Playing in her world is similar to playing with real world history–it’s attractive, but difficult. Phil’s article about Drinking the Kool Aid from last week illustrates some of the depth that GMs put into building a world or scenario. The GMs I know often go to great lengths to get the feel of a setting right, particularly since their NPCs’ reactions reinforce the setting expectations and reflect the views by which a character’s actions are measured.

For generic sword and sorcery worlds, expectations have been built by the games we’ve played all our lives. It’s when we step into specifics–explaining bus transfers in Cincinnati, figuring out where the parks in Chicago, what French peasants actually ate and what their work schedule looked like, or how honor affected Japanese warriors–that research and conveying detail become critical.

Research

Phil’s article has a great list of research resources. I lean more toward reading–particularly novels, history books, and a sprinkling of wikipedia–but each type of media contributes to the final vision in my mind.

The few times my game groups have watched a movie before creating characters, we came up with interesting and different slants on the setting. A movie or episode can be a great way to make ensure that a certain level of common knowledge exists among the whole group–players and the GM. It can also be a painless way to convey a common trope or theme. Without a commonly viewed movie or TV property, it can be difficult to convey broad expectations.

Too often, all research beyond a commonly watched movie or two is on the GM’s shoulders alone. Playing in established game worlds can bend this a bit; setting a common level of general knowledge may be as easy as telling everyone to read the history chapter. Even if they don’t do it before the first session, when they come to realize that the world’s history matters, they have the chapter on hand.

Conveying Detail

Things often go awry at this point. The GM has done some research, the group has created characters, and the story starts. But play feels very samey for a wildly different world; the PCs continue to wander the wilderness, just fighting fox spirits instead of goblins and pixies. Interaction with NPCs takes on the same bemused distance; honor is rarely mentioned, and never seriously constrains the player’s choices for their PC.

It’s essential to boil down your big picture down into concrete details, into things that engage the senses and make the world “pop”. As Redcrow mentioned in Phil’s comments, that can be a tough line to walk; the first few details probably won’t convey enough of the setting to guide expectations clearly–or the one that they seize on might be the exception that you were using to illustrate the general rule!

Conveying Culture

One of the hardest things to convey quickly is culture. You need to convey social expectations before the players have to react to social situations–which can be very front loaded, often requiring a lot of information to be conveyed before characters are even created!

For example, someone creating a Samurai in Japan–whether the historical or the Otori version–needs to understand how obligations flow up and down through society. If roaming is strongly discouraged–by bonds of loyalty for the warrior class, legal restrictions for the remainder–then players need to adjust their character concepts. Indiana Jones style globetrotting doesn’t work… unless the player and GM have mastery enough to invent plausible reasons for this character to step aside from the cultural norms.

The greatest drawback to realistic cultures and settings is that they can feel constraining, particularly if you don’t understand them well. It can feel like your characters’ options are all bound by mysterious and arbitrary rules. You don’t want your character to bow until his head is flat on the floor–it sounds craven to you? It’s critical to convey that this is routine respect for a great lord–that the natural response for the player (hell no!) does not match the character’s understanding. If every character’s action has to be vetted or corrected before it makes it through the cultural filter, just interacting feels like work to both the player who is constantly being corrected, and to the GM who has to figure out how to convey what options truly are available, teach transparently, and convey his own realistic characters and responses all at once. It’s a big task!

Using System

There are a lot of exciting cultures and great supplements that I’d love to explore. Feudal Japan (and Asia more generally), are fascinating, though my depth of knowledge is only puddle deep. I’m intimidated, but would be willing to try it if our group signed on as a whole.

Conversely, a game that does a great job of aligning player expectations with vivid characters in a historically constrained setting is Pendragon. In some ways, it’s an “easier” setting, since it’s Western European Knighthood, including some dark age beliefs mixed with inspirations from later history (like courtly love). But a big part of its success stems from tackling beliefs and motivations, explaining the idealized and common practices for various cultures, and quantifying them, so you know when you’re fighting local expectations and when your boasting will get mugs beating against the table in rhythm.

In a way, part of his success comes from building character attitudes into the system itself. Expecting system mastery from players is common; if playing your character appropriately is influenced by system, then it moves some of the expected burden for “knightly behavior” from the GM’s responsibility to the savvy player’s.

How About You?

While I’d love to explore history with likeminded groups, I haven’t had much opportunity. Have you? Are you lucky enough to play with the campus Africa Studies group, or play an old west game with a group of experts on the era? Is there a period you love so much that you’ve educated your group about it over time–serial campaigns, or just bringing up Bushido whenever you take a dinner break? Have you pushed into playing into more detailed worlds or drifted toward less detailed ones?

Dollars for Powers

Many RPGs over the years have included diverse mechanics and packaged them with the game, typically to enhance or add a new wrinkle. The Torg Drama Deck or the legion of accessories that came packaged in your copy of Top Secret/S.I. are some examples. But what if your copy of the Player’s Handbook didn’t come with a copy of Flaming Sphere? Sure, you got Sleep, Magic Missile, and a few cornerstone spells included in the boxed set on cards, but if you want Flaming Sphere you have to buy the “Spell Codex Booster Pack, Level 1” which includes eight randomized spells, one of which might include the aforementioned Flaming Sphere?

Sounds far fetched? We’re already nearly there.

Currently in D&D 4E there exist booster Fortune Cards, sold in randomized packs of 8 cards. These cards provide minor bonuses during play. Players purchase the cards and build their own decks, shuffling and drawing during play. If you want the card, “Cautious Maneuver”—and its associated power—you need to trade for it or buy it. (Currently going for $9.99 individually on eBay.)

Gamma World takes it even further with its booster packs. While technically optional, if you want any of the powers on the cards—which are not available through any other means—then you have to purchase said cards. Gamma World does this with equipment as well.

Similar is Fantasy Flight’s iteration of the Warhammer RPG. An absolutely stunningly beautiful game, all the powers and effects within the game are on cards. If you don’t own the game—and the associated cards—you can’t play that with that power or ability. Imagine D&D with a core rulebook of the rules, but all the powers and feats on cards. That’s where we’re headed. (Caveat, Fantasy Flight did print just the Core Set powers in individual books, at the request of players, but all other supplements follow the aforementioned example.)

Pay-To-Play

Dave is gainfully employed with modest disposable income. Tim, sadly, does not have any to spare. In most tabletop games both Dave and Tim would likely share—and benefit—from rulebooks at the table. In our new model Dave could genuinely have an advantage at the table by virtue of his ability to purchase booster packs that Tim does not have access to. And, unlike sharing of rulebooks, one does not share cards; they are binary in nature (you have them or you do not).

Conversely, as the GM, you may also be financially constrained (I know I feel like I am!) and not have the ability to vet every card that shows up at your gaming table. Do you not allow Flaming Sphere at the table? Why not? The spell has been around forever and isn’t inherently imbalanced and the player paid for the card to own it and, presumably, use it.

For years GM’s have had to wrestle with this issue of adding expansion rulebooks at their table. But consider the future model where the cards are part of the core game experience and players are expected—and encouraged—to purchase them.

Now expand it even further to equipment. What if the Holy Avenger was a rare equipment card as part of the “DM’s Equipment Pack?” That’s how the current Warhammer RPG does it. You either have the card or you don’t.

Monsters? Traps? Oh my! Think about it.

And would you allow photocopied or “proxy” cards at your table? Tim can’t afford the cards but he can download and print them himself through ill-gotten means. Do you allow it? What about Dave? He paid for his. Bet he wouldn’t be too happy about that!

