The Liberty of Vigilance

A long time ago, people played roleplaying games. The standard was that a party full of different fantasy versions of yourself, like elves, bards and wizards, entered a dungeon and tried to gather as much treasure as possible. Then there was the DM, who opposed these dungeoneers’ efforts by designing the dungeon to be as difficult as possible. But the system allowed the players to have tools with which to navigate these traps and difficulties. When faced with a mysterious door, a statue or perhaps a trap door, having or not having a 10-foot pole was all the difference in the world.

This created this need for preparedness for the players. When you had the possibility to stock up on supplies, you needed to think of everything and carry everything. If you didn’t, then the GM’s death traps would get you. This sense has carried over in the culture of roleplaying. Meticulous inventory gathering, encumberance and looting everything that might even remotely be useful.

As a person who likes to focus on the narrative, the characters and the themes, rather than the actual simulation, I feel that this instinct to log and define what you are carrying at any given time interferes with roleplaying a lot. When people open the gear tables and see what they can buy, it slows down the game.

That is why I am immensely grateful for a single skill in the FFG Star Wars roleplaying game system (which really needs a proper name for itself): Vigilance. Vigilance has several uses: Determining initiative when the character has prepared for combat, resisting sneakiness when the character is not actively searching for it, and determining whether the character is carrying some piece of equipment.

The last part is incredibly liberating, since no longer will the players have to lug around a convenience store’s worth of stuff. Whenever a situation arises for which the players have prepared for, but did not remember to mention taking the equipment with them, you can just roll Vigilance. With a success you remembered to pack the binoculars, or climbing gear or something. If it is very unlikely that the character would have prepared for the problem, just increase the difficulty.

It also makes money useful mid-action. I was planning on allowing the players to retroactively purchase stuff that would be perfect for the situation with a Vigilance check, assuming that they have the necessary encumberance for having been carrying it. This way I would encourage the players to just keep a pool of possessions from which they can draw it as the need arises. It removes a lot of unnecessary bookkeeping, which is always wonderful.

Flaw of the Empire

Some of you might remember my high opinion of the then-new Star Wars roleplaying game, Edge of the Empire. Now, after one campaign and a lot of reflection, I can state that the system is flawed. And not in the way that Storyteller is flawed (if you ignore everything but the character sheet, then it is playable), but flawed in the way that even considering playing the system is a daunting task.

The sole culprit is the combat. Edge’s dice mechanics are still brilliant and the best for narrative play. They give a lot of information which the players can use to narrate the situation and are best suited for very light and narrative play. The combat, however, is very detailed and rules-heavy. Every shot or strike is rolled. Damage is recorded, critical hits are rolled, advantages and threat generated and rolls modified. It is a slog similar to D&D, which slows down the flow of the game.

Even worse, it cannot be ignored, for about half of the character classes in the game are combat-specific, with lot of talents that allow the character to tweak and tune their combat performance. If I were to implement a quick combat system, these characters would be essentially worthless, or a lot of their abilities would just ignore one black die or add one blue die in specific circumstances. So that is not an option.

The only remaining option for running Edge without the cumbersome combat system would be to ignore most of the content of the game, and that is a very poor option. Or you could just avoid combat altogether, but then again it is Star Wars. That would be like making a pizza without the tomato sauce.

Then there is the Obligation system. I still like it, but using it means not having any overarching plots in the game. With 50 Obligation the players will spend 50% of their time running their Obligation’s errands. My Space Station campaign suffered a bit for it, because the characters did not have time to spend on the station itself. So if you don’t have an idea for a plot for the game, Obligation is a blessing. The errands give the players something to do and when the Obligation does not trigger, I’m sure the players have accumulated some backlog to keep themselves busy. Nice.

But. As I said, I love the dice. Right now I have made a ruleset for Endless Adventure, a roleplaying game set in the galaxy of Endless Space. I tested the core with a quick Deus Ex-inspired campaign and it worked to my satisfaction. I’ll write about it later.

Status Update

Hello again. If you have been wondering what I’ve been doing lately, then wonder no more. For I have done pretty much nothing interesting. I’ve been working on Salvage Team and Audatia during the days, and spent evenings playing video games, board games and roleplaying games.

