Low-prep D&D with kickers, flags, conflict webs, and no-death

[Will Grzanich]

Hi all,

   This is my first post here, so apologies in advance if I break any rules, written or otherwise.  Just let me know.

   A couple of weeks ago (yes, I'm just now getting around to writing this), one of my regular D&D buddies, Nik, and I got the chance to try out a few new ideas.  Well, ideas that were new to us, anyway.  It's all old hat to you guys.

   Some quick notes about the differences between that session and typical, by-the-book D&D 3.5:

• Kickers.  I had Nik come up with something that had just happened to his character, something he couldn't ignore.  Something to start the action off.  This would form the foundation of the adventure.
  
• Flags.  He also gave me a list of his character's more interesting and important (both to the player and, as it so happens, the character) traits; I would do my best to push these buttons he laid out for me.
• No death.  Since it was a one-on-one game, character death would mean the end of the game, and that's no fun.  So I took death off the table—for the PC, anyway.  He was still free to kill whoever he wanted.  But the worst that could happen to him would be that he get knocked unconscious...or that he fail in his quest.
• Free nonlethal damage.  The core D&D rules dictate that a character take a -4 penalty to his attack rolls when attacking nonlethally with a lethal weapon.  Nik and I have both played in a couple of D&D games in which such nonlethal attack penalties were house-ruled away, and it really changes the flavor of the game...I'll write up a blog post on it one of these days.
• Low-prep.  One thing I really hate about DMing is the amount of preparation that I'm expected (or that I feel that I need) to do.  The players just have to show up, but I have to spend all week to come up with an adventure?  Screw that.  ;)

   To give credit where credit is due, most of these ideas—nonlethality, conflict webs (see below), and flags and low-prep—came from Deep in the Game, although the implementation may differ somewhat from what he had in mind.  So, special thanks to Chris for the fantastic ideas.

   With that said, on to the game!

   I told Nik to create a character, using whatever means he wanted, at 6th level.  (Next time I do this, I'll just have him [or the players in general] pick the starting level.)  He went with good ol' 4d6-drop-lowest and came up with a lawful neutral monk 4/wizard 2 named Jouric.


   The Kicker

Jouric's master, Yavin, is on his death bed and wants to make amends with his estranged brother before he dies.   Jouric has left the monastery to find the brother and convince him to go to his brothers side before it is too late.  Yavin thinks his brother is still living in the town of Ampliss, but it's been over 30 years since his master last spoke to him.  Jouric can only hope that Yavin's brother still lives in Ampliss and that he will be willing to honor his dieing brothers request.

   Wow.  I've read about more startling and urgent kickers before, I think this is really pretty good, particularly for someone who was new to the idea.  Nice.


   Flags

• Jouric is a half elf and he never knew his parents.  Life at the monastery is all his ever known and he thinks of his master Yavin, as his father.
• Jouric feels that only law and order can bring sustainable peace to the land.
• Jouric believes that a life of discipline and honorable behavior is the path to deeper spiritual growth and true enlightenment.
• Jouric believes that magic a very pure and raw form of the life energies hold existence together and that thru it's study he can gleam the secrets of all things.
• Jouric believes that knowledge is power.
• Jouric looks down on those that act without honor and discipline.
• Jouric isn't always honorable or disciplined.
• Jouric hates those that actively seek to bring instability to the land.
• Jouric doesn't always quite live up to his own standards and feels shame when his temptations get the best of him.

   Again, pretty good, I think!


   The Conflict Web

   All right, now that we've got all that settled, I go and whip up a conflict web.  By the time all's said and done, I've got the PC, Jouric; his master, Yavin; and three NPCs of note.

   

   
• Kither, Yavin's brother. 
• Kessa, Kither's lover.
• Relkan, Kessa's magic instructor.

   I draw a bunch of lines as I think up ways in which these NPCs can interact.  Here's what I end up with:

   

   
• Kither: resents Yavin, loves Kessa, is jealous toward Relkan.  I decide that Yavin, a stern and disciplined monk, got the passionate, wild Kither tossed out of the monastery when they were young.  Also, Kither suspects Kessa is having an affair with Relkan, and would like to see the wizard dead.  Kither's the leader of a gang of cruel bandits that harry travellers to and from Ampliss.
• Kessa: fears Yavin, needs Kither, manipulates Relkan.  Kessa is afraid that if Kither leaves for the monastery with Jouric, he'll never come back.  She doesn't love Kither, so much as need him.  And she's aware of Relkan's feelings for her, and isn't afraid to use them to her advantage.
• Relkan: resents Kither, loves Kessa.  He's practically obsessed with his student, and will do anything for her.  He is a patient man, but he's about to break, and Kither had better not be around when he does.

