[Spycraft] Kain cleaves dysfunction from crown to crotch

[Zak Arntson]

Contrary to my last dysfunctional experience, I was able to have a ridiculously cathartic one. I first sent the following to the GM. His response is also included.

----

So, after learning all about my personal gaming warning flags, I found a new group. This time, the game was Spycraft, which uses the d20 system for modern-day superspy espionage.

Before Play
I explained to the GM that I just got out of a group because of incompatibility, which was good to get out in the open. This way, if I want to leave this group, there will be little or no friction.

Prepping Characters
I'd forgotten how much I loathe d20. I figured after GURPS, anything (save Rolemaster) would be a relief. I start rolling a character, so far so good. I can do this. Next comes Feats and Skills. I've picked a Psionic Physical Adept (or something) who I'm modelling loosely on a combination of Howard's Solomon Kane and Vampire Hunter D. Since the setting is James Bond gadget spy meets Masque of the Red Death (in the modern day), this seems appropriate.

Feats drive me nuts, since they tend to be niggling little rules I have to remember. I pick a bloodline feat (specific to the campaign) which is easy enough: Add 2 to Strength, and against dark forces, get a +2 to Will Saves. Dark Forces is general enough. The other noteable feat, Will to Live, which is a complicated little bit about not dying when you should. My character sheet says "See book when near death".

Then it's on to skills. The more curmudgeony with game systems I get, the grumpier I get about skill lists. My current method of doing skills is this: Write down all my class skills, divide my skill points by the number of class skills. Each skill gets this result in points, and I inflate a few skills with the remainder. Oh, and some skills are like "mini-feats" with their own sets of rules to remember. Yikes!

Note to people new to d20: Don't stop there. I had to do some juggling, like get rid of Craf to boost something useful. I also didn't realize that certain skills are used all the time, regardless of whether they are class skills or not. I figured class skills meant good for play and pertinent to your class. Oops, it means pertinent to your class. If you don't have them already, don't forget to bone up on Hide, Move Silently, Spot and probably some others. Though why all spies don't get these as default class skills is beyond me.

Are we done? Well, there's the writing down of various bonuses and such. Not a big deal. Now on to a particular feature of Spycraft, Budget Points and Gadget Points. Before a mission, you get a number of these points to spend on your spy gear. It's easier than money, since 1 Budget Point is roughly equal to $100; the accounting is a little nicer.

I still hate monetary systems, though. Who ever heard of a spy counting out his change? I prefer stat-based money (make a check vs. "wealth") or states of wealth ("poor", "okay", "rich").

Another grudge, based on an excellent Gary Gianni illustration, I'd like Solovei Kain (as he's Russian) to carry a pair of oversized flintlocks. It turns out that it's too expensive with my Budget Points. I'm not sure why a pair of flintlocks would be more expensive than a pair of modern pistols, and what spy can't afford a pair of guns? So I fall back on Vampire Hunter and grab a huge sword. After the sword, I still have a number of Budget Points left over, so I purchase an expensive kit, which eats the rest up. Hooray!

Now comes Gadget Points. With only four to spend, it turns out I can make my sword undetectable to scanners and then give it a zip-line (in case I drop it, or throw it at somebody). That was easy!

So, Character Creation is done. And boy, does spending an entire session not doing anything but creating a character drive me nuts. I game to game, not fill out a tax form.

Actual Play
Our group consists of a driver, a marksman, a magic-wielding computer hacker, a vampire-seeming southern gentlemen and my own Solovei Kain. Our mission? To enter Stalingrad, exhume a corpse, and return to the plane with said corpse. Sounds simple enough.

The first thing that becomes apparent is the lack of a leader. Our group has been thrown together without much thought to who carries what role outside of character class.

First Observation: In party-driven play, especially when the player dynamics haven't sorted themselves out, pick a leader. This should help coordinate decisions and prevent floundering.

