It’s a scenario that has had numerous different approaches, some “failures”, depending on how you describe “failure” in RPG terms, and some successes. The failures were merely the player characters getting out alive; the successes the PC group managing to escape with a high-tech artefact without getting hurt and by damaging their opponents, sometimes severely. It benefits from having a more “framework” approach rather than fixed encounters and this has let every game proceed in a completely different fashion.

I love running it.

That means that anyone can order print copies and PDF from anywhere and have them delivered. Good stuff!

We’re currently talking to a distributor in the UK and Europe for Hyperlite, as well, so they should be in game stores over here, and we’re also talking to logiistics guys in the US, as well. All positive.

So what’s next?

Well, we’re currently working on Corporate Crisis, a Sirius Treaty supplement that deals with the Metacorporations and corporate espionage – in particular how the corporates handle Precursor finds and interact with the UNE. It’s really fun to write as it’s including a range of strange tech (cameras, bugs, augments) as well as a range of new careers and career options (Pressor, Infiltrator, Corporate Manager?) and leads to a range of interesting character group configurations. The ideas can also be used (and were derived from) very specialist situations such as the special forces teams onboard UNE Explorer/Survey ships.

The playtest group have already expressed a great deal of interest and one campaign is already, without me doing anything, already dealing with a team on a Survey ship, so I’m now having to play catch-up! Great stuff!

Look forward to seeing you at cons, or at our games days.

Perhaps, though, we should have been a bit gentler, though.

OK: Player rule number one. Check with the DM & players the character needed. We were light on Leaders – Warlord sprang to mind. So I had great fun checking over the Warlord options and settled for a healing-biased dwarf warlord, not too keen on the dwarves oath’s of obedience, but nonetheless shocked at the horrors that the Wraith Hunters had found. Fundamentally a do-gooder; he’ll do his best. Kitted him out; he looked good. I was chuffed.

Then a player turned up who’d not been able to risk it over Christmas. You guessed it – he’d also got a Leader. A warlord, too. And a dwarf. OK, clash. The only spare was an emergency character I’d knocked up for netski’s introduction to 4e, based on a friend’s excellent barbarian build. And that would have led to too many Strikers. Oh well, we’re now doubled up on leaders…

It was good fun. RPGing al fresco. It was an old, pre-written scenario adapted to 4e – and there are some hints there. A loose link into the existing campaign and we were off. The mandatory (in character) arguments over who was top dog (dwarf) on the team; sullen sulking, quickly hidden; then we turned away from the prepped stuff and hunted round for clues in a local town, completely throwing the new GM. I’d forgotten to mention to him that our group – under any GM – always goes off the beaten track and throws up something wierd. He did well, and survived, apparently throwing us a few bones, but it reminded me of the confidence experience brings; an more experienced GM would have happily thrown in something else, a few more clues for us to reward us for being imaginative. It’s in the 4e DMG, too: reward player’s imaginations and good play.

We almost threw the negotiation with the client, too, and our poor GM was grabbing for straws. But the two warlords settled into a good-cop/bad-cop thing and it produced a bit of light-heartedness (I love laughter in a club at a gaming table).

OK, 4e’s been out for a while, now, and it should have been enouraging new DMs with it’s sound advice and smoother set-up. Passive Perception, for example, stops all those forced perception rolls at the start of encounters, it gets rid of soooo much detailed faffing around. The heavy reduction on random encounters; the advice and guidelines is now pretty much experienced-GM standard: if it doesn’t further the story, the plot or the character’s understanding, don’t have it, don’t put it in. The DCs for skill checks in challenges are carefully worked out based on level: and it works (make sure you have the addenda though!)

But remember Player Rule No. 2: The GM’s the GM. When I play, if he makes a mistake, or is unsure, I’ll mention a rule or tip he might have forgotten after the event (or durign ifi he asks), but I’m not going to argue with him. I don’t mind being corrected if I make a mistake (easy to do) as a player of DM. I’ll sometimes hint if an inexperienced DM’s forgotten something.

