In the game I am designing, I would like for the system to help GMs in constructing Challenges (in the Gamist sense).

Does anyone know of any games out there that do a good job of this?

Challenges in my game are intended to adhere to the following parameters:
1) all aspects of the situation must not violate the logic of the world (said logic involves medieval tech, pragmatic human cultures, invading orcs, and pockets of malicious magical evil hidden away from most folks' awareness)
2) situations must cover a variety of difficulty levels (so they don't feel "rigged" -- the players shouldn't expect every enemy to be something they can kill)
3) situations must allow a variety of choices by the players as to the precise nature of their Mission (it could be a useful and worthwhile mission to kidnap one orc; or kill 2 orcs; or track 10 orcs and rally locals to attack them; or scout the camp of 100 orcs and persuade the government to call in the legions.  The players get to choose.  If they want to walk away from 100 orcs without doing anything, that's fine.  If they want to fight them, they should all die.)

Besides simply recommending to GMs that they just do the above, I would like to provide as much assistance as possible in this potentially challenging task.  Making step #3 happen is where I suspect some system could be of most help.

Note:
I currently have one mechanic in place to ensure that Challenges are of varying difficulty levels.  The GM is instructed on an "average Lendrhald difficulty level", and then told to roll 2d6, with the outlier rolls making the Challenge easier than average or harder than average.

Does your core game feature leveled characters? Or, does it use a more open experience system?

I only ask this because level based experience systems give characters a nice incremental scale that can be reflected through challenge difficulties.

This is a difficulty 7 task, a level 7 character should have a 50-50 chance of passing it.

If you assume that tag teaming characters have an innate bonus because they have complimentary strengths and weaknesses...

Here we have two level 3 characters, that means a difficulty 6 challenge is about right. But since there's an extra character involved we'll push it up a notch to a difficulty 7 challenge.

If you characters don't come down to a simple level based progression, things get trickier.

Arcadia: the Wild hunt had a nice system of "Waylays" which were complications that the characters encountered as the moved around the game as they completed their quests. There were usually easy ways to face a waylay, or hard ways. You could face off against a troll in combat, but you'd probably get flattened, or you could try to trick him through your cunning...I don't remember specifics, but there was some kind of rule where if you fought him and won, you'd remove him from the game; while if you tricked him, you'd get past him as an obstacle but others might have to face him later (he'd become a recurring villain).

V 

Agon comes to mind when I think of gamist challenge building.

d20 too but I've never been particularly good at that aspect of that game, so perhaps I'm not the one to say.

Beast Hunters also might be well worth checking out.

Good luck, David!

Judd,

I don't remember d20 actually showing the GM, "Here's how to build a good challenge."  Is there some chapter of some book that I'm blanking on?  I actually have some d20 books, if you could help point me to the right place that'd be awesome...

I'll check out Agon and Beast Hunters; thanks!

Michael,

I'm fine with my current 2d6 mechanic.  I guess I should clarify that the difficulty level is evaluated relative to the world (i.e., w.r.t. an "average" dangerous mission), not to the characters.  The difficulty range of almost all missions (unless you roll a 12, basically) will roughly correspond to the range of character improvement, such that starting characters can just "beat" the easiest mission, while played-for-years characters can just "beat" the (nearly) toughest mission.  I want Competence 3 parties to run into Difficulty 1-8 challenges at random.  The next step is ensuring that they still have something fun to do when they hit that Difficulty 7 challenge.  So, I hope to design a system that helps GMs write those options into that challenge.  Discussing that is the purpose of this thread.

The mechanic you describe from Arcadia sounds appropriate to a structured game, but maybe not to an open-ended one where the characters can go wherever and do whatever they want (which my game is).  Varying levels of reward depending on how you tackle a challenge is definitely a good direction to go in, though (as long as players are made aware of that).

One idea I'm pondering is having set pay rates.  Money is important in my game.  It gets you gear to fight with.  Most characters start out with little money and little gear.  The Empire definitely pays adventurers to take care of minor threats to civilized areas.  I was thinking that perhaps they pay a more for some achievements (utterly destroy evil force) than others (spy on evil force, give report of their capabilities & movements).  This should get me partway where I want to go... but not all the way, I don't think.

IIRC, both Agon and Beast Hunters use a resource-limited GM. i.e., for every unit of play (mission, adventure, hunt, etc.) the GM has only so many resources to spend on opposition. That may not fit so well with the "go wherever and do whatever" style of game you want.

D&D has some text in the DMG about calibrating challenges. NPCs have Challenge Ratings (CRs) based on race and class. If the encounter is with onlyone NPC, then the NPCs CR is the Encounter Level. When you put together several NPCs, there are rules that determine the resulting EL (it's not strictly additive, and it's not well-defined for mixed-CR encounters). Assuming a party of 4 equal-level PCs, an encounter with EL equal to the average party level is an appropriate encounter. It should use up about 1/4 of the party's resources, and 13 such encounters should give them enough experience to advance one level.
There's also an interesting numerical analysis/method for determining appropriate encounters that someone wrote up at http://www.epiphanies.org/games/cr_ep.pdf

There was a challenge-creation system I was toying with for a game I was working on that used multiple encounter difficulty ratings. The system had 5 major abilities/strategies the players could use on challenges, and each challenge had a value for how strong it was against each of the 5 strategies. Depending on the desired challenge difficulty, the GM had X points to distribute between the strength ratings.
The challenges had what were basically hit points, with the strength ratings determining how much damage would be taken from a particular type of "attack". So players could futz around with a variety of strategies as suited them, e.g. use attacks the challenge was somewhat strong against because the players were really strong in that area.

Currently I'm looking at multi generational procedure generated* situations. A quick example of procedure generated content in this case is a unit which is a farm, another unit which is a rabbit population, and grass land units. Each has their set of rules which act as you might expect them, but when the rabbits eat the grass, breed, eat all of it (the grass, by it's rules, couldn't regenerate fast enough) and start destroying the farmers crops and by extension threatening his life, it generates situation.

