My favourite example is the concept of Fronts, in games derived from D Vincent Baker 's Apocalypse World. Fronts are a way for the GM to keep track of the big dangers in their game and ensure that they're all moving forward.  Each front is a threat or potential threat to the PCs and their world. The GM develops a track of events on each front: things that will happen if the PCs don't intervene. Throughout the game, the GM can move a front along its track, mechanically, in response to things the PCs do and by using their own GM moves. It keeps the game focused around specific dangerous situations that are moved along directly in response to the PCs actions!

Pacing is a tricky thing to get right, and having an explicit mechanic to structure it is a powerful tool we can use in our games. I feel like this is just the beginning, and I'm looking forward to seeing how designers play with pacing mechanics now that the box has been opened.

A Game of Drones

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what fictional character would best fit in your group?

I would love to play some games with Gurgeh from The Player of Games. Can you imagine adapting Azad into Kingdom, or Pendragon? Also, I could pick his brain about game mechanics and the nature of games in general. But I think most interesting would be getting his take on story games and things like Norwegian-style LARP and other things without necessary opposition. Would he even think roleplaying is a game?

Unfortunately I don't think the rest of the people I game with would be quite into that. So the correct answer is Abed from Community. No explanation needed!

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what historical figure would you like in your group; for what game?

Shakespeare and his acting buddies, for a game of Fiasco, because I think they'd get it.

Machiavelli, for a game of Kingdom, because OBVIOUSLY.

And Tolkein, for a game of D&D, as the GM of his homebrew setting.

Asteroid Mining

BrigadeCon is hosting the RPGaDay daily prompt throughout August, and today marks the beginning of the third week! Here's the full list of questions, if you'd like to join in:

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: Your best source of inspiration for RPGs.

I'm not sure I can narrow it down to just one source. Anything and everything sparks ideas for settings or creatures or whatever. The source is the entirety of experienced art and life that bubbles around in my brain. I'm not sure I'd want to prioritize, say, books over TV shows, or wikipedia over a half-inaccurate childhood memory.

That said, I find that sources vary in their ability to inspire ideas versus being useful research sources. I am -heavily- influenced by pop culture, especially TV and comics, when it comes to the ideas that just pop into my head when I'm improvising. When I'm prepping for a session, however, I lean more on genre fiction and non-fiction reference (like pop history books or wikipedia or the world-building stackexchange).

Gathering sources and experiencing culture widely is something I deliberately do, though. Ideas don't come from a vacuum--you need a solid bedrock to excavate from. When I'm working on something I like to come up with my own Appendix N, as much for myself as to communicate the genre conventions to my players.

Here's one I've been working on for Xenoarchaeology, a hard sci-fi, no FTL, near solar-system setting centred around a jumpgate and space-Earth tensions:

• the Belters in Larry Niven's Known Space books
• Firefly
• Classic Traveller
• Cowboy Bebop
• Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Time
• Elite and Freelancer
• Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy
• Lucasarts game The Dig
• Ben Bova's Grand Tour and Asteroid Wars books
• the film Moon
• Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space
• EVE Online
• the Planetes anime and manga
• the Mars One project
• asteroid mining companies Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries
• the first Alien movie
• Stargate

I haven't even read/seen some of these, but the concepts and imagery are all I really need to come up with ideas.

The Weirding

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: Your dream team of people you used to game with.

I had a group of friends I made during university, and we would game together nearly every week for five years. When I moved to England for grad school, the amount of gaming significantly dropped--I'm lucky if I can play a one-shot once every four months. I miss just seeing my friends weekly, let alone gaming with them.

In the first week of university, I knew nobody. My experience with gaming was mostly PC adventure games and Magic: the Gathering, with a few gamebooks and an AD&D introductory box set I played with my little brother maybe twice. In the common room of my dormitory, I saw some people sitting around with some books, dice, and a DM screen. I came in and sat down and just watched for a bit, like a weirdo. I asked if I could join in, and they said yes. If they thought I was weird for just watching them play, it didn't show. Turns out, they were all weird too. I had found my people.

Over the next few years about half of the gaming group would become my roommates, in one apartment or another. I'd stay up til 4 am with them, individually, talking bullshit and games and life. We'd GM campaigns for everyone in each other's apartments. I'd meet my romantic partner in one of these campaigns.