The reason I’ve been silent in here is because I have had many forums where to share my groundbreaking observations and thoughts. At work, in my gaming groups… Logging them here has felt unnecessary.

But now I’ve been summoned to write about roleplaying in Finland, in the present and in the future. While I feel that extrapolating the future is probably beyond my capabilities, I shall share my observations of the present, and what I hope of the future.

Here in Oulu, I’ve been roleplaying a lot of different things, mostly on a whim. I’ve tried to improve and test myself in a myriad of games: Linear, Deus Ex-like conspiracy investigation, Lovecraftian horror, realistic fantasy, light-hearted Star Wars crime drama, straight Werewolf the Forsaken and others I might have forgotten about. Some of them have been system tests, like the Dawn of Worlds-based realistic fantasy thing (failed because of too many players), while some have been explorations into new systems, like Edge of the Empire.

Regarding other roleplaying games, trying out new things has been a theme around here. People have been crafting their own rpg systems, either scratch-built or modified from existing ones. Very few people have stuck with one game for extended periods of time. Almost no-one plays D&D, except for a few nostalgia-driven forays into the ancient first and second editions in the form of ready-made adventures. Others play Cyberpunk where they have built over the years a book’s worth of history and lore. Yet others play KERP, the Middle-Earth Role Playing Game, Dungeon World (or at least they used to play it a few months ago) and other, lighter games.

Then again, for the past few months, starting from my Werewolf campaign, Storyteller has gained a strong hold over the people. One of the players is planning on starting a Werewolf of his own, where he hopes to fix the stupidities of Storyteller. Right now I’m trying to get a Changeling campaign off the ground and am in the process of running a Wizard the Stolening mini-campaign series. Additionally, there is a lot of activity in the grim darkness of the far future, since there has been two full Only War campaigns, one active right now, Dark Heresy one-shots, Rogue Trader and now Deathwatch, where I’m playing as Battle Brother Nobilitus, an Ultramarine Tactical Marine and possibly the best individual in the galaxy.

Wizard is one of the most interesting of games I’ve ran recently. It all started with a one-shot game where a group of university students found an ancient tome of magic spells under a barn. I wanted to integrate Magic the Gathering’s more amusing spells into a modern setting. In the end, it evolved into a long mini-campaign series, following one of the emerging group of Wizards and ultimately the fate of the world now that magic is back.

So that is the present. I am doing preliminary thoughtwork for a sci-fi game set in the universe of Endless Space, using a heavily modified Edge of the Empire. Additionally I’ve thought about a mini-campaign series set in a sci-fi universe of my own, which would follow the evolution of humanity when a synthetic human replicas enter the fray. I would also like to finally run a Changeling campaign where the players play as themselves.

About the future. I’d like for our roleplaying groups to keep on doing new things and keep an open mind. There are precious few people who can do the latter, who have the strength and courage to sacrifice their free time into testing and pioneering instead of sitting in their comfort zones and keeping playing the same old games in the same old settings with the same old themes.

I want to see experience new things! Learn new techniques! I want to play in an atmospheric horror game, I want to be entangled in a complex web of romance and intrigue, I want to play as an entire group of people, I want to have dialogue with myself, I want to share control of a character with many players. I want to play as myself, I want to play as someone I know. Try it all. Challenge myself. Find myself. Improve myself.

Sadly, as I mentioned, there are only a few people who share my interests. The future of roleplaying will very likely be the same as now: People doing things they like. Some people will keep playing D&D (the best and only edition), some people will juggle between Cyberpunk and Storyteller, and some will be game for anything. Some people will always gather around the kitchen table with dice and paper, some will embrace technology and replace the table with a tablet. Roleplaying is a group-based activity, and those groups will most likely stick together. As our acceptance of connectivity increases and the technology evolves, perhaps our pool of like-minded gamers will no longer be limited by physical distance, but for now the most efficient way to play roleplaying games is face-to-face.

Equal rights

During my Werewolf: The Forsaken-game, I wanted for the players to feel like brutal criminal enforcers, since that’s pretty much what they were at that point. I had them break in the home of two thugs who they needed to beat up. During the scene, which I wanted to feel vivid and violent, I had the thugs put up some token resistance. That little few seconds of facial reconstruction took about fifteen minutes of game time. And at that point I decided that I want a system to handle an entire combat scene with a single roll.