By multigenerational I mean you don't stop there - lets say the farm is destroyed, producing a vagabond. The rules of the vagabond are followed and he moves to join the local bandits. The local bandits are strengthened enough to stop the trader units passing and an economic downward spiral occurs. Keep running generation upon generation.

With units who's rules aren't specifically designed to create a situation, but do interact with other units, and by running several generations of results, a completely unknown situation can be generated. One which no one would have thought up. Truth is stranger than fiction, if I may refer to procedure as truth :)

Looking at the situation and being moved to make something a goal to win (eg, clear the bandits, or even clear the bunnies) is another step and the most vital (without it, it's all just 'shit happens'). But I think it's a relatively fun and intuative step and should be easy enough when the time comes.

* This is the name I'm using for it - some might not agree it's the right name

Selene wrote:
There's also an interesting numerical analysis/method for determining appropriate encounters that someone wrote up at http://www.epiphanies.org/games/cr_ep.pdf

Vulpinoid wrote:
Characters are paid a certain amount of resources for taking on the challenge based on this core difficulty +d6. This is where the employers of the group know half of the difficulties that might be faced by the group.

Vulpinoid wrote:
The twist I'd use is that once the characters had accepted the job, roll the other d6

Callan wrote:
Currently I'm looking at multi generational procedure generated* situations.
. . .
With units who's rules aren't specifically designed to create a situation, but do interact with other units, and by running several generations of results, a completely unknown situation can be generated. One which no one would have thought up. Truth is stranger than fiction, if I may refer to procedure as truth :)

Callan wrote:
A quick example of procedure generated content in this case is a unit which is a farm, another unit which is a rabbit population, and grass land units. Each has their set of rules which act as you might expect them

Callan wrote:
but when the rabbits eat the grass, breed, eat all of it (the grass, by it's rules, couldn't regenerate fast enough) and start destroying the farmers crops and by extension threatening his life . . . the farm is destroyed, producing a vagabond. The rules of the vagabond are followed and he moves to join the local bandits. The local bandits are strengthened enough to stop the trader units passing and an economic downward spiral occurs.

Callan wrote:
Looking at the situation and being moved to make something a goal to win (eg, clear the bandits, or even clear the bunnies) is another step and the most vital (without it, it's all just 'shit happens'). But I think it's a relatively fun and intuative step and should be easy enough when the time comes.

The reason most RPGs don't give strict guidelines for encounter design is because difficulty is an amazingly variable thing when considering a wide range of character abilities. In Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, CR's are completely inappropriate if your party is weak in a given character type (undead, for instance become exponentially more threatening if your party has an extra rogue instead of a cleric).
How does this pertain to your question? Well, I guess I'm saying that I would be able to give advice (maybe not good advice, but advice) on how to generte encounters if I had some idea of the scope of your characters. Otherwise, its hard to make any suggestions.
Also, what your describing sounds like some methods of adventure design I've seen presented out there. My advice would be to start out by creating a reward that the players can receive and a method that they find out about this reward, and then create a number of encounters, each keyed to a different set of character abilities. There could ba combat way to get the reward, a magic way, a social way, etc... and your game could provide rules for building each. Then each adventure could have one reward, a number of challenges that would lead to the reward and then the encounters would be keyed to a map or time line that the characters could explore/move through. The decisions that they then made as which encounters to take on would determine how challenging it was to gain the reward, based on their strength. To make more complex adventures, you would simply add more rewards or more steps towards achieving a single reward.

masqueradeball wrote:
I would be able to give advice (maybe not good advice, but advice) on how to generte encounters if I had some idea of the scope of your characters. Otherwise, its hard to make any suggestions.

masqueradeball wrote:
My advice would be to start out by creating a reward that the players can receive

masqueradeball wrote:
and a method that they find out about this reward

masqueradeball wrote:
and then create a number of encounters, each keyed to a different set of character abilities. There could be combat way to get the reward, a magic way, a social way, etc...

masqueradeball wrote:
and your game could provide rules for building each.

masqueradeball wrote:
the encounters would be keyed to a map or time line that the characters could explore/move through.

Here's my core question for you:

You say the challenge needs to conform to the laws of the world, but do the game mechanics actually have to simulate those laws?

Beast Hunters' solution is to have the mechanics be open, with the specifics determined by the narrative. Those mechanics don't simulate in-game causality, that's left for each action and the GM's adjudication. That is, each action grants a certain amount of advantage, taking all the narrative details and circumstances into account, but that advantage is handled the same whether you're sneaking or fighting or laying traps. Similarly, the damage that's inflicted is generic and can represent a multitude of things, it does not model any particular injuries or morale in different ways (other than the mental/physical/social categories).

If you want a system that actually models the laws of the world, which also simultaneously allows a wide range of tactics and a balanced creation of challenges, you've got a very ambitious project ahead of you, and one we can't tackle without knowing the specifics of your system.

I think accomplishing what xenopulse is suggesting is primarily a matter of making context-dependent options available and necessary regardless of specific situation.  Here, I'm not talking about the more broadly defined Situation, simply about having mechanics adaptable to different types of conflict. 

It's something I'm attempting to do with the basic logic behind my system as well.  Basically, my suggestion (and it may feel like hitting your head against a brick wall sometimes) would be to start with axiomatic notions of in-game-world logic, but only those notions that apply to the outcome of conflicts.  Think directly about how these apply to Player options.  For instance, does the weight of an unconscious peasant matter?  Or is it simply enough to say that we can separate elements like so "This is a peasant that no individual PC can lift" and "This is peasant that a PC could lift individually."

