[D&D] (Dreamation) "Well Met in Mankara"

[Mel White]

After an 'unfun' experience playing D&D at DEXCON I determined that I would run my own D&D session at a convention that I would try to do 'better'.  So this is an AP report on an adventure titled "Well Met in Mankara" which I think came out as pretty fun.  One caveat up front is that I knew most of the players-my brother Bill, Shawn, and Dave.  But we did make two new friends-Vince, who had signed up to play, and Mike, who was scheduled to run his own D&D game but had no players.  We had one no-show.  When I saw Mike sitting alone I was happy to invite him over.  In fact, we all moved over to Mike's table.  I want to highlight the handful of techniques or ideas that I picked up reading the boards here at the Forge that made a huge difference in play.
1.  Relationship map.  What a powerful tool!  One page that graphically depicts who knows whom, how they feel about things, and who knows what.  I used it as a road map for the adventure:  the smith who burned down his shop acquired the 'Flamiferous Powder' from Alchemist Morris Argent (whom he despises) while actually crafting a dagger for his wizard patron Serge Diamat (whom he fears); with additional paths from each NPC.   
2.  Character auction.  Players started with 10 Action Points, right out of the Unearthed Arcana (UA) book, which are normally used for things like adding a d6 to another die roll.  In addition to the official uses in that book, when multiple players wanted to play the same pre-generated character, players used action points to bid on that character.  Action points left over from the auction would be available for use in play.
3.  Player 'buy-in' to scenes.   Another use for action points was the ability of the players to 'buy into' a scene.  Several scenes began with only one or two characters present but as the scene grew more interesting or more difficult, other players would have their characters enter the scene in order to help, contribute the information they knew, or just because!  The first scene started with Vince's single ranger against a leopard.  When the ranger took a lot of damage in the first attack, just about everyone grabbed an action point in order to come to his rescue.  Significantly, in some scenes players would stay out-like when Dave determined that his 'uncivilized' Ranger would not be present in an urban scene.  The important point is that it was player choice.   
4.  Earning action points.  I added the ability for players to earn action points by depicting their characters suffering some sort of penalty based on a Flaw or Trait they possessed (Flaws and Traits are also in UA).  For example, the 'shaky' trait imposes a -2 penalty on ranged combat.  A player who chose to have his character use a bow when using a sword was possible earned an action point.  Shawn's character earned an action point by indicating her 'slow' trait meant that she would not reach a critical location in time to influence the outcome.  Or when Bill decided that his 'vulnerable' swashbuckler would automatically take damage from a fire elemental exuding heat. 
5.  Setting stakes.  The realization that die rolls have to be important—or don't do them—and if we do roll, have an interesting outcome for either result (a point explicitly made in Spirit of the Century, among other places).  So, when Vince's ranger was tracking the leopard, I told him, "You want to track the leopard; I want you to track the leopard, so you track the leopard.  But make your tracking skill roll to see if you find the leopard unawares, or if the leopard finds you!"  In this way, tracking is still an important skill, but a failed tracking roll doesn't derail the adventure before it starts.
I hope this post might be useful to other readers who are looking for a few ideas to give players more control over their characters and more input into the story, but don't want to give up on games like D&D.   
Mel

[StefanDirkLahr]

Nifty little summary - especially number 5!

I've been trying to use techniques such as that in all of the Iron Heroes games i've been playing & preparing since buying the book last year, with a certain amount of sucess. Next time i play, i think i'm going to use that Tracking example to help get everyone on the same page - it's seems like a good one!

So a question that goes to that point - How do you resolve situations where setting stakes right to the heart of the conflict interferes with a character special ability (feat, etc)? Have you encountered any?

(In my last game i noticed that one of the other player's characters had an ability, dealing with finding traps, which we kept eclisping in bringing the characters into conflict. Of course, I suppose the solution is simply to not use those traits...)


Also, i like your notion of hooking up a "hero points" system to a character's traits/qualities...