Why do we even have a distinct combat system? How does trying to kill (or subjugate) an opponent fundamentally differ from trying to persuade him? One of the theories is that players want more control in situations where their characters might die. Well, I was recently in a situation where my character had to climb an elevator shaft down. I rolled badly and she died. Poof. Had the situation been in combat, I would have rolled for initiative, made a tactical choice, rolled to hit, rolled to dodge, raised my heroism to avoid dying (it was an exotic system), or done any other of the myriad of choices. But the end result would have been the same: My character would be dead.

Another theory that I just made up is that roleplaying games still retain the cultural heritage of Chainmail and the first Dungeons and Dragons. That the meat of the game is fighting for your life, and that is why it should be simulated very carefully. Or perhaps it’s just the local playerbase. Regardless, that shouldn’t be the case.

So, in my opinion combat shouldn’t have any privileges in relation to other situations where a roll for success is required. And so, I set out to design a new system to handle any situation with a single roll. In addition, I wanted a system that would include time and the degree of success as a significant aspect. I would also like the system to be scalable to accommodate any situation. Here is the end result:

Every check has a Success Roll. Checks might also have modifier rolls: Time Roll, Environmental Impact roll and Attrition roll.

Success Roll is a single d10. In a contested roll, the players succeed on a 6-10. Depending on what the situation calls for, the players add an appropriate Affinity, which are Physical, Mental and Spiritual. Then they reduce the opponent’s Affinity. Then the players and the opponent start listing their Competences, which nudge the success range up or down.

Time Roll is a singe d10. First the GM and the players define how long the action should take. That is used as a base, which the Time Roll modifies: 1 means that the action is absurdly fast, 2 means the action is significantly faster, 3-4 means the action is slightly faster, 5-6 means no deviation from the base time, 7-8 means it took slightly more time, 9 means significantly more time and 10 means it took and absurd amount of time.

Environmental Impact roll is a single d10, which measures how much the action affects the environment. At 1-4 the action has negligible environmental effect, 5-7 means slight environmental impact, 8-9 significant, and 10 absurd impact. This roll is modified by the tools and the skills the characters are willing to use.

Attrition Roll is a single d4, d6, d8 or d10 for each side. The die result is directly the amount of attrition that is dealt to each side. The winning side can nudge either Attrition dice on one-on-one basis for the amount they went over the success line with the Success Roll. In a contested roll, either side may up the ante by increasing the die size for both participants.

So, when a check is required, the GM either selects a difficulty by deciding the success range for the Success Roll, or by having an NPC contest the roll. Then the players and the GM define which tools they are willing to use and modify the Success Roll. After that is done, the GM evaluates the time and adds Time die, adds the Environmental Impact die, and adds both Attrition Dice. Then the whole batch is rolled (obviously using different coloured dice), and the results are interpreted. Then either the GM explains how the events went down, or the GM and the players can play towards that situation.

That is the core structure for my one roll system. It still needs some framework and a setting that supports the narrative structure. But at least finally combat won’t take 15 minutes of die rolling and hit point erasing. Thank the Void for that.

3 Mandatory Games for Game Designers

LOKI, a Finnish roleplaying-related blog, sent me an e-mail demanding I reveal 3 games I think every game designer should play. A quick investigation revealed that the games are assumed to be tabletop RPG’s, but since I am a dashing rebel I’ll widen the scope of the question to general game design. Since I am limited to 3 games, I’ll have to indulge in my own perspective. I strongly urge you to keep that in mind, and get your own perspective as soon as possible, if you haven’t done that already. But on to the games!

1. Space Rangers

Anyone who has been within earshot of me will undoubtedly be unsurprised. Space Rangers is a perfect example of how abstraction, a choice of scale and proper AI can create a humongous world that does not revolve around the player, and yet how the player’s actions can ripple through the world, changing and influencing it.

2. Assassin’s Creed

The first Assassin’s Creed makes this list because it is an extremely fluid game. Everything flows nicely, and it fixes one of my pet peeves about computer games: Hit Points. Instead of a conventional abstract health indicator, Assassin’s Creed has a Synchronization Gauge, which takes damage whenever the player plays imperfectly. It is perfect fridge brilliance: Same functionality as a health bar, but a lot more sensible.