That way, when setting up Conflict in the Scene, you decide directly, is "lift without help" an option, or not, rather than having to either in preparation or arbitrarily decide during gameplay what the weight of the peasant is.  I find that even in D&D, which has explicit mechanics for lifting certain weights, we often ignore the rule anyhow.

Perhaps this can be done with everything, so that every Conflict in every Scene can be broken down into simple options such as this.  These simple options work within in-game-world logic, because the scenes were designed that way.

Sets of typical ways of manipulating the Scene from within itself could be covered in system, and others could be creatively made up (preferably in advance) by the GM.  Anybody who exceeds the GM's creativity here by thinking of an option that the GM didn't should be rewarded just for that with success.

This idea kinda came from computer text-based RPGs (Yay, LORD) which had simple logic.  Also, I don't like making arbitrary in-game decisions against the players. 

I think that maybe Callan's idea for generating conflicts through elements of setting is great for thinking of ideas, but for setting up the conflicts themselves, it's probably easier if we have a simple handle on most of the variables.

I don't know much about Beast Hunters, but from what I've heard, its mechanic doesn't appear to get the context-sensitivity David might be looking for in making Challenges.

Or maybe this whole post is just too obvious...

-Jason Timmerman

xenopulse wrote:
You say the challenge needs to conform to the laws of the world, but do the game mechanics actually have to simulate those laws?

xenopulse wrote:
Beast Hunters' solution is to have the mechanics be open, with the specifics determined by the narrative. Those mechanics don't simulate in-game causality, that's left for each action and the GM's adjudication.

xenopulse wrote:
the damage that's inflicted is generic and can represent a multitude of things, it does not model any particular injuries

xenopulse wrote:
If you want a system that actually models the laws of the world, which also simultaneously allows a wide range of tactics and a balanced creation of challenges, you've got a very ambitious project ahead of you, and one we can't tackle without knowing the specifics of your system.

Jason,

I definitely think we're on the same page about a lot of stuff.

VoidDragon wrote:
making context-dependent options available and necessary regardless of specific situation.  Here, I'm not talking about the more broadly defined Situation, simply about having mechanics adaptable to different types of conflict.

VoidDragon wrote:
start with axiomatic notions of in-game-world logic, but only those notions that apply to the outcome of conflicts.  Think directly about how these apply to Player options.  For instance, does the weight of an unconscious peasant matter?  Or is it simply enough to say that we can separate elements like so "This is a peasant that no individual PC can lift" and "This is peasant that a PC could lift individually."

VoidDragon wrote:
That way, when setting up Conflict in the Scene, you decide directly, is "lift without help" an option, or not, rather than having to either in preparation or arbitrarily decide during gameplay what the weight of the peasant is.

VoidDragon wrote:
Perhaps this can be done with everything, so that every Conflict in every Scene can be broken down into simple options such as this.  These simple options work within in-game-world logic, because the scenes were designed that way.

VoidDragon wrote:
Sets of typical ways of manipulating the Scene from within itself could be covered in system, and others could be creatively made up (preferably in advance) by the GM.

VoidDragon wrote:
Anybody who exceeds the GM's creativity here by thinking of an option that the GM didn't should be rewarded just for that with success.

VoidDragon wrote:
for setting up the conflicts themselves, it's probably easier if we have a simple handle on most of the variables.

Hi David,

One thing is clear - when players step on up, they fuck up the causality of the world. They really do fuck it up - because their skill, or lack there of, is from outside the game world - it is not part of its causality. Whatever the results of their step on up, it is a stain on the game worlds causality - it's a stain that will spread, butterfly effect, across the whole game world over time.

Can I ask - do you have in mind that if the world is perfectly derived from causal procedure (with every little bit derived from that which came before) then that simply must mean that anything the players do WILL be a continuation of that causality? That if the game world is presented perfectly enough, the player wont have any choice that is outside of causality. That the only things it's possible to do would also be part of a proper causal continuum?

Callan,

Huh?  Is this germane?  I want you to tell me how to implement the ideas form your last post!

Re: causality, the players' only ability to affect the gameworld comes via their characters.  So the only way they could fuck it up is by making choices that their characters wouldn't make if they weren't being run by players.  The gameworld can simply assume that these people (the player characters) are mildly insane* and no causality is upset.  These insane people have no superhuman powers, so their ability to change the world significantly is nearly zilch.  Opportunities to invent world-altering technology will not be presented. 

*or innately gifted at strategy, or whatever

To put it straight in very "D&D-like traditional roleplaying" terms, is what you need a method to instantly set up encounters and whole "adventures", in quasi real-time, just as the players decide to bite at one of countless adventure hooks offered to them?

Aloha David,

David wrote:
Sounds good... just want to make sure, though, that we're talking about mechanics that determine what's in the world (i.e., nature/identity of Challenge situation).  I don't intend for this thread to discuss my task resolution system any more than absolutely necessary.

David wrote:
The thing is, with the players determining what gets played, the list of potential things the GM needs to worry about is infinite.

David wrote:

VoidDragon wrote:
That way, when setting up Conflict in the Scene, you decide directly, is "lift without help" an option, or not, rather than having to either in preparation or arbitrarily decide during gameplay what the weight of the peasant is.

"When setting up Conflcit in the Scene."  Please elaborate (with an example if you don't mind). 

David wrote:

VoidDragon wrote:
Perhaps this can be done with everything, so that every Conflict in every Scene can be broken down into simple options such as this.  These simple options work within in-game-world logic, because the scenes were designed that way.

And the GM can be helped to create this how exactly?

David wrote:

VoidDragon wrote:
Sets of typical ways of manipulating the Scene from within itself could be covered in system, and others could be creatively made up (preferably in advance) by the GM.

When you say "covered in system" do you just mean that the book provides the GM a list of ways in which PCs might tackle situations?  (I'm already working on one, in fact.)

Jason,

I think you've played some games that go about setting things up in a different way than games I've played.  There seem to be a few definitions whizzing past me here.