So I hinted with the Passive checks. “Do you want our passive checks?” No, was the answer. Ok, perhaps we won’t need them. But we did. Constantly being asked for Perception checks began to frustrate some players (ok, all of us). I don’t think we’d realised just how much we’d appreciated the 4e advice and Passive check rules. We do now, though – and it’s noticeable how much it speeds the game up, allows for surprise, and get’s rid of useless fluff. Many DMs (like me) used to ask for a series of pre-rolled Perception checks at the start of a game to keep things hidden to do the same thing, but 4e has it built-in.

Before you wonder, I’m not getting at the GM, here, as he didn’t realise it either. He’d come up on the old school and hadn’t noticed that such a simple thing helps so much. And it reminds me of just how good the DMG advice is.

Then the random encounters on the journey. They served no real purpose (it was an converted module and the encounters were in there). We did better than the GM thought, and when we announced we were going to take the (random) bandits alive, he panicked: we’ve all done it when the players have been too clever. The bad guys tried to commit suicide. With two leaders in the PC group, it just could be stopped, so we interrogated the prisoner.

The poor beleaguered GM was, yet again, stuck with not knowing what to do. He made up a back story and then watched with horror as we picked up on it and threatened to abandon the plot, go back into the town, and follow up the fabricated story he’d just come up with (I suppose we were teasing him a bit, too, knowing he was struggling with this). We ended up being nice to him (the GM) and sending the captive back to town, telling him we’d things out later for him.

It was actually an opportunity, tbh. A random encounter came up with something dynamic, something we could have followed. But for an evenings play we didn’t manage to get too far into the mainstream plot, which is sad. But that’s the way the old-school scenario had been written, without the benefit of the 4e DMG. Don’t blame the DM, here: he was restarting and new (and, anyway, if I do I might find my character pinnedup against a wall by a balrog). The old scenario just hadn’t had the benefit of plenty of experience in its design.

Yes, we should have been easier on the GM. But the group was acting as normal, off-the wall and crazy (can you tell I’m proud of these guys? It makes scenario/product testing very interesting!) The point is, it once again proved the advice in the 4e DMG. To me it proved one of the design goals for 4e, to make life easier for a GM. It does, and it speeds play up by more than you think.

The 4e DMG is good stuff; don’t ignore it. If you haven’t already done so, read it. You may not realise just how much it helps.

So, to business.

I’ve tried to keep playing and running whilst I’ve been sick as it gives a focus and something to look forward to. I haven’t always been able to make it – and the guys at the local group/club have been really helpful and understanding in that regard – but it’s been a useful motivator. Seeing and receiving that appreciation, help and understanding has gone a long way to bolster the support and love from my family.

2010 will be better than 2009. It is already. Thank you, guys.

But, to business.

It struck me when I was running a game of Dungeons & Dragons the other day just how much we, as GMs, can rely on our regular players picking up on our foibles and tendencies. We were running 4th Edition, a home-brew campaign called “Crag Mountain”, and the style of play I chose for the campaign was very much old school D&D. ‘Old School’, that is, not from the use of huge, sprawling dungeons (which I don’t enjoy as a player or DM), but from the copious use of player-oriented puzzles and their linked traps in an over-arching meta-plot.

I know there’s some argument about the use of complex, player-oriented puzzles rather than in-game problems. The accusation is that they transcend roleplaying and force players into meta-gaming. But from a D&D perspective, that’s how the Old School went. It’s a style of play that’s great fun, doesn’t preclude roleplaying outside of puzzle-solving, and gives the players a sense of achievement. It also allows different players to contribute at different times, as well as the standard role contributions from the characters. And it’s a mental excercise in creating the puzzles.

Some of the puzzles and problems involve handouts, logically or intuitively sorting out the correct buttons to push, or keys to construct, from hints found within the game. Others are in-game issues, such as how to open a door or operate a device by deciphering a phrase or saying previously discovered by the characters.