Brave New World

These hypothetical examples aren’t quite upon us yet but we may have to deal with them sooner rather than later. Some ideas:

• Don’t allow proxy cards; it opens a dangerous door. Just like you wouldn’t encourage your players to bring illegal PDF printouts of books, the same standard should be set with card-like mechanics.
• Set the standard upfront, before anyone goes out and spends money, as to how new packs or sets will be handled. Options could range from wide open (spend em if you’ve got em!) to a mandatory waiting period to vet the cards.
• Consider a party “pool” of card resources. Any cards used all players can pull from to build their decks. Perhaps the gaming group makes a fund to pool into card resources.
• Just like CCGs, now we have the consideration of card marking to worry about and its impact on game strategy and/or role playing.
• Certainly allow players to borrow cards or sets who are unable or unwilling to “buy into” the game. Fantasy Flight makes an allowance for this with their Player’s Vault which repeats just the core cards.

The great thing about our RPGs is that they have no expiration date, so those adverse to the next round of RPGs can always sit them out. Myself, I’m actually intrigued by the possibilities. Back in 2001 I outlined an OGL game based solely on cards, but it was a game predicated on mutating powers and “slotting” abilities in a sci-fi future. I’d still like to do it someday with a willing publisher. Perhaps soon?

Concerned or not about collectible cards in your RPGs? How do you intend to handle them? Tell us below!

In my previous article, I mentioned some common problem player symptoms. Reading and acting on the module, cheating on die rolls, and hogging the spotlight are all behaviors that may get you kicked out of the event or shunned once the behavior comes to light. Other practices you should avoid if you want to sit at the cool kids’ table: getting your characters killed frequently, regularly shouting (or cursing at any volume), talking over other players on their turn, and wandering away from the game (physically or mentally). If you’re late, you’ll get the leftover space–which is probably at the table everyone’s eager to avoid.

Organizers spend a lot of time talking with their GMs and getting a more complete picture of their players. Beyond balancing character roles and other game specific constraints, organizers have a number of additional restrictions when they’re setting everything up. Here are some of the factors that many organizers consider when they’re deciding where to slot you (and everyone else):

• What are the player conflicts? Are there two people who can’t sit at the same table?
• Are there any players that everyone wants to avoid?
• Which groups have positive play experience/regularly show up together/ask to be seated as a group?

Before you ever get to selecting character groups that will work together and be a good match for the adventure, many ideal parties (measured by their character sheets) have been sunk by player conflicts.

Once the event organizer has triaged the lists, the organizer now needs to match a GM to each of the tables. Almost invariably, the organizer takes a “problem table”– either the table requiring more GMing expertise (because the players use more exotic character options, min-max their characters to overcome the written scenarios without challenge, or assertively present wrong rules interpretations that will trip up GMs who haven’t encountered them before). Many organizers don’t have the luxury of a large GM pool, encouraging them to assign the least problematic players to GMs with less experience, especially since good player groups double as a role model for new GMs. Sometimes you’ll schedule your best groups to reward and recharge hard working GMs, to remind them that organized play is fun for GMs too. There’s always a balance–hopefully you have enough good tables to keep your GMs happy and eager to return and help out next time.

Seating Frustration

As a player, it can be annoying to get seated at a problem player’s table. Getting seated with the player that everyone wants to avoid often falls on new players–who don’t know to ask for other tables! Even as the GM it can be frustrating–it can feel like your hard work and experience earned you a tougher set of players.

Organizers have to watch out too. Keeping a stable “cool table” can develop cliques, leading to stagnation and a declining player base. It’s good to mix up groups–even groups that play great together–if only so more people can experience awesome play! If “newbs” only ever get seated with the problem players, you’ll have difficulty retaining them. It can be rough–particularly since you’ll listen hardest to the players you want to retain–but they too can stretch every once in a while.

Handling Problem Players

How do you handle problem players as a fellow player, GM, or organizer? I know that my responses vary.

As a player, I tend to silently put up with a problem player–figuring it’s one slot, that they didn’t get that way overnight, and that as a player I don’t have authority to force better behavior anyway. That’s definitely not optimal–it slows the community’s improvement and puts more burden on GMs and organizers. I don’t know if problems (other than black and white issues like cheating on die rolls) is easily addressed as a player.

As a GM, I tend to silently put up with a problem player–unless it’s a young or new player, someone who might be unaware that their behavior is off-putting…and leading toward permanent problem table exile. It usually takes repetition–GMing the player in a second game, or seeing them engage in problematic behavior repeatedly, before I’ll decided to catch them after the game and explain my perceptions. It’s never a fun conversation to start–but it can salvage a player.

What Worked Before

Previously, there were three successful recruitment efforts. The strange thing is that it’s hard to pinpoint what the common ground was–they were very different campaigns, settings and styles. Here’s a bit more about each.

D&D Encounters
D&D Encounters is a specifically designed campaign modeled on their Friday Night Magic program in many ways. It’s nationwide, always runs on Wednesday, is tied to retail locations, and is coordinated from their website. So no matter where you go, there’s a familiar way to meet local gamers and get the anticipated experience.

Part of its success is the drop in, low continuity nature of the game. Much like old RPGA modules, and UNlike most home games, different people show up each week, often with different characters from their stable. There are a couple significant differences from the old RPGA plots:

1. Increased Continuity: There are 10-20 adventures serially linked, so the previous session leads into the next.
2. Time: Encounters adventures are intended to run 1-2 hours, rather than 3-5.
3. Level: Encounters runs in a narrow band, usually from levels one to three, then restarts, instead of running up and up. While the restarts are annoying to veterans, it encourages new players.

Call of Cthulhu
Sheila ran games at local RPG Meetups, and wowed people with her detailed descriptions and game mastering skills. So when she offered to run a regular Cthulhu game, she had many interested people. In fact, she had so many that after running for a few weeks, her wait list was long enough that she started a second table on alternate weeks!

A big part of the success is difficult to replicate–Sheila’s just a good GM–but consistent scheduling set expectations and made player retention easy. It was so successful that after her tables ran to the end of the campaign (and the world’s end), most of them signed on for another campaign.

Old Pathfinder
The old Pathfinder table was popular, but turnout was inconsistent, with only one GM who showed up regularly. After a couple months of having the same six players show up (with an odd number of extra people), the GM closed the table to increase continuity. He’d been frustrated by the “clean slate” assumption of most Pathfinder Society modules, and the default assumption that this week’s betrayal didn’t have repercussions the following week.

The New Champion

Over the last few months, a lot of people were disappointed that there were no available Pathfinder Society games. A few people offered to run GM Pathfinder games, but no regular groups developed–just a lot of frustrated half built groups, stranded players, and GMs who wondered why all the the players who said they were so eager never showed up.

So what changed?

1. Over the last several months many other groups have tried out Pathfinder on their own, creating an eager player pool.
2. Our local mini-con had a lot of slots devoted to Pathfinder games. They filled up, revealing that there were more than 20 people eager to play Pathfinder regularly.
3. One local GM, Will, committed to running Pathfinder Society games every Sunday. He recruited other GMs he’d met at Encounters and personal friends. It launched with two GMs running tables; since it launched he recruited additional GMs so that individuals don’t burn out running week after week.

The local group has been meeting for the last month, steadily adding new players. They’re now filling three tables regularly, and are getting enough GMs to seat everyone.

My Advice

If your local store doesn’t have a thriving community, that can change quickly. It just takes one dedicated person. (Ideally, though, you’ll have a bench of other GMs ready in case it takes off–running every week can be grueling.)

Consistent scheduling makes success easier to attain. Weekly is much better than alternating weeks–if there’s a game every Sunday, you’ll head down. If it’s every other Sunday, wondering if this is the “on week” may frustrate players, depressing turnout.

An awesome GM who demonstrates their skill can build a steady group for any system. If that’s not you, then look into organized play for the big systems. The national portability, consistent rules, and clear expectations might draw in people you’ve never met!

It’s always nice to have something more useful than “my character” stories to talk about when you’re talking about roleplaying, and it engaged my “problem solving” skill group–always a bonus. Here’s how it went and what I learned.