When I quoted "When Setting up Conflict in a Scene", the key word was the word you omitted in your response: When.

It sounds to me as if you are suggesting distributing GM prep tasks so they occur in small intervals interspersed with play.  I imagine your process thusly:

Before the game, the GM comes up with the basics of a Challenge and some ideas for small mini-challenges within the big challenge.  The play starts.  The first mini-challenge the players pursue becomes a Scene.  The GM then halts play when a mini-challenge is chosen so he can prep the particulars of that Scene.

Is that right?

I see some upsides and downsides to this, but before I go into them, I want to see if I understand you thus far.  (That's the point of this thread: the process by which the GM prepares challenges (and sub-challenges).)

David wrote:
Callan,

Huh?  Is this germane?  I want you to tell me how to implement the ideas form your last post!

Re: causality, the players' only ability to affect the gameworld comes via their characters.  So the only way they could fuck it up is by making choices that their characters wouldn't make if they weren't being run by players.  The gameworld can simply assume that these people (the player characters) are mildly insane* and no causality is upset.  These insane people have no superhuman powers, so their ability to change the world significantly is nearly zilch.  Opportunities to invent world-altering technology will not be presented. 

*or innately gifted at strategy, or whatever

Callan wrote:
as you ascribe the players only ability to change the gameworld are with their characters, there is no recognition of a players own personal smarts, cunning, or guts.

David wrote:
I think you've played some games that go about setting things up in a different way than games I've played.  There seem to be a few definitions whizzing past me here.

David wrote:
Before the game, the GM comes up with the basics of a Challenge and some ideas for small mini-challenges within the big challenge.  The play starts.  The first mini-challenge the players pursue becomes a Scene.  The GM then halts play when a mini-challenge is chosen so he can prep the particulars of that Scene.

Is that right?

David wrote: If I invite you to play a game where the stated objective is to tackle in-game challenges without getting our characters killed, and you agree that that sounds like fun, and we both do it together, and succeed by using our characters strategically, why wouldn't there be recognition around the game table?

We kill the monster, we come up for air (the game's term for ceasing immersed play), we high-five each other and talk about how ingenious the trap we rigged was.

If I'm not up to your level of strategy, maybe you're getting high-fives from another player while I draw up a new character (cuz my old one's dead -- and got no loot out of the deal to boot).

Callan,

Could you please explain this reneged-upon promise without the metaphor?  I am viewing the recognition aorund the table as the $5.  You are clearly viewing something else as the $5, but I don't know exactly what that is.

As for when you come up for air, and who decides that, I will post the current rules in the next post.  The way these rules are structured is based on the idea that it's no fun to try to force every activity related to pay into an "immersed" mode.  Repetitious travel, shopping for goods, etc., should often be "fast-forwarded" through to get to the next challenge.  I've seen no need to define some sort of scenario of "okay, this si where the challenge officially ends, you all must come up for air now", prefering to let the players agree upon that naturally.  If you think there's something to be gained by changing that, I'm certainly open to the idea.

there are two general modes of play:
1) In The Gameworld
2) Up For Air

Players can spend as much time as they like in either of these modes.  What's important is that everyone agrees which mode is occurring at every instant of play.

When you are In The Gameworld, you will use certain rules intended to facilitate a sense of "really being there".  When you wish to Come Up For Air (for whatever reason), these "being there" rules no longer apply.

In addition to In the Gameworld/Up For Air, there is one other factor that determines which rules apply in play: Challenge Situation or not.

A Challenge Situation concerns something the players wish to achieve, wherein success is not guaranteed.  If the players wish to befriend the mayor, then ANY opportunity to help or hinder their chances of this becomes part of the Challenge.  A situation where the guards of the city gate are rude to the player characters is a Challenge Situation, because the actions of the player characters may or may not lead to an incident that damages their reputation in the city.

Most character activities that players and GMs concern themselves with are related to Challenges.  Exceptions include purchasing goods at established prices, getting from one point within a city to another along a route that has previously been traveled, spending a second night at an inn, and other types of repetition.  In scenarios where the players have come to form expectations of safety and mundanity, it is the GM's job to tell them when they need to switch modes.  "You're just falling asleep when you hear a sound... ready to Dive Into the Gameworld?  Okay, go!"

No Non-Challenge Situations are intended to be played In The Gameworld.

However, that does not mean that the entirety of every Challenge must be played In The Gameworld.  During any part of a Challenge, players may wish to Come Up For Air in order to discuss something as themselves rather than as their characters.  Still, all character actions where a) success is not guaranteed, and b) success or failure impacts the Challenge at hand, must be done In The Gameworld.

RULES FOR MODES

Rules for playing when you've Come Up For Air in a Non-Challenge Situation:
1) no one can speak in-character (including the GM).  describing the gist of what characters say is fine: "I thank the bartender and leave."  But NOT, "'I thank you, innkeeper.'  Now I leave."
2) no one can initiate a Challenge Situation without consulting all the other players.  One player's desire to "get to business" should not cost other players opportunities to have their characters "take care of down-time stuff".  Note that all that is required is consultation, not joint participation.  If Player 1 wants his character to engage a Challenge while Player 2's character is elsewhere, Player 2 cannot veto this.

Rules for playing when you've Come Up For Air in a Challenge Situation:
1) no one can speak in-character (including the GM).
2) no one can have their character perform any action.  announcing an intent to perform an action is fine, though.

Rules for playing In The Gameworld:
1) players must be consistent in their expression of a character's speech
2) players must keep Character Appearance sheets up-to-date
3) players must keep bandages and any other physical symbols of their character's condition visible and appropriately placed.
4) players must describe character actions in the first person: "I enter the cave," not "my character enters the cave".
5) players must do their best to rely on their characters' knowledges when speaking and tackling challenges.
6) the GM must be able to answer any and all questions about the characters' environment. 
7) four types of speech are permissible:
a) speaking in-character
b) describing your character's actions (or, for the GM, describing any features of the characters' environment)
c) requesting information about something within your character's perceptual environment from another player.  "Hey, GM, how high are the walls?  Hey, Player 2, does your character look tense?" 
d) requesting Coming Up For Air
That's it!  No other talking!