Some of the puzzles also involve deciphering ancient political issues, the entrapment of horrendous wraiths that possess the living who had accidentally been released back into the world: a “terrible evil”. The players have had fun sorting their abilities out, too – the joy on the face of a player playing a warforged when he worked out that his character couldn’t be possessed was really satisfying. But here’s where I ran into an interesting meta-issue (not a problem, as it didn’t destroy play and actively changed the direction of the story somewhat – a good thing!).

The group were convinced by a wraith they had almost destroyed that it was a good wraith and was misunderstood. It needed their help to release a more powerful ‘leader’ of the ‘good’ wraiths (note the quotes) to help them recapture all the ‘bad’ wraiths. It needed their physical bodies to sort out a trapped puzzle.

OK. Puzzle sorted out. There were warnings over doors subsequently revealed, warnings that the wraith said were misunderstandings; the group had to hurry as the entrapment was killing the leader of the ‘good’ wraiths, his leader. The group ignored the warnings and hurried on down to a magical glass-like ball/cell in which the ‘leader’ wraith was imprisoned. It was simple to release the captured wraith: break the glass.

The in-character leader of the group was someone who has only been playing in my games for a short time; likewise, it was so with two other key characters. Two players were old regulars who’ve played in my games and campaigns before: it seems they now expect odd and interesting twists and become suspicious of over-simplicity. They expressed their misgivings about releasing the wraith; the group should go back and report what they’d found. After a lot of discussion, the character leader decided they should go ahead and release him.

This sort of situation can sometimes split groups. This didn’t: the two who disagreed roleplayed the situation well, as did the others. One, the warforged who had said ages ago his programming was to obey the leader of the group did exactly what he was told and went to break the ball (the group wasn’t completely naive, it seems). The other, who’s character was a stolid, loyal dwarf, stood back with the rest of the group and readied a spell.

OK, you can see it. Ball shattered; leader wraith released; leader possessed (turns out the lesser wraith was lying); found wraith was almost untouchable (4th vs. 15th level!); warden stays back (in-role, despite the risk); survivors flee… a mess.

The point was that, whilst I’d spec’d everything out, I didn’t expect the players to actually release the wraith. I assumed that the players would smell a rat, despite any roleplaying, and would not release an additional threat into the world. It wasn’t until I saw the interaction at the table, some of which was great, in-character roleplaying, that I realised that some of that expectation was based on knowing the more familiar players knew my – sometimes byzantine – style. In some respectes I’d inadvertantly meta-gamed during the design process.

It didn;t upset anything: the campaign now has a new, immediate, mega-threat which I can now use as a BBEG. But the way it happened is a lesson to re-absorb. How much of what we design is based on the players assumptions about us? And where do we draw the line or how do we identify it? It’s virtually impossible to answer these questions, but the fact we’re aware of them can help make us improve our campaign and scenario designs.

And that can only be a good thing.

Happy 2010, everyone.

The key question, of course, is what is the setting?

Well, it’s SF and fairly hard, as one would expect from a Traveller-based system, but with jacked-up human PCs equipped with ancient weapons. The chargen system, as in MGT, is absorbing but has some twists to support the Treaty personnel as PCs START gaming whilst serving as members of the Special Forces of the United Nations of Earth (UNE). Interstellar travel is extraordinarily hazardous, requiring medical care or implants to ensure survival. Melee combat is more likely than ranged lightfights as the Sirius Treaty dominates interaction with more primitive species, ensuring contact teams have a limited range of options when dealing with them.

The major difference is that these “first contact” rules in the treaty are enforced by a band of treaty monitors: the Invigilators. They may once have been the rejects from the many interstellar societies, but after neural reprogramming and extensive cybernetic upgrades, they are totally loyal to the laws of the Treaty. And they’re not gentle about enforcement, either… imagine a Stone Age primitive facing a Battle Armoured Invigilator about to call down an ortillery strike…

So why bother? Well, it’s not only space that’s big, but time. And there are numerous ruins left over from former starfaring empires. Most of these are useless, of course, some are informative, and a very few contain startling artefacts and technology that could give any of the starfaring species the edge they need. The trouble is that there is no way of knowing in which set of ruins the artefacts can be found… exploring promising new worlds is key to survival or maintaining an interstellar presence.