Get Context

I haven’t played in a roleplaying guild, so I was unclear as to how they engage with the world. It turns out that it’s very similar to tabletop RPGs–the scene and events are described, often not matching the graphics engine at all! Just like a tabletop RPG, you have to enhance what you see (the town or a field in WoW, minis on a battlemap in traditional roleplaying) with your imagination. The person you’re advising might have entirely different powers and interactions–one friend, Stacy, works with her MUD’s designers to add new content. That gives you a different chance to engage the senses–or at least resolution engine!

Context reveals the inherent limits. If there’s no in game way to teleport characters to a new location, then describing an enemy wizard who teleports them will be difficult to implement. Even if the players pretended to hop to the dreaded forest after they were cursed, trudging there will feel very different from what you described. So part of figuring out the context and limitations is planning out which quests and events make sense for the resolution system. (For the above example, being cursed to journey to the dreaded forest makes more sense, given the system’s limitations.)

The Story So Far

No matter what system you’re using to resolve conflicts, your plot needs to make sense for it to engage the players. One of the most ingrained expectations is that it’ll be a “story”–what happened before influences what comes after. So listen up and ask good questions about who the PCs are, as a group or individuals, and build what comes from their pasts.

Once you have a sketch of the group’s reason for existing and its history, offer up a plot idea. Is there a foe that makes sense, given the backstory they’ve presented? Do they need a foe to justify the group’s concerted efforts? Even though you might not know the specific foes in their game world, you can mention a few traits that your foe should have–the GM seeking your advice will probably be able to name villains and evil organizations to fit your ideas. If not, you can brainstorm one together.

Most groups/guilds need a reason to exist. If they don’t already have a formative kickoff event, then that’s what you should be brainstorming with your GM. Who will make a great recurring villain in this setting? Who will the PCs eagerly work against, and who can you blame their defeats on? Just like a tabletop RPG, you’ll want a struggle the players are happy to identify their characters with.

Now Use Your GM-Fu

Once you have the kickoff/precipitating event planned, you can offer a menu of twists and developments that your GM padawan can toss in response to their guild reacting to the kickoff event. Mysterious notes, bystanders who present conflicting reports, villains who are catspaws of other villains–these are tools that you can provide for further development.

Don’t worry about your twist being hackneyed or trite; it’s a new medium, and hopefully you’ve been approached because of your success in your own realm. The first time you experience a twist, it’s amazing; because few of their players have sat around your table, you can line things up similarly, and between a different GM implementing the plan and the differing world/situation, it’ll feel completely different. It’s a new environment, so old can be new!

One thing to keep in mind is that the GMs are coordinating events more like a LARP than a traditional tabletop game–each character can wander off and interact with the world simultaneously, rather than waiting for the GM’s attention. Ideally, your plots can simmer and thread behind their daily tasks–giving their animal skinning and gold gathering a justification in between scheduled events.

How about you?

Are you in roleplaying guilds in MMOs or MUDs? How DO you come up with plots for online games? Is it the same process that you use for your tabletop game? How does the committee nature of larger guilds affect story creation and coordination?

Amalgamation
When we sit down to play a tabletop RPG, we are actually playing a conglomeration of a lot of different types of games. The mechanical aspects of engaging in a combat are hugely different than the improvisational acting and back and forth that we do when roleplaying our characters. While not necessarily different games in and of themselves, they are vastly different from each other. The combat and mechanical sides are more like playing chess or a boardgame like Monopoly, while the acting elements are more akin to playing charades or Pictionary. Molded and shaped, sanded at the edges, and dovetailed into each with exquisite care, tabletop role playing games are great big patchwork quilts of other types of games we play.

It can be seen everywhere. So many elements of roleplaying games evolved from boardgames that it is hard to see the differences sometimes. The spate of Indie games that exist on forums like Story Games and the Forge are often so like boardgames and yet so like traditional RPGs that they and so different in other ways that determining which section they go under at a convention is a headache causing event. But it’s not just the past that merges into our games. Video games have had a huge impact on the tabletop gaming world. D&D’s current implementation mimics so many things about MMOs that I’ve often heard it called tabletop WoW. With such crossover in our hobby, it makes sense that there would be inevitable benefits and disadvantages to actually including other games into our games.

Drifting Traditional Elements
When I mention traditional elements in this sense, I’m talking about traditional games that came before tabletop RPGs started. Cards, chess, board games, and the like.

Savage Worlds, giving a nod to it’s progenitor Deadlands, uses playing cards for it’s initiative system. Everyone is dealt a card and the highest goes first. An element from a basic card game simplifies the often time consuming process of imitative. The players keep the cards on the table in front of them and the Game Master only has to look around to see who goes next. There are many ways that traditional elements from games can influence our tabletop experience. I scavenge pawns from board games to use as non important NPC miniatures. The players don’t bother looking at the pawns with any real interest and focus on NPCs I really meant them to be looking at in the first place. It eliminates some of the need for perception checks and populates the grid. Poker chips and other tokens/stones are prevalent at any gaming convention I go to. They are used as markers for action points, to show damage under a miniature, as indicators of plot points, or as an indicator of whose turn it currently is. While tabletop gaming incorporates many elements of traditional games already, there are thousands more that can find their niche in the gaming world.

Drop It In Straight
There are many instances when we can see a reason to drop another game straight into our current tabletop RPG and there are many dangers associated with doing it as well. Imagine how much more interaction you’ll get when you drop a simple (much simpler than the one at left) wooden block puzzle on the table as an artifact with a timer. The room begins flooding, the only way out is to solve the puzzle before the timer goes off. If the players make rolls with appropriate skills, they can pause the timer for 15 seconds but the only way to get out is to actually solve the puzzle IRL. They have a whole new tactile feel for the game…. or they are frustrated as hell. It will all depend on the group of players and what they find fun.

Games incorporated within the game can be incredibly fulfilling or mood altering devices. If the characters are negotiating over cards, no reason not to grab a deck of cards and deal out a simple card game that everyone knows. A chess board on the table can be an excellent prop for adding atmosphere, or even playing a human (miniature) sized game of deadly chess ala harry potter. Dropping other games in straight provides a more interactive mini-game atmosphere for the players, but it can also pause the action and interrupt the story. If gently incorporated into the story though, it provides myriad opportunities. You can write an NPCs in-game warning on one of the cards and watch the players covertly pass it from one to another without trying to look like they’re cheating. Structure it correctly, and the players sense of immersion skyrockets.

Incorporating Video Games???
If treated correctly, having the player whose character is the pilot of the starship jump in front of a video game console to do 3 minutes of hectic play on that very hard spaceship escape level can easily replace the 4 or 5 less exciting rolls. The player is graphically engaged, feels the sense of connection to his character as he actually pilots the craft, and the action can take less time if done correctly. You just have to be sure the other players feel engaged at the same time, because watching someone play a video game really isn’t what they came to do. If you can find a way to get them all involved you can score gold. Move everyone to the room and have them sit behind the player piloting. Encourage them to act in character for the scenario or give them a way to help him do things.

One thing that I encountered at a convention recently (a large part of the inspiration for this article) was a video game that seemed tailor made to be dropped into a scif-fi ship based game in just the way described above. Titled Artemis, it used one main computer and multiple other netbooks or other computers to simulate a starship bridge amongst multiple players.  Using one main computer connected to a screen, everyone has a station on the bridge and a role to fulfill. A designated captain can command things like piloting (one player pilots with a joystick/mouse), engineering, sensors, etc. Every player does something to help the ship fulfill its goal and no one is left out of the action. I don’t know about you, but that seems tailor made to be the ship flying portion of a sci-fi game. I spoke with the creator, and he mentioned that specific scenarios could be built by players. As a Game Master, I could totally see building a scenario in this for my players instead of running them through making rolls. It would be more fast paced, more interactive, and the prevalence of technology make sit much more likely to occure. Check out the video below for the full experience.