3. Puzzle Quest – Challenge of the Warlords

Puzzle Quest is a game that shows that you can slap roleplaying elements to anything. It is a pretty conventional fantasy RPG, except that everything that is usually simulated with a die roll is simulated with a game of Bejeweled. It is clever and well-executed.

The correct answer, of course, would be to play every game that you come across. Every game has some lesson to be learned, be that a mistake or an improvement, but only if you search for those things. Observe and analyze. Ask why this works, or why this is implemented. Try to see the game designer behind the game.

Technical difficulties

Last weekend I was in a fantasy larp, which took 24 hours. I did not sleep that night and ate quite lightly (even by my standards). Then, the next day, I played Vampire the Requiem for a few hours, and met a cat. This week I have three different roleplaying games, and I am extremely confident that all of them will cut into my sleep. Plus, things are kicking up at Games&Tales. So perhaps this one time I will allow myself to succumb to fatigue and miss out on last weekend’s post.

Fantasy Saga Abridged, part 2

Is it again time to write words? Oh dear.

Playing D&D is about two things: Your race and your class. Your race defines what you look like and oh-so-important stat bonuses, and your class defines what you are going to be doing for the entire game. This system should be integrated in Fantasy Saga Abridged somehow. That, plus lots of different-sided dice.

Let’s categorize the characters roughly: There are strong characters like fighters and barbarians, agile characters like rogues and rangers, wise characters like clerics and druids, intelligent characters like wizards and charismatic characters like bards and paladins. Martial, Primal, Divine, Arcane and Psychic by 4th Edition descriptions. Let us do a following division: Strength, Agility, Divinity, Arcana, Charisma. These are our attributes. Every character has their primary attribute, that defines their class. Wizards and sorcerers have Arcana, rogues Dexterity, bards Charisma and so on. The rest are their supplemental attributes, that will be lower. Instead of weird, table-based numeric values like in D&D, the attributes signify which die you will be rolling.

Instead of singular enemies, traps and other obstacles, the game consists of whole encounters worth of trouble, as I elaborated last time. Instead of being a succession of nearly-identical enemies, however, D&D is famous for its monsters. There are undead, beasts, evil elves, demons, devils, dragons, mages, elementals and so on. Each one requires a different approach, and some classes are directly suited for specific enemies. Clerics get giddy around tombs and crypts, for they can use their Turn Undead with reckless abandon. Fighters love nothing more than melee with demons and elementals. Rangers use their knowledge of the natural world to befriend beasts of wild. And no-one best come between two opposing wizards and their show-off of spells and enchantments. This is also something that should be taken into account. The dice used are mostly d4:s, d6:s, d8:s, d10:s and rarely d12:s.

Every encounter takes exactly one die roll.  The thing is, one of the players is the Leader for an encounter. He is the one who rolls the important die, and the other players will support his character. This way the party specialist for the situation can steal the encounter and utilize his special skills. Mechanically, the leader will select an Attribute he wishes to use, most likely his character’s Primary Attribute. The rest of the party will use the same, or possibly their own, attributes for their support rolls. First the supporters roll their dice against a Support Difficulty Class. For each success, the Leader gets +1 bonus to his roll. If the Support Roll was made with the same Attribute, the bonus is +2. Then the Leader rolls his die agains the Encounter DC. If he rolls equal or higher, the encounter was an astounding success, and the enemy/obstacle was passed without problems. If the roll is lower, then the party passed the encounter, but took a beating in the process. The leader takes d6 damage. This damage represents expended spells, fatigue and general expenditure of supplies. One supporting character may take up to half of the damage to himself.

The races do not give attribute bonuses. Rather, they improve the die size by one whenever the encounter happens in their natural environment. Humans excel in cities and ruins, elves amidst the thick forests and nature, dwarves in tight tunnels and caves, half-orcs in the open roads and plains. In fantastic terrain the environments might be vague, but the GM and the players can improvise.

So there’s the basic mechanic. Truth to be told I haven’t had time to think about it and I pretty much designed this as I wrote it,which explains why this post took about two hours and the incoherentness of the text. I’ll mull over it some more and see if I can’t refine it. You are welcome to share your opinions and ideas in the comments. But for now, I need to sculpt level 21 Jesus.