Don't worry, you'll still get to chat about computer games, work, friends etc. when you Come Up For Air.  In fact, this is part of what Coming Up For Air is for! 

How smoothly the transition from playing In The Gameworld to Coming Up For Air goes depends on how in-synch the players are.  It's like taking a bathroom break from a video.  When one person says they want to break, and others want to keep watching, some compromise must be reached.  "Okay, we'll break right after this scene ends!" works well for most movies and most roleplaying Challenges.

Um... I think maybe this thread's gotten a little off topic. Maybe not though, not my thread...

Anyway. So are we talking about generating challenges or balancing them?

To generate encounters, there's a whole series of options. I think that something akin to Callan's system that might be more manageable would be to make a list of threats that exist in the campaign world and use points to determine when those threats manifest: example: Orcs live beyond the mountains and come down for raids. At the start of the campaig their is 0% chance that the orks will raid. On day one, for each of X factors present, the chance increases (factors could include the weather, how long its been since the last orc raid, how much activity is going on in the ogre tribes that put pressure on the orcs, etc...) by X%. Then at interval X (say once a month) you roll to see if the orks raid. The raid would then increase the chance of other threats arising.
Though this is book keeping intensive, your limiting yourself to only keeping track of as many different threats as you think you'll need to keep the players busy.

Now, about balancing:

Really, D&D 3.5 has the best to date encounter creation and balancing mechanics around. 14.5 encounters per level that should take at least 2-3 sessions to complete with a % break down of how many encounters out of the set should be X higher or X lower than the character's level.

The problems are this:
1) Outside of traps and monsters this system breaks down pretty rapidly. The original D20 Star Wars tried to adjust this by having skill check DC's tied to Encounter Levels, but they dropped it for unspecified reasons. It seemed unclear to me playing that game which skill rolls were considered challenges or part of challenges and which weren't.
2) The game assumes a balanced party of four players.
3) The game doesn't provide accurate guidelines for creating new monster/trap challenges, its simply provides examples that are supposed to, when combined with game play give the DM an intuitive sense of how to design.
4) The slew of source material constantly widens the base of what is possible, giving clever players ways to complete challenges while circumventing danger.

The system I offered early assumed that you would have a similar system to the one offered in D&D, i.e. that you would have encounters with "levels" or challenge ratings or whatever that would indicate what skill level a character would need to be at to successfully deal with them.

The suggestions were meant as a way to diversify D&D's basic approach and provide guidelines for how to make such a system more inclusive. Since your game uses real world mechanics, it should be far easier than in D&D to create encounters with predictable out comes (see problem #4 above).

If I knew how your system worked, I could provide an example of point-by-point rules for balancing encounters, without that knowledge I can only make generalised suggestions.

Callan wrote:

If I'm not up to your level of strategy, maybe you're getting high-fives from another player while I draw up a new character (cuz my old one's dead -- and got no loot out of the deal to boot).

It's a blunt question, but do I get a high five from you? Or even a solumn 'Congrats, you won/did better'?

masqueradeball wrote:
I think maybe this thread's gotten a little off topic.

masqueradeball wrote:
So are we talking about generating challenges or balancing them?

masqueradeball wrote:
make a list of threats that exist in the campaign world and use points to determine when those threats manifest: example: Orcs live beyond the mountains and come down for raids. At the start of the campaig their is 0% chance that the orks will raid. On day one, for each of X factors present, the chance increases (factors could include the weather, how long its been since the last orc raid, how much activity is going on in the ogre tribes that put pressure on the orcs, etc...) by X%. Then at interval X (say once a month) you roll to see if the orks raid. The raid would then increase the chance of other threats arising.
Though this is book keeping intensive, your limiting yourself to only keeping track of as many different threats as you think you'll need to keep the players busy.

masqueradeball wrote:
Really, D&D 3.5 has the best to date encounter creation and balancing mechanics around.

David wrote:
The primary goal of this thread, though, is more to say, "The GM is prepping a situation that he expects the players will want to tackle as a Challenge.  How should he go about making sure that the players can tackle it on various levels?  How can the game text guide him in this?"

After reading your golem example, I think some of my original thoughts would still be a good basis. First, make a list of available avenues for tackling the problem, hopefully spread over a large range of skill or character types so that any player character who makes the right choices has some chance of success. This is assuming that you want all PCs to have said chance, which isn't exactly realistic, but for game play's sake, I'll assume that a goal/concern. Once you have all the avenues laid out (one combat, one social, etc... probably divided along whatever lines are used to divide character skills (classes, skill groups, governing attributes, whatever)... place keys in the game world that would suggest the outcome.

For instance
Starting from your example lets create a list of solutions:
1) Combat: Find and kill the demon.
2) Social: Here I'll expand a bit on your initial premise. What if the demon is a child/novice and his master/father is angry that he's escaped into the world. If he can be found and convinced to help (which his anger makes possible) he will force his son to return using his superior power/authority.
3) Magical: More expanding required: If the characters can find the three pieces to the ancient Ars Demonica than they can learn the ritual to exercise the demon.
etc...

As for the extremely difficult part, I would control that through three means: the cost of making the attempt, the skill level required to succeed related check (how hard the demon is to hit, how hard the demon's master is to persuade, etc...) and the consequence of failing. The cost of making the attempt could be measured in in game time, actual money or player resources. For instance, if it would take three months to find the Ars Demonica and would require in investment of manna to restore it, both of these would be "costs to attempt. The skill roll would be split between the difficulty of the rolls and how many rolls, on average, the player would be required to make. Armor Class and Hit Points cover this in D&D and similar games for fighting monsters. The social mechanic could have something like Wits and Resolve. The search for the magical book would have different difficulties for investigation checks and maybe to total amount of successful checks required before the final clue would be revealed. Finally, the cost of failure would be split between injury, potential death, insanity, loss of resources, loss of status/fame, whatever would be significant within the context of the game.