Just Being Inspired
Elements of other games, or whole games in fact, can be incorporated into your tabletop RPG, but so can ideas from other game sources. Drifting of elements from other RPGs is generally easy. You see the way one game does something and say, “Hey, that could work here too”. The names lists  from Apocalypse world that I just wrote about is one such easy to drift element. They aren’t inherent to the game (a list of names as a concept can’t really be) but they are an inspiring element of it.

In the same way, I’m inspired by video games I play all the time. I like the feel of the story or a nifty mechanic of the game that I feel could be put into play in my game. “Wow, this jetpack level is fun. I’m going to see about incorporating that into my next game.” One mechanical element I designed for a game came into being after being inspired by seeing how fun games like God Of War and Shadow of the Colossus were with giant monster combats. I wondered why no game incorporated elements that let the players really fight giant monsters and target their weak points like that, so I wrote it into the game I was working on at the time.

Our tabletop RPG hobby overlaps so many other types of games that it is hard not to see the connections between them. Whether it is realizing that the initiative is derivative of rolling dice to see who acts first or having the players play an expedited hand of poker in real life if they are going to play it in the game, our games are built on top of and incorporate other games all the time.

Acknowledging and understanding these connections helps us to understand the games we play and take them to new levels. What elements of traditional games, board games, or video games have you drifted into your games? Do you have any success or horror stories about dropping another game in completely? What tips can you come up with for other readers for doing things like this?

Wooden Block Image CC2.0 by David Davies

I’ve long been a proponent of right out asking the players what they are trying to accomplish in situations like these. When they get into that interaction, or they start down some scheme of using the shape changer’s abilities to make a pretend buyer for the loot they just liberated – ask them straight out: “What do you want to get out of this?”. Asking it straight out cuts through a lot of the mess of players thinking one thing and the Game Master thinking another. It takes the game away from the table and into the Meta for a minute, but it lets you make quick work of otherwise confusing situations. Once you know that the player is looking for a minor benefit, you can have them make a simple roll and short form the rest or let them describe how their plan goes down. If what they are trying to get out of the interaction is much bigger, then you know how to pursue it and what rolls to ask for or make on behalf of the NPCs.

The idea isn’t new. In fact, it’s almost inherent to most gaming in some way or other. Many of the interactions between player, Game Master, and the game are determining what each party is looking for in the situation. But it rarely gets thought of in so direct a term or gets stated so bluntly, yet there are many times when zooming out from the game, looking at player intent, and then zooming back in can make things so much better. A little direction goes a long way.

There are a lot of ways to divine player intent, and there are a lot of ways to directly ask the players as well. The words you use can be very important. I’ve seen a lot of Game Masters use different phrases, and I’ve asked it many times in different ways: 

“What are you looking for?”
”What are you trying to do?”
”What are you trying to make happen?”
”What is the end result you want?”

However, at a convention I was at a few weekends ago, I heard the Game Master for a game I was in ask as: “What do you want to get out of this?”, and it struck me as one of the best questions to ask to divine player intent. It gets at the heart of what a player is looking for and gets past most obfuscation a player might try to throw into their answer. There is a thought, as a player, that if you right out tell the Game Master your plans, they’ll figure out ways to get around them. Some people run games like that, but if you ask what the player wants to get out of the situation, they don’t have to reveal anything about the way they are going about it. If “I want to get the duke on our side.” is the player’s answer, then they can still pursue the actions by telling him lies, by bribing him, by trying to leverage their status, by using their speaking skills to show their plight, etc. If you need to clarify, you can ask them more questions about how they intend to get that effect, or you can just let it go and know a little bit more about what you are working with.

So remember, if you are stuck in a situation that seems to be dragging in the quagmire, just ask: “What do you want to get out of this?” and cut through it. Have you used techniques like this before or do you believe in preserving the meta at all costs?

A Dragonblooded paladin who is trying to make a more noble name for his people, a shadowy thief/assassin Eladrin kicked out of his people for his devious ways, a high ranking human cleric of pelor  fresh from the convent, and a tiefling warlock with a dark past walk into a tavern where a man in a corner gives them a simple mission to track down something, setting them on a long quest which leads them to save the world, kill or contain an ancient evil, and gives them insight into their own personal pasts despite having no real connection to each other except that they decided adventuring together might be fun and profitable…

Pretty common story, oddly enough. I always scratch my head a bit when I really think about most adventuring groups I’ve played in or heard about. From a purely logical standpoint*, there is really no reason that most adventuring groups would be together, but because of different play styles, individual player wants, nifty new classes or powers to try out, and a myriad of other completely valid reasons many adventuring groups end up like this – ragtag and hard to fathom. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this is a wrong or bad way to play, not by a long shot. Many of the most fun gaming moments I’ve had come from acting out (or watching others act out) the eccentricities of vastly different character types playing against each other. It just always strikes me a bit funny when I see the “standard” ragtag band of adventurers trope happen one more time.  And seeing it so often is one of the reasons that I’ve come to enjoy running Themed Campaigns.

Themed Campaigns
Ahh. There’s the point of this all. Themed Campaigns are campaigns that start out with a central unifying theme in mind for the adventuring group. This theme is set out before the players ever make their characters and the theme limits and unifies the characters created in some way. It’s a different way to play, but it opens up a whole lot of possibilities. Players will have to give up some control when doing this, but limiting the characters in some ways can provide a vastly different play experience. Groups who are getting tired of the ragtag adventurers shtick might welcome this different play style, and the limits that players have to hold to are often not big enough to really confine choice.

My latest game is a themed game. It is set in 4e Eberron and all of the players are professors at Morgrave University. We talked about the theme in depth before making characters, and I made it well known the type of game I was looking to run. I allowed any character concept the players could come up with, so long as they would still work as professors or members of the department. They could be a janitor who used to be a fighter, a professor whose magical knowledge was practical, maybe a grad student with slightly sticky fingers, or any other class or concept they wanted, so long as the academic concept fit into the core.

Player Buy In – It’s Really Important With A Themed Game
Obviously a themed game requires a fair amount of player buy in. If the players don’t want to play in a game with a particular theme, then trying to force it on them will just make for a miserable time for everyone. However, if the players and the Game Master both like the theme and the options it enables, then the game can branch out in some new and interesting ways.

An important aspect of player buy in is proposing the idea of a themed campaign beforehand and making the theme transparent. You can’t have the players make characters and then tell them that all their characters are going to be part of an army. That wouldn’t work for the lone ronin samurai who bows to no man that Jimmy wants to play, and it probably won’t work for the meek pacifist cleric that Tommy wanted to play. They might tweak their concepts so that they can still be in the game, but they won’t be happy about it. If the concept is brought up beforehand though, they might wait to play those characters in another game, or tweak them in the same ways but as their choice, not in reaction to the surprise they just got thrown at them. With a themed campaign, player buy in is REALLY important.

The Theme Enables
One of the best things about a themed game is that it enables so much to occur. That may seem contradictory to the idea of a game that limits things to a theme, but that limitation allows space to do things in a different way. Right off the bat there is a reason for the characters to be together. You don’t have to orchestrate an event that draws the characters together in the first session (although that can be very fun) or try to weave multiple disparate back stories together beforehand. You don’t have to worry about party cohesion as much, as the players have already agreed upon the reason they will all be working together. And one of the biggest benefits -  when you look deeper into the theme you might find areas where it can let you handwave things about the game that annoy you.

In my current game we are using the academic framework to simplify wealth acquisition (stipends from the department means no more looting every corpse for minor loot AND no more bartering with shopkeepers to try to scrape the most out of it). We can also assume that the characters have a moderate level of world knowledge because the players are all professors. The players who specialize in magic don’t need to try to justify knowing about archaic languages and whether or not they would know certain things outside of their class specifications, we just assume the successful roll means they remembered their magic history 205 class. I can also enable different play elements within the theme. The group is currently borrowing the department’s sometimes malfunctioning Handy Haversack, but I can take it back if I want to change the play style and make them think about storage for a session or two. I can also give them magic weapons that they might be looking for without making it seem too cheesy. When a player tells me he wants to track down a sword that works against a particular type of enemy, then I can point him in the direction of the university museum to see if he can beg and borrow it from the curator. I don’t have to just happen to have that show up with a travelling merchant or have him try to have one crafted and delay the in game clock. I also have a few NPCs built into the department who can identify items, help with selling stuff off, or just act as grad students taking care of the mundane things the PCs might otherwise have to spend time doing but don’t want to.

