Is Superman just strong?

Some time ago I read a thread on rpg.net (now, there's a surprise) about Dawn of Legends (DoL), a new Super Hero addition to Savage Worlds. Someone in the thread asked if DoL could support higher level characters, like Superman or the Flash.

The reply was that it definately was possible. However, the solution left me a bit less than enthusiastic. Basically, it was a multi-step-process. First you had to buy high levels of the Strength attribute. This in itself wasn't enough, but after that you had to buy Edges (I may be wrong on the terminology here) to increase damage, increase lifting capacity, make his punches armour penetrating etc.

This is not the first time I've encountered this line of thinking. A few years ago, I was a in a forum thread talking about Gurps Supers. The question was basically the same: How do you simulate a super-strong characters punches. The semi-official word was that you might as well buy it as a separate attack with a range of Touch. So, just getting a decent amount of strength wasn't enough, I also had to buy other things around the character to properly be able to reflect what I want him to do.

I find both these examples to be flawed. This is not from a simulationist point of view (which it might be if you asked me a few years ago), but from a usability point of view.

There are many usability guidlines that state that you should follow the users internal/ mental modell or expectations on how things work. It is natural, intuitive that if I buy a high level of strength (for intance) certain things follow with that. I shouldn't need to add a lot of details / extra feats on top of that, it should be included from start.

Normally I have the same opinion about to many feats in DnD, for instance. In order to build a decent fighter, I need to know that there are a multitude of different Feats that is more or less necessary for building the fighter.

Feats or Edges or whatever should be used to add specialties or tweaks to a character, but when they are more or less mandatory for a fairly straight up build, I think it's a sign of at least a partly flawed game design in the first place.

It's that time of the year again - Info is leaking out about Geist from White Wolf

Since the launch of the new World of Darkness, there has been a new line introduced every summer, and this year is no exception. It has been known for quite some time that the name is Geist, and that it seems to deal with ghosts in one way or the other.

However, it seems like more info is starting to leak, esp. from demo-sessions at cons etc, and this thread on rpg.net gives a few minor details for those interested.

[Geist] Minor spoilers about quickstart

I will post more info as I find it

Interesting resource for planning adventures

Adventure Designer

While surfing the web the other day, I found a page (see link above) with a nifty little pdf-document to be used when planning an adventure. While it's nothing complex or sophisticated, it's nice in it's simplicity. There are sheets for entering a summary for characters, rumours, map locations etc. There is also a short adventure-planning-checklist at the end of the pdf.

Wilderness of mirrors and narrative roleplaying - some thoughts

Not long ago, our gaming group tried out Wilderness of Mirrors for the first time. This was also one of our first sessions with improvisational, narrative roleplaying. The premise was the following: In our long going Star Wars Dawn of Defiance-campaign, one of the players have a subplot which includes a long lost sister.

To further that plot, we decided to play out  a rescue mission. Not with our regular characters, but with a group called the Antarian Rangers.  Also, since we like to try out new games at times (and have talked about some more narrative gaming for a while), we decided to use the Wilderness of Mirrors game by John Wick. This game can be found here: Wilderness of Mirrors [PDF] and a there is also a lengthy discussion about it on rpg.net on this thread

To sum it up, WoM is an agent-style game where you play your Jason Bournes and James Bonds. It is also a narrative, low-preparation game. Basically, the GM gives you a basic premise (Break in and rescue the diplomat, for instance) and then the players start to plan that rescue. When planning, the players can add things like "in order to take out those guards, we need a stun grenade" or "and when we enter that corridor, we have to hack the computer to shut down the weapon turrets". This way, the players build the adventure themselves. For each fact, the group get's a bonus die to add to their rolls when needed.

When the planning is done, the game starts, and together the GM and the players have the plan and the obstacles to use as the adventure. One important point is that skill-rolls don't actually decide if you succeed with an action or not, but rather, it decided who has narrative control. Even if you fail a roll, you might still succeed with the skill-check but the GM has the right to narrate what happens (which might include both good or bad things).

There is also an option in the game to add in negative stuff for other players (since betrayal and trust are major issues in agent movies), and this let's you get more dice. We didn't use that rule since we felt it didn't fit with the setting. However, in retrospect I have some thoughts on that. More on that later.

It should also be said that while all the players are experienced roleplayers, there is a varying degree of experience with more indie-type games.

When the GM told us to start planning, it did take a while for us to get into it. I'm guessing this is a matter of us being unused to the premise. However, after a while ideas where coming from all over the place. If there was one tendency it was to identify problems and then try to solve them in a fairly linear fashion. There wasn't so many ideas that introduced major obstacles or detours from the from-A-to-B-plot. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but rather that it's a leftover from years of problem solving gaming.

The game itself went rather smoothly. As before, it felt a bit odd at times, and to some extent it was kept in the problem solving tradition. Basically, roll the dice, and if you roll good, you succeed with what you wanna do with no extra details around it. Now, it wasn't dull or plain, but I think that with some more experience in these kinds of games, we could have added more details and excitement to it ourselves.

There you have the next key-word: Excitement! Somehow, it didn't feel exciting, or as exciting as other games can do. To some extent I think it is a result of us as a group covering all bases with maxed attributes, but I also think that playing this kind of game with a problem-solving mindset is sub-optimal. It is to easy to "win".

So, you have to add that excitement yourself in one way or the other. We could have been better at this (again, I think it comes down to lack of experience) and added small tidbits ourselves. For instance, when we as players succeed with a roll, we have full narrative freedom. We can choose to make it easy for us (just say that we manage to do what we want) or to make it hard for us ("Yes, I shoot the masked Sith Inquisitor. However, when he falls to the ground his mask falls of, and I see that it's only a droid. It's a trap!!").

This is where I think the betrayal mechanic could come in handy. Perhaps not as betrayal as such, since that would be a bit out of genre, but as "Dark Side"-temptation-dice or something like that. There should perhaps be a limit to this, but basically, when I have narrative control, I should be able to add in something that makes it worse for me, another character or the group as such, and then get another bonus die. This way, another element of uncertainty is added to the game.

So, to sum up:

• This kind of game requires some experience to run smoothly
• It also requires some creativity and a mindset that it's not about problem solving, but finding interesting stories
• Adding excitement can be a bit hard. In a game with more rules (D20 or similar) you can always fall back on the rules and die-rolls to add some excitement, but in these kinds of games, excitement have to be based on story and events.
• Using some kind of "players as micro-opponents"-mechanic (be it Trust-dice or something else) is a good thing. Just as the players build the module in the planning stage, they can also add nasty and interesting side-effects in the actual game.

I would definately like to play these kinds of games more, but I also have to be better prepared with ideas and options so that I contribute to the drama and excitement of the game, and not just trust the GM to add those for me.