Plodding away with 3e... why? (WARNING: LONG!)

[Malechi]

Hi there,

This is my first Forge post, so please be gentle.  I think I get *how* I'm supposed to post here (after reading a rather amusing blurtting post by another Forge-N00b) so I'll give it a shot.

Here's the skinny..
First and foremost, I'm a D&D player, have been since I was fourteen, which is about well..fourteen years ago.  Not the longest I know, but long enough to know what I like.  Anyway, secondly, I'm a lazy D&D DM, my games tend to be light on prep (at least the formalized prep you see some DMs get into..you know, three hours of prep for every hour type of DMs) and heavy on the RPing between characters, both PC and NPC.  Why D&D? well..its there, its (relatively) easy to get into and there's lots of Cool Stuff(tm) to use for it (which I've purchased incidentally, yet rarely actually used).  I'd say my players have a similar attitude towards it..

Cut to last weekends session... *starwipe*

After deciding my brain needed a holiday from my own world of Tanalaeth (I've been slaving over this world since 1996, sometimes its the most frustrating thing in the world..sometimes its purely amazing for me).  The "holiday" from my own world, entails us moving to Forgotten Realms for some "Cross-World" shennanigans.  It was driven by the plot and the history of the world so it made some kind of sense to me at the time.  Now Tanalaeth (my world if you recall) is a kind of "low-fantasy" world that deals with the central theme (If thats the right term) of "all roads to hell are paved with good intentions".  Its very cathartic for me.. but I digress..   Its quite the opposite of the Realms and I though it would liven up the game a bit to transport the party across to the Realms for a bit.. however it was an unmitigated disaster!

Firstly, players were bored..bored, bored, bored.. and when they weren't bored, they'd comment on how they thought the Realms were some tired, camped up parody of a fantasy world.  Then I started to think about it.. I'd been trying to "grittify" the 3e ruleset so that Tanalaeth would work the way I wanted it to.  So many houserules had been plonked onto it, just so Magic and healing wasn't as useful or important.. IMPOSSIBLE!  As I should have known 3e requires magic to be stable over the 20 levels or so it preaches.

My point? well.. after seeing the players faces during a battle that should have been somewhat climactic, I almost cried.  This battle should have meant something to them... it should have had that visceral impact and levity that you feel when your loved ones are threatened.  But it was "15..a hit..I do... 11 points of damage...yay"

so.. dull and lifeless... and bland.. Now I never thought I'd say this, but D&D 3e just blows goats as far as I'm concerned.. It holds no wonder, excitement or awe for me, or my players anymore.. Our sessions have become tired exercises in hiding from the ruleset so we can get a story told. Now I'm not sure I truly understand the GNS lingo yet, but I'm thinking my games are probably centred more around the Narrativist/Simulationist areas...there's little XP given out most of the time or at least I feel that its so arbitrary that I give out a number I make up in my head when the players ask for XP...Why? because I just don't feel their characters have done anything truly worth it, or the story we're putting together doesn't seem to work or ..Something... I probably sound confused... confused like a baby who's just been spanked on the arse after being born.. there is a whole other world besides d20 that I'm stepping into now that I was never naffed to have a look at before (besides purchasing Nobilis..mostly due to its sheer beauty).  

In any case, I've done a bit of reading here and on RPG.net and decided that the game best suited to my style is probably tRoS...I've ordered it and started building a new world that will reflect its features best.... the players are excited (mostly by the Spiritual Attributes feature) for the first time in months and I'm hoping this will signal a new era in our gaming...

I'd like to congratulate Jake Norwood for supporting his game in such a wonderful manner.. even though I've never even touched the book yet, your comments here and on RPG.net sold it for me straight away.  You've come up with a winner here...

I'll keep you all posted on my foray into indie-rpgs (if you're at all interseted in listening to a converted ex-WoTC sycophant's ramblings)...

cheers

Jason

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jason,

Welcome, and what a great post. I especially appreciate that the "blows goats" observation is laid where it belongs - at you and your group's preferences of play, rather than being essential to D&D3E for anyone. I agree, based on your description, that TROS seems very much to be the game for you. (If it's too Narrativist-y, though, then check out Arrowflight and The Burning Wheel.)

Here's my question: what really prompted you to try out the Forgotten Realms crossover? Think back to your first sense of inspiration to do so. On the face of it, given that you and your players really enjoy both Tanalaeth and the degree of rules-bending you all have to do to play in it, it seems awfully odd to try a 90-degree, hard-to-port, ensign, like that. What was going on in your mind?

