Ravenous Role Playing

Surprise your players with a ‘dumb’ villain

To sum up: Have your villain make mistakes. This will surprise your players and make them double-think the strategies for their game. I’ve had this done to me time and time again as a player. I’ve always thought, “Why is the Bad Guy doing that?” and I’ve come up with some hare-brained plans because of it. Sometimes the GM makes an honest mistake in his strategy. Sometimes the GM is just throwing us a curve ball and trying to make things easier on us… and we just ended up taking the hard route.

Before your first game, know your party, and know them well.

Know what your PCs are capable of before you throw things at them. As a GM, you don’t want the PCs to have automatic successes, but you want things to be possible. As a an example, I had a GURPS GM throw a spirit at us that could only be contained for a few seconds at a time, but required a complex exorcism spell to dispel. Unfortunately, the exorcism spell was too high level for our power level, and we couldn’t get rid of the nasty spirit. We did have a lower level spell at our hands, but it took ten minutes to cast. The end result was that we had to run away, recruit an NPC to do the dirty work and come back later. Fortunately for us, the GM was flexible and allowed us to find said NPC even though he didn’t think we would need them at the start of the adventure.

“10 Good Hits” An Alternate Hit Point System To Control Combat Pacing And Drama

I’m currently reworking my RPG system in my head. I’ll be putting things down on paper soon, and this post caught my eye. I considered it, briefly, as a core mechanic for the RPG system, but I dismissed it as being too whimsical for the nature of my game. However, it’s still a good lesson to take into consideration. If a combat is dragging on and it’s clear that one side (probably the PCs) is going to win, then allow them to get in a a few “good hits” and call it quits by saying the Bad Guy goes down.

Heroes in Horror: When GM expectations and PC design don’t mix

Here’s another GURPS story for you. I was running a GURPS game in which a player had built a thief-type character. My concepts of what skills a thief should have and what skills the player actually picked were drastically different. I made some suggestions and even built out “Joe Thief” to show to the player what I thought a modern day thief should be capable of. My suggestions were ignored, and I didn’t realize this. As the game drew on, I realized the thief would not be able to perform any thiefly functions in the manner I envisioned. I had to adjust how the game was run, and the game suffered. My point, which is not related much to the horror genre, is that the GM should know what the characters are capable of, especially in an open-minded game system like GURPS. When designing your campaign, make sure the players are acutely aware of what you will expect out of them.

Using PC investments as adventure seeds

This post typically relates to the higher power characters where they have strongholds, investments, businesses and the like. Some systems, such as Burning Wheel, allow for PCs to start with substantial holdings. Once the PCs acquire such a thing, then they should become integral to the plot of the story. They are there for the GM to leverage for and against the PCs. If a character has a shipping company or an import/export business, then cut off some of their trade routes and inspire the group to venture forth to figure out what happened to the formerly abundant supply of a certain set of goods. It can make for a fun time.

Our Pathfinder GM had to work from home on Saturday night, but he was free enough to sit at the table with his laptop and do his thing. Instead of forcing him to run the game and try to pay attention to his network while work was being done on it, we opted to take a break from role playing and play a board game or two. We started (and ended) the night with a really long game of Talisman, Second Edition. I hadn’t played the game more than twice since high school, and I remembered the games going really quick. What I mean by really quick is that we are used to Arkham Horror, which takes a full night to run through the game. Talisman always took an hour or so to setup, play and breakdown back into the box. For some reason, the game on Saturday night took a really long time.

I’m still trying to puzzle out why the game took so damn long. We didn’t dally or waste time. There were no length breaks taken. I really don’t know what happened. Yes, we had two people at the table that had never played, and the other three of us around the table had played before, but not for some time. However, Talisman is such a simple game that it only takes a few minutes to get the flow of things. I was hoping to get in at least two, if not three, games that night, but it wasn’t in the cards.

Congrats to Nat for a game well played and for the solid win. Only two of us made it to the Inner Realm (Bill being the other one) and he didn’t make it very far before getting lost in the Mines and ending back up in the Tavern. I tried the Portal of Power several times and failed every single time. Ugh. Of course, my attempts were rushed in a desperate attempt to try and get to Nat before she finished us all off with the Crown of Command. I didn’t quite have the Strength or Craft to manage the Inner Realm, but I was going to try and get lucky. Of course… I didn’t and she won with ease.

I hope to get back into a steady Pathfinder game next week. Don’t get me wrong. I love board games, but I would much prefer some good old role playing to board/card/dice games any day of the week.

This week’s Friday Five is a day late. I spent my writing time yesterday downloading my huge bundle of goodness from DriveThruStuff for my $20 donation to Doctors Without Borders. If you haven’t heard about it yet, then check out this link.