A better SWRPG, part 3

I ended up slightly revising the system. And by slight revision I mean complete overhaul.

There are six attributes divided in two groups: Preferences and Attributes. Preferences define how your character likes to approach problems. Characters with high Initiative tend to thrive in surprising situations, letting their instinct and reflexes win the day. High Adaptation means that the character can usually turn any situation to his or her advantage by unorthodox strategies and a moment of study. Tenacity means that the character can win by sheer willpower or endurance. Attributes define how your character is focused: Physically, Mentally or Socially. In character creation, the player defines Good, Average and Weak attribute and preference. A Good attribute or preference is worth three dice, Average two and Weak one. (Example: Silas is a cunning farghul scoundrel. He is good in social situations and can create elaborate schemes. He is good in changing situations, but tends to get bored and tired in long problems. Silas has Average Initiative, Good Adaptation and Weak Tenacity. He is Weak Physically, Average Mentally and Good Socially).

A conflict consists of up to three challenges. In a challenge, the leader (The one who began the conflict or one who rolled highest in previous challenge) selects the Attribute that is going to be used, and then both parties roll dice equal to that attribute plus the current challenge preference. The first challenge in a conflict uses Initiative, the second Adaptation and third Tenacity. The result calculation system is the same as in the previous version. (Take highest, add 1 per double) Low roller can use Force Points to equalize result, in which situation the conflict advances.

Along with the innate attributes of a character, he or she also has a set amount of Resources. These represent the character’s gadgets, force abilities or other ways the character can tip the scales to his or her favour. Resources are used by defining them as something that will aid the player in his or her current situation. After that, the resource can be reused in the situation where it might be useful. A resource adds one die to the die pool of a challenge. (Example: Silas is in a pickle; Security is sweeping the starport for him and, and his transport is beyond a checkout counter. He digs into his pouch and draws a forged ID he had crafted for him. In the upcoming Social Adaptation challenge, Silas gains one die. The ID stays with him, so he can reuse it in the destination starport if there is trouble.) The resources reset at the beginning of each session.

Force points work as before: You gain force points in the beginning of a session and for doing cool stuff. You spend them to avoid failures by adding one point to the result per force point spent.

The Dark Side Tracker is a bit more streamlined than the previous version: If you call in to the Dark Side, you gain two resources and fall in the tracker. Atoning requires two things: A full session where you avoid initiating conflict (meaning you always let the opponent select the chosen attribute) and sacrificing Force Points. The GM handles the additional effects for Dark Side (whispering, loss of narrative control in conflict, the possible full corruption).

And there it is. The new, improved (?) system. Next time something different. Maybe.

Related articles

• A better SWRPG, part one (domainofman.wordpress.com)
• A better SWRPG, part two (domainofman.wordpress.com)

Fusion energy

The DESUS has worked. It has not revolutionized anything, but the players have started to do cool maneuvers now and then. The system has encountered a minor setback, however: It requires interesting encounter areas to work. Frantically making last-minute balance evaluations on my selection of foes, selecting combat music, drawing the map and providing descriptions leaves me little time to add interesting terrain features to interact with. Especially since most of the latest combat areas have been in outdoors.

A long time ago in a website far far away, there was a FAQ for Star Wars Roleplaying Game. There was one detail I remember from the pages of text: “…you can make combat more interesting by letting every player describe a detail of the combat area; For example, an exposed power conduit…” That was the key to one sort of fusion energy: An endless sea of imagination for me to populate the environment with.

I gave the player an option to freely suggest terrain features and applied the good old improvisation adage to it: “Yes, and…” I try to never say no to their suggestions, and merely add mechanics. Last game, I had to improvise a combat area and attacking creatures while I was describing that one of the players saw attackers coming. Apart from a very basic game area (two trees, ground, one ancient warpgate…) I had nothing. Then I reminded the players of their right to add details. One of them suggested very tall patches of grass. I made them difficult terrain and cover. Another suggested a nest of bees. I made it hang on a tree branch, made it have an area where the bees attack if the players fail a Diplomacy check. In the encounter, one of the players took about 20 damage when they failed the diplomacy. The player then kicked the tree, making the nest fall, and then kicked it at a goblin shaman. The situation was funny and cool.

