Sorcerer and Training Wheels?

[Christopher Kubasik]

Well, remember the guy I showed the books to was the guy who wanted that ol' time D&D.

Here's how I'm looking at it: it's less about "training" new habits or "unlearning" new habits, and more about me making sure to present, clearly, the opportunities available to the players. My hunch is they'll jump at the opprotunities.

Oddly, you touched on the matter I'm most focused on: I have to unlearn my old habits. If anyone is going to lay out those opportunities for the players, it's me. And that means reading through the books, threads and really allowing a sifting of the Sorcerer material before I run it. I won't nail it the first time out -- but something in my head seems to be clicking better than before.

Looking forward to it.

So, besides things I need to be on the lookout for my players, what, as GMs, has anyone bumped into on their path to "getting" the game.


Thanks,

Christopher

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

I'm adding some notes from another thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19697.0 to my list of things to keep in mind as I re-frame my thinking for S&Sword.

A few months back I'd acquired a mint condition copy of the ol' Red Box edition of D&D.  After reading through it again for the first time in what must have been at least fifteen years I decided that I had to play it again....

We'd decided to play as close as possible to the core rules, making only the few changes we thought were important to circumvent obvious no-fun situations.  These are the four rules-changes we set up before play:
...

4. I know you want to check for hidden things, so you don't need to ask.[/b]  Instead of trying to keep some silly connection between player and PC knowlege, I would declare things like; "Ok, roll a d6 to see if you noticed the Secret Door you just walked by.  Combined with an assurance that there would not be any essential secret doors, this rule was immediately declared awesome.
...
[And then a cool example of this:]
Later on, after severeral hirelings had bitten the dust from over-powered monsters, there was a room where the party fights a giant lizard.  The thing just charges at them when they open the door and they all fight in the hall outside.  It was a pretty tough battle, and was pretty close to killing off a lackey or two.  Well, after they'd dispached the thing, both players decided that it was time to get into that room and pry open the old chest that was there.  After a bit of comedy and a couple failed rolls to notice the second lizard that was hanging from the ceiling, ("Roll to see if you notice that lizard hanging from the ceiling") we went into the second fight for a single Turn.  Which meant that all the injured lackeys were in real danger of being eaten, having not regained their HP from the last battle.  Mark's danger of loosing a whole host of Dwarven clansmen to the sneaky gecko kept the tension high and all the dice rolls interesting.

I never would have thought of doing that. But that's so right, isn't it? We get the tension, like an audience member at the movies, of knowing something the character doesn't. More importantly, we offer the players the chance to play off the knowledge that their character doesn't know to make the scene more entertaining.

Completely different than the style of play I grew up with where you used such moments to POUNCE on the player... somewhat bully like.

Christopher

[Christopher Kubasik]

And this, from Old Scratch, on a thread over on RPG.net...

He takes scene framing, which is a concept I get but still feel uncertain about. He makes it seem like the easiest thing to do in the world and -- importantly -- the best gift I could give to the players. Reading his post it no longer seems like something I'm going to screw up or that deserves a lot of pressure. Just something that naturally seems like the right thing to do -- like breathing or being polite.

I agree with Paka, but I take [scene framing] a bit more aggressive...

I create a scene with a conflict or something to be explored (in conjunction with the player) and move from significant moment to significant moment. The minute an event is resolved or it's a cool moment for a cliffhanger I immediately change the scenes.

When I'm in this sort of approach, there's very little wandering about or chatting with innkeeps unless this is something that the players and I have worked out.

The scene normally must do one of the following:

Address or resolve a central conflict to the character

Hit on one  of the themes of the game

Be player requested

Create a connection between the player and the world.

Examples of each:

Address or resolve a central conflict to the character

Kurtzmann the German diplomat has been captured by a rival spy and is aboard the Steam Vessel Henry VIII. There's no "Where am I? Is the door locked? How high are the windows? Can I hide in the latrine and jump out and surprise the guard?" because the player and I both feel that this is a scene that should focus on his encounter with his distant cousin and rival spy master. The player *knows* that this scene is not a puzzle or a trick on the player, but an opportunity for that player to put his character into a tense scene and learn something about the character.

So we immediately cut to a scene where his rival has set up a table for three and is eating and Kurtzmann is escorted across. We both know that the action is going to happen here, not in some dorky dice rolling convention of hiding in a latrine and ambushing guards and reducing the drama to a series of dice rolls: instead this is going to be a battle of the minds, a play on words and blackmail and cunning between the two.

Hit on one  of the themes of the game

Kurtzmann is a Bavarian lord of his castle, a man who climbed the heights and murdered his family members to become lord of his little province. The theme is about the price of power. Kurtzmann then has a scene with a penniless lord who has become a vagrant, hated and reviled and thrown from power. This gives the player (and his character) a chance to reflect upon the price and potential future of the character.

Aggressive frame scene:

"It's winter. The halls are cold and the wind bursts in as your guards tramp forward, throwing a beggar to the floor of the hall." Straight to the scene. The minute the scene is resolved cut to the next scene, which could be any of these other elements.

Be player requested

The player: "Kurtzmann the Mercenary has been fighting in these bushwars for over a year now, I'd like him to have a connection with a family member."

Cut: Straight to a Parisian street where Kurtzmann is on vacation. He hears a voice between him, tenative yet hopeful: "...daddy...?"

Create a connection between the player and the world.

This is where world building comes in, in the service of the players. I usually tie this to conflict or any of the others as well...

Scene cut: "There is a racket out door, rousing you from your sleep. You fling open the shutters and shout out in an imperious voice, only to see a dozen monks of the Lone Goat gathering in your courtyard, shouting out dire pronouncements if their god is not appeased."

The Monks of the Lone Goat suddenly appear, maybe a few facts are thrown about, but they serve only to engage the character in the world.

Yes, many people do cut aggressively, but a lot more sort of let the story meander.

"You're in town... What do you do?" "Now you're at the blacksmiths. He has everything in stock... what do you want". "You can go to the Inn of Six Candles, or Mother Marsh's Boarding House..." "The servant leads you up the hallway... this is your room, this is hers.... bath will be ready in the morning and supper is six pfennigs". That is not aggressive scene-framing, but it does have its place and I still use it.