RPGamerzQuest

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Role Playing Games - Builder's Guide 2

The Challenge: The term is role playing game, not roll playing game. As one can deduce, then, a large part of what makes these sorts of games different from others is that the players are taking on the roles of others. In an RPG, each player has a character that it plays the role of. Although a large part of character design lies in stats--the character's ability to solve challenges in the game world--the very name of the game genre indicates that at least as important are the specifics of the character. Thus we have the second challenge in creating a balanced role playing game: the challenge of character detail.

This is to say, to get the most out of any role playing game, players have to be able to know who their characters are as much as what they can do. Physical appearance. Personality. History. Nature. These are all aspects of the character that the player can choose to help make his or her character more real.

But there is more to it than that. What happens when the character uses its abilities? Does it wield paired swords in a complex series of katas? Does it work long-forgotten spells it picked out of musty tomes? Does it utilize incredibly advanced alien technology?

Detail also plays a role in stats. How great is the warrior's strength, the wizard's knowledge, the cleric's insight, or the rogue's wisdom? What about the alien's will, the robot's items, or the pilot's accuracy? How much can the barbarian lift? How far can the psychic teleport? How many soldiers make up the warlord's army?

A role playing game that focuses only on the combat stats and abilities is leaving out much of what it means to be an RPG. Some might say that these things should be the player's to decide. Well, yes, every bit as much as a player should be able to decide its skills and powers. However, this does not mean the player has free reign over every little detail. These things can matter in the game world. The designer, then, must take them into account and establish a firm base of rules for them.

The Risk: A slipshod job of details can lead to significant delays during the game as players try to figure out exactly what their characters can do. Sometimes it is important--even critically important--to know if your character can climb a certain wall, figure out a bit of lore, or teleport a given distance. If the referee of the game has to handle all these questions with ad hoc rulings, it will create an inconsistent world, which weakens the game.

However, it is also important not to put too much into your miscellaneous rules. This leads to complicated referencing for every action a character might need to take, and may also cause contradictory rules. Also, you want to avoid situations where it takes a long time to build every character. Some players may like to spend hours thinking about every little skill and ability their characters possess. Others do not.

The Solution: In QoTR, I found that the best way to go was with a rules base that can be easily applied to any situation, and that dovetails with the core creation process. I didn't want to add extra steps to character creation unless they could be in a sense optional. The result is a broad-based system that can fit into a variety of situations, but relies on generally the same core rules for each, much as with the combat rules. It also opens up a number of possibilities for future supplements.

I use three main systems to classify details. For most of the truly miscellaneous details, there is a simple rule: describe your character how you want, provided it reflects your stats. Just because a player describes its character a certain way does not mean the character gets any advantages (or suffers any penalties, for that matter). So if a player makes a thirty-foot-tall, heavily muscled giant with a greatsword, for example, it had better select some offensive abilities.

For most non-combat actions, I use a system of attributes. Each preference (a group of related abilities) has two attributes tied to it, which the player can switch on character creation. The character's attributes determine how effectively it handles non-combat challenges. This system allows for precise character details, but doesn't require that the player spend extra time on attributes if it does not wish to, since it can just leave them tied to their nominal abilities.

However, most role playing games offer more than mere attributes and imaginative details. Special powers such as flight, telepathy, and water breathing are all common in many role playing game genres. QoTR uses a system of special ability groups much like (and tied to) preferences, with an ability point system for customization if the player doesn't want to use the default selection. These abilities are broad-based, like much of the QoTR system, so players can tweak or fit them to any character type or genre.

Non-combat actions are an important part of role playing games, and no RPG is truly complete unless players are able to describe their characters. Any RPG designer would do well to focus intently on this part of the game design process. The best tactic I have found is to design a system detailed enough to cover any situation, but simple enough that it won't bog down the game.

Dustin Schwerman has been playing RPGs for over a decade, using an analytical approach to critically evaluate the game systems (and so to create the most powerful characters he could get away with). He used the extensive experience gained doing so to create his own game, Quests of the Realm. QoTR focuses on unlimited character customization, relying on its author's understanding to detect and counter game-breaking power plays. Though balanced, QoTR still allows players to create highly effective characters and run them through heroic story lines. To contact Dustin, read more of his writings, or learn more about Quests of the Realm, visit his web site, Quellian-dyrae [http://www.quelliandyrae.com].

Role Playing Games - Builder's Guide 4

The Challenge: An important challenge in creating a role playing game--and one prone to be overlooked--is the challenge of game variety. Many role playing games are genre-specific, their rules geared to only a certain game style. Indeed, some RPGs specify more than just genre. The game world, story line, even play style are all used as factors in game design.