There are many elements like this that a theme can enable. You can have players requisition equipment in a military themed game. You can easily provide transportation when the players are part of a sailing or airship theme. One game I played in had us as part of a DocWagon first response team, giving us transport and equipment but requiring us to do more than just fight and kill things – we also had to save lives or lose experience. Depending on how you want to play it, a theme can enable a lot of new options that work alongside the core concept of the game system.

But What About My Diversity?
Themed campaigns are limiting, but they don’t have to limit the things that players find most fun. Many groups go with the ragtag adventuring squad because every player wants to play something a little different. When you have a game that has a plethora of character options, classes in multiple splat books, and players that spend their free time reading through them, then you get a lot of players wanting to do the most unique things available. That doesn’t have to be turned off in a themed campaign. If we imagine a themed campaign where the characters are all members of the same military squad, we still have a lot of variety. In real life, even the most mundane military units have specialized positions within the squad. Everyone is trained in the same basic stuff, but everyone also gets a little training in a specialty or two so that they can cover roles that are needed in the field.  Ranger units, special ops, and other strategically designed squads make sure to have experts in many roles to account for a plethora of situations. That concept works well for having different classes in the same squad.

If the theme of the game is a group of thieves who are all members of the same guild, that doesn’t mean everyone has to play a rogue. The guild might value the magical abilities granted by a mage, the combat protection a fighter provides, or the unique abilities granted by the anachronistic jungle beastmaster class from splatbook 42b. Diversity can still occur around the core concept of the theme. You can even provide the same 2 or 3 free skills or powers to players to hammer home the theme and provide some consistency in the midst of their wildly varied concepts if you want to. This allows the players to go to the far ends of unique but still retain a deep mechanical connection to the theme.

Themes Are Everywhere
Really, the concept of themed campaigns are everywhere. When you choose a roleplaying game to play you are adhering to a very broad theme. Shadowrun provides futuristic cyberpunk themes while D&D and other fantasy games provide adventure in a fantasy environment. Even very diverse systems like Savage Worlds, Cortex, and Fudge usually have thematic limitations. When you pick up Realms of Cthulu, The Dr. Who RPG, Deadlands, Solomon Kane, Supernatural, or any of the other multitude of campaign settings in multi-genre systems, you are buying into the core concept of that world setting.

The concept of doing a themed campaign within the theme of the overal game and setting isn’t that new either. Reading through sidebars in many of the splat books, you will find suggestions for themes that you might use. I’m even sure that you or your players have had speculative conversations about a fun theme for your next game. Someone suggests that it would be fun to play as members of a particular order or play as all one class.

By no means am I suggesting that the idea of a themed campaign is unique or unknown, but I am asking a question. When it comes down to the next game you run, will you fall back on the ragtag group of adventurers theme just because it is easiest? If so, why? Talk with your players about a themed campaign and see what kinds of things it might enable for your group. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have wanted to run a campaign around a particular theme, but never quite gotten there for one reason or another. I’m also betting there are lots of people who have done themed campaigns to try out a concept or get something different from the base experience. What themed campaigns have you run? What ones would you like to run? What do you do to make the limitations of a themed game easier on players?

* Yeah, I know. I’m trying to apply some sense of logic to a medium that excels when wildly fantastic things occur. It’s more about the logic inherent to the game world you are playing in though. Even in a world where mercenary squads might be common, many of them would be aimed towards specific purposes or jobs and would stop pursuing the main plot once their contract was up.

Instead, I ended up designing one.

(Nothing in life goes in a straight line, it seems. Just curves, twists and unexpected opportunities.)

Using the 3.5 variant Pathfinder rules, I submitted and had published the Dawa Defender, which is available as a free download, Wayfinder 4, over at paizo.com. Thanks to some development from editors Liz Courts, Adam Daigle and Ashavan Doyon, and company, and a particularly kicking illustration from Eureka contributor Hugo Solis, it turned out pretty good.

So, did the experience temper my position on prestige classes?

A little. But not enough to derail this post entirely.

Oh, get on with it already …

Here is my beef in a nutshell: Prestige classes were presented as a GMing tool in the third edition Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Hear that, GMs? It was intended to be our toy to play with originally. Ours.

And I don’t let go of things easily.

What did those pesky power-gaming players do when they learned about prestige classes? (I say that in jest after all. What’s the fun of being a GM without a few power gamers around the table?) They stole them for their own use. But not only were players latching on to this mechanic with wild enthusiasm, Wizards of the Coast was complicit in the scheme, feeding their desire to build more powerful characters.

Before you could blink, PrCs were showing up in every supplement geared toward players. Masters of the Wild. Check. Defenders of the Faith. Check. Song and Silence. Check.

And what were GMs getting? Books on how to design strongholds and castles. (“Really? Did we really, really need that?”)

Sure, each release came with the standard caveat: Do it only with your GMs approval. Of course, the warning was delivered with all the authority that comes with the “do not remove under penalty of persecution” label on a mattress tag. It’s not like you can send players to PrC jail. Nope. Players just countered with the more powerful rejoinder: It’s official!

As you can see, my ire has been building a long, long time.

Take a deep breath, dude

Time for some perspective. This is D&D. The game was dead. Third edition not only revived it, it rejuvenated the whole rpg scene. If players were staking out new territory by incorporating PrCs wholesale, so what! As a GM, I could be magnanimous. I mean, it’s not like I still couldn’t use PrCs as they were intended, right?

Until 3.5 rolled around. And its Complete series of books. Yes, in many ways it was just a reprinting of the earlier softcover player supplements. But the players, almost as one, started issuing a common complaint: Why are you guys at Wotc wasting space by including stat blocks of an example NPC with each prestige class entry?

Wasting space? The only nod to the original purpose of PrCs as a GMing tool — a sample NPC we could use — and the players are complaining about their inclusion in a gaming book?

Ungrateful lot.

By the time the GM series of campaign books came out, the number of prestige classes offered got woefully slim. The player-focused books are loaded with PrCs, and the GMing ones only get a smidgen? The world’s been turned upside down, right?

Righting the ship

This proliferation of prestige classes contributed to the rules bloat that 3.5 sagged under. So, I now appreciate the reluctance that Paizo has had with adding PrCs to the Pathfinder rules. Better yet, Pathfinder introduced the alternate class features, which gives the PCs the tools they they’ve really wanted all along — the means to customize a player’s character class. This solution means there’s less incentive to mine prestige classes with this new mechanic.

It’s interesting, because prestige classes — a template GMs could use to bolster or customize adversaries and NPCs, as well as add flavor to a campaign — got fixed in fourth edition, too. That rules spot is now occupied by monster templates, ways to beef up those encounters with only a little fuss.

True, the campaign flavor mechanic got lost, the bait you could dangle in front of players to acquire levels in a PrC that immersed them in your world was set aside. But experience had already shown it wasn’t immersion the players craved, so much as the cool powers.

Not much of a rant, bud

Yeah, I know. Apparently dipping my toes in design did cool things off. And now players can dip in to my PrC for a few levels of dawa defense …

… but only if their GM says it’s OK.

The program is D&D Encounters. Participating GMs agree to show up and take all comers, week after week. GMs develop skills they never knew they lacked, toning up weak characterization, plotting around holes in modules, adjusting balance and difficulty on the fly. It’s also like those boot camps in that you’re in a supportive environment–I’m amazed at how nice it is to talk shop and review a session with other GMs.

What Encounters Is

D&D Encounters is organized nationwide drop in play, usually scheduled for Wednesday nights. Each encounter is designed as a one and a half to two hour experience, loosely strung together into seasons, but with no commitment to show up every week.