Each of these things would have associated point values. The relevant difficulty level would have a total number of points that would they would need to add up to, and the rule book would have some extensive lists of potential costs/rolls/loses that could be selected from to build the encounter.

As to the keys, or what I said earlier about map/timelines, I'm not talking about pigeon holing or leading the players by the nose, what I'm talking about is putting in place the information the PC's need to see course X as a possible solution and determining how they will/can find it.

Nolan,

Thanks for expounding further, I now have a much clearer idea of your suggestions.  Some of them sound pretty appropriate.

masqueradeball wrote:
make a list of available avenues for tackling the problem, hopefully spread over a large range of skill or character types so that any player character who makes the right choices has some chance of success.

masqueradeball wrote:
Once you have all the avenues laid out . . . place keys in the game world that would suggest the outcome
. . .
1) Combat: Find and kill the demon.

masqueradeball wrote:
2) Social:

masqueradeball wrote:
3) Magical: More expanding required: If the characters can find the three pieces to the ancient Ars Demonica than they can learn the ritual to exercise the demon.

masqueradeball wrote:
As for the extremely difficult part, I would control that through three means:
1) the cost of making the attempt,
2) the skill level required to succeed related check . . .
3) and the consequence of failing.

masqueradeball wrote:
Each of these things would have associated point values. The relevant difficulty level would have a total number of points that would they would need to add up to, and the rule book would have some extensive lists of potential costs/rolls/loses that could be selected from to build the encounter.

masqueradeball wrote:
As to the keys, or what I said earlier about map/timelines, I'm not talking about pigeon holing or leading the players by the nose, what I'm talking about is putting in place the information the PC's need to see course X as a possible solution and determining how they will/can find it.

Vulpinoid wrote:
How long does the hypothetical GM have to resolve and generate new encounters for their party? Are they preparing for a solid week between games with no full time job or studies to get in their way?

Vulpinoid wrote:
Are we looking at a purely character driven storyline, where the players can immerse themselves in the game world by exploring at their own whim?

Vulpinoid wrote:
If you're trying to get all of these options resolved into a coherent and "easy to use" system that doesn't require high end computing power sitting along side you and displaying options on a screen, personally I don't think it can be done.

Okay, here's what I came up with.  My first thought is that it seems like too much work.  Please feel free to offer suggestions, but you should probably read my next post first.

I have divided prep up into 3 phases for clarity of presentation.  Phases A and B will often overlap, and can be done in whatever order the GM sees fit.  Phase C can likewise occur simultaneously with A and B if the GM finds this suitable; the below order is just an organizational assist for those who want one.

PHASE A - Creating the challenge

1) Come up with a situation that you think the players will want to tackle as a challenge.  Such situations should provide opportunities for rewards, in the form of local esteem at the very least, and Imperial payment at the almost-very-least.
Example:
"Something has posioned the water of a village, but both times someone's gone upstream to investigate, they've disappeared.  The villagers are so desperate for help, they're offering a mule, two chickens, and two sacks of chicken feed to anyone who can solve the predicament.  The culprit is some sort of mutant animal with a weird power or two."

2) Make the Difficulty Randomizer Roll.  Then assign your Evil Threat / Tricky Puzzle / etc. the according stats / complexity / etc.  See also steps C5 and C7.

3) Map any dungeons/tunnels/mountain passes that are an intrinsic part of the challenge.

PHASE B - Placing the challenge in the world

1) Review material on the relevant area of the world.  Be particularly aware of any features that are new to the PCs.

2) If you have questions about how anything in the area works, make up sensible answers.  Simplest solutions are best.

3) Give appropriate names to any nearby places (villages, mountains, roads, etc.) the PCs may encounter or discuss.  Also draw up a list of appropriate names for people.

4) Make a map of the area.

PHASE C - Making the challenge playable

1) Think of multiple "solutions" to the challenge, ranging from various forms of utter personal victory over it (hack it, burn it, cage it) to a subtle contribution against it (tattle on it).  See our list of What The Empire Pays For for some ideas, and add your own as appropriate to the context of the specific situation, and, most importantly, to the desires of the players.  Some groups like saving a damsel in distress for its own sake; others don't.

2) Make a list of available "avenues" for achieving those solutions (at least 1 ave/sol, possibly more).  Try to cover different player problem-solving options:
hacking, shooting, sneaking, thieving, moving, trapping, convincing, deceiving, paying, trading, building, induction, deduction, and combos of these

3) If you've come up with more avenues than you need, pick the best ones (2 to 5 avenues, depending on the obviousness of the situation).  Don't throw away any notes you've already made, though -- the players may initiate something on their own that coincides with one of your discarded ideas.

4) Go through your chosen avenues and decide upon "elements" to make these avenues viable.  A cave, a helpful villager, a road, a careless Orc sentry, a sundial, etc.

5) Also decide upon further "elements" to threaten and challenge the PCs (if not already covered).  Think about the costs of pursuing each avenue, in terms of time, money, equipment, renown, etc.

6) Give an identity (name, location, relevant timing & stats) to each of your elements.  [Note: Maybe this step need not be done before play?  Maybe ad-libbed during play?  Maybe GM dictates "come up for air" when avenue is chosen, and does step #4 then?]

7) Note the reuslt of a failed pursuit of each avenue you come up with.  Occasionally, it will differ from "die" or "don't get paid".

8) Map any relevant areas not previously covered by other maps.

9) Maybe make a timeline or flowchart to track how and when your elements come into play.