Not all RPGs worry excessively about this. Many use a specific game world or story line setting to benefit from brand loyalty and recognizable realms and characters. However, the more variety the game makes available, the greater the game's potential to draw in players.

In any case, particularly specific role playing games fit their niches well enough. The designers who truly have to worry about the fourth challenge are those who intend to create a reasonably broad RPG. The fact is that role players demand variety. Browse the web sites (or even the banner ads!) of a few on-line role playing games, and you will quickly find that one of the most common selling points is the number (and, sometimes, unpredictability) of the character types they offer. Role players enjoy having a lot of character types to choose from. A fantasy game that only has fighters, wizards, clerics, and rogues won't cut it, as won't a sci-fi game where the only choices are astronaut, robot, and alien.

Crossovers are also becoming popular in some groups. There are plenty of players out there who would much prefer a game where robots and aliens can fight alongside fighters and wizards. And if there is a superhero or two in the group, so much the better!

But for a game to provide such options, it must be versatile. The RPG has to be able to support not only the vast (infinite?) number of character types that imaginative players might think of within a single genre, but if you want to cater to crossover players, also to the possible character types from other genres. And you have to do so while maintaining the first three challenges, and the six that will be provided afterwards.

The Risk: So now you know why it is good to make for a game with variety. So let's say you intend to do so, going all-out with any genre possible. Good!

Here's the problem.

You immediately find friction between this challenge and the third challenge, character value. Technological development insists that a sword is a better weapon than a club, a gun better than a sword, and a laser rifle better than a gun. So how are you supposed to maintain character value between a party that consists of a cave man, a medieval knight, a modern soldier, and a futuristic robot?

You also need a solid and balanced way for forces from opposed genres to interact. Consider magic, superhero powers, technology (both modern and futuristic separately, of course), psychic abilities (possibly differentiating between aliens, gifted modern humans, and mind-crafting mages), and simple physical prowess, to name just a few broad groups of abilities. Can you reliably say that any of them trumps the others? If so, you are shattering character value. Do they interact at all? If not, there is no way for such characters to defend themselves against one another, turning any cross-genre encounters into "who goes first" tests. Perhaps certain powers interact in superior fashions, each having ways to counter others? Too complicated, with too much emphasis on certain abilities. Players wind up locked into a multi-genre arms race rather than able to play the characters they want to play, which simply counters the point.

You could have each sort of ability working in a different way, but again, the complexity is there. In that case, it's almost like you're creating a different role playing game for each genre, and collecting them all into an anthology. This naturally leads to too many supplements, and a feeling that players have to buy them all to keep up to date. Good for business, bad for players, and very bad for attracting new players to a new RPG, where there is no brand loyalty getting them to buy even the core book, let alone supplements.

And, of course, there is the problem of interacting abilities within a single character. What happens when a robot learns magic or a cave man develops psychic powers? How about a superhero wielding an enchanted greatsword in one hand, an antimatter rifle in the other, and a wand of fireballs telekinetically? Players want to have access to such character types. They have to be taken into account.

The problem is that the more rules you have for describing different abilities, the more likely it is for those rules to interact in a critically unbalancing way. Next thing you know, characters have gotten around every limit you place on each genre, and used cross-genre abilities to improve their power more in a multiplicative fashion than an additive one. Variety is what players want, and it is the hardest thing to give them without breaking the system.

The Solution: As I noted in previous articles, the core rules for QoTR rely on a selection of broad ability types, each with lists of advantages that a character specializing in the ability can gain. Unlike many role playing games, the actual abilities the character has and the player's description of its abilities are not tied together save for to assert that the description must emulate the stats. Of the various systems I have tried, I found this to be the best option for allowing unlimited description, versatile stats, and balanced character value.

Put simply, a swordsman who specializes in attacking and defending is no better or worse than a robot, modern soldier, or caveman of the same level who specializes to the same degree. Discounting specifically chosen penalties, they all have access to the same abilities and have the same stats. Their descriptions, however (and possibly the abilities that they use most frequently), will vary widely.

There is the potential for some glitches in realism using the system, but realism is actually little more than a sub-genre in and of itself. Some RPGs make a terrible mistake of assuming that players wish to play a realistic game. In QoTR, I handle realism by putting it in the player's hands. If you want to play a realistic game, build and use your character realistically. The game rules allow plenty of leeway for character design, so players should suffer no real penalty for electing to limit their actions to realistic levels. There are options for unexploitable hindrances (yes, unexploitable) that players who wish to realistically limit their actions can use to get higher stats in other areas or other bonuses. Also, many abilities have a cost to use anyway; ignoring two abilities only gives you two more uses of the ability you really like.