Use PC Backgrounds as a Roadmap for Campaign Design

I love it when players write backgrounds for their characters. I love it so much that I provide in-game bonuses for people that give me good backgrounds. It usually comes in the manner of free XP to start with, so the character starts at level 2 or 3. It might be in the form of a magic item to start with or something like that. You never know what I might give out. It all depends on what I can use out of the background to make the game/campaign better. The post over at Gnome Stew echoes my sentiments on using character backgrounds for the betterment of the game.

Railroading in a Good Way

Railroading good? I scoff! Then I read the post, and I kind of agree with it. If you’re firmly in the camp that railroading is a Bad Thing for any game, I dare you to go over to Critical Hits and see if your mind is changed just a little bit.

But My HMO Doesn’t Cover Procedure to Remove Curse!

The title of this post over at The Bone Scroll made me laugh for quite a long time. Then I read the post and found more laughter about a serious topic. What if HMOs ran the temples and clerics of the world? I shudder at the thought, but it’s still a great concept to use for an urban fantasy setting.

Eight Rules That Will Make You A Better DM

I’m always looking for tips to make me a better DM and the folks over at Dungeon’sMaster.com have eight simple rules to follow to get on the right road to better GMing.

My Favourite PC Travel Game: Campfire Chats

I’ve always hated hand waving travel time because it robs the players of a chance to earn more XP for their characters. I’ve equally hated the random encounters that serve no purpose other than to pad the XP box on the PCs character sheets. The campfire chats idea over at Campaign Mastery is one of the better ideas I’ve ever heard of for passing the time without forcing the PCs into a fight every third day of travel.

This is a great hook for a modern setting where magic is possible, but rare. I can see this mainly being used with GURPS and/or Hero system.

A new neighbor has moved in next door to the PCs (or one of the PCs if they live separately) and he’s a strange old man. He seems harmless, but strange noises and lights emanate from his house at all hours of the day and night. The sounds are not loud enough, nor are the lights bright enough to interrupt sleep, but they are still strange. A week or two after he moves in, the PCs encounter another neighbor who claims that the old man is Merlin from the Arthurian legends and has setup shop in this quiet area. The neighbor wants the man out of the area before knights questing for the Holy Grail, round tables or damsels in distress begin marauding through the streets. The friendly neighbor implores the PCs to do something about Merlin before bad things start to happen.

What really is going on in the old man’s house? Is he really Merlin? Is he casting magic, or just practicing his pyrotechnics and light shows? What will the PCs do about the goings-on in the house?

I just came across this blog post at Gnome Stew, and it contained this link to DriveThruRPG. If you donate $20 to Doctors Without Borders (a great charity!) through DriveThruRPG, they’ll give you $1,400 worth of PDFs!!!

I don’t think I have to tell you how great a deal this is for everyone involved. Many thanks to DriveThruRPG for their kind donations of PDFs and for arranging something that I can get behind.

Once upon a time, I had an Irdan (High Ogre from Dragonlance) ranger in a game that was not set in Krynn, but in a very Dragonlance-ish world. This was entirely Joe’s campaign, and it ran for several years, which is one of the longest campaigns I’ve ever played in. I don’t remember the character’s given name, but his nickname was Midnight because of the color of his skin, which was a dark blueish/ebony color.

Midnight was the master of wielding two long swords and rampage through enemies with wild and reckless abandon. Today, I would play him much differently, but this was in my youth (high school days for me) and I was also wild and reckless at the time.

One of my greatest conquests was fighting off three wraiths single handed at level six. I had in my hands two +1 long swords. Everyone else in the group had around +2 (or maybe a +3) weapons, but since I had two magical weapons, I had to settle with the “paltry” +1 bonuses they gave. If you recall wraiths from AD&D 2e, they had two attacks and each one could drain a level. This meant I was facing six attacks and each one could drop me a level. Since I was 6th level, I could have easily been turned into a wraith in a single round. Ouch.

The reason I charged in and took on all three wraiths was that they and their masters were holding the local druid enclave prisoner. We had to rescue them to allow them to stop a horrible plague that was tearing across the lands. No druids meant no cure. No cure meant thousands of untold deaths in our area. I knew that I had to get in there and save the druids, so that’s what I set out to do. When we got to the opening of the large cave complex that the druids took refuge in, we found the three wraiths. Everyone else held back because they didn’t want to lose their precious levels. I charged in because that was the thing to do with this character. Once I downed a single wraith, the rest of the group snapped to and charged into the fight at my side to help me out.

We all came out unscathed… at least from the initial encounter. The rest of the venture into the cave complex didn’t run as smoothly because of some ill-timed turn undead attempts by our clerics.

To this day, I don’t know if Sam pulled his punches and allowed me to be the hero of the moment, of if his dice truly failed him at that critical moment and allowed me, and the rest of my group, to escape the dangerous fight without a loss of level. I’d like to think the dice fell where they wanted to, and we all just got a little lucky against the wraiths.

I found this idea at Keep on the Gaming Lands and he got the idea from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Like the Flame Princess says, let’s make this viral.