Supporting notes:

What The Empire Pays For
- Killing/destroying Evil Threats to Men
- Neutralizing Evil Threats to Men
- Organizing/leading local missions to kill/destroy/neutralize Evil Threats to Men
- Providing info/resources that will enable the empire to kill/destroy/neutralize Evil Threats to Men
- Acquiring special objects

Note: "human threats to the Empire and its citizens" can be appended to "evil threats to men".

Possible Assistance
- 1-100 villagers (with no combat experience, except in certain areas)
- 1-10 independent mercenary adventurers
- 1 mercenary adventurer band
- 2-6 Imperial soldiers stationed at roadhouse
- The Legions

I am thinking of ditching the whole "let the PCs wander around in the world and decide what to tackle" angle and replacing it with, "let the players talk out-of-game about what to tackle next and then have the GM prep that and just plop them into it".  The GM will have to cover a lot fewer bases that way.

World atmosphere and richness suffers, but maybe Step On Up benefits.

No! :) If what I PM'ed you about is somewhat true, world atmosphere and richness doesn't suffer, but is developed in another way for another purpose. It's developed as a stake for the gamist gamble/play, like money is used as a stake in a poker game or whatever. World richness might be a very apt word! Bit sketchy on how right now, but you'd have a sort of 'get pumped about the game world' session. Through that process some object or such in the game world would be identified for each player - and it can only be something they talk about excitedly. Once identified, this is their stake - like having some money to put down on a gamble.

Don't take it as a see saw, that world richness has to go down for gamism to go up. That way will ruin the stakes from the outset (unless you actually roleplay for cash/roleplay for who pays for the pizza).

By "sacrificing richness", I just meant that without actually "being immersed" for encounters with road wardens, tax collectors, impoversihed villages, etc., the impression of the world that the player is left with is less multifaceted.  I would think that if my only experience of a place was running and jumping and killing, the place wouldn't quite feel "real".  But if I am trying for Step On Up play, I feel like maybe I shouldn't expect the players to WANT to "wander around in the world" more than absolutely necessary.  Regardless, for now I'm going to try to focus on the Step On Up reward structure, and only the "immersionist" concerns whose intersection with that are make-or-break (richness probably isn't).

Callan wrote:
you'd have a sort of 'get pumped about the game world' session. Through that process some object or such in the game world would be identified for each player - and it can only be something they talk about excitedly. Once identified, this is their stake - like having some money to put down on a gamble.

David wrote: One of the best ways to make immersion satisfying is to keep player knowledge and character knowledge as close together as possible -- reactions to in-game events are more genuine.  So how do the players pick what they want to play without lots of "just wandering around in the world"?  My solution thus far has relied mostly on the players telling the GM what they want in general terms to start, and then getting more specific once their characters have gone out and done stuff and discovered things that interest them.  Things called "Destinations" are chosen by the players... not sure whether or not these qualify as Stakes in the sense you're discussing.  I'm still fuzzy on the identity of the $5 in your $5 bet analogy.  I'll post my current text on Destinations shortly.

Hi David,

When it comes to developing the gamist stake (ie, something the player thinks is cool to lose to someone else or gain himself), you seem to slip into full on simulationist play in order to get that stake. It's kind of like were about to play poker for a cash stake...and you leave the game, running out the door to your day job since you need money for that stake. But you've stopped playing poker.

Way back before you ever roleplayed, you would have thought something in some imaginary world was cool, right? When I was young, not having roleplayed yet, I thought the gun on Megatrons arm was way bad ass cool! Silly example (I hope you remember first gen transformers), but I didn't need to have roleplayed and explored and immersed in a world in at an ignorant level to get excited about that. Introduced to gamist play, gettting that gun or losing it to another player is an awesome stake.

If people in your group will only think of game world stuff being cool if its in the context of this explorative system you describe (playing ignorant, nothing contrived, etc), then they are devoting themselves to the integrity of that system. The more devotion there is, the more it excludes gamism. And really that devotion doesn't pay off unless its absolute and the dream has full integrity, as I understand this post.

I think people can and do think game world stuff is cool without devoting themselves to its integrity. I like megatrons gun, I like sonic screw drivers, I like down to earth operatives under terrible pressure*. Your posts questions bring up dream integrity issues, when A: I don't think that gets in the way of thinking stuff is cool and B: I don't think a hybrid is possible (just the idea of it damages the integrity of the dream). I don't think working up a game world stake might have problems to overcome, but I don't think these are the problems.

I wonder about letting each player pick a separate stakes.  What happens if the various stakes have nothing to do with each other?  Is it the GM's job, after the stakes have been set, to arrange the world in such away that the stakes do have something to do with each other?

Things called "Destinations" are chosen by the players... not sure whether or not these qualify as Stakes in the sense you're discussing.  I'm still fuzzy on the identity of the $5 in your $5 bet analogy.  I'll post my current text on Destinations shortly.

Callan wrote:
If people in your group will only think of game world stuff being cool if its in the context of this explorative system you describe (playing ignorant, nothing contrived, etc), then they are devoting themselves to the integrity of that system. The more devotion there is, the more it excludes gamism. And really that devotion doesn't pay off unless its absolute and the dream has full integrity, as I understand this post.

CAMPAIGN TYPES

Before the players create characters and the GM creates Challenge opportunities, it is important to establish what kind of Campaign the players (collectively) are looking to pursue with these characters.  Lendrhald provides rules for making characters and Challenges in three distinct types of Campaigns:

1) A Single Challenge.  This type of play requires the least preparation for everyone.  It's exactly what it sounds like: a finite mission that can often be resolved in a few hours of play.

After the Challenge is over, the players may want to use the same characters to pursue another Challenge.  This should work fine.  However, there will be no cumulative progress over many successive Single-Challenge games, as the characters and Challenge opportunities have not been developed for that purpose.