Variety is one of the most important aspects of a role playing game, and also one of the most difficult to properly use. Assumptions and excessive detail can lead to imbalances that only squelch the opportunity to use the versatility offered to its fullest extent. To best encourage variety, design a system that allows players to build characters they way they wish to play them, and forces them to play their characters the way they built them.

Role Playing Games -- Builder's Guide 1

The Challenge: Character ability is the first thing that any role playing game designer should consider, and in many ways the most important. Fortunately, it is also generally the easiest to perfect in and of itself. The challenge of character ability comes from the need for a variety of character types, each with their own unique capabilities.

There are a number of possibilities for solving this challenge, each of which is generally viable. Perhaps the most common one is the set "character type" role playing game. Using this system, all players choose what sort of being their characters are from a list of possibilities. This style of RPG is often broken down into two or three lists from which the player makes one (or sometimes multiple) choices. Perhaps the most common example of this style is where the player chooses a certain type of being and a certain profession that suits the game's theme. The choices made, and the character's level of power, determine what the character can do.

Certain designers prefer a skills-based role playing game. Using this style, players have a number of points or other units of measurement, which they can spend on certain abilities, powers, attributes, skills, or other advantages. This style offers more flexibility than the previous type of RPG, at the expense of more work on the player's part.

Another possibility is the ability list role playing game. This style is somewhat similar to the skills style in that players choose from certain abilities to build their character. The difference is that instead of selecting from certain abilities, players select lists of skills, gaining all abilities appropriate to their character's level found on their chosen lists.

Combinations of the three are common, often using one system as the base with another for certain parts. For instance, a role playing game might use a character type system to determine which skills or lists the character can select from. Alternately, an RPG might use an ability list style, but also have points to choose which abilities within those lists the player can select from.

Other combinations are possible, as are other styles of design, although these three make good overall categories. Each has its merits, but likewise, each comes with potential disadvantages.

The Risk: Although character ability is not a difficult challenge to meet, the style a role playing game designer uses here will affect every other challenge in the RPG-making process. Characters are the most important part of any role playing game, as they represent the medium that the players use to interact with the game itself.

The rules for creating characters are the most important when concerning issues of game balance. If characters are too powerful, the game is not challenging and thus less fun. If the characters are too weak, the game is overly difficult, and likewise less fun. But perhaps the most important consideration is the worry that certain character options will be more or less powerful than others. This prevents players from fully enjoying the sorts of characters they wish to play.

Future articles give more detail on the concepts of balance and character value in a role playing game. For now, bear in mind the pitfalls of each of the above three primary styles.

The character type system is the least versatile of the styles, as players have less option to mix and match their abilities. However, it can be the most balanced, as you know exactly what each character type can do. This is one of the fundamental rules of RPG creation; the more choices the player can make, the more likely it is that the rules will interact in an unforeseen way to give that player an undue advantage or disadvantage.

The skills system is the most versatile option, and as such, carries the most risk for balance. Players using this system not only have full creative control, there need not be any specific rhyme or reason to the choices of abilities. Combinations that might otherwise be impossible might very well become common. Even if the designer balances all of the abilities individually, the skills system, especially at its most versatile, offers the most potential for unforeseen imbalances.

The ability list system holds to an average point, which in many ways gives it the both the advantages and disadvantages of both RPG systems. The list system, especially depending on the number of lists available, offers the potential for unforeseen combinations. Importantly, just because players purchase entire lists of abilities does not mean that the potential combinations of individual abilities cannot become overpowering. The list system does tone down on combining only the most powerful of abilities, though, and also tends to lessen the actual number of choices a player can effectively make.

The Solution: In the role playing game I created, Quests of the Realm, I use a system balanced somewhere between the abilities and the skills system. Players have a number of points to devote to ten different lists of abilities, with the points spent and their level determining which abilities from the list they get. Players cannot select individual abilities from a certain list, but must pay all requisite costs to get to the higher-level abilities of each list. Generally speaking, a player can specialize in three or maybe four of the ten lists. There are also certain aspects of creation that use a more standard skill system, which generally have limited effect on combat (where stats are most important).