There’s more introductory information in the Indiecon Conbook, as well as an extra Chargen career that’s not in the core rules. And we’ll be running demo games all through Indiecon.

Look forward to seeing you there!

We’ll have to give September a miss, much as I prefer not to, but I’ve got a bit much on, atm, (slowly) setting something up for Indiecon. Oh well, maybe another Games Day would be worth it after Primal Power comes out.

I’m looking forward to it. I was really pleased to see the inclusion of primal power in the PHB2 and the capabilities of Druids, Shamans and Wardens (I’m not much one for barbarians or strikers in general, but that’s just a personal preference). And given what the previous “xxx Power” books have done for the other classes, I think it might well be a must.

Yeah… I’m beginning to sound like a Wizards sycophant. But the stuff that’s come out in the PHB2 and Divine, Martial and (to a lesser extent) Arcane Power has been excellent. Shortly after the PHB first cam out I started work on two classes: the Dragonmage and the Hermit. The former was a striker-wizard with polymorph powers and the latter was a healing-focussed, pacifist leader with control and weakening powers but few attack powers.

To my amazement – and you have to give credit to the guys at WotC for all-round thinking – both classes became obsolete. The Dragonmage went first with the advent of the PHB2 and dragon-power sorcerers and the additional mix of abilities in Arcane Power. So I held back on developing the hermit – and thank goodness I did. With Divine Power came the advent of the major “pacifist healer” feat and the fantastic array of control-only powers in Divine Power.

Both have a heavy overlap with what I was intending, perhaps less so with the Dragonmage, but because of the overlap they make it pointless publishing the class supplements. What’s nice is it made it easy to can both with the knoweldge that the sort of things I was looking for in my games was produced by Wizards already.

And that’s the point: at the commitment scale of Sceaptune Games (and its big to start with), we have to produce stuff we love, have played with and would game with. And its nice to know that Wizards are producing some of that core stuff already, that D&D 4th Edition is heading in a direction that’s compatible with, to be selfish, MY playstyle and preferences. We’re on the same page, in some respects. That means its more likely to be fun for me for a long period of time.

And that’s quite comforting.

It’s a chance to try out new Board Games and RPGs, in particular D&D, and we’ll have Board Game Extras there, too, with several board game whizzes. it starts at 10 and is really relaxed and friendly – no high-impact sales, just learning or watching the games.

Directions are here.

If you read this – it would be lovely to see you.

(OK, I’m not really much of a RPG-ademic, but sometimes you need to aware of what’s going on at a table to be an effective GM. I’ll be using the word “contract” generally as the mechanisms that support or result in the table etiquette.)

So, in the previous game, why were the characters able to disperse their focus, and ultimately allow two of their number of die? If 4e is a team game, a co-operative game, why was it that the players were able to ignore the – apparently – agreed interim focus and target other opponents?

The answer seems simple, but there is much more to it than might appear. The player characters were able to be haphazard because of a strict rule of local etiquette: that the players themselves have ultimate control over what their character does. During combat, for example, there’s no moving of a PCs figure unless the player says so, and the figure is only moved according to the player’s say-so. In the game in question, minor comments were made about focus but, ultimately, it was the player’s choice where his character went and what his character did. Sometimes lengthy discussion goes on about best moves, but the player – rightly – decides what goes on with his or her character.

Even if it is disastrous for the character or group.

In the game used as an example, some sub-optimal decisions were taken by a PC that could have resulted in a TPK* but the party, as a whole, was lucky. Unfortunately, in the first game some of the character’s actions ended up with other characters unintentionally being killed, though that was not the intent and was not the direct influence; that would have been a breach of another branch of the table etiquette – don’t attack another character.

There is an underlying assumption, here, in that the freedom to control your own character, come what may, assumes a reciprocal responsibility: that you control your character generally for the benefit of the group. In the situation in question, in attempting to follow the table etiquette, players were willing to allow a sub-optimal approach to the game even though the underlying contract was being stretched, or even broken.