Best,
Ron

[Malechi]

Thanks for the encouragement Ron, (jeez these boards are just too cool aren't they?) ;)

In relation to your question, I think the primary reason I chose to transfer it over to FR for a few sessions was tied to some really annoying loose-ends I'd had in my world.  Basically Tanalaeth is a di-Theistic(?) world.. two gods, one good, one bad.  Instead of laying a whole textbook onto players to read, I think revealing the world to them within the game, at their pace is much more rewarding.  An idea that I'd been toying with for a while was that these two gods were at some stage, mortal rivals.  The good god (known lamely enough as "The Great One") was called Elih (Ee-lai) and the bad god ("The Dark One") known as Malevai.  However, I wanted to continue with the "all roads to hell.." motif/theme and put the players in a position where they have the chance to either a) start the evil off, or b) discover just who this evil was and decide...kill him before he turns into their worlds Big-Bad(tm) or try to convert him... I suppose I could have just let them time-travel directly, but it just didn't sit well with me.

Previous to running Tanalaeth, I'd run a game set in FR that went for about 18 months.  One of the characters in that game, Malechi, always had a bit of a dilemma on his hands, tempted to do the easy thing, or go the hard way and profit less.   Anyway, I really liked the character, and as I had just started uni again after a five year break, I though I needed a bit of a "no-brainer" as far as a setting was concerned (Tanalaeth is sometimes a very draining experience for me... Perhaps I'm a freak, but as I mentioned before, its a somewhat cathartic experience at times, allowing me to have an outlet for frustration (not directly directed at players mind you), anger, pain etc... (does that sound a little too wanky?) )
So I plonk them in FR and use some "Planar/Time-travel" DM-magic..Tadaa... instant..ramen..

Anyway, thats the long- and the well long of it.  I got a chance to revisit the realms and found them to be a shallow, campy parody of what I remember.  At least compared to what I had been serving up on a weekly basis to my players.  I'll say this now, my FR stuff is getting confined to the next garage sale... Anyone in Perth, Western Australia interested?

cheers

Jason :)

Edited: spellink ;)

P.S.  When I mentioned the loose ends above, I should also note that my frustration as a DM at the internal consistency of my own world was getting more and more of an issue.  This is the reason I've decided to start a new world for tRoS instead of porting Tanalaeth over.  I'd painted myself into so many corners just to suit d20 that it was really bugging me... the Realms crossover provided an easy, if somewhat lame solution to it I guess...

[Bankuei]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for a very insightful post.  As Ron put it, roleplaying is very much like a band jam session, sometimes you feel it and you get deep into it, and sometimes the energy is just dead.  I personally also liken it to sex, from the need to be able to pick up those nonverbal clues about people's moods and attitudes, and forcing it when the spark ain't there, well, you just get bad sex.

The key point here is that whatever is "really cool" to your players just wasn't happening in FR, and if you can find out what that spark is, you'll have something to really make things fly.  Unfortunately, most people couldn't identify what it is that they find "really cool", most of the time either being unable to verbalize it or being unable to properly identify it.  The best way to figure it out is think of the best sessions you had and try to remember what the common theme amongst them was that got the players hyped.

Chris

[Valamir]

Jason, what inspires me about your post is the level of proactivity you and your play group are explifying.  It may have taken 14 years to reach the end of your rope with the various D&D incarnations, but when you did you didn't pitch a hissy fit about what a crappy game it is (at least not it seems for very long), you didn't point fingers at your players no longer being as good as they once were, and you didn't decide to just give up on gaming.

Instead you looked around, said "dang, there's alot more out there besides D&D" did some research and decided to give a new game a try.  Not only that but you took a world you'd been developing for almost 10 years and said "ok, I'm done with that...lets go somewhere else".

Frankly, I'm pretty floored by that.  So many groups would have just continued to plod endlessly on until everyone got so sick of the mess they quit gaming forever (or at least a good long while as several people here can attest to).  I applaud you.

In addition to TROS (which is fabulous btw, and has a very active forum here I'm sure you've already found), I'd strongly recommend picking up Sorcerer & Sword.  There's a current thread on Sorcerer on RPG.Net right now, which should give you a good idea why I recommend it.

I can't think of a better single reference for how to completely overhaul the way you think about GMing and playing fantasy than that book.  Its a supplement to Sorcerer, but really applicable to running any sword and sorcery type of game.

