Random characters

The other day, me and my gaming group started of a short campaign using the game Reign. Since I was the only one that had much knowledge about the system, we decided to use the random character generation system instead of designing the characters with the points-buy system.

It was a blast!

There is something with random character generation systems. They can lead you in directions it wouldn't occur to you to pick otherwise. They might add a twist to your character that you would overlook.


In this case, the characters became different, but with some really nice connections. It didn't take long for the group to decide that they wanted to have a company that dealt with information, basically a spy-network. It all fit together very nicely, the process added a couple of both patrons and enemies, and gave me a number of sub-plots to incorporate.

Why do I mention this? Thing is, I think that the last couple of years, random character generation has gotten kind of a bad rep. Different kinds of point-buy systems are the norm, as is different kinds of class-picking (and often a combination of these). And, while I definately see the charm in custom-building your character sometimes it's just as fun to roll the dice, and then use your creativity to make sense of whatever was rolled.

One game I remember fondly was the old Golden Heroes superhero-game from Games Workshop. You rolled up all your powers, and then you had to come up with a background and theme fitting those powers. The powers you couldn't fit into that background you hade to forfeit. A couple of my most memorable characters was made using that system.

That's why I'm glad that there are a couple of games that return to random chargen. One of these is Reign. If you are using Wild Talents, there is an official webb-download with a similar random generation system for superhe.. sorry... talents. The upcoming game Icons! also uses a random system.

So, consider this post a small praise for the interesting, challenging and wonky characters you can get from using random character generation.

One-roll Talents

One of the many super-hero roleplaying games to appear the last couple of years is Wild Talents. It's a more gritty game compared to many others. It also uses the ORE-system, as found in Godlike and Reign, among other games.

Now, one of the nifty things in the ORE-games is that they usually contain One Roll Generators. That is charts and systems for generating characters, monsters, nations etc with a single roll of a number of 10-sided dice. One of the things that are missing from Wild Talents is a One Roll Talent generator.

However, the good mr Stolze have fixed this, by uploading PDF's with just that, a way to build a Talent from a single roll of a pool of dice.

They can be found at the Nemesis website downloads section

Push the players with triggers and phases

This is, to some extent, a development of my previous post where I talked about how to add "combat rounds" to other things, and in other time scales, than just combat.

In this post, I want to add two more ideas/ concepts. The first one is Phases, and the second one is Triggers.

Phases

A phase is a part of a module, adventure or story. When you go from one Phase to another, something in the world or the story must change. In order to motivate a phase-change, it should be something significant. For instance, in a game with a vampire as the antagonist, the first Phase might be about investigating strange deaths. After a couple of hours, the vampire learns that the players are on it's tail, and acts indirectly against them. This would be the second Phase. In this Phase, perhaps, the vampire has gotten some control over the local police, the keeper of the vast library that otherwise could be useful etc. In the third Phase, the confrontation is more direct. This is where the players (or the vampire) seeks out the enemy.

One could add in meta-rules as well, rules that dictate not only changes in the story, but also if something is allowed to happen or not. For instance, in our vampire-example, you could say that no major character in the game can die in the first two Phases. It's only when the story proceeds to Phase 3 anyone can die (both the players and the vampire).

Triggers

Instead of having the Phases occur at set, predetermined times, you could let the players actions decide when to go from one Phase to another. Some actions doesn't advance the Phases and, unless the GM says otherwise, could be done an infinite number of times without advancing the plot (mind you, this has the slight disadvantage of not.. you know... advancing the plot). However, certain actions advance the plot to the next Phase. Let's say that you can do an infinite number of library research, but you can only talk to three people before rumors spread and the vampire hears of you (thus advancing the adventure to Phase 2). So, the players can basically decide when they want to further the plot, but they do so by raising the stakes.

More structure for more creativity

I've stated before that I think that the most important game balance is time/spotlight balance from player to player. Ironically, this is in a way most enforced in combat, for one simple reason: Each player at least has his go. Every turn, each player get to do something. Of course, this "something" might vary quite a lot, and not all game system are particulare good at this, but all players still have their turn to do something.

Now, what would happen if we kept the round-system, but increased the scale. Let's say that we are playing an investigative game. I know that in 8 hours the next murder will happen, unless the players do something. So, instead of just asking the players "What do you do?", I make them roll for initiative (perhaps using a more fitting stat then usual), and ask, in turn, what each character do this hour. I also make sure to tell them that other things happen that hour as well.

Why do I think this could be an interesting idea?

The main reason is, it gives all characters and players a better chance to tell the the group what they are doing. Of course, they have that chance anyway. My experience, however, is that the louder members of the group often dominates the talk.

And NO, I won't just be satisfied with "then the shy guy has to speak up". Nope, gaming should cater to all personality types, and this gives all types a better chance to tell the group what he wants to do.

Also, if the GM starts to count the hours, it can give a sense of urgency to the group.

When using this solution, I believe that the GM should be fairly generous with clues about what happens. Just as in combat, the goal and (at least some of) the premises should be clear. Tell the players what the basic structure is. If needed, give them some ideas of what they can do each time-slot.

Whatever the players say they do, make it matter! It may not be as effective as they would like (compare, once again with combat... an attack might miss or do less damage), but for each time slot, each and every player should have a chance to contribute to the development of the situation.

Mystery adventures - a few tips

One of my major weak spots is that I'm less than stellar at writing and running mystery adventures. This isn't that surprising, considering that these kinds of adventures can be quite tricky. I have written a few other posts that touches upon the subject, but today I thought I'd just point you towards a couple of links that gives helpful advice.

First is a thread from rpg.net, where a player asks about help to run an murder-mystery-adventure.