The problem becomes very apparent when Solovei and the mage decide to leave the car and approach the cemetery in advance of the car, since we figure a pair of people can do better reconnaisance than a slow-driving car. Unfortunately, we don't communicate well enough and the car winds up driving a circuit around the cemetery while we are still walking towards it. Oops. We really did need a leader and a cohesive plan.

The party meets up at a cemetery gate to discover that the lock has already been broken. We drive into the cemetery, disembark from the car, and find a trio of thugs exhuming the same grave we are looking for! So we do some sneaking (this is where Hide and Move Silently come in), a roll is fumbled, and the thugs look up from their work.

Finally, time for Solovei to shine! Using some skill to get an extra half-action (which I used wrong because of misreading the rules, natch), Solovei springs into action swinging his sword, oblivious to any gunfire that might ensue. There is some shooting, some sword-swinging, a death, a subdual, and a failed footchase.

Observation 3: This is where my expectations and play goals are stymied by the system. As a sword-swinging heavy in a "high-octane" spy game, I'd expect for us to pull off all sorts of cool moves involving martial arts, impossible gunplay, suave one-liners and crazy gadgets. The system doesn't reward that kind of thing, so we wind up with events like, "I shoot at the cel phone!" "Okay, you hit his hand, which starts bleeding" and "I swing my sword!" "You miss."

With that, it's time for me to leave the session, which is fine, because a car chase is about to happen and Solovei would just shoot out the window anyway.

Observation 4: There are roles in the game that don't provide that sense of party dynamics from basic D&D. The driver, for instance, shines when driving. We spent the first two-and-a-half hours not driving. The computer hacker had nothing to do in a cemetery (I suggested we get attacked by computer-powered robot zombies, to no avail) and spent a lot of the session shooting and missing with low rolls.

Post-Game
I did have fun, that exhilaration from roleplaying that we probably all get. But the cons outweighed the pros; which are purely personal and should not reflect the group as a whole. I don't want to give the impression that the group "wasn't playing right" or "I'm better than this." It's a matter of differing play goals.

Short Attention Span: I, and both of my brothers, have this one, especially during gaming. It takes a lot to keep me fully involved. The games that keep me on task are constantly engaging. InSpectres, Dying Earth, that sort of thing. Setting up for play drives me crazy, especially when my character concept is stunted (I had a worse time trying to write up an Archaeologist in D&D). Sitting through initiative, rolling to hit and damage, with a relatively high chance of "you fail/succeed, nothing happens" (fail during combat, succeed during move silently/hide). I'm just not so good with it.

Rules and Expectations: I have a different conception of the spy genre than Spycraft and, likely, the rest of the group. I expect the computer hacker mage to be able to lob some cool spells or hack into the thug's hearse. I expect the marksman to not bang her shin on a tombstone while we sneak around. I'd like a thug to get in a swordfight with Solovei, using his shovel, complete with crazy ninja flipping around.

Spycraft just doesn't allow for this. You have rules for how far you can jump, augmented by psionic skills. How far you can run, in feet, per round, depending on whether you're sneaking or sprinting. If you try to subdue an opponent, you are at a -4 to hit. Wait, how many movies do we see where an agent effortlessly incapacitates a thug?

Group Cohesion: It was our first game, and thus it would make sense for this to be a "practice" round. No penalties for a bad job, and so on. I really like the idea of testing the ground. I would love to see an appointed leader and different chains of command. Unlike the above two cons, this one can be rememdied over time.

In Closing
Will I go back to play again? I don't think so. The people were great, but like my last group, I was a poor fit. I would invite them to join a game of my own, to see what kind of play I enjoy, and to see if any of them bite.

----

What follows is the GM's response:

Hey, I read your assessment of the game, and I
completely agree with you. You do have a rather 7th
Seas style of gaming, and I'd really encourage you to
try that out. Heh. Thing is, you won't catch me dead
trying to play it. It's a style of RPing, not a genre
of game.