As a player, if you have a free Wednesday night, you just head down to your local game store with dice in tow. When you get there, there are a range of attractive, full color characters with nice artwork ready to pick up and play. Or you can use your carefully designed character that you’ve brought along. Some players make it every week, consistently–while others show up when it fits their work schedule, or when class is canceled, catch as catch can.

Most weeks the scenario features a short a lead in, often a skill challenge, interaction with NPCs, investigation or exploration, followed by a fight featuring all of the crunchy goodness and combat trickery that 4e provides.

Our Experience

I’ve been amazed at our local turn out–we initially planned to have two GMs available, able to handle about 12 players. The first week we were at capacity, and we grew swiftly. Within a month 22-26 people were showing up regularly, requiring four GMs, and occasionally we’d wish for a fifth. Many of the same people returned, settling into the same tables, but there were several new people and occasional players throughout. Most of the players at my regular table had played together before the season began, while other tables built groups from scratch, based on enjoyable play week after week.

As the season wound on, we continued to encourage drop in play, but on the fly leveling to 2 (and 3 by the end of the first season) was a small barrier, as was the sense that you’d missed out on much of the story. So we started encouraging people to join us at the start of the new season…

That first session of the new season we had explosive turnout. We leaped to 30 people at four tables the first week [we stretched the last tables to 8 to fit people in], and I ran a repeat of the session the next night for a group that was unable to find a seat on the actual encounters night. The next week we had a fifth GM and every table was full…

So, yeah… there’s a bit of demand for convenient roleplaying. Even on Wednesday nights. Who would have thought it?

Who plays?

The player mix is fascinating. Here are a few of the player types we’ve seen:

• Lapsed gamers, who last played AD&D 15 years ago
• Brand new players, who might have heard of roleplaying, but have never played
• GMs, who want a chance to play beside their players instead of across the table from them
• GMs who just want a chance to play for once!
• Brand new players, who bought the red box or another introductory book, might have played with others, but don’t know if they’re doing it “right”
• Players who want to play more
• Gamers who can’t talk their group into D&D (or 4e, or fantasy), but want to adventure.
• Gamers who haven’t played in forever–they moved to a new town or their group fell apart, and they haven’t gamed since.

That Toning Thing

As an Encounters GM, you get to meet lots of players with very different experiences and histories. Some are new to the game, while others have optimized their character to do far more than the module expects. Different interests drive the various players–some want to roleplay, some accept that the discontinuous play makes the fights the exciting part, some are tired after work and just need to hack. You have excited kids whose want their characters to behead every prisoner, and experienced hands who never trust an innkeeper. Yet somehow… it all works out.

There are many reasons that it works. Beggars can’t be choosers, so some people accept any game to get their fix. Some are just there to socialize, others revel in the freedom that an episodic campaign lends, while still others appreciate the clarity that the module’s rails impose on the evening. But the biggest reason it works is that good GMs turn out and do the best they can with what they’re handed.

Your resources are…

Once you sign on as a GM, you’re given the adventure module with a few pages of overview for the season as a whole, a column or three of lead in/situation setting text for the week’s adventure, and a two page spread including a map with monster and PC start locations, stats for the various critters, occasional stray lines of strategy or advice on how it should play out, and a blurb about experience and treasure. From this, you weave a couple hours of play, entertaining whoever comes.

You learn to read what interests each table and each player–a great skill for running con games, or making sure that everyone is getting their desired reward in your home group. You’ll gain facility with box text, either learning to paraphrase or otherwise working with information in someone else’s style. You learn to signal when the information important to the season is present. The adventure is nicely balanced for an ideal party–which you’ll never have at your table. Do you need to add an extra minion or five to keep things tense? Is the sixth player actually effective, requiring extra monsters to compensate, or do they spend their actions running away? (That’s actually pretty common for first timers, I’ve found; self-preservation is pretty instinctive.)

Then there’s your mastery of handling diverse skill levels among the players. How do you coach a new player through “standard, move, minor”, while keeping up with your zany experienced players who want to spring an ambush by having the druid’s bear companion carry the halfling, playing dead, in its jaws? How do you respond to the tactics that were written assuming a standard party? You know the module writer never imagined such a scene!

Speaking of new players, I know of no better encouragement to hone your descriptions. When you’ve been playing for years, it’s easy to assume that the players know what a goblin looks like–but if your table includes a new player, she doesn’t. Similarly, a new player is a great reason to push for more complete descriptions from everyone–45 damage IS impressive, but how does it look in the game world? Ah, you raced forward and vaulted the steps two by two, before finally leaping the last five yards with your swords outstretched. Yes, that is appropriately awesome.

The Community

While you’re working through the adventure at your table, other GMs are doing the same at their table. It’s amazing how different the evening will turn out; similar PCs, identical monsters, and four fights will look and feel nothing like the others. My table might have the characters showboating, confident in their character builds, while another table features lots of interaction with the environment, a third table has the GM sweating as he rolls crit after crit, downing the PCs early, and the last table’s fight is over in 15 minutes because the players can’t miss this week.

At the end of the night, many players hang out–sometimes watching other tables (and GMs), kibitzing about the night’s adventure, predicting the next four weeks of plot, and reliving moments of glory.

When the GMs get a chance to talk to each other afterward, it’s always interesting hearing how each handled the monsters and tactics. Did they read the stat block differently? Did their monsters use different tactics–and why? Getting to talk about how everyone handled the very same adventure really underlines the differences and chance’s contribution.

You also have a chance to see what expertise really looks like. Near the end of last season, Jack built a 3D model of the gatehouse the players were defending. Every other table looked on his gatehouse with amazement–it was clear which GM went above and beyond that week. Some tables run like clockwork, where the GM has perfect recall of the most obscure rules, while others have players pushing the rules beyond any boundaries the game designer might have imagined.

In the end, you have a room full of people who had a great experience, and who come back again and again.

Take The Challenge

How do you sign up? This is a store run program, so contact your nearest friendly game store. Offer to entertain their customers and develop a loyal crowd–they don’t have to know that you’re toning away some GM flab. Try it–you’ll be amazed at the people you’ll meet and the community you’ll build.

Not their abilities — their individual story.

As a GM, I love when players bring a concept to the table that allows their growth along storylines. Extra feats and class abilities are fine and dandy — but these are basically add-ons to a character’s combat capabilities.

Missing from 4E was space given to a character’s background or profession. Basically, the game asserts “you are your class.”

What character theme best fits this Dark Sun champion?

While that works on a meta-level (GM: What are you playing? Player: Oh, a 2nd level warlock), it doesn’t encourage character story development. (GM: What kind of fellow is this warlock you’re playing? What’s his place in the world?)

And more importantly, as a GM, how can I reward a character along those storylines?  No mechanism exists to encourage character development in that fashion.

Two years later, D&D creative talents have taken a big swing at filling this gaping hole in their game’s design.

The “Dark Sun Campaign Setting” introduces an optional game mechanic called Character Themes. It takes the setting’s character archetypes and provides mechanical options for your players, including powers and paragon paths specific to the characters calling.

So, in the world of Athas, your character — regardless of race or class — could be an Athasian Minstrel, Dune Trader or Gladiator — just to name a few examples. Each of these themes come with their own characteristics that enhance play.

And as a character levels up, players can elect to use the theme’s progressions in lieu of class abilities. The point being, a player’s character continues to be a mul fighter, thri-kreen rogue or dray warlord, but not at the expense of being a noble adept, primal guardian, templar or wasteland nomad.

What motivated the design team to bring this aspect of character development into the fold at this time?

I can only suppose that it has to do with the fact Dark Sun was born out of the days of Second Edition AD&D’s story-driven sensibilities. By mining this brand from D&D’s past, the things that made the setting special demanded that character development be addressed.