Fun, eh?

So, we’ve learnt the focus lesson, but are still trying to retain as much of the etiquette as we can – and I put myself in here as I’m a player, sometimes, too. There is a bedding-in period, now, during which the players negotiate a target, extending it into in-game calls and shouts during melee but in so doing weakening the rules of etiquette somewhat. There is a lot to gain from the assumption of character freedom: ideas can burst forth, imagination can grow and the game can be enhanced, and so forth, and none of the players want to suspend that advantage and fun.

What happens, though, when another player comes in who hasn’t appreciated what’s gone on before and is running to a slightly different contract, a different set of rules (the original ones) AND is running to a slightly different sense of freedom?

That happened, too. A player came in who hadn’t seen the effects of lack of focus, who hadn’t seen the evolved contract and the assumption of communication, and whose player character was naturally somewhat arrogant (for good, in-game reasons). Normally that isn’t a problem as it’s roleplayed well, some characters fit in with it, and other characters just accept they have to deal and negotiate with him. But in this case there was a big difference: the adjusted contractual assumptions weren’t recognised, the reasons for them changing weren’t fully appreciated and the intermittent suspension of etiquette wasn’t understood.

So, what happened?

As always in D&D, the PC group ran into a little bit of trouble. It seemed straightforward, and the ‘treasure guardian’ was pinned down. During this, the character in question thought he wasn’t making much headway so began to look at something else. But then another guardian appeared, and the front-liners began to panic… meanwhile, the newly arrived character had decided that something else was much more important, despite being asked to help and focus.

So another breach of etiquette occurred: a character was threatened in game by another character as an extension of the in-table persuasion.

Instantly hackles rise. Players are, understandably, protective about their characters and a threat is a threat. Trouble is, the need for focus (perceived as a key game strategy by others) wasn’t recognised on one side as the player hadn’t really clocked that characters can be despatched as result of its lack. And on the other, the player didn’t really understand that the adjusted social contract – the firming-up, the alterations in the table etiquette as a result of an adjusted risk – wasn’t perceived by the other. It led to a little bit of discomfort, merely because the social contract was apparently infringed for no reason.

But no-one appreciated that was the situation.

The overall assumption beneath such co-operative games as 4e is that everyone, well, co-operates. It’s when this is breached that problems really occur, whether in-game or out of it. It’s not unreasonable, given it is part of the game(!), but it is something that needs to be recognised by those taking part and either the in-game approach adjusted to support it, such as characters call out more and listen during combat, or the social contract (the table etiquette) and assumed responsibility is stressed.

Age old saying come to mind: All for one and one for all; United they stand, divided they fall.

So the lesson? I suppose it’s that players need to be aware of the assumed etiquette around the table where they are involved. If a player misses a week, it really is worth not only finding out what happened BUT BE AWARE that, after something like a character death, in-game and out-of-game assumptions and contracts may almost certainly have changed.

Interesting times…

* If you’re new to this, TPK = Total Party Kill. A situation where every Player Character (PC) is killed. Something few GMs ever enjoy, to be frank.**
** Unless they’re going for it and the players expect it. Don’t talk to me about Conception and Goblins.***
*** Unless you have an hour to kill, that is. it was fun at the time.

Dark Side Points, though, are a different matter. They’re a game mechanic rather than an RPing action. But on the way back afterwards I had to agree with one of the players about just how useful a game mechanic they are. I sometimes worry about DSPs as in some respects they are an attempt to put a very arbitrary measure on the unmeasurable: How dark was the Emperor to wipe out the whole Jedi order? How many Dark Side Points did Anakin earn in the temple? How many points did Tarkin earn in wiping out Alderaan? And how many did the gunners earn when carrying out his order?

All too complicated.

In other situations, though, like on the tabletop, they actually work. They are a simple but effective tool for players and GMs to track the slide of a character down into the Dark Side. Sure, a character can do a few dodgy things, but when does it become addictive? When does the mysterious ‘dark side’ – of our character, not just the Force – begin to take over? When does a Jensaarai or Dathomiri become uncontrollable rather than shady? DSPs give a means of tracking this progression, of the character finally losing control and giving his character over to the GM as lost, as Fallen.