If you're serious about not coming back, let me know
so I can call around to see if I can find someone
else. Or hey, if you know anyone you'd think may like
to play, let them know and drop me a line about it.

Ah, I need to explain the award system. Spycraft, like
dnd3, awards XP. I don't particularly care for it, so
I'll be applying the ethos of the game rather than the
points themselves. DnD3 is graded with the intention
that a character goes up in level every four standard
gaming sessions. I figured, if that was the case, I'd
just award Fourths, with some bonuses thrown in for
questions answered and good roleplaying. This game is
only going till April, so I figure there's not much
harm in boosting advancement a tad.

So once a character reaches a status of having
attained or exceeded 'One' then they go up a level.
Any excess fraction is held over for the next level,
obviously.

Other than that, I don't think there's a whole lot to
say. You've written me an email about how you play,
and we have a way we pretty much play, and well...
that's that. If you think you can have fun in our
gaming group, we'd be more than happy to have you.
You're an entertaining guy and fun to hang around
with, it seems.

[Eric J. Boyd]

Hmm, I don't want anyone to waste their time, but I do think just about any game deserves several sessions to really feel out the positives and negatives and see if it's something you would enjoy doing. After all, when everyone is just getting to know each other, it takes a bit of time to get comfortable. Did you discuss gaming agendas and preferences with the coordinator of this group before the first session? That seems to be the best way to determine if they're looking for what you are in play. A good discussion of how the GM sees the group's typical play style (using Forge terms or not) is key to determining a good fit. That said, whatever it was that initially attracted you to this group may be what they usually do (everyone has bad weeks once in a while).

And I don't think you got the best example of the Spycraft system in play, so don't discount the game completely. Spycraft has Action Dice for a reason--to encourage exactly the stuff you were looking to see happen! The GM is encouraged to award Action Dice for immediate use when a player comes up with a cool action, similar to stunting in other games. How the GM missed a major theme of the game is beyond me unless it was his first time out with the system.

On the other hand, Spycraft is not a shared narration game, and d20 definitely has the whiff factor in large amounts. A really good GM can counteract this, but I understand your attention span issues. d20 is crunchy and details most everything, but again that's what action dice are for--to break the normal rules. And a lot of what you're looking for sounds like style and color which requires good description and creativity, not necessarily ignoring the rules.

So I'm not sure if any of that actually helps except to show you that the Spycraft game can achieve a lot of what you wanted to see. From the GM's reply it sounds like he is not very receptive to your position, but, frankly, a face-to-face chat is always better than email for stuff like this so maybe he's just peeved at the implicit criticism. Is he the main (or only) GM for the group? If not, perhaps you can soldier through his occasional games and get the opportunity to run games you enjoy for the group as well. Very little is perfect all the time, after all, take what you can get, etc.

[stingray20166]

Dude, you weren't exhibiting a short attention span.  You were exhibiting boredom!  You're bored by the trappings of the D&D rules and their wargame roots.

[Zak Arntson]

Did you discuss gaming agendas and preferences with the coordinator of this group before the first session? That seems to be the best way to determine if they're looking for what you are in play.

No, but I told him that if he has trouble finding another player to replace mine, I'd pinch hit for another session or two. Provided that we all do exactly that: Discuss play goals and such before the session.

So I'm not sure if any of that actually helps except to show you that the Spycraft game can achieve a lot of what you wanted to see. From the GM's reply it sounds like he is not very receptive to your position, but, frankly, a face-to-face chat is always better than email for stuff like this so maybe he's just peeved at the implicit criticism.

He's not peeved, as far as I can tell. Contrarily, we're bandying some good emails regarding play goals, out-of-character discussion, and so on. I saw some less-than-satisfied play from other players during the session, and we're talking about that as well.  He's receptive to listening to my position, but the fact stands that their group has been gaming together and appears to have a set of play dynamics and goals which doesn't mesh with mine.