To make this system work, I use a number of tactics to minimize the disadvantages of my chosen styles. One of the weaknesses of the list system is that it might limit creative control some. To solve this, I keep the lists broad in scope. For instance, there isn't a list for weapon skills, magic, psychic powers, and so on. There is a list for attacking, defending, stealth, and the like. It is a strict rule in QoTR that the description of a character's abilities must reflect the character's stats, but do not affect them. A mage is not necessarily better at dealing massive damage to multiple foes than a warrior, although certainly a warrior who chooses to be strong in such a field is going out of the box for its archetype.

Using this rule, players may create any sort of character they wish, without fear of limiting their stats. A mage does not have to be a frail, defenseless pushover once you get past its spells. A rogue does not have to be unable to hold its own in a stand-up fight. And so on.

However, by the same token, players get no free abilities for choosing a certain type of character to play. A mage who doesn't choose the ability list that allows it to deal massive harm to multiple foes cannot throw the gloriously large fireballs that are some common to that archetype. It uses its magic in other ways.

To help tone down potentially game-breaking power plays, I made use of two balancing factors. The first is the advancement system. Character advancement occurs at a rate based on the actual difficulty of the encounter. This is to say, you might be fighting a foe ten levels higher than you, but if you take it down in your first move without suffering a single hit, you don't get very far where advancement is concerned. The problem with power playing is not creating a character that can defeat powerful foes. If that were the case, the person running the game could just throw in stronger opponents, maintaining the challenge and solving the problem. However, in many role playing games, comparative level of power determines advancement. Using this style, stronger opponents only hasten the growth of character power, which compounds the problem.

My second tactic is simple: if all of the abilities are powerful, and all characters (main characters and opponents alike) have the same options for character building, no one can claim an undue advantage. I don't see a value in limiting the efficacy of character abilities. Most role playing games have something of an epic or heroic feel, so why not let the characters be epic and heroic? And if you prefer games where the characters are outmatched, it's easy enough to use opponents several levels higher than they are to handle things.

A role playing game designer's most important choice may be the abilities it allows characters in the game to possess. Do not fall into the trap of limiting characters to only a few possibilities so overburdened by limits that they cannot function. Separating stats from description, making the players work to earn their levels, and making sure that every ability has its uses are three excellent tactics to keep an RPG customizable without compromising its balance.

Tales From the Trench

As long as we're all back here together, let's catch up on some of what makes our campaigns so great; those moments that can never be forgotten as long as we game. Recent is what I'm looking for… not pining for the days of our campaigns years ago.

For me, it came a few weeks ago in my current campaign. The main villain, a young woman, was created by the PCs. They don't know this of course, nor that she's even a villain. Someone was trying to kill them, as minor NPC bad guys are wont to do, waaaay back at the beginning over a year and a half ago. A crate was dislodged on the docks, intended to crush the PCs while they talked to a minor (and very unimportant) NPC. I sucked at the Listen roll for the NPC to determine where exactly the PCs were and the wrong crate was pushed. It fell towards the NPC and his pregnant wife instead. The PCs failed some rolls to notice this, but the NPC did not (he was very protective of his beautiful and pregnant young wife) and he leapt to push her out of the way. The crate landed on him and killed him. The shove provoked a miscarriage in his wife several days later. She decided fate had turned against her and has since been on a mission to unleash a terribleness on the world that will end all life...period.

Fast forward to a couple sessions ago; the PCs are in another land dealing with an offshoot of her plan. She is there, unbeknownst to them. They foil the evil plan at great expense to themselves (one now has no right hand, another lost an eye, and the third will never be the same though she doesn't know why yet), and find this girl chained to a wall (her dealings with lower planes type things require this for everyone's protection...what she does isn't pretty, as all well done evil shouldn't be). They of course assume she is a captive and rescue her. They take her back with them to a city they operate out of. Most specifically to the library of an ancient order...that she has wanted to access all along to speed her plans along. They brought her to the very meeting where the next stages of their plans were laid out with the major good guy NPCs. When her warlock minions came to rescue her from their ship, the PCs of course thought it was a kidnapping and still have absolutely no idea at all that they've undone most of their success since the beginning of the campaign.

They're even putting their *very important* plan in the hands of others so they can rush off and rescue her again...not that that will matter now that the plan is well known by their enemies, but they won't be there to try and put it right again (nor to maybe realize how the enemies knew about it). Instead, they'll be walking right into the worst place they could possibly go at this point in the campaign in order to "rescue" her again. Along the way, they intend to recover and bring with them something she mentioned that she might need if she's to "help them against this evil" so that they have it right there with them when they "save" her.

I really love my job.