My favorite from that thread was the "three methods (quoted from the thread):

The Agatha Christie method: The victim was a snot - Murder is murder, but the Victim was a genuinely nasty person who had it coming. Maybe Victim wasn't a criminal, but he/she made the lives of people around him/her absolute misery. Every NPC within Victim's circle (family, business, social) had an excellent reason to hate him/her and is a potential suspect. Solving the mystery involves unraveling the NPCs' relationships with Victim and each other to determine who hated Victim most and had the opportunity to do him/her in. Some of the NPCs will be openly bitter. Others may be sympathetic sufferers. Christie usually gave the culprit at least one kindly trait to throw readers off.

The Doc Savage method: The culprit comes after the PCs - The victim was probably a nice person, since he/she was a friend/associate/acquaintance of the PCs. The culprit is so sure that the adventurers will give him (or her) grief over the murder that he starts trying to off them as soon as the crime is committed. The PCs' friend was somehow tangled up in a much larger conspiracy; as they attempt to defend themselves against their assailants and investigate their friend's death, they'll uncover a web of clues that will inevitably lead to the villain.

The Sam Spade/Philip Marlow method: Never trust a client - No client or assignment is what he/it seems to be. The PCs are hired to watch or find somebody who doesn't want the attention. The more they pursue their quarry the more goons and corrupt officials come out of the woodwork, and the bodies start stacking up as not-nice parties with conflicting agendas "remove" people who have given/might give info to the PCs. They typically have to fend off/avoid the police while they hunt down the culprit(s). It's not unusual to have different victims slain by different villains, all of whom are trying to conceal the Big Secret that the heroes are threatening to uncover.

Another good place is an essay written by Justin Alexander where he (among other things) talks about the three-clue-rule, where he says that the GM should have at least three clues for piece of information he wants the players to find. Well worth a read!

Now DON'T do it again..

In chess, there is a rule (If I'm not mistaken) that says that if the players repeat the same moves three times in a row, the game is a stalemate, a draw.

Sometimes, I think this could be a good thing to include in Roleplaying games. It's not uncommon for combats to be reduced down to a long row of rolls to see if you hit or if you miss. That is NOT particulary exciting. So, let's say that if the players do exactly the same thing three times in a row (unless something happens),  introduce something in the battle. Maybe switch time-focus, and just say that "The battle rages on and on, you both parry and attack, without anyone gaining the advantage".. and then make the players roll for fatigue to see who manages to keep on fighting the longest.

Perhaps one could introduce other complications. Let's say that the environment changes.. or that a weapon breaks.

No matter what, the important thing is that whenever combat is reduced to just dice-rolling (and the occasional yawning) and repetition, change it!

Quickly!

Not by luck, but by skill..

What if...

In a game, in an adventure, you as a GM tell the players "You will be defeated in every fight you enter... unless you do something about it"


They cannot rely on having luck with the dice.. they cannot rely on spending "action points" (or whatever they can be called in your game) to change the outcome of the rolls.


What they CAN do, however, is change the circumstances. They can do research of old legends to find out that the dragon is prone to staring at beautiful jewels, and then use that as a distraction. In space battle in a sci-fi setting, they can do a quick-and-dirty modification of their ship to boost the power of their guns (of course, with the result that they no longer can use their hyper-drive, and must limp to the nearest planet to fix it.. and have more adventures there).




Whatever happens, they must change the circumstances... they must change the odds to their advantage.

I don't know if this would work, but I'm willing to give it a try as an alternative to endless rolling of dice...

To much background will kill you!

Ok, maybe it doesn't… but for me, it kills the mood! There are several games out there that have deep, detailed and complex backgrounds and settings. I'm thinking about games like Exalted, various DnD-settings or Fading Suns.

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I read a game with a solid, detailed setting I tend to be intimidated. There is ONE single game (ok, let's say two) where I've actually enjoyed reading the background (also known as "fluff"). But for the rest, it's like reading the history-books all over again. (Now, don't get me wrong.. I like history.. but the real one, the one that actually happened).

Now, where was I? Yes, to much background… Another issue with it is that I'm feeling constrained by it. It's harder for me to wing it if I have a detailed large setting to keep track of. This actually extends to when I'm preparing adventures, double checking everything to see if it fits with what's written etc.

So, whith that said.. what DO I like instead? Let's call it Meta-setting! A perfect example would be DnD4th, the core books. They call it "the points of light"-setting, which is a dark, violent, dangerous world, where cities and villages are the only safe places. The rest is wilderness, where only heroes venture. Note that they are not actually including any maps, cities, hardly any names etc. Just the basic type and theme of the setting.

Another good example is Starblazers. Same thing there, it has a set premise, a theme, but no details. Rather, it spoils the GM and the players with tips, tricks and mechanics for how to run your games in that TYPE of setting.

Those types of games I enjoy, because the make me inspired, not intimidated. I can feel creative, not constrained.

And for those wondering.. the two games where I actually enjoyed reading the setting? The first one is Houses of the Blooded, by John Wick (but then again, the man's a genius), and the second one is the setting book Freedom City for Mutants and Masterminds (which is just brilliant)

Inspirational book on improvisational roleplaying

Not long ago I read the book Play Unsafe by Graham Walmsley. It's a book on improvisational roleplaying and contains tips on how to run games with very little preparation.

I must admit, I don't think I'm ready to change my games into 100% improvisation. However, the tips found in this book is (from what I can see) usable on a sliding scale. They can be applied to a more traditional game, and of course to a strictly improvisational game. Even more so, wherever you are on this scale, this book is useful, and above all, inspirational.

For a more thorough review, I recommend the review on rpg.net. I fully agree with the reviewer, the book (at least as a pdf) is less than 10 USD, and contains loads of tips for both GM and players.