[Malechi]

Oooh, I really like the sound of Sorcerer & Sword, just what I'm looking for, or have been looking for for years.  

Out of curiosity, my FLGS in Perth, Western Australia doesn't have a copy of it and I'm really keen to get a better grasp of the concept of Kickers, Bangs and Scene Framing, can anyone point me to relevant threads where an explanation exists?

Kickers, as I understand from my perusing this site and RPG.net, are scenes or situations, or a recent event in a PC's life that the player writes that "kicks" off the action? the DM/GM doesn't have any influence (other than providing the setting and possibly relevant NPCs for that area???) on what is written and is then given the task of putting that into play from the very beginning... Sounds very challenging, and exciting at the same time.

Bangs I'm less sure on, Plot events...done by the GM? thats about the extent of my understanding..I could say even less about Scene Framing and a bajillion other bits of jargon to do with Narrativist roleplaying.. I do however really like the idea of a Nar/Sim game with more elements of Nar thrown in..

Lastly, does anyone have any tips, hints or tricks to pass on to a reformed D&D player with regards to this?

cheers

Jase :)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

That's a hole-in-one for the Kicker definition, and yeah, it's challenging. Especially because Narrativist play does not mean, necessarily, improvisational play regarding the setting and back-story. Hence the GM's prep work, pre-Kicker, has to get warped and occasionally beaten to fit the Kickers (unless the reverse re: the characters, which is what more commonly happens).

As for Bangs, the best way to understand them is to consider moments of player-character decisions, about anything really, but significant decisions. From Sorcerer & Sword: "A clue is not a Bang if all it does is lead to another clue." Substitute fight, locale, revelation, and whatever else into those two "clues" in that sentence, and you've got the idea. A Bang means the GM has facilitated - often with unexpected, surprising, unsettling, or Premise-changing methods - the player to make the protagonist "all he can be," in terms of decisions.

Australia, eh? Your game store's distributor can order any Sorcerer stuff, no problem - if the game store guy says otherwise, he's fibbing. Use the magic words "international distributors" and even better, "Tundra Sales Organization." Don't let him waffle; stand there until he puts down the phone and tells you it's on its way.

Or there's always direct order, from either my website for Sorcerer stuff, or the Driftwood Publishing site for TROS.

But enough promo, back to play. Any thread references, anyone?

Best,
Ron

[hardcoremoose]

Hey there,

We had a nice little discussion about scene framing once.  Here's the link:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1361&highlight=scene+framing

Scene Framing is both exactly what it sounds like and not at all what you think it is.  I doubt the last word has been written on this particular subject...

- Scott

[Malechi]

Thanks for that link Scott, it really got me thinking...

Ok... I'm going to cast a few questions out here, and some interpretations... be sure to kill me quickly if I'm too far off the scent here..

Scene Framing, Kickers and Bangs, as I now "understand" them, seem to be closely inter-related.  Perhaps Bangs and Scene Framing moreso, and Kickers and Scene Framing in an inverse fashion.  What do I mean? well, as Ron pointed out a Bang is a point or event where the GM facilitates an important decision from the character.. its obviously a little more involved than that, but in a nutshell I'm feeling as if thats it.  Which to me sounds very much like Scene Framing.  From Scott's post in the other thread mentioned, you posit a description of an event, or more accurately a situation, Point A, then the players take the situation to Point B, thus ending the Scene.  Am I right in thinking that the two are very similar if not the same beast?

As for Scene Framing and Kickers, it seems to be almost the same, though reversed.  The player plonks down a situation or scene, Point A and the GM responds to that, driving the game into first gear, Point B.  I could be way off track and misunderstanding Kickers a bit here.  In fact, I have a feeling the GM has even less to do in the Kicker than that, thus removing the similarity between it and a Framed Scene...

Sorry if this is off-topic, the lines here are a little blurred for me ;)

cheers

Jase :)

[hardcoremoose]

The lines are a little blurry, only insofar as any productive new information we articulate here will be damn hard to search on in the future (and we certainly love referring people to these kinds of threads).

I don't think Scenes and Bangs are exactly the same thing, but they're certainly close.  Maybe so close that you could say the latter is a subset of the former, although I'm certainly not willing to co-opt Ron's terminology in that way.  ;)

In any case, I say they're not the same thing only because sometimes, even in narrativism, there may be scenes that amount to nothing more than finding the clue that leads to the next clue.  Or a fight that provides some valuable bit of information, but no real decision of import.  This stuff amounts to exposition, and a little of it goes a long way, but it is possible to use to good effect.