But! If I do come in for another couple of games, I will definitely let you all know how it goes. A good scenario for myself would be to give their group the tools to have even more fun, while I disappear into the shadows.

Okay, not shadows, but those RPGs I love.

---

Stingray, I would like to see D&D move away from certain areas. The game would run a lot smoother and with more focus if Skills were removed, leaving only Feats as a customization. It would certainly allow for bigger boxes on the character sheet, and lower my handling time.

I was bored, but that's a symptom of the short attention span. You're right though, the d20 handling time leaves me cold. I'm no good at memorizing to hit values and such, so a single hit roll for me consists of: (Roll) + (Hunt for To Hit box on cluttered char sheet) + (Get success/failure from GM) + (Roll for damage, with bonus provided from another box on the char sheet)

Tangentially, if you have a thing against wargames' complexity, I recently found a counterexample: Hordes of the Things. The rules are all of a few pages, and the actual play handling time is mercifully short.

[MajorKiz]

He's not peeved, as far as I can tell. Contrarily, we're bandying some good emails regarding play goals, out-of-character discussion, and so on. I saw some less-than-satisfied play from other players during the session, and we're talking about that as well.  He's receptive to listening to my position, but the fact stands that their group has been gaming together and appears to have a set of play dynamics and goals which doesn't mesh with mine.

Speaking as one of the other players in that group, I'd agree about the suboptimal first session, but I'm hoping it'll pick up.

I think I always have a problem with low level D20 games, because the PCs all end up being borderline incompetent (maybe good at one thing, sucky at everything else) and there are too many arbitrary restrictions on what you can and can't learn.

But it's what the GM wants to use and he's really fond of it, so I'll give it a shot for awhile.

[Zak Arntson]

I think I always have a problem with low level D20 games, because the PCs all end up being borderline incompetent (maybe good at one thing, sucky at everything else) and there are too many arbitrary restrictions on what you can and can't learn.

Yup. Even starting out at level 3 didn't give us much of an edge. Character generation time increases with starting level. Which means a group is discouraged from initially high-levels by by time constraints (unless people want to spend the first several sessions creating characters) and practically forced to start at low-level.

Have you brought this up with the group? Perhaps you all could find a remedy for it.

But it's what the GM wants to use and he's really fond of it, so I'll give it a shot for awhile.

Has your group discussed what each of you want out of gaming? Playing with the group, you all seemed compatible, though there was some grumbling; I'd hate to think that the players are making concessions without the GM also doing so. I'm not suggesting anything radical, but providing the GM with explicit goals could be a good approach. Things like, "I just want a really good gunfight in a hectic place, like in a car factory."

Of course, I could be reading you all wrong. If the group agrees that they are all having a good time, don't stop doing so for the sake of introspectivity.

[MajorKiz]

Has your group discussed what each of you want out of gaming? Playing with the group, you all seemed compatible, though there was some grumbling; I'd hate to think that the players are making concessions without the GM also doing so. I'm not suggesting anything radical, but providing the GM with explicit goals could be a good approach. Things like, "I just want a really good gunfight in a hectic place, like in a car factory."

Of course, I could be reading you all wrong. If the group agrees that they are all having a good time, don't stop doing so for the sake of introspectivity.

I think it's more like we're fairly patient. We generally go several sessions before deciding whether or not to continue a new campaign, make radical changes to it, or dump it and play something else.

I know once we finish the second mission Sean wants to sit down and discuss potential changes and whether or not folks are having fun. I expect we'll keep playing as long as Sean is still enthusiastic about running, as we're the sort who can squeeze decent RP out of even the crappiest and least appropriate systems. I mean, we played RIFTS for awhile, just because one of us had the urge to run it... sure, we mocked it, house-ruled it, and shook our heads at times when we encountered a particularly bizarre rule, but folks liked their characters enough to keep playing until the GM ran out of ideas.