Star Wars Saga - Latest purchase

Last weekend I finally cracked and bought Star Wars Saga. My impression so far is that it looks like a nice game.

After the first read-through I decided to do a little experiment. I wrote four one-sentence character descriptions on one page each. I tried not to think about what classes and possibilities there was in the game. Then, after I wrote the descriptions down, I tried to make PCs fittting those descriptions.

The result was good, I thought. After an hour I had four characters that fitted the descriptions close enough for me. This meant no tweaking or shoe-horning the concept into what's in the game. Since it was my first go with the system, and it didn't take that long, I consider that a promising start with the game.

For those interested, the concepts were:

• A brawler that makes his living through fighting for money in illegal tournaments.
  
• A female jedi that was a victim of abuse when she was young. Her menter wants her to find calm through the force, but her background makes her a target for the dark side
• An Indiana Jones-archeologist that looks for old temples dedicated to the Sith and the Jedi to learn more about the force (even though he is not force sensitive himself)
• A trained fighter following ancient fighting philosophies to perfect his body and his soul

As soon as I have entered these into a digital format I will post them here

Results and relations - The purpose of a gaming system

In my last post I put up a small thought experiment about character generation. The aim was to point at two different roles that a gaming system has.

My own answer to the question is that even if I make a purely random character, making the rolls myself gives me a stronger connection to and better understanding of the character. This implies one thing: The rules has two purposes

First of all, it helps me to decide what happens in the game. If my character fails a Jump skill check, he fails to make a jump he tries to make.

Second, it helps me to get a relation to the world and to my character. When I roll the dice, there is a symbolic aspect of it as well: My dice-rolling is my character jumping.

A well designed game approaches the rules from both these functions. It seems, however, that it's not as easy as it sounds. I have encountered a number of games that focus to much on either of these two.

One extreme is a game that focuses purely on a good statistical simulation. In this particular context I mean that the world says that something should happen, and the rules actually supports this. Someone who is extremely strong actually does more damage and lifts heavier weights. However, if this is the only aspect of the game, the rules and the character can be quite dry and fail to convey the sense of a strong character. A small example: In the game Heroes Unlimited, the "Strength"-attribute is called P.A (Physical Affinity). It's perfectly valid, and it doesn't take you long to learn what it means, but it's still P.A, it's not "Strength" or a similar straightforward english word. In other words, it's technically correct, but fails to relate directly what it means.

The other extreme could be a game that is very good on giving out an impression of someone who is strong. This game could use a dice pool system, having more dice to roll gives you a tactile sensation that the character is more powerful. However, if the statistical outcome of the rules doesn't support the description, the suspense of disbeliefe get's harder. One example for me would be the old Marvel RPG (The old version known as FASERIP). Since it used descriptive words and clear steps of their attributes, you quickly got a good sense of how strong or fast someone was supposed to be. If I read that a character had Incredible strength, I knew that he was about as strong as Spiderman or Iron Man.

The problem with this game was that, to some extent, the results of the rolls failed to support the descriptions of the attributes. In the real game, at least in my experience, my character with Incredible strength and Amazing Agility couldn't do what Spiderman could do in the comics.

This to me is an example of where the rules support the sense and impression of the character, but fails to live up to it's "promises".

In earlier posts, I've looked at these parts as Layers of a gaming system, where the core is about the statistics and the outer layers are about the interface. After looking at some different games through this layer system I had to abandon that idea, at least partly. This is because in some cases, the core statistics and core mechanic is closely related to the "Human Interface"-layer, and to make a distinct separation between what parts are Interface and what parts are Engine is basically impossible.

What is a gaming system?

When does one system end and another begin! Where does the system end and the fluff begin? Does system matter? What is the purpose of the system? A number of threads on rpg.net lately has raised a number of questions for me. Basically it all comes down to the role and effect of the rules system in an rpg. I will start this little series with a small example, if it can be called that. Imagine that you have a game with a purely random character generation. No choices whatsoever, or at least a very limited amount of choices. Now, consider these two options:

1 - you roll up your character with dice, one roll at a time and write
down the result

2 - you use a computer to generate all the rolls and calculations for
you. A click on a button and a second later you have got a finished
character.

Now, which of these characters will you have the strongest connection
to?

Running DnD4 for the first time - An interview with the GM Part IV: The Future and broken chairs

So, we have come to the final part of the interview. Basically this is where we talk about your post-game impressions. What went wrong, what went right and how will you proceed from here?

What did you do after your first game?