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Monday, January 24, 2011

2009 ENnie Award Nominees Announced

The nominees for the 2009 ENnie Awards were announced today; HELLAS: Worlds of Sun & Stone (my game) was nominated twice. Voting begins on July 24 and runs through August 1. Winners will be announced at the 9th Annual ENnie Awards at GenCon on Friday, August 14. Be sure to vote for your favorites!

3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars, Box Ninja CthulhuTech, Catalyst Game Labs Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Wizards of the Coast Pathifinder Adventure Path #19: Howl of the Carrion King, Paizo Publishing Scion: Ragnarok, White Wolf CthulhuTech, Catalyst Game Labs Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, Fantasy Flight Games HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone, Khepera Publishing Publishing / Aethereal Forge Mouse Guard, Kunoichi/Archaia Mutants & Masterminds: Wildcards 0One's Blueprints: The Great City: The Saltshacks DCC53: Sellswords of Punjar Modern Floorplans: Victorian Style Mansion, 12 to Midnight / Fabled Environments Pathfinder Chronicles Second Darkness Map Folio Star Wars: Scum and Villainy The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Magnum Opus Press Don't Lose Your Mind, Evil Hat Productions Hot War, Contested Ground Studio Hunter Horror Recognition Guide, White Wolf Kobold Quarterly, Open Design Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Fantasy Flight Games CthulhuTech, Catalyst Game Labs Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, Fantasy Flight Games HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone, Khepera Publishing Publishing / Aethereal Forge Mouse Guard, Kunoichi/Archaia Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, Fantasy Flight Games Dungeons & Dragons 4th Ed. Players Handbook, Wizards of the Coast Hunter: The Vigil, White Wolf A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Green Ronin Starblazer Adventures, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Ltd Pathfinder Adventure Path #19: Howl of the Carrion King, Paizo Publishing P1: King of the Trollhaunts Warrens, Wizards of the Coast Lands of Darkness #1: The Barrow Grounds, Expeditious Retreat Press Purge the Unclean, Fantasy Flight Press The Rose Bride's Plight, White Wolf Dark Heresy Creature Anathema, Fantasy Flight Games Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed. Monster Manual, Wizards of the Coast Freedom's Most Wanted, Green Ronin Night Horrors: Grim Fears, White Wolf Witch Hunter: Grand Tome of Adversaries, Paradigm Concepts The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor, Arc Dream Publishing Hot War, Contested Ground Studio Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, Paizo Publishing Slipstream, Studio 2 Publishing Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Atomic Sock Monkey / Evil Hat CthulhuTech: Vade Mecum Hunter: The Vigil, White Wolf Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods, Fantasy Flight Games Scion: Ragnarok, White Wolf Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Wizards of the Coast D&D Insider, Wizards of the Coast Dwarven Sweatshoppe Dice Box Hunter Horror Recognition Guide, White Wolf Kobold Quarterly, Open Design Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe GM Screen, Green Ronin Neo Markers, Alea Tools E-Z Terrain: Cliffs and Mountains, Fat Dragon Games DU1 Halls of the Giant Kings Dungeon Tiles, Wizards of the Coast Game Mastery Flip-Mat: Waterfront Tavern, Paizo Publishing Star Wars: Clone Wars Starter Set Art of Exalted, White Wolf Battletech: The Corps, Catalyst Game Labs Hunter: Deadly Prey, White Wolf Planet Stories: Infernal Sorceress, Paizo Publishing Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, Vol. 2, Devil's Due Publishing Blood of the Gorgon, Open Design Collection of Horrors: Razor Kids, White Wolf The Death Mother, One Bad Egg Hard Boiled Armies, One Bad Egg Tales of Zobek: An Anthology of Urban Adventures, Open Design Battlerun, Catalyst Game Labs Hunter The Vigil Quickstart: The Hunt, White Wolf A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplayng Quickstart, Green Ronin Swords and Wizardry, Mythmere Games Trial and Terror: SVU, The Imagination Sweatshop Critical Hits Dungeon-a-Day Kobold Quarterly Mad Brew Labs Obsidian Portal All Games Considered Brilliant Gameologists Order 66 Return to Northmoor The Voice of the Revolution CthulhuTech, Catalyst Game Labs Dark Heresy Core Rulebook, Fantasy Flight Games Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Wizards of the Coast A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Green Ronin Starblazer Adventures, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Ltd Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods, Fantasy Flight Games Don't Lose Your Mind, Evil Hat Productions Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Players Handbook, Wizards of the Coast Hunter: The Vigil, White Wolf Mouse Guard, Kunoichi/Archaia Scion: Ragnarok, White Wolf A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Green Ronin Starblazer Adventures, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Ltd Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Wizards of the Coast Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Atomic Sock Monkey / Evil Hat

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A Penny For My Thoughts: An Interview with Paul Tevis

Two women and a man, all dressed in white jumpsuits, sit around a table with a bowl of pennies in its center. Each of them has a small stack of pennies and a printed form. In front of the older woman sits a scrap of paper with the words "a taffy stretching machine" written on it.