   This was fun.  I always hated preparing adventures, but this was not only fast—it took me a few hours, tops—but I had a great time doing it.  It's a tense, tight situation, and it's about to blow up, and throwing a PC into the mix is only going to make things worse.  I love it.

   Also, I didn't bother statting the NPCs out.  I came up with each character's alignment, class, and level (Kither – CE Ftr2/Rog2; Kessa – CN Wiz3; Relkan – LN Wiz5), and that was about it.  Everything else I made up on the fly.


   Encounters

   This is D&D, so we need some ass-kickin'.  Rather than script encounters—I don't know what the hell is going to happen, after all—I decide to detail venues in which various encounters can take place.  Taking a page from Mastering Iron Heroes, I try to make each venue as interesting as I can, with various "action zones"—parts of the environment PCs can interact with to help them win battles.  Thrown plates of food in the tavern will blind enemies; the big fallen tree at the top of the hill can be rolled down, crushing foes beneath it.  Etc, etc.  This was kind of fun, too.  Much better than drawing dungeons on graph paper.


   The Game

   The game itself went pretty well.  I'll spare you the he-did-this-then-she-did-that and just summarize: Jouric arrived in Ampliss, things blew up in his face, and Kither ended up getting himself killed by Relkan's lightning bolt spell.  Jouric subdued Kessa and Relkan, who were carted away by the town magistrate's guard.  Jouric slung Kither's body over his horse and rode off to the monastery.


   Problems

   I talked with Nik after the game, and here are the problems we identified:

   

   
• I suck at improvising.  Several times, I had to stop, excuse myself, and think about what a given NPC would do or say in response to the PC's actions or words.  Getting up to go to the bathroom, or make a cup of tea, or any excuse to get a break to think things through.  This wasn't too big a deal, but it kind of broke the flow of the game, and I'd like to do better.  I think part of the problem was not knowing my NPCs well enough, and thus I had a hard time switching between them as Nik interacted with them.
• Nik didn't have much chance to affect the flow of events.  I didn't railroad, of course, but the situation was almost doomed to end in one way: with Kither, Kessa, and Relkan, one way or another, all at each other's throats.  Nik felt like things happened too quickly, and that they happened around him, and that there wasn't much he could do.  I think he's right, and I'm not sure how to improve on this...maybe just keep it in mind next time.
• Flags.  I feel like I didn't do a good enough job of hitting them; Nik felt like he didn't do a good enough job of keeping them in mind.  I told him that he couldn't really do things wrong, here.  If there's a problem, it's probably me.  Or the game, which I'm starting to suspect—D&D doesn't mechanically reward the hitting (or inclusion) of flags, so it's easy to ignore or forget them.  Does anyone have any experience with integrating flags into D&D mechanically?  I've read Clinton's Sweet20 XP rules...any other ideas?

   That's about it.  Not bad, actually...only three problems out of what feels like a whole new kind of game for me.  And we both had a great time, anyway.  I'm actually looking forward to GMing again!


   Thanks for reading—what a long post!  Please let me know what you think about all this.

   -Will

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Will.

Sounds really cool!  I'm really interesting in the house-rules that people use for D&D, so it's a great read for me.  And, most important, it sounds like you had a good time.

What kind of feedback would you like from this post?  Would you like us to acknowledge your awesomeness, reassure you about the stuff you're worried about, try to figure out strategies to hit the flags better, brainstorm about future situations, or something else?  All of these are totally fine and legitimate goals for an Actual Play post (and I'm sure Ron will correct me if they aren't) but I just want to know before we move on.

yrs--
--Ben

[Will Grzanich]

Hi Ben,

I guess I had a few goals here. 

First, I wanted to share the experience with other gamers, in case they find it useful.  I suppose there isn't much in my post that hasn't been said elsewhere, but good ideas are worth repeating, and there aren't actually all that many recountings of the application of these techniques to D&D.

Second, I wanted to see if anyone else has had similar experiences, or overcome problems similar to the ones I encountered, or even just has ideas about how to fix said problems.

Third, my awesomeness is always prepared to be acknowledged.  ;)

So, yeah, in other words, primarily the flag-hitting and brainstorming stuff, although I'm up for any kind of discussion.  I've lurked for a while and you guys are generally pretty smart and experienced; I thought I'd take advantage of that.  :)

Thanks!

-Will

[TonyLB]

Hey Will!  Welcome, welcome!

Sounds like you had an awesome game, and most important of all (to my way of thinking) you had fun preparing it and playing it yourself.  That's a big deal.

In terms of different viewpoints (and maybe helpful tips ... who knows) I will say this:  When I read your conflict web I found myself thinking "Huh ... none of these people have opinions or strong feelings toward Jouric ... that seems odd."  And then I read ...