[Bill_White]

The two uses of action points that I thought contributed the most to the success of this adventure, and led to really engaging play, were (1) being able to buy into a scene, which meant that we were paying attention to what was happening to the other guys to see if they needed us, and (2) getting them back by invoking a weakness, trait, or flaw that would make a difference in play (e.g., "I'm frail, so I blow my Fortitude save automatically, okay?  Give me an action point back"), which meant that we weren't automatically doing the tactically optimal thing.  We had more choices in play. And having a stack of chips to toss in, rather than tracking them on paper, helped make that resource concrete.

[Mel White]

So a question that goes to that point - How do you resolve situations where setting stakes right to the heart of the conflict interferes with a character special ability (feat, etc)? Have you encountered any?

I think you can approach the situation from the perspective that the die roll no longer has to indicate success or failure.  Instead, the die roll indicates the degree of success.  The degree of success can deal with time, or 'style', or use/preservation of resources...

Here are a couple more examples from the game at Dreamation. 
First, Shawn's character was in a large audience chamber with the local ruler and visiting dignitaries.  I asked Shawn to make a Spot check.  Success meant that his character observed an assassin sneaking out of the delegation and moving to a stairway.  Failure meant that Shawn's character would have noticed the assassin once the assassin was in place to fire a crossbow.  Shawn's roll succeeded, so the round started with the assassin just at the bottom of the stairs—giving Shawn's character more time to react to the situation.  Had the roll failed, I would have started the scene with the assassin already in place.  What's important is that it didn't matter to me if the assassin was spotted early or late; the 'clue' for this scene was that an assassin was trying to kill the visiting dignitary.
Second, Bill and Mike's characters were in town, relatively late at night, returning to their barracks.  I asked them to make a Listen check.  Success meant that they would hear the metal-on-metal clanging of a smith working unusually late.  Failure would mean that they would hear the pop of a small explosion.  Again, success would give the PCs more time to deal with the situation—including the possibility of stopping the smith from using defective alchemical powder that, if used, would release a fire elemental.  Releasing the fire elemental was not important to me—the important clue from the scene was that the smith was doing a rush job making a dagger for later enchantment. 
In each case, success or failure in the skill role impacted the amount of time available to the PCs to deal with the developing situation.  The skill roles were important and success gave the PCs an advantage in the encounter because the starting conditions would be different. 

These stakes dealt with skills that the characters possessed.  They dealt with the task at hand, which was a small part of the overall conflict, rather than trying to resolve the entire conflict with a single roll.  In other words, in order to avoid setting stakes that make irrelevant character feats or abilities, set stakes that affect the conditions of the conflict, rather than the resolution of the conflict.

Mel

[Judd]

Mel,

Could you talk about the gamers at your table.  I'm assuming Shawn is the Shawn I know from too many Dreamation and Dexcon games to mention but what were the others at your table made up of?

Judd

[Mel White]

The players were my brother Bill White, Dave Petroski, Shawn DeArment--as you guessed, Mike Ferguson, who has written some Dungeon Crawl Classics for Goodman Games, and last but not least, Vincent--whose last name I don't recall.  So it was a good group of players who were more than willing to try both the optional rules from the D&D books as well as the more narrative freedom allowed by the action point currency.  Bill and I, of course, played a lot of D&D in high school, as well as The Fantasy Trip (I have to plug TFT) and lesser amounts of games like Traveller and Champions.  We rarely play together anymore--except at conventions.  Bill and Dave worked together on Ganakagok and Technolust.  Dave, Bill and I had played D&D twice before--once at the DEXCON game I mentioned in my first post.  I've played a handful of games with Shawn at DEXCON, Southern Exposure, and earlier at Dreamation.  I didn't know Mike or Vince until the game.  Vince told us that he had played a little bit of D&D but was generally new to RPGs.  I'd guess he was in his twenties...he seemed to enjoy the game.  I hope he did. 
Mel