Well, first I removed the remains of the chair that, well, succombed to the pressure. In mid-combat, suddenly one of our players almost disappeared from view, due to the chair braking under him. That woke us up a bit :-)

Anything else?

Yeah. I have a tradition of whenever I have run a new game, I go back and read through the rulebook to see what I did wrong, right etc.

Was there anything that struck you at first?

Well, nothing much actually. Some powers we may have done slightly wrong, but as a whole it played out as written. The one thing I remember is that we did slightly wrong on death saves.

Is there any area where you still feel unsecure in 4th ed?

Actually there is. I still don't feel really at home with Skill Challenges. I like the idea, but I think I need to find a way to use them that suits my style of gaming before I can use them to their best advantage.

In what way doesn't it suit you?

Even though I tried to enforce descriptions to each and every roll, there is a risk that it gets reduced to a series of skill checks. I also had problems with hitting a good level of difficulty for the skill challenges.

Was it too easy? Or too hard?

Well, both actually. When this interview was made, I have had the time to play 4th ed a second time. The first time, they where to easy, the second time they where too hard.

What did you do when a skill challenge was failed?

Well, first of all, in one of the challenges, I used the rule that for each failed skill check, a healing surge was lost. This mirrored that the challenge was a physically demanding task. Another problem that I had to think about was what to do if the players failed a challenge that was needed for the module to continue.

How did you solve that?

I don't know if it was the best of solutions, but it worked. Basically I withheld the XP for the encounter, and in the case I mentioned above the players lost all their healing surges. However, they got the information they needed, got where they where supposed to. This meant that the module moved on, but there was still some penalty for failing the challenge.

Will you use this in the future?

I think I will build upon that idea. I will try to find other ways to make a success mean an extra perk, and a failure to be a penalty. I will also try to make skill challenges more scripted. For instance making a success with a specific skill open up other uses for skills. This is mentioned in the DMG, but I havn't really used it much yet.

Speaking of the future, will you continue playing 4th ed

Well, of course. If nothing else, because that one of my groups will be playing Living Campaigns with 4th ed in a couple of months.

So, will you be using it outside of that?

I do believe so, I've enjoyed it so far, and the modules we've played are starting to form the beginning of a campaign.

What will you be using it for?

The campaign so far is meant to be some kind of dark fantasy. The focus is on combat and digging out the evil creatures that threaten the few remaining bits of civilisation.

In an earlier post, you talked about a starting setting that you perhaps should use. Do you still hold on to that?

No, not really. It turned out that the imagery I got from that setting didn't fit with how DnD vibes with me. I will however keep to the same principle.

Which one is that?

Start simple, build outwards from that.

Fair enough. So, we are running out of space here. Now that you've tried 4th ed, how will you place that in relation to other rpg's out there. Is it a revolution? Evolution? Neither?

Neither I'm afraid to say. There's very little in DnD4 that made me go "wow, I've never seen this before". They have taken a number of bits that works in other games (rpg's and otherwise), polished them so that they fit together, and then made a game out if it. And it works. It's simple, fast and gets the job done. Perhaps not without it's quirks, but it works.

Running DnD4 for the first time - An interview with the GM Part III

We have now come to the actual play and your experiences with DnD4. So, how did it go?

It went well, I'd say. We all had a good time, and play was fun even though it was the first time for all of us.

Did you use pregens or did you make the characters hat session?

We made the characters that evening.

So, how is character generation in 4th ed?

It's fast. Or, rather, it can be. If you boil it down to the bare bones, it's a couple of choices (about 10), and then you are set to go. And since most of these choices are from a rather limited list, you don't have that much to go through to find out what you want.

On the other hand, if you wan't to optimise your character and really find that ultimat build, I guess it'd take a bit longer.

It's also very helpful to write down or print out the different powers that your character has. Otherwise combat will take a bit longer.

Did you have a full party of 5 characters?

No, we actually had three characters. One warlord, one paladin and one warlock

Did they live up to their roles?

Very much so! The paladin stood and took a lot of punishment, challenging his enemies so that they attacked him. The warlock spread destruction on his enemies. In the middle of it all, we had the warlord shouted orders and inspired his little band.

While we are still in combat, how was combat?

I won't say it was fast, that's for games like savage worlds or similar. With that said, it worked well, and it was faster than 3.5. As has been said numerous times before, each character had something interesting to do each round.

Also, at least I felt that each combat played out as a story.

What do you mean?

Well, combat wasn't just an exchange of blows, but rather interesting things happened. It felt more like a battle-scene than an excercise in rolling dice. I can't really explain why, but it was fun.

That was the good points with combat, how about the down-sides?