"... and my father looked down at me and said, 'If you don't want to ride the roller coaster, you don't have to. You can wait here in the candy shop while your brother and I go,'" says the older woman. "I was scared." As she speaks, the remembered terror creeps into her voice.

Her expression suddenly goes blank. She turns to the man. "What did I do or say then?" she asks, offering him the single penny in front of her.

The man considers for a moment, his brow furrowed. Staring at her, he replies, "You said, 'No, I want to come with you.'"

She turns to the younger woman. "Or was it..." she begins, offering the same penny.

"You stayed there in the candy shop, chewing your taffy," the other woman says.

She pauses before speaking again. "Yes, I remember now. I said, 'No, I want to come with you.'" She hands her penny to the man. "And I had a fantastic time. It was so thrilling, so wonderful. That's when I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And that is what I remember."

She smiles as she writes on her sheet of paper, "When I think of taffy stretching machines, I remember how I discovered what I wanted to do with my life. I'd never felt such a sense of purpose before." After she finishes, she takes a penny from the bowl.

"A penny for my thoughts," she says.

Hello Paul. For those who are not familiar with your name, can you tell us a bit about yourself, past and present?

I'm never sure where to start with these sorts of things, but I'll try. I live in Santa Barbara, California, with my wife and our three cats. We moved here almost nine years ago now, and I started a roleplaying group not long after. I had dabbled with RPGs when I was growing up, but all of my serious play experience has come since I moved here. We started playing D&D 3e and GURPS, but after a while I got excited some slightly less mainstream games, like Unknown Armies, Feng Shui, and Nobilis. Not long after that I found the Forge (indie-rpgs.com), picked up a copy of My Life with Master at GenCon, and jumped into the "indie games" pool with both feet. In 2005, I started a podcast called Have Games, Will Travel, which won the Gold ENnie for Best Podcast in 2007. And I'm just about to publish a storytelling game called A Penny For My Thoughts, which draws heavily on my experiences doing improv theatre for the last few years.

I think that about sums it up.

Paul, what made you go from playing RPGs (and other tabletop games) to designing one?

Poor judgment? :-) I'm not sure, exactly. But it was the Game Chef design competition in 2007 that got me started on this game, A Penny For My Thoughts.

So, no long-term secret longing to create your own world, or a wish to "Do it right, unlike all those existing RPGs"?

Not really. In fact, there's a section in Penny where I say as much. I'm not trying to teach people the "right way" to do things. I'm trying to understand my own preferences and share my experiences with others so that they can come to their own conclusions about how they like to do this sort of thing. I hope people can learn from my experience, but I'm not saying that they have to do it my way.

One thing about terminology: I don't call A Penny for My Thoughts an RPG. Yes, you take on the role of a character. But it doesn't have any of the features that make RPGs familiar. Its closest relative is probably The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, so I tend to call it a storytelling game. But you can call it whatever you want.

What's Penny about? What's the difference between an RPG and an STG to you?

Penny is about a group of people who have lost their memory and are undergoing an experimental therapy to try to recover. In the process, they have to help each other in order to succeed.

When I say that it's a story-telling game, I mean that unlike most RPGs, where you're controlling your character's actions in the present, in Penny you're describing your character's in the past. You're telling your character's story to the other players. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that.

Make me a sell: Why would I want to play Penny for My Thoughts? What's the experience of playing it like?

A Penny for My Thoughts is a collaborative storytelling activity. No one person has full control over the narrative. So at the beginning of the process, everyone writes down some ideas and puts them in hat. When it's your turn to tell a story, you draw one out. Then everyone asks you a question about that thing. You have to answer "Yes, and..." to the question. So if you drew "a dog" out of the hat, I might ask, "Was it your dog?" and you might answer, "Yes, and my father gave it to me for my ninth birthday." As a group you build the starting point of the story, and the rest of the process of telling the story follows a similar pattern. So if you enjoy collaborating with people to tell stories, or if you want to get more experience doing it, then you should take a look at Penny.

Is there any mechanism in place to keep stories coherent and/or directed, or is it completely up to the players?