Combat does not happen in a vacuum. Environment is an important factor, and I heartily suggest that if you wish for a more exciting combat, ask the players to provide details.

A funny detail: One of the players had to skip the session, leaving me with the question on how to handle his character. I did not have the character sheet, meaning that I couldn’t run him in a combat situation. After a malfunctioning warpgate, the party was lost in an unknown place. One of them decided to scout around, since his character had a horse. I remembered the absent players character and exclaimed “Shuwe says ‘I have a horse too!’ as he gallops away to scout, beyond the borders of my combat grid” The wonders of patchwork player substitution.

DESUS

Last D&D-session was apparently fun for everyone. Apart from a tad anticlimatic second encounter I think it went well enough. After the game, amongst the critique, was one point: Using class powers gets tiresome after a while. In the session before that there was an encounter involving a mad, constantly reincarnating wizard. The players needed to speak sense to him while he and his guardians were attacking them. Regardless of the slightly clunky die rolling mechanic, the players enjoyed it, for it was a nice break from the normal combat.

That got me thinking about how to spice up combat. Using the environment has always interested me, and when I managed to play the game myself, I was constantly trying to toss people with chairs, drag them in bottomless pits and ignite my arrows from fires. The game has good rules for incorporating ad-hoc attacks, but the problem is that it is written in the DM Guide. The players do not know about it before they ask. When the fatigue starts gripping the DM and the combat drags on, the game degenerates very easily into modifiers, squares and AC bonuses. In these times players just tend to select the best attack from their powers and roll dice instead of doing cool stuff. I thought about how to combat this and came to an idea: Give the players tools to utilize the ad-hoc rules. Thus Dynamic Encounter Skill Utility Sheet was born.

There are three main elements: Situation, Skill and Effect. Every special combat action starts from any one, and every action must have a Situation provided by the player. For example, a player wishes to knock an opponent prone to slow him down when escaping a scene. There are barrels of water near his character, and he wants to knock it over so the opponent will slip on the water. He asks the DM whether it is possible, who rules that it is, though the player must knock the barrell over with a Strength check, and make a Dexterity vs. Reflex attack against the opponent. If he succeeds, he will knock the opponent prone and deals low damage from the damage by level table from the DM Guide.

A Situation is the tie to the combat situation and a limiting factor. The players must describe how they wish to accomplish what they want to do, using the items or facts at hand. Tossable objects, unstable structures, environmental hazards, the specific features of an opponent or social relations are examples of a Situation. The player must use these to get the effect he or she wants.

A Skill is the way the player uses the Situation. Skills, like the whole Sheet, is divided into three areas: Skill, Might and Mind. This division is made mostly to give ideas to the players according to their characters’ archetypes. Skill means that the player is using his Dexterity or Intelligence, doing things that require good balance, exact aim or good knowledge, for example, improvising an explosive cocktail from alchemical ingredients lying on a table and tossing it at an enemy. Might means that the player is using his superior strength and toughness to knock things over, smash objects on people or anything that requires Strength or Constitution. Mind covers affecting the mind of the target, like demanding surrender, negotiating a truce or similar, using Charisma or Wisdom. Skills follow the format Skill or Ability Check, then Ability vs. Defence. Or in the case of a desperate argument while parrying and tossing magic, it is a Skill Challenge.

Effect is what the attack does if it succeeds. There are two categories: Damage and Condition. If the combat action is a one-shot action, like felling a great statue on top of an enemy or declaring that you are the father of the opponent, the attack will deal some amount of damage from the Limited Damage Expression-table. Otherwise, like when kicking a chair at a ghost, it deals damage from the Normal Damage Expression-table. The players can suggest on the damage type (Low, Moderate or High), but the DM is the final adjudicator. The Condition can be selected from the Combat Condition table, like Knocked Prone, Dazed, Immobilized, Slowed or such. These effects generally work until the end of the attacker’s next turn, but especially difficult or impressive things might be Save Ends. If an attack imposes a Condition, it will either deal no damage or low damage.

This is the basic idea. I thought about printing it out as a kind of a flowchart format and giving it to the players, so when they think of a cool maneuver to do, they can already see how it would work. I think I already have a good “tutorial” where to test it out. I will see.