I can't even imagine how much of my life has been shaped by sitting down in the common room because I spotted some dice and a DM screen. I love each and every single person I've gamed with because of that, and I'd love to play with all of them again.

Off on the Right Foot

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: What makes a successful campaign?

Boy, I guess they got tired of the softball questions! I'm just going to come right out and say that there is no one correct answer. Reams and reams have been written on this and I don't think we're going to come to a consensus.

However...

I think it's crucial to get the first session right. That means in-game and out-of-game.

In-game, the PCs need to be tied together in a way that motivates them to work as a team -and- to go out into the world and help each other with their problems. This needs to be more than "you meet in a tavern and already know each other". Why are you meeting and how do you know each other? It can be built into the system, like the way Fate character generation has players create aspects that tie the PCs together (for example by guest-starring in each others' past adventures in Spirit of the Century). Or it could be part of the story: uniting the PCs through a faction (maybe they all work in the same guild), or through a common problem. I started my urban horror game The City by having all the PCs share a horrifying experience.  After a crowd of hundreds of people around them all collapsed and they were the only ones left conscious, they were transported into an alternate dimension full of booming voices that threatened them, and left each PC with a forehead mark that only the other PCs could see. That pretty much guarantees party cohesion for at least a few sessions. Tying the players together isn't that hard and I think it's a crucial step to player buy-in--and buy-in, ultimately, is what keeps campaigns going.

Out-of-game elements are just as (if not more!) important towards buy-in. A Session Zero might be the way, or bankuei's Same Page Tool, or any other variation of the social contract. The point is to make sure all the players agree on details like the level of commitment to playing regularly, what genre conventions should be followed, and understanding what content is ok or not ok. This also involves finding out if the players are actually into the proposed system and setting and playstyle--and if not, collaborating to find a combo that works for everyone. It might be possible to do this implicitly by playing with a gaming group of peers that you know really well already, outside of gaming alone. However, making at least some elements of the social contract explicit will always help, especially if you have a diverse group of players.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be harping on about buy-in a LOT here. I genuinely believe that no campaign will last without it, so we should try to get it right.

Need A Little Space

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: What game is your group most likely to play next. Why?

I haven't had the opportunity to either run or play in a campaign for years now. Maybe it's cause I live further away from the people I'd play with, or maybe we just don't have as much time as we used to. When we do manage to play, it's a one-shot for a special occasion (like a yearly Halloween game) or a pick-up game of some rules-lite one-pager I keep on my phone (like Lasers & Feelings).

Won't stop me from trying though! I've been cobbling together a science-fiction setting for the past several years, and I'm hoping to get at least three to six sessions out of it by the end of the year. If it takes off, it'll be using a hacked version of Fate.

I've been fascinated by Fate since discovering Spirit of the Century, and Evil Hat's successful kickstarter a few years ago gave us the enormously useful Fate System Toolkit and Fate Accelerated Edition. They are both very hackable, and using those ideas coupled with bits from Diaspora and Bulldogs!, I think I can come up with something fun and unobtrusive to use for the next game.

A sketch: it's set maybe two generations from the present. Asteroid mining is a booming business. Small colonies are established on the Moon and in specialized space stations. People leave Earth to work Up Here for a fresh start, and to escape all the problems Down Below. And of course the SpaceCorps don't mind that Earth's laws don't apply--or at least, can't be easily enforced. This is a source of some tension between Earth governments and the loose, libertarian collection of spacers, but nobody really cared. Until five years ago. When they found The Gate. Tucked away behind some rocks on a big asteroid, The Gate sends people somewhere new whenever they go through. Somewhere filled with the ruins of people who might not have been human. Pioneering explorers bring back such wonderful things--things worth a lot of money. Things that hold secrets, and power. And now everyone wants a piece of the action.

I call it Xenoarchaeology.

Sounds pretty good, right?

Fragile Crystalline Structure

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: Which gamer most affected the way you play?

This is kind of a tricky one. When I'm a player, I tend to hang back and just enjoy the gaming ambience. I like to explore the world the GM creates and see what crazy stuff the other PCs do. As far as I know I didn't pick this up from any specific gamer. I suspect I'm hardly alone; most players figure out how to play as they go, picking up cues and behaviours from their formative gaming groups.