It’s also a really useful way of tracking the decline and actions of hack-and-slay or attack-with-no-quarter characters. Such approaches are a strong temptation to rules-tempted roleplayers who have powerful characters in any game, but especially to Force Users in Star Wars. The fear of earning a DSP and so nerfing certain abilities becomes a really strong motivator. But the penalty is simple to avoid: give quarter, don’t just hack and slay, act to save lives (and the galaxy) from ‘evil’.

Given I tend towards, and encourage, games that themselves encourage the concepts of ‘good’, honour and altruism (rather than ‘evil’, dishonour and selfishness), such a simple, yet effective, roleplaying mechanic is welcome indeed. It encourages roleplaying rather than rollplaying and skirmish-gaming.

I like that. And I do like Star Wars because of it.

Well, it is to us, anyway.

Whenever something like this happens, I look back on the ‘failing’ encounters to see what went wrong, or right. In general, this review process is vital to improve DMing skills and ensure that mistakes – whether in play or design – aren’t repeated. Of course, you have to make sure you don’t dive into the old analysis-paralysis soup that leads nowhere.

So what was the results of this?

Well, both encounters were different as regards terrain. One was swamp, with some dry land (several sections of Ed Bourelle’s (Skeleton Key) swamp and deciduous forest), the other a forest with a number of paths (a Paizo map-pack). Both were meant to be fairly tough: one at +2 levels above party level; the other, the climax of this adventure, at +3 above. In both the party was outnumbered with, minions thrown in to harass the party in conjunction with the heavyweights.

In the swamp the party started together and set up in a slightly weak position, and were kept in bad terrain by assailants shooting from cover and who juggled from island to island; the heavyweights stayed on dry land and pinned the party. In the other, the party started off in the clear, able to set up and move as they wanted, and the assailants were stuck in undergrowth, forced to come out to face the party – or be attacked singly within the forest.

Two very different encounters.

So what about the most dangerous assailants? Well, the first had a trio of crossbow-armed minions shooting from across the swamp. They were in range of ranged weapons and magic. In combination with a skirmisher, they took down the party’s vulnerable wizard (controller) in the first round and kept him occupied when the party’s leader (a shaman) healed him. The second had some orc minions giving flank support to some greataxe-armed raiders. Sure, there was a barbarian and an Eye, but it was the orc raiders who proved most troublesome.

The terrain, as ever, was challenging. Sure, the players might have used better tactics in both, perhaps moving to firmer ground in the first, perhaps taking on individuals in the forest in the second. And the luck of the dice might have been a bit better for the party in both. Movement was good: the defender was pinning down the body of attackers very well, the controller was keeping back and trying to control, and the shaman/leader was positioning his spirit well and using his group powers superbly.
But common to both was a problem I’ve seen and been party to in the past: lack of focus.

Whilst the combats were being run, I was conscious that I was having to keep track of damage to all the assailants. Damage was being spread out amongst them all. The party made vague statements to the effect that they were focusing, but (imho, remember), for example, the rogue and wizard took too many opportunity attacks away from the object of focus, and the shaman kept picking on the assailant the defender was marking.

As a result, minions remained standing for long after they should and no one attacker was taken out of the fight early on. This means that every assailant was able to act and attack for many rounds.

Spreading out damage works ok for the lighter encounters, or the ones where there is little risk. And if the group is up against a sole, damage is focused automatically. But in the more difficult, multi-assailant encounters this is disastrous. It’s a basic rule of 4e combat: don’t spread your effectiveness, but focus; don’t target multiple opponents, target one at a time; don’t shift focus unless it’s absolutely obvious you’ve picked the wrong opponent – and only do so then if it’s absolutely necessary.

It’s a useful reminder. And one that’s a general rule of conflict throughout games and life.

But… Are we completely finished? No. There’s more – about the fundamental reasons why this happened in the first place. But this one’s long enough!

Look out for our next instalment, soon!
pective,