I don't know. Since most enemies had a fair amount of hit points, combat did drag on a little to long at times. Also, if you hadn't written your different powers down, it took some time looking them all up.

So, did it feel like a roleplaying game or a board game?

I was afraid that it would be a bit like a board game, but it wasn't. If anything, it felt more like a roleplaying game than 3.5 did. One of my players said that since you had less die rolling, you could spend more time roleplaying. It's something I didn't expect, but I agree.

A personal thought is also that since the classes have clear cut roles, it's easy to roleplay them. Take the warlord, for instance. Many of his powers can be interpreted as him shouting out orders to his companions. It's easy to go this route and almost shout out orders yourself. He really is the brave commander that he is supposed to be.

How about other situations? You had some skill challenges. Did they work out ok?

They did, but ironically it took some more effort to actual roleplay these. It's easy for these to turn into a series of rolls and nothing else. Next time I think I'll be a bit harder on my players, demanding more explanations for their rolls before the actual roll.

Now you are looking forward, and that's what we will be doing in the next part. So, let's finish this of: What is your verdict of playing DnD4

It was fun. I enjoyed it a lot. As I've stated before: I'm glad it's not the only game I'll be playing in the future, but it's a very nice little game. As long as you try to play with it and not against it (read: it = the intentions of the game designers) it is a solid game.

Preparing a module for DnD4 - An interview with the GM Part II

So, in this part we are going to talk about your role as a GM in preparing a module for the game. Can you just give as a quick rundown on the adventure.

It was a fairly short module that played out over an evening (including chargen). It started out with the characters encountering a ghost and some skeletons. When they later arrived at a nearby village, they learned that the undead had started to haunt the area some weeks ago.

The players then made some investigations in the village. They learned that there is an old story about the Traitor. A man who supposedly betrayed a local knightly order so that evil creatures could attack them in their sleep. It seems like the ghost is the ghost of that traitor. Perhaps the answer to his haunting lies in the knights tower, where the betrayal took place.

During this time, they also got to know some of the villages. One of these was a warlord who didn't fit in with the rest of the farmers and fishermen of the village. He basically came across like a protector of the village.

The players then left for the knights tower to see if they could solve the riddle. On the way there, they had to pass through some goblin-infested hills.

When they reached the tower, they had to make a rather ardous climb to get there. Inside the tower, they where attacked by small winged drakes. In the combat, they accidentally set of a rockslide.

After the battle, the players search the tower, and realise that the knights wheren't betrayed. It was them that was the betrayers. They sold themselves to the foces of evil to get richess and power. The so called betrayer discovered this and was slain by the knights.

With this redeeming knowledge, the players headed back to the village. Before they got there, the encountered the warlord. He had armour that revealed that he was a member of this knightly order. Of course he wanted to stop the PC's, so with the help of two bandits he attacked them. After this final battle, the players continued to the village and released the restless spirit from his haunting.

Wow, that was some story. How would this translate into encounters?

4 combat encounters. One against the ghost and his skeletons, one against some goblins, one against the spiretop drakes in the tower, and finally one against the warlord and his bandits.

We also had two skill challenges. One to do research in the village and one to get to the tower.

Did you first come up with the story and then find the encounters suitable?

No, actually I did it the other way around. I used the Random Encounter-section of the DMG to get three encounters. My original plan was to do three battles and two challenges. With that I got my encounters with type and level. After that I flipped through the MM to find enemies that suited the encounters.

So, finally I had three encounters of different types and different creatures. From that I sat down and tried to figure out how to weave these encounters together as a story.

Did you adjust the encounters after having the story.

In this case I didn't. It all fitted together rather nicely.

Did you add anything special to the encounters?

Yes, one of the encounters had a hazard. After looking through the section on traps, I figured that a rock slide would fit the overall arch perfectly.

You said you generated three combat encounters, but in the story there was four.

Yeah, the last encounter was added when my players told me that they propably would have pregenerated characters. So, in order to make the session a little longer, I added a final encounter the the module. This was the final battle with the warlord.

When you had the encounters, how hard was it to prepare these for actual play.

Not hard at all. All enemies (except for the warlord) was statted out in detail in the MM. This includes the human bandits. The only thing I had to do was to draw up the maps, and then the encounters where ready.

So, what's your verdict on preparing modules for DnD4?

As long as you stick with what the designers intended and use the material in the books as presented, it's very easy to build an adventure with a couple of encounters. If you want to go more free-form it's not easier or harder than any other game system. To sum up, the more you go with the intended flow, the easier it is.