There are a few things that help. First, there's something we call the Facts & Reassurances. This document lays out some details about the world that shouldn't be violated. The basic F&R says that you're playing in our world, in the modern day, and that you're all normal people. We've present two other options in the book, one based on the film The Bourne Identity and the other on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but groups are free to create their own (or play without one). Second, the stories are structured by something we call the Questionnaire. Every story you tell is intended to answer the next question on it, so you have some idea of why you're telling it. Like the Facts & Reassurances document, we provide several options to shape your play. Third, there are some controls on what other people can throw into your story. That's where the titular pennies come in. Every time you get to a point in the story where you need to take input from other people, you offer a penny to two of the other players. Each of them makes a suggestion. You choose which of the two happens, and you give that person the penny. Finally, the number of pennies you have controls how long your story is.

As you can tell, this is something I've thought a lot about! My goal was to create a structure that gives people a lot of freedom to do what they want but also forces them to work together in order to get it.

Is PfMT a single-session game, or is it intended for longer campaigns?

It plays in a single session. It's designed for three to five players, and it should take about three hours. That said, different groups will play it more quickly or more slowly.

Why go the route of GM-less games?

"GM-less" is a confusing term and means different things to different people. I think it's equally valid to talk about Penny as having many, rotating GMs. But regardless of what you call it, it wasn't something I set out to do. It just grew naturally out of the type of storytelling I was interested in seeing.

What type of player would enjoy Penny most, would you say?

I'd say that those players who like stories that go in unexpected directions and that like to build on the contributions of others (and vice versa) will have the best time with it. It was influenced by my experiences with improv theatre, so people who like that sort of storytelling but in a more intimate environment than being on stage should have fun.

Would you say Penny makes a good con game? On the one hand it is intended for a single session, but on the other hand, it benefits from familiarity/intimacy with the other players.

It can be a little tricky, especially because of unspoken assumptions of what's appropriate to introduce during the session. There's a lot of text in the book about this, and in fact, the Facts & Reassurances mechanism was created to deal with this very issue. That said, I think it can be great thing to try at a convention because it helps to build familiarity and intimacy with the other players. One the things I mention in the book is that I hope people talk about the experience afterward to work through some of those missed cues or to thank people for picking up on what they wanted. That feedback process is important.

Let's talk for a bit about the process: How long have you been working on Penny and how much work did it turn out to be, in comparison with your early assessment?

Penny started as my entry in the Game Chef competition in the spring of 2007. It's based on a few ideas I had before that, but nothing was written down until then. I had hoped to be able to release it at GenCon in August 2007, but that turned out to be folly. There was a lot more work to be done than I released, mostly in playtesting and in writing supporting text. The design was completed early on, but turning that design into a text people could understand was harder. I'm a slow writer, so it took longer than it should have. I like to joke that A Penny For My Thoughts is the smallest design that ever took two and half years to write.

Ok, Paul, thank you for your time.

A Penny for My Thoughts is published by Indie Press Revolution and is available in both print and PDF formats.

More information about the game, including excerpts, can be found at www.orphicinstitute.com.

This interview’s Hebrew translation was also posted at www.hamishakia.co.il.

View the original article here

The End of my Tabletop Era

Today, I boxed up all my RPGs. They're still in plain sight, they're still loved and memories cherished, but the boxing, for me, means the end of my involvement with tabletop gaming. This has literally been a long-time coming: when I first started Gamegrene back in 2000, my orbit was already slowly decaying, and I hoped that dedicating a site to my love would keep things going.

More and more, I devolved away from RPGs

It certainly did, but not in any long-term sustainable way: I still bought RPGs, I still read the books, I still created scenarios and adventures in my head, and I still dreamed of running an online game somehow, having long given up the idea of a local flesh group. I hoped that newly minted oldies like Paranoia XP and Pathfinder would keep things going. They did, for a time.

But, more and more, I devolved away from RPGs. The delivery mechanism, sustained physical interaction with a small group of people, just didn't fit with me anymore. After becoming a paid programmer and writer, I holed up in my home longer and longer, becoming further ensorcelled by the Internet, a veritable money tree which accomplished many of my goals quickly and easily. My physical social interactions are nearly zero, but my electronic interactions are constant.

I still wanted to play games, and I still steered away from "the typical", playing everything from "casual" (hidden objects, puzzle and adventure, Facebook games, etc.) to console-based (both physical releases and arcade titles), to massively multiplayers (Korean dupefests, free-to-play kiddies, big budget), to transmedia, armchair treasure hunts, alternate reality games, and independent releases. I hoped that virtual tabletops like OpenRPG, Fantasy Grounds, and Wizards' vaporware would reignite interest in faux tabletop gaming; they didn't. Then I had two children. Awesome for me (roleplaying at a toddler's level!) but not so much for "real" tabletop gaming: I had even less time than I had before.