But when it does come to Bangs, scene framing is the GM's most powerful tool.  It's a way to ensure that the Bang happens, that the players don't somehow miss it or ignore it.  If they need to be somewhere to witness some terrible event, or to encounter some NPC, or whatever, scene framing is how you make that happen.  That's all scene framing is...a way for the GM to deliver information to the players so that something interesting can happen.  And as Ron points out, Bangs are the most interesting things that can happen.

- Scott

[Bankuei]

Hi Jason,

Here's my take on Scene Framing...

-Interesting events vs. Location

Many gamers are used to what I call "Location focused" gaming.  That is, the most important factor in determining what happens is the location of your character.  This is probably a holdover from dungeoncrawling.  The problem with this is that it becomes a game of trying to either herd PCs to the location where nifty things are happening("But you really should check out the creepy castle!"), or getting those interesting things to come to the players.  The second issue is that it becomes a waste of time.  If you've ever played a videogame with a decent sized world, you'll quickly realize that walking from point A to point B all the time eats up a ridiculous amount of time.

What Scene Framing does is put Interesting Events as the focus and pushes location down the list of importance.  It requires that the GM let go of the linear concept of location, location, location, and that the players be willing to let go of their constant power over their characters' locations.  So instead of having the players describe searching each room in the castle, you skip right to the point where they find the secret door, the "interesting twist".

-The Set Up

Scenes should always begin with something interesting, and end with something interesting if possible

This is my personal rule.  That interesting thing could be a Bang, or a foreshadowing of events or information that will lead to a Bang, or maybe just some plain old action.  When you start scenes with something interesting, then it gives momentum and energy to the game.  The players react to it.  When you feel things slowing down, you either need to inject another interesting thing and cut the scene(cliffhanger style) or else just cut it ASAP.  The key to this is to set up stuff that you know will result in some interesting play, especially if you don't know what the outcome will be like.

So to give you a solid example, I'll use my first experience of Scene Framing, from our good friend Clinton who was GM'ing a Riddle of Steel game...

Clinton scene framed my character in confession, with another PC(a trickster sort) impersonating the priest.  He set up our location, and said, "Go!", and that was it!  He had no idea what the two of use would do, nor what sort of outcome would occur.  Nonetheless, we all knew that whatever happened would be interesting!  

Now, not all scenes are going to be so PC focused, but the point that was made to me in seeing that is how much the GM can setup a good point A determines how much the players have to work with to make a good point B.

Chris

[Bankuei]

Hi Scott,

I think you've best described scene framing during this exchange:

That specific thing was your description of "GM Kickers". Start the players out with some action, at sea in a storm, or whatever. It's real close to what Ron calls Bangs, and demonstrates a use of a technique called scene framing, that when used the way I describe, most people balk and cower.

The way I do it, I describe a scene, much like what you did, with something going on that can't really be ignored. When it's been played out or seems like it isn't going anywhere else, I call cut, and then I describe another such scene. And that's how the whole game goes.

That freaks people out. They're used to saying "my character goes here" or "I would never go there" or "how did I get here" or "what happened during those two days in between scenes". And I just sort of shrug my shoulders. It's not railroading. Railroading is about getting them from point A to point B. I gave them point A. They find they're own point B. When they've done that, I take that input and come up with a new point A. I never have this shit planned out. I may have a couple scenes in mind, but it's all about giving them situations where shit will happen, and then figuring out what other shit is going to happen because of that, and so on. It works especially good in player driven games, like Sorcerer, where the players can fuck so much shit up so fast the GM needs some recourse.

But players freak out. They perceive absolute control over their character's whereabouts as some unwritten golden rule. They could never conceive of playing a game where the GM just tells them "You're being drug from a jail cell...". "What did I do?", they ask, or "How'd I get arrested?". "I would've fought them...look at my Firearms score!" or (to use Sorcerer's terms) "Wouldn't my demon have helped me out?".

My response to these players - my players - is this: "We've played the other way for so long, let's try this. What's it gonna' hurt?"

And there's no good answer to that besides "It's not." I can barely think of anything less innocuous than simple recreations like roleplaying games, so trying a new one, or playing an existing one a little differently than your used to, is, at worst, a risk of an evening's worth of free time. That's not much to ask for among friends.

Sorry to nab pretty much your whole post from rpg.net, but it's so on point here that I felt it should be included for demonstration.

Chris