This is -weird-. There's a staggering amount of information on good GMing, and there's a fairly regular interest in classifying types of players and researching gamer personalities. But I've seen little on what we can learn from specific players, or on how to be a good player in general. In fact the only thing I can think of offhand is Grant Howitt's piece. And somehow, roleplayers cobble together a feel for how gaming works.

So if we don't learn how to play by modelling good behaviour, how do we learn? Well, maybe we all learn from -bad- play. As a gaming group coheres socially, part of that process is figuring out what doesn't work and what isn't acceptable, gradually and intuitively, from each others' mistakes.

I played in a game once that lasted maybe three sessions. The three players had strong and divisive personalities, and the GM was not yet practiced at maintaining the peace. The game world was a detailed homebrew fantasy setting, with kingdoms and economies and a unique pantheon and such. One player spent gaming time poking holes and criticising the world building. We managed to play through an adventure fine, but the atmosphere was less fun than it could have been, as we would often argue about some setting detail.

It came to a head when the GM explained that the currency in this kingdom was crystals. The nit-picking player started criticising this, and then explained how he was going to use low-level spells to destroy as much crystal as possible, with the specific intention of destabilizing the economy to prove how stupid crystal currency is. The argument between him and the GM raged to the point where the third player and I had our characters commit suicide. Total game meltdown.

I'm not sure I -learned- it from that game, but it solidified for me that buy-in to the setting is up to the player. It is -more fun- to accept the world on its own terms and explore, rather than try to destroy it from within with some kind of reductio ad absurdum apocalypse.

The behaviour of that player also influenced my thoughts on GMing--I have an intuition that making too many setting details is dangerous, either because of inconsistency or more likely because they misdirect players away from stuff that actually matters. Today I really like to give players input into the setting so that they can actively contribute rather than simply discover what I've come up with. It's possibly contradictory, but I think the same intuition drives the way I play, of just taking the GM's setting on board as-is, for better or worse. The play experience at that table, how one player just not giving a shit destroyed the game, shows how important buy-in can be.

Better Late than Never

RPGaDay 2016 has been going on for more than a week already, but I'll jump on the bandwagon. This year it's being hosted by BrigadeCon, so check their site for more details and the full list of questions.

Today's #RPGaDay question: Largest in-game surprise you have experienced?

About a decade ago I was GMing an urban campaign using d20 Modern, with dark fantasy, near-future sci-fi, conspiracy and horror themes. It's not as grimdark-serious as it sounds--often I'd twist up genre conventions to mess with the tone. Also, my players knew when to open the release valve, so often we had moments of genuine comic relief.

During one session, the PCs headed to the laboratory of a mad scientist NPC who was one of the few people they could trust. He was nowhere to be found, and was possibly in danger. During this moment of tension, the PCs started searching--investigating other rooms, looking for notes or other clues, checking in the supply closet. A player cracked: "and then he jumps out and yells "SUPPLIES!"

We laughed pretty hard. I'm pretty sure someone did a spit-take. It was spontaneous and unexpected, and worked a lot better than the joke originally did in UHF. Thank goodness for players that are that switched-on! The City campaign lasted for about three years, and taught me a lot about GMing and engaging with players.

Opening the Book

Here are my intentions:

a) record my thoughts on running roleplaying games from the perspective of someone comfortable with improvising but who enjoys creating fairly detailed settings.

This will most likely focus on the use of random generators like dice tables, tarot cards, and GM emulators to support sandbox-style play in settings that are sketched out with enough prompts to get going.


b) discuss and analyze interesting game mechanics and subsystems

I believe all GMs use house rules, and running RAW is a recipe for disaster. There are many bits and bobs that we cobble together into our games, and I like thinking about how they work.


c) comment on and synthesize the work of other roleplaying bloggers

There is a lot of really good stuff out there, and it's inspired combinations of ideas and informed my GMing style and technique. I want to keep track of it somewhere that isn't vague notes in a forgotten folder.


d) share stuff created for my own games

 Random tables, useful subsystems, maps, setting designs, session reports, etc. Hopefully they'll be of use to someone other than me.


Wish me luck!