Action!

The last couple of months I've been posting ideas and tips on how to build a complex adventure/ setting for the characters to discover. At least for me, that's a system and a method that works very well.

However, the kind of gaming that it generally results in is investigative, social and conspiratorical. What if I want a game or two that is action filled, fast paced and exciting? Furthermore, what if I want that kind of game, but keep it low prep?

One thing that I have noticed about many games is that there is nothing that slows a game down as much as action and excitement. Most of the time, it is reduced to a series of rolls, that just takes time from the overall plot. So, I've been toying around with different ways to add some more excitement to the game. Among the design goals is that it should be low-prep, hard to predict and not just feel like the GM adds another opportunity to roll the dice.

This idea is slightly based on what John Wick did in A Wilderness of Mirrors. In that game, you can get bonus dice if you add a complication for another player. So, why not try to add that to more games? What if, at any time, a player can throw a small threat on another player? If you do that, you get fate/destiny/plot-points to your own character. So, if you need that points to learn that spell or that stunt... state that the warrior slips on the ledge, and finds himself hanging by his fingernails over that deep chasm.

One could also add that an area or a certain phase has a higher or lower danger level. At higher levels, you can narrate more dangerous situations for more fate-points to your character.

This idea needs whole heaps of polishing and thinking, and I'm not even sure it works, but it would be fun to try it out, and I'll keep it in mind when designing my two games War! and Even I can bleed. Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated.

Skullduggery - Initial impressions

Many years from now, longer than I can remember, a game called Dying Earth was released. A nice little game that I played once or twice. One of it's nicer features was a simple and elegant system for solving conflicts, both social and physical. I have looked at it a couple of times over the years, wanting to do something more with it, perhaps using it in other settings.

Turns out, I don't have to anymore!

This tuesday, Pelgrane Press released the game (or at least, opened it up for pre-orders) Skullduggery, which is a generic game for backstabbing, intrigue and dark conspiracies. It is to large extents based on the old Dying Earth game. Since I preordered it, I got to download the pre-release PDF that same day.

ICONS! - My first character

A couple of days ago, the Preview PDF of the game Icons! was released. Since I'm always interested in a new super hero rpg, I preordered the game, and downloaded the pdf as soon as it was released.

My impressions so far is that it's a fast, loose game that strive to avoid getting stuck in details. If you want to know exactly how fast your character can run or how many tonnes he can lift, this is perhaps not the game for you. However, if you want to build a character quick and have a story-focused game open for improvisation, this just might be it.

When I had the game downloaded, I tried to make a character. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had a finished character 15-20 minutes after the download was finished. For your pleasure, here he is:

Fox Tail

The latest generation in an old line of gifted or blessed persons, Jacob Robins was given powers from the familiys patron totem, the Fox. At first he was given the task of protecting his tribe, but he later realised that his duty was also outside the confines of his own people.

The Fox has given Jacob incredible speed, the ability to read minds and produce illusions, and finally to sense his surroundings even in pitch black darkness. He is trained in the ancient martial arts of the tribe and is superhumanly strong, and can lift about a ton.

Origin: Birthright

Prowess  - 5; Coordination - 2; Strength - 6
Intellect - 5; Awareness - 6; Willpower - 5

Powers
Super Speed - 5 (abt the speed of a sports car)
Telepathy - 6
Illusion - 7
Supersenses (Radar) - 5

Specialty - Martial Arts

Stamina: 11
Determination: 2

Aspects:
Quality - Find peace
Challenge - Weakness (Telepathy Overload)

Low-prep map-making

The map to the left is a rough map over the city in which our latest campaign takes place. What's special with it is how it was created. Instead of me drawing the map before the gaming session (something that a: would take a lot of time and b: propably not resulting in a particulary interesting place), I tried another thing.

I let the players draw the map. Using the guidelines in Starblazers and Legends of Anglerre, the map was gradually built from nothing. After 15-20 minutes (roughly) the city grew in front of my eyes.

What helped, I think, was that this was actually the second session in this city, and I had been fairly clear with what style and genre the game was (I was aiming for a kind of medeival Venice/ Italy, with loads of conspiracies and intrigue).

My impression was that the players enjoyed doing it. We all got an immediate connection and relation to the city, and I didn't have to spend as much time preparing the game. The players also supplied me with numerous of interesting plot hooks and places that I could add into the campaign. On my evergoing quest towards minimizing prep-time, I think this was a successful experiment.

The year of the super hero

If you, like me, enjoy a good super-hero game once in a while, these last couple of months, and the rest of this year as been a gold mine... or a flood, depending on how you look at it. Let's see.. a while ago Wild Talents 2nd edition was released in print. This was followed by BASH Ultimate edition, Supers! and Icons! As if this wasn't enough, Green Ronin has announced both a DC Heroes license and a third edition of Mutants and Masterminds, to be released this fall.

Man.. so many games, so little time..

Learning a new game, a micro-tip

Recently we started a new campaign using a new system (Reign) that none of us had ever played before. Before this, I was a bit nervous, because it was a game I've been looking forward to try out for a long time, and I felt a little pressure from the rest of the group that it should be good.

So, in order to make it easier for both me and the rest of the players to get into the game, I decided to write a short summary of the game. A kind of cheat-sheet, with all the important stuff written down.

What I wrote down was

• The general dice-mechanic (since it's a bit quirky in the ORE-system) and basic rules. Including the most common exceptions / special cases.
• Basic skill usage, and some special cases
• Healing and dying. (since these are things I tend to forget when I learn new games)
• The combat system (or the most important bits of)
• The different combat maneuvers that can be used in a combat, abbreviated

I left out lists of things, and also character creation, magic and similar. This was because it's not used in the game as such. 

I found this had a number of advantages

• It served as a handy reference sheet for both me and the players
• It forced me to go through the entire game. Since I wanted to write a summary of all the rules, I also had to think them through so that I understood them. This in turn made it easier for me to remember the rules even without looking at the cheat-sheet.

After the first game session it was definately a help, in many ways. However, I also did notice that somethings where missing. But after looking those things up, it was of course no problem adding some clarifications and additions.

I used Google Docs to write it, and also invited the rest of the group to that document, so that they could read it through, clarify/format some bits, and print it out directly if they wanted to.

My only complaint so far is that Google Docs lacks even basic layout-tools. I would like to be able to make the sheet a bit more compressed, so that more elements could be fitted into one page. Overall though, it has worked like a charm, and I'll do that again whenever it's time to play a new game.

Damn Green Ronin!!!

For those of you that read my previous post, I just decided on this years gaming budget. My thinking was that "well, there's nothing more intereting on the horizon anyway".

The following day, Green Ronin dropped this bomb, revealing that they have a license to produce a DC Heroes RPG.

There goes my budget...

My gaming-budget this year

Darn... it's only May (and beginning of May at that), but it seems my gaming purchases for this year are already planned. It has been an interesting year so far, and there are a number of games that will get my hard earned money (and some already has).


Games and game-books already purchased are

• Wild Talents 2nd edition + Wild Talents Essential Edition
• the Day after Ragnarok
• Reign Enchiridion
• add to that a small number of PDF's to the Gumshoe-system and savage worlds (mostly)

In addition to that

• I've preordered Icons! (the new super-hero game by Steve Kenson)
• I will preorder the Dresden Files
• Purchase Legends of Anglerre as soon as possible.

It seems like my new systems of choice are the ORE-system and various Fate-incarnations. So far, I consider them elegant, nice and modern systems that are open to swift and easy playing, without to much preparation time, at the same time as they cover a lot of ground/ areas.