That’s a good thing, especially if D&D develops more character themes as it explores other campaign settings going forward. My only regret is it is too late to apply themes to Forgotten Realms and Eberron — unless it’s addressed by the D&D Insider subscription service.

Even so, the character theme mechanic is a welcome addition to game — a mature marrying of character expectations and campaign setting parameters.

While we Gnomes work tirelessly at making our stew and serving up great GMing advice, when we are not tending the giant cauldron, we are like you: out on the Internet surfing for drow p0rn RPG blogs and podcasts. We wanted to share some of our current favorite blogs and podcasts with you, and give you a chance to let us know what other sites you are reading or listening to.

Here are a few of my current new (by new, meaning I only discovered them over the past 6 months), blogs and podcasts.

Blogs

Some Space To Think — This is Rob Donoghue’s blog.  You might recognize the name as one of the designers of Spirit of The Century and the Dresden Files game.  I love Rob’s blog and his thoughts on RPG design.  Rob played the Amber Diceless RPG back in the 90’s, and having been an Amber GM for most of the 90’s as well, I really connect to a lot of his concepts and designs.  Rob is also an unabashed iPad fan and talks about cool RPG and writing apps as well.

Some other favorites

• Grognardia– I am not really an old school player, but I enjoy James’ view of the hobby, and his history about where we came from.
• Dicecreator’s Blog — This guy creates some crazy dice, and if I had a chest full of gold, I would be making frequent purchases.  He does not post regularly but check out the pictures of his dice.

Podcasts

Fear The Boot — I have only recently gotten into podcasts, and after sampling a number of them, this is one of my favorites.  Fear The Boot is not new though, they are working on episode 201 this week. FtB has great topics, and a lively round table discussion. The guys are pretty funny, and yet are able to engage in some great discussions.  They have differing opinions on things, covering many facets of the show’s topic.

Some other Favorites

• RPG Circus — A great group of guys, great topics, and nice reviews.
• All Games Considered– This ENnie winning podcast has a lively discussion, and wide variety of gaming topics including boardgames and miniatures.
• Atomic Array — Another ENnie winner. Great RPG reviews and interviews from two of the smoothest voices in the RPG podcast community.

I also asked the other Gnomes what they were reading and here are some of their replies

Scott

• I recently found Stuffer Shack, and enjoy reading it for a different perspective.
• I’ve been following Random Average. Doyce’s Diaspora game for perspective on my Spirit of the Century game.
• The FATE RPG yahoo group has been very useful recently.

Martin

• Some Space To Think (as well)- I have no idea when Rob Donoghue has time to sleep, but he turns out quality, inspiring, and varied content almost daily. It’s a great blog.
• Deadly Fredly – Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions is an inspiration to me as a publisher, so I read his blog regularly. Great stuff if you’re considering breaking into publishing.

Matt

• Ars Ludi
• Jeff’s Gameblog

John

• My biggest assured read right now is Jess Hartley.

Who Are You Reading/Listening To?

You won’t hurt our feelings, but tell us some of the other blogs that are inspiring you, as well as Podcasts that are top in your playlist.

Save for one other member of the table, I got a round of quizzical expressions. “Steampunk? What’s that?”

I was surprised. I really thought the genre of brass goggle-wearing adventurers and steam-chugging flying contraptions was more widely understood. No matter, it was an excellent chance to share with them, by example, what steampunk can be.**

It’s Sherlock Holmes meets mad scientist.

(I picked that example first, because one the group members is well-known for his collection of the great consulting detective’s adventures in book and DVD).

It’s also …
… the electrified gothic horror of Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein.”
… Jules Verne’s Nautilus from “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
… the “Wild, Wild West” TV series and motion picture.

And the other member of the table familiar with it piped in with Phil and Kaja Foglio’s “Girl Genius” and China Mieville’s “Perdido Street Station,” both excellent examples, and then pointed out the steampunk aspects of Eberron and Alan Moore’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

And to help out, he even used the Facebook messaging system to share even more examples with the group.

Of course, steampunk is all of that and more — or if your tastes differ — just some of that. But it appears that the players are willing to give a game of gears and gothic horror a go.

Venturing into the Known World

Settling on a setting has been a process.

Initially, I’d given thought to the party being the Baker Street Irregulars — but mostly grown up — and taking up the departed Holmes’ legacy under Watson’s patronage. While that would have been a cool one-shot, it didn’t have the scope of adventure I thought would appeal to my players. Victorian London, while very cool, might prove to be a bit daunting.

Next, I considered using Eberron as a base — but with the volume turned way up on its steampunk aspects. There is a lot of material to work with. Anyone who wants to give D&D Fourth Edition a workout would find Eberron to be the perfect vehicle. Eberron’s kitchen sink approach fits 4E hand in glove.

But I’m not sure the group’s teeth will sink neatly into Eberron’s cog. When I introduced the steampunk option — the group’s affection for Steffenhold really came through in the ensuing discussion. True, my little medieval frontier town holds a lot of charm — and untold stories. How do I mesh a desire to continue that with an infusion of steampunk?

Do I dare turn the clock ahead 500 to 600 years, and see how steam technology and magic have transformed the history and landscape of the region?

Ultimately, that’s what I may end up doing. But the most important element, the setting narrative, is missing.

One of my players observed that the narrative of Steffenhold is the clash (or intrusion) of the old and the new. The lines of conflict in every adventure have been the faiths and traditions of the classical world (Olympian gods and monsters) and established feudalism against the emerging faith of the Shepherd (a Christian analog), town economics (and crime) and emerging nationalism. It sounds like a mouthful (and a bit pretentious) for a game whose central adventures have been dispatching goblins, but there it is.

The question now — which I haven’t answered — is: What will the narrative of Steampunk Steffenhold be?

The inner conflict of dark and light (“Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde,” “Frankenstein”) comes immediately to mind. There is also the very dirty, stinking, concrete reality of industry compared to the pristine, fanciful fascination with mysticism, magic and spiritualism. In that same vein, there is the tension between social classes, the widening gap between labor and luxury.

Or do you turn it on its head (the way Eberron did)? The big machines (trains and airships) don’t represent the gritty (and flawed) progress of steam technology — they are the epitome of clean, colorful magic given a practical purpose.

I have a lot to think about before presenting a steampunk campaign on the table. But one thing I know for certain:

The first adventure will have animated skeletons wearing tops and tails, and brandishing large wrenchess. Very victoriana, very creepy — and very steampunk.

*—Isn’t every GM thinking about the next two or three games down the road? It must be in a GM’s DNA, I suppose.

**—It was actually one of those quaint and special moments that takes me back to the early days of D&D, when you’d try to explain to people what this game is all about. Invariable, you’d end up saying, “it’s a game where you’re a hero, like Robin Hood or Lancelot or Merlin, and you’re adventuring in a land out of Grimm fairy tales, of ogres and trolls, black knights and dragons.” Because, if you’d said instead: “It’s a roleplaying game inspired by the pulp-era fantasy and horror stories of Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft in which you challenge street-wise thieves guilds and kill monstrous nightmares in underground caverns so you can take their stuff and level up,” you’d get a completely different reaction — and probably not the buy-in you were hoping for.

Coming to a mutual understanding of exactly what is common knowledge for your game is not an easy task. Gaming books provide lots of information that is necessary for playing but might not be readily knowable by the characters. What is known to one class or type of character might not be known to another, but many of the dangers they will face together require teamwork and interaction. Each player likely thinks of common game and world knowledge in a different way and is thus operating on a different page than the rest. There are a lot of places for pitfalls to develop when it comes to common knowledge.