• Nik didn't have much chance to affect the flow of events. I didn't railroad, of course, but the situation was almost doomed to end in one way: with Kither, Kessa, and Relkan, one way or another, all at each other's throats. Nik felt like things happened too quickly, and that they happened around him, and that there wasn't much he could do. I think he's right, and I'm not sure how to improve on this...maybe just keep it in mind next time.

... and I thought to myself "Those look connected, to my eye at least."  Does that make sense?

[Will Grzanich]

Thanks for the welcome, Tony!

In terms of different viewpoints (and maybe helpful tips ... who knows) I will say this:  When I read your conflict web I found myself thinking "Huh ... none of these people have opinions or strong feelings toward Jouric ... that seems odd."  And then I read ...

• Nik didn't have much chance to affect the flow of events. I didn't railroad, of course, but the situation was almost doomed to end in one way: with Kither, Kessa, and Relkan, one way or another, all at each other's throats. Nik felt like things happened too quickly, and that they happened around him, and that there wasn't much he could do. I think he's right, and I'm not sure how to improve on this...maybe just keep it in mind next time.

... and I thought to myself "Those look connected, to my eye at least."  Does that make sense?

Very much so.  See, this is what I'm talking about.  Smart.  ;)

Thanks for pointing that out.  :)  Maybe it was the way the kicker was stated, but it felt like Jouric didn't so much as know any of the people involved except for Yavin.  But I see now that there's no reason why that has to be the case.  Maybe if I'd asked a few more questions about Jouric's involvement with the Yavin-Kither situation, it would have been easier to tie Jouric into the web.  (As it was, the only link he had was with Yavin, whom he had a duty to serve.)

Again, thanks for the insight, Tony.  Let me know if you have any ideas of your own on how I could have tied Jouric into the web.  :)

-Will

[Bankuei]

Hi Will,

Glad things worked well for you!  In line with Tony's comment, did any of the NPCs actively try to get Jouric to help them, trick him into helping them, try to keep him out of the way, or get rid of him from the picture completely?  The Conflict Web builds a humming little problem, but you also need to make it "sticky" for the PCs- you don't want the problems to resolve themselves while the PCs stand and watch- think instead of it being a game of volleyball between the NPCs- and they're using any PCs as volleyballs to achieve their goals...

Chris

[TonyLB]

Well, the way I would tie Jouric in is simply because he is Yavin's student ... and Kither, at the very least, could have strong opinions about anyone who fits that description.  He doesn't need justification, it's unreasoning prejudice!  Yay!

[Will Grzanich]

Hi Chris,

Hi Will,

Glad things worked well for you!  In line with Tony's comment, did any of the NPCs actively try to get Jouric to help them, trick him into helping them, try to keep him out of the way, or get rid of him from the picture completely?

Yes, absolutely!  Kither wanted Jouric to leave him alone, and pretty much avoided him.  Kessa was a perfect manipulative bitch, and tried to convince Jouric to go away; when that didn't work, she got Relkan to try to kill him, by pretending Jouric had roughed her up; when that didn't work, she offered him fabulous prizes in the form of magic items, if he would only go away.  Relkan would do what he could to help Jouric if it meant getting Kither out of town, but he also wanted to kill Kither, so that would be tricky.

I rather think Kessa was the one thing I really nailed in this game.  :)

The Conflict Web builds a humming little problem, but you also need to make it "sticky" for the PCs- you don't want the problems to resolve themselves while the PCs stand and watch- think instead of it being a game of volleyball between the NPCs- and they're using any PCs as volleyballs to achieve their goals...

Yes, I like, I like.  I think I was on the right track with Kessa, but Kither and Relkan were a little too uninvolved with Jouric.

Thanks for your response (and, of course, the great ideas on your blog)!

-Will

[Will Grzanich]

Hi Tony,

Well, the way I would tie Jouric in is simply because he is Yavin's student ... and Kither, at the very least, could have strong opinions about anyone who fits that description.  He doesn't need justification, it's unreasoning prejudice!  Yay!

Yeah, good call.  Kither was altogether too apathetic toward Jouric.  He had his bandit mooks try to beat him up a few times, but only to get him off his back.  More outright animosity would have been better.

Thanks!

-Will

[Bankuei]

Hi Will,

A key point to keep in mind is that if one person wants to avoid the PCs, that has to be the person(s) to whom the PCs -need- to see.  Given the smallness of your web there, you don't want more than 1 "avoider" and you want the other NPCs aiming the PCs towards that character.

Chris

[donbaloo]

Hi Will.  Your subject heading naturally roped me in as I'm old D&Der who's trying to branch out into some of these new areas and its been hard.  I'm especially interested in one aspect of your post as its been a huge sticking point for me as well.