Every month, I get a PREVIEWS catalog and every month I look with extra care at the Games section to see what's new and exciting. I still buy all the new Paranoia releases, out of a sense of duty and memory, though I rarely do more than scan through them. I still check to see what Wizards' and Paizo are doing and I wonder what the hell FFG is doing to the Warhammer FRP. Solely reading new releases, however, just doesn't seem to be enough anymore. I'm in a different place now.

The memories are worth far more than the decades of monetary value

So, with some sadness at "abandoning" a hobby that has been part of me for nearly 25 years, into the boxes they go. I'll never throw them away: the memories are worth far more than the decades of monetary value (blue books and original modules, Boot Hill and AD&D 1E, etc.), but I need to clear the shelf space for current interests.

This doesn't mean that Gamegrene is dead, though if you've visited in the past few months, you'd likely think it is already. I won't pull the plug on the site: like the physical books, the bonds and discussions that have been created here are too valuable to throw away. I just don't think that, if it continues, Gamegrene will be RPG-flavored, primarily because a) no one has submitted any new articles lately and b) I've no further expertise in the matter. I could change the subject matter to relate to things more in my line of work: internet-based gameplay (be it MMORPGS, transmedia, metapuzzles, etc.), but I suspect that might drive any remaining community anyway - it'd be a Starting Over, per se. Your thoughts are welcome.

Two years ago, we published an article from Joanna Winters entitled Giving In To, Then Defeating, Player's Expectations. I am her. This article was an attempt to tease a Hunter: The Vigil play-by-post which I had internally called Gamegrene: The Compact, which would have been created and written by myself, Aeon, and gamerchick. The basic idea was that the real-life community of Gamegrene was a training area for fictional hunters and, when Joanna soon disappeared (as she did, by never writing again), it'd be made active. One of the unpublished in-game posts, from the head of the fictional compact, might explain it better:

When I originally had the idea of using the Internet to bring hunters together and coordinate their separate missions, Joanna was one of the first people who believed in the importance of what I was trying to do. Her support and her advice got me through the hard times when my dream seemed close to failure, and her unwavering dedication helped draw other people to the cause. She also believed that when the time was right, Gamegrene's readers would be receptive to the difficult truth of what this world really is, and ready and willing to do something about it. It is my deepest hope that you will not prove her wrong now, when she needs us the most.

Joanna's disappearance has deeply affected us all. Fortunately, we can do something in response to this heinous act. The decision to target gamers as a key group in the expansion of this compact was no accident. Gaming produces creative and open-minded people, with full control over their problem-solving skills and their logical and strategic minds. These abilities, when applied, are stronger and more deadly than anything magical that a witch, a demon, or a vampire can dish out. I have to believe this, or what is our vigil for?

The fictional leader would then go on to believe that there was a puzzle hidden in Joanna's last post and, in fact, there was. At the end of her article, she concludes with:

Go ahead, send the players to a dungeon, but make it one floor and one room, abandoned and with no conflict. Or, make them slave through a 20-floor dungeon, traps and treasure at every turn, with the final room containing the somber and expected single pedestal with a calmly glowing scroll hovering just above it. When that scroll turns out to be just a grocery list, like the note below I found on a phone's message pad, and not the massively powerful spell or document one would expect, the question and wonderment of "why?!" becomes the new motivator for the adventure.

258 123258-147369456-258-7415963-147359 258-7415369 1471235987-14712345789-258-7415963-321478965 14712345-14789632-14789-14789-14789632-1475963-14712345789-14712687 159357-258-159357-14789-159357-123258-14863-321456987-258-147359-258-258-7415963

"Found on a phone's message pad" is the key to solving the puzzle: if you move your finger in the direction of the numbers on a phone's number pad, you'll spell out letters for each grouping: "I THINK IM BEING FOLLOWED XIXLXTVSIKIIN", a clue that Joanna had anticipated her fate. The whole article was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek representation of itself: it defeated reader's expectations by being something more than just an article.

Alas, a few weeks into planning the play-by-post, I decided that I didn't have the actual time to keep it running in a way I deemed awesome or with justice. I shuttled the attempt but, with the article already written and edited, I published the trailhead. I felt it was good enough to be "just" an article, and the comments seemed to agree.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

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