Like Einstein Says – It’s All Relative
So how does a group deal with common knowledge in a consistent way? I don’t think it is possible to ever have a single truly definitive answer. Setting, game mechanics, and personal play style are going to be factors of every situation where common game world knowledge comes up. Every situation where game and world knowledge comes up has multiple people’s interactions, and each one of those interactions can  affect the game and the story at the table. Take this example: A publisher gives a creature a very high damage resistance, maybe even regeneration. He places a line in the monster’s description that they have a vulnerability to a certain type of metal. This piece of knowledge is now out there somewhere, but in order to use it the players must know it and their characters, more importantly, must know it. Is this tidbit of knowledge meant to be a treasured golden bullet that the PCs learn after hardship? Is it well known to the cavalries of brave soldiers who protect the frontline from these monstrosities and thus the metal is in high demand? Will the players glean this knowledge from reading over the book? If they do, can and would their characters have it and thus know to modify their weapons with the metal? The context of the knowledge within the world is extremely important, but only really to that one situation it is relative to. To a person in a far off country where that creature is not a threat, the previous metal might be nothing more than a paperweight.

This is one of the primary reasons why common knowledge is so hard to lock down in a game. Too laissez faire of an attitude about common knowledge and many of the challenges that lack of knowledge intensified are cakewalks. If it is assumed that characters know about any magical item the player reads about, then characters seek out such things. Not always a bad thing, but possibly a free pass to acquire that killer app for the game. The reverse, too restrictive, and first party characters are nearly wiped out by level draining undead because they don’t know enough to run away. The joys and perils of the game? Absolutely! But it cannot be denied that the accessibility of the game and world knowledge is a major game changer.

Well Defined Setting Knowledge Is Always Helpful
Sometimes the setting and mechanics present things to help you out when it comes to common game world knowledge. Eberron books are written with a very in-world feel and lots of instances of in-world narrative that suggest what people might know. If you are reading it inside of an Eberron book, then it is likely that the character might be able to read it somewhere within the world as well. This is probably the thing that makes me love Eberron the most. I can generally pick out what my character would know without having to make a roll. Generally, I’m going to be on the same page as my Game Master who has read the same books.  Giving lots of hints as to what the common people know is great, but there is one thing better.

Some books will tell you straight out what is known to the people and what is hidden from the general populace. When it is laid out like this it is easy to determine what characters know. Sometimes the game books mix mechanics and setting information, giving you a target that you have to roll for in order to get knowledge of that level about a world instance. This can be handy, if only in the sense that it helps a group gauge what sort of knowledge is present in the world for a character with a particular score in a relevant area.

The Dreaded Knowledge Roll
No matter how well defined the setting knowledge might be, there are always going to be instances where you have to test whether your character knows something specific. In those instances it becomes time for the Dreaded Knowledge roll!!! Why dreaded? Once again, it is relative. It all depends on how your group handles it. Some groups play by the rules that if a person fails a roll to know or remember something, then there is no chance to have that knowledge until a new opportunity to learn occurs. When the piece of knowledge is infinitely important in that one moment when the roll is made failure can be devastating. Does the tech know that the type of fuel rods he bought for the ship leak deadly radiation? Does the PC who is of a monstrous race know about the xenophobic (read torches and mob) tendencies of the country they are travelling to? Failing that knowledge roll can sometimes cause major issues, but it can also cause great opportunities for play experiences that rely on roleplaying and quick wits. Failure can be fun, when seen from the right angle. In contracts, sometimes, having too much knowledge too easily accessible can be the problem. Being able to make a roll and know a particular thing can undermine opportunities to engage the characters in the story. If a character makes a roll and identifies the handwriting of the true villain, then the planned scenarios to hassle the PCs in their investigations and reveal the true scope of the treachery might be lost. A good Game Master will rework the story and find ways to make it meaningful, but knowledge can be the most dangerous thing out there.

Hash It Out Beforehand – Roleplay It After The Fact
So one thing I realized as I was writing this is that every instance is going to be relative to the situation. Too much or too little knowledge can be good or bad, in equal measure. Every group’s play style is going to deal with game and world knowledge differently. The only thing I can really say for certain about the issue of common knowledge is that it should be addressed by the group, preferably before the game starts. I’m a fan of including something about what most characters know in the Game Charter (which is really just a better term for Social Contract). Saying something as simple as “You probably know a little bit about monsters of low levels and the war. You can make a roll for more info if you’ve got a relevant skill.” provides a baseline for players to work off of and starts everyone off on the same page.

That will at least get everyone on the same page to start, but it isn’t going to eliminate all the issues. When disagreements or contentions about whether certain knowledge is common or knowable come up I have one suggestion. Let the piece of knowledge stand (information is tricky in that the effects of knowing something can’t really be taken back) but justify it with roleplaying. A player read about the special monster killing metal and the Game Master wanted that to be a secret revealed in-game? Even though the player might try to keep it out of game, some part of his mind is going to be working on how to make use of that knowledge. So let it become in-game, but make the player pay for it with a good story about how he overheard soldiers talking in a bar or actually listened to the ravings of the madwoman who said her aluminum pitchfork drove the monster away.

Most issues with common knowledge come when it isn’t commonly known what is considered common knowledge. What kind of experiences have you had with common knowledge in your games? Any instance where knowing or not knowing something had a major impact? How does your group handle determining what is well known and what isn’t?

(Images: Public Domain)

It’s important to also keep in mind that as of this writing, the iPad has only been out for six days. Not to provide excuses for the fledgling device—which has already sold some 450,000 units—but as an indicator that as the platform matures there will most certainly be new uses and applications to enhance functionality. Just this week Apple announced the preview of iPhone OS 4 which will find its way to the iPad, bringing multitasking, a slew of new APIs for developers to leverage, and a gaming-centric social network.

Musings

In my usage this past week I’ve found the iPad to be, in some ways, a solution looking for a problem. No, the device doesn’t fill any one gap that existed in my life, but it does bring a great deal of convenience. The rub being, is the cost of admission worthy of this convenience? For most, possibly not. Having been a part of the iPhone “revolution” from the beginning, I’m confident that we’ll see a similar ecosystem arise from the iPad. Disruptive technology is like that.

The great things that I like about the device are its speed, display, and battery life. The speed in particular is very nice. Having come from the two previous iterations of the iPhone (prior to the 3GS), I was hesitant to believe that Apple could deliver on their promises without killing battery life. But they did, with a custom CPU chipset and marrying it with a large battery (the bulk of the iPad is all battery). I haven’t gotten less than 10 hours out of the unit. This isn’t standby time, this is continous use. Standby time would likely be measured in a week or so.

The IPS display is crisp and vibrant, and the touchscreen best in class in this type of device. Not much to be said here. That it can play all of my Blu-ray rips at 720p is no small feat. Thankfully I don’t have to re-encode my entire digital library!

iTunes is increasingly becoming poorly named. The iPad takes a long time to handshake and sync, causing iTunes to come to a standstill on my 8-core Mac Pro. In fact, iTunes feels like the weak link. Sideloading content on the iPad is not intutive at all, very un-Apple like. It’s slow and it’s frustrating, and it’s hidden. Getting content to and from the iPad is harder than it needs to be.

Lack of printing is a WTF? moment but like the ads say, “there’s an app for that” (or soon will be). Perhaps even addressed in iPhone OS 4.

But sitting down and having the iPad on your lap and using it, the device just melts away. It’s a bit like “Minority Report” in that after a few moments you’re directly using the Internet; the device disappears. The iPad is instantly on and never gets warm during use. It’s amazingly fast and, thus far, hasn’t crashed. (I have had GoodReader lock up on me, however.)

It won’t revolutionize the way you run your games, but it may cause you to think differently about how you run them, and that’s a good thing.

The Videos

We have three to share with you from Gnome Stew Videos. The first covers a basic introduction, the iBooks app and PDF viewing. The second tackles two of Apple’s big applications, Pages (word processor) and Keynote (presentation). Our final installment takes an in depth look at Safari on the iPad and navigating the Internet.

Enjoy!

A GM’s Video Guide to the iPad in RPGs, Part 1

A GM’s Video Guide to the iPad in RPGs, Part 2

A GM’s Video Guide to the iPad in RPGs, Part 3

Next up, gnome porn? Don’t tease us.