I suck at improvising.  Several times, I had to stop, excuse myself, and think about what a given NPC would do or say in response to the PC's actions or words.  Getting up to go to the bathroom, or make a cup of tea, or any excuse to get a break to think things through.  This wasn't too big a deal, but it kind of broke the flow of the game, and I'd like to do better.  I think part of the problem was not knowing my NPCs well enough, and thus I had a hard time switching between them as Nik interacted with them.

I share your pain here.  Even when trying these new games with just my wife and a very close friend I admit that I come to the table with a good deal of anxiety.  I'm accustomed to a lot of organization and prep beforehand so when I come to the table with only a list of NPCs and their motivations its frightening...even in a comfortable social circle (or triangle as it was).  That's led me to wonder for some time now if this improv ability is something that just comes naturally to folks or if it is a skill that builds with time.  From my point of view right now, most of the indie games I'm experimenting with have a baseline expectation of improv that is higher than we're accustomed.  Its logical though that "low prep" would necessarily equate to "high improv".

Anyway, that's just one point of your post that really interested me and I'd like to hear more about your feelings concerning "I suck at improv."  At this point do you have any personal thoughts towards how much that effected your game and what you plan to do to maybe improve that skill (if indeed it is a skill)?

[Matthew Glover]

That's led me to wonder for some time now if this improv ability is something that just comes naturally to folks or if it is a skill that builds with time.

Improvisation is absolutely a learned skill.  You can probably even take classes. Sometimes it seems like some people are "naturally" better at it, but I'd put forward that those people just managed to learn a few tricks already.  I'll bet that you're almost certainly an old hand at at least one kind of improv.  How much preparation do you do when you play in a game?  You spend all night talking as your character and making on-the-spot decisions for that character.  That's all improvised, right?

I already hear people saying "But that's different..." and I'll agree that it is, but it's in the same ballpark.

[Will Grzanich]

Hi Chris,

I share your pain here.  Even when trying these new games with just my wife and a very close friend I admit that I come to the table with a good deal of anxiety.  I'm accustomed to a lot of organization and prep beforehand so when I come to the table with only a list of NPCs and their motivations its frightening...even in a comfortable social circle (or triangle as it was).

Yeah, that's me, too.  This wasn't too bad -- it was just one player with whom I was already comfortable...he's an easygoing guy.  I was still pretty nervous, though.  (But it was just sublime not having to pour all my free time into "designing" the "adventure.")

That's led me to wonder for some time now if this improv ability is something that just comes naturally to folks or if it is a skill that builds with time.  From my point of view right now, most of the indie games I'm experimenting with have a baseline expectation of improv that is higher than we're accustomed.  Its logical though that "low prep" would necessarily equate to "high improv".

Anyway, that's just one point of your post that really interested me and I'd like to hear more about your feelings concerning "I suck at improv."  At this point do you have any personal thoughts towards how much that effected your game and what you plan to do to maybe improve that skill (if indeed it is a skill)?

I expect it's just like painting, writing, or anything else: a mix of natural talent and learned skill.  As far as how to improve it, I'm not entirely sure.  Practice, of course.  Knowing the various characters well would probably help.  Perhaps sticking with simple, strong personalities to begin with?  It may mean lots of stereotypes at first, but if it helps build the creative muscle, it might be worth it.

-Will

[BrendanC]

Hi Will,

I just started a very similar game last week - D&D 3.0, using kickers and a relationship map to drive the plot. I ran into some of the same problems, too - mainly that I spent a lot of time hesitating and it slowed the game WAY down. In my post-game analysis, I realized that a lot of my problem was that my map didn't extend quite far enough (there were NPCs that became important that I hadn't expected to come into it at all) and that the major NPCs in the map weren't fleshed out as far as they should have been.

I'd say you're right, that coming up with at least decent "sketch" of personality for major NPCs would go a long way toward making the game run more smoothly.

Good luck.

[Warren]

Knowing the various characters well would probably help.  Perhaps sticking with simple, strong personalities to begin with?  It may mean lots of stereotypes at first, but if it helps build the creative muscle, it might be worth it.

One thing that I think may help (it was certainly a revelation to me) with dealing with NPCs "on the fly": Stereotypes are your friend. I used to create lengthy backstories and conflicting emotions for my NPCs in some games, and I found it just made life harder for me and more "muddied" for the players, as I found it hard to play each NPC "clearly".

Then later (a town for Dogs in the Vineyard, as it happens, but that's not really important), I had NPCs which had simple one-sentence motivations and roles like "Stressed-out housewife, wants the Dogs to forgive her sins." and "Corrupt steward, wants the Dogs to keep him living the easy life." And they were a lot easier to play and made the NPCs more memorable and I believe the game was more entertaining for it. If you keep recurring NPCs around, they can gain depth as they interact with the PCs and you get more comfortable with playing them.