Come up with an evil GM idea that will be sure to cause your players to revolt!

This is not my idea, but the evilest thing I’ve seen done is to make all of the magical items in a dragon’s treasure horde cursed. The players will get a few cursed items and think the worst is over only to find out that more pain is to come. They’ve earned tons of gold and/or magic only to find out that they’ve grown weaker in their conquest, not stronger.

Cooperate with the bad guys? Sometimes, it’s the only way

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This is a long-lived axiom, and I’m not sure of the source. Probably Sun Tzu or someone like that. I don’t have time to research it at the moment (but leave a comment if you know the source!) Sometimes things get so horribly bad that the PCs are forced to turn to someone who would normally be considered an enemy in order to defeat a greater evil. I’ve personally had a Cleric of Bahamut turn from the Platinum Dragon in favor of demonic allies in order to gain greater powers to attempt to overthrow an evil emperor and his countless inquisitors.

The Issue of Game Balance

I’m a huge fan of game balance. In the RPG that I’ve worked on in the past and will work on again in the future (once a year-long non-compete contract expires), I’ve written software to generate spreadsheets to guarantee that a game system I had in mind was balanced. No, the system is not that complex, but the math behind the system (think binomial distributions, ugh) is that complex. The players will never see my code, my spreadsheets or all of my work in a direct manner. However, in having a balanced and well-oiled system, they will see benefits.

It’s The End of the World Charlie Brown – Gaming With The Apocalypse In Mind

There certainly different phases to the end of the world, and I hadn’t thought them all through. However, John over at Gnome Stew has thought things through quite well. If you’re planning on ending (or drastically changing) your gaming world, then I would highly suggest reading his post to see what he has to say on the matter. It may change how you approach things.

City-State of the Invicible Twelve-Year Old

I’m linking to this post because I love the photos of the map that are included in the post. This is a great first effort for building a city, and I greatly admire the effort that went into making such a huge and detailed map. No, it’s really not all that pretty, but it’s definitely inspired work. Go spend a moment to check it out.

Addressing Your Weaknesses (Part 2)

I must have missed Part 1 of this post somewhere along the way, but I love what Ameron has to say about playing characters with low mental stats. It’s a great post, and if you have a character with these token weaknesses, then you may find some great role playing opportunities in his words.

I’m thinking of a far future setting for this one, but the hook could probably be adapted for modern or, with some effort, a past/fantasy setting.

Electricity has gone out for the past week in the area the PCs live in. All of their portable devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops, computers, etc.) are running low on battery juice, and their fully electrical cars are out of charge. Chaos is rapidly descending on the area as everyone else is in the same predicament. The PCs are hired by the local officials to investigate the cause of the blackout and to bring it to an end. They have to do so without much of their technology in hand, or they have to scrounge up enough battery power to keep their devices running. If their cybernetic implants run off of batteries that recharge from the local power grid, they’re also in for a world of hurt as their implants begin to fail.

Two Saturdays ago, our usual group was broken up by a business trip that two of our members had to embark on. The remaining four of us gathered together, made some Burning Wheel characters, and ran a combat against a Medusa.

I ended up making a Dwarven artifcer who turned into an adventurer with his final lifepath choice. I ended up with more resources than anyone else, but I spent most of my resources on a place to live and a business to own. Had we been playing a campaign, I think it would have been a wise choice because I ended up with three dice on my resource check. That’s pretty good for a starting character from what I’ve read about that game. However, since we were running a one-shot combat to see how things would flow, I should have gone with my original plan of Dwarven Mail, Dwarven Axe and a shield. I think I would have been better served by those items than a store and hovel that I would never use. Ah well, such is life.

The first few rounds of combat went really slowly as we looked up rules, figured out the system and moved through the fight. By the end of the night, things were moving much more smoothly. Of course, my character was knocked out by the Medusa, so I, as the player, had tons of free time to look up rules and peruse the books on hand. This helped speed things up quite a bit.

I think in the end, the Burning Wheel system is usable, and we may play a campaign using the system some time in the future. I have to say that I’ll probably never play an archer, unless I can find a way to max out my Speed attribute. The actions for nocking an arrow, drawing the bow and (optionally) aiming a shot before releasing the arrow seem a little harsh to me. Then again, each action is a second long. Most people are used to the 6 or 10 second-long rounds (or 3.2 if you’re playing Cyberpunk) which makes for a different mind-set of combat.

I don’t like 1 second action increments (even in GURPS, which is one of my favorite games!) because of the play impact it has. If someone has a “extraordinarily long” action that takes 3-4 seconds, the player is sitting for 3-4 go-arounds the table while everyone else takes an action. I suppose that if everyone had long actions, then it would even out, but that never happens. There’s always that guy that manages to take an action every round. If rounds are done in 10 second increments (my favorite method) then “long” actions that take 3-4 seconds can actually be done twice a round. This allows for a player to do 2 things per go-around the table, which is much more player friendly.