2) An Extended Campaign.  The game can go as long as players want it to go, and the result should be more satisfying than the sum of the individual Challenges.  This type of game is wired for cumulative and long-term progress toward flexible goals.  Much of the content of this book is intended to enable this type of play.  This type of play requires up-front prep by the players and continuous work between sessions on the part of the GM. 

3) A Quest.  This type of play requires just as much up-front preparation as an Extended Campaign, but has a different focus.  Character goals and Challenge opportunities are all designed with a specific end point in mind.  All players must design characters with a shared purpose of the moment, or at least multiple purposes served by the exact same end.  Once that end is achieved (or rendered impossible to achieve -- e.g., all PCs killed), the game is over.

A quest to find and kill a certain evil man in a small village is basically a Single Challenge, while a quest to learn the true nature of a unique, possibly magical gemstone and use it for whatever it can do may resemble an Extended Campaign.  Our advice is: if you want to play something simple, play a Single Challenge, if you want to play something so extensive that you may or may not play long enough to finish it, play an Extended Campaign.  The central notion of a Quest is that you WILL get to the end of it, and either succeed or fail -- just like a Single Challenge.  Unlike a Single Challenge, a Quest may be a combination of many different Challenges that each act as steps toward the Final Challenge.  The length of the Quest must not exceed the players' interest in their characters' motivations for that Quest.  "I wish to avenge the dishonor of my family," as the *totality* of a character's motivation, probably won't be fun to play for months and months.

Everyone must agree on one campaign type.

The GM will then prepare accordingly:

1) A Single Challenge - a single Challenge

2) An Extended Campaign - many Challenge opportunities.  The players, through their characters, decide what Challenges actually get played.  They, and the GM, must be entirely aware of this as the persistent state of affairs.  It does not matter what the GM has prepped: if the players want to send their characters in a certain direction, that is the direction they'll go.  How can any GM prepare for this?  The key is to divorce logistics (stats of enemies, difficulty levels of physical situations, puzzles) from contexts (the identities of the enemies, the locations of the physical situations, the effect of failing or succeeding at the puzzles).  This is discussed further in Chapter 9: Making Challenges.

3) A Quest - a series of Challenge opportunities which lead toward resolution of the Quest.  As with an Extended Campaign, players may not be forced (and should not even be overly influenced) by the GM to follow a certain path.  However, the focused nature of the characters' goals should make it very easy for the GM to guess which opportunities the players will take.  If he wishes, the GM can do a very large portion of his total prep for the game before the first session.  It is always a good idea to have something in mind for the Final Challenge before play begins.

PLANNING CHALLENGE OPPORTUNITIES

The fun of playing a character in Lendrhald is not about contributing to the content of the world.  Rather, it's about experiencing that world "from within", immersing yourself in your character's perspective – which is, to some degree, ignorant and powerless.  So, don't tell your GM specifics of what you'd like to encounter!  If you do, it will be very hard to think in character terms, rather than player terms, when you get what you asked for!  ("Ah!  The crying child that I, the player, requested, has been provided for me by my buddy the GM!" as opposed to "Look!  A crying child!  What's wrong?")

The GM needs to take his cues from your character's Life Goal and construct rewarding challenges.  He should solicit player feedback and suggestions, but only on the broadest level -- "You guys wanna keep tackling social obstacles, or have some dungeon-crawl options out there?" -- to guide the most general parameters of his preparation.

The Life Goal

For Single Challenge games, characters do not have Life Goals.

For Quest games, characters have only one part of a Life Goal: the Destination.  All characters in a Quest must have the same Destination (or different Destinations achieved by the same accomplishment).

For Extended Campaigns, the Life Goal becomes a little more complex and far more important.  In open-ended games, where the player characters can and will go any which way, the GM needs to form some expectations of what the players want to play; similarly, the players need to come to some consensus about what they wish to play.  Creating a Life Goal for your character is a way to let everyone else at the table know what you want to play.

A Life Goal is a statement about where your character would eventually like to wind up.  This MUST be something that would be a source of satisfaction to the player.  Achieving a goal you no longer care about is less fun!  There is no rule against players changing their characters' Life Goals; indeed, if you are getting bored with yours, change it!  However, the most effective way to achieve long-term satisfaction over Extended play is to pick a really good Life Goal and stick with it through the entirety of play.

Given that characters will be starting with virtually nothing, a Life Goal does not have to be overly dramatic to qualify as a massive accomplishment.  Most of the population of Lendrhald are subsistence farmers, and earning a much better lot in life takes some doing!  Here are some example Life Goals:

- Retire wealthy to raise a family.

- Have your name known up and down the West Coast as a killer of monsters.

- Become a landed noble with a title and some influence over the people of a region.

- Found a guild that will outlive you.

- Become the biggest combat badass you know of.

- Find a worthy cause or master to follow.

The one attribute a Life Goal MUST have is that it must be, in your eyes, advanced through tackling the Challenges that are Lendrhald play; and, further, the *types* of Challenges the players agree they want to play.  If everyone wants to get in lots of fights, don't pick a Life Goal of being a monk!  Remember, you will not be forced into any Challenges -- there should be a reason why your character *wants* to do this!  (See more on this in the next section, Backstory.)

Once you have come up with a Life Goal that you think is cool and inspires you to go ahead and play your character, it's time to define the two things that will best allow the GM to create Challenge opportunities you can pursue with that character.  These are Path and Destination.

A Destination is the more immediate version of the Life Goal.  A Destination en route to the Life Goal of "become a landed noble" might be "make friends with an influential noble", or "get a noble drunk and wager him his title for something" depending on what Path you follow and your character's personality.  Destinations get changed all the time, as goals are fulfilled, abandoned, or modified.  What's important is that you always have some idea in mind of what you would like to be working on accomplishing next.  This way, the GM can provide you with content you're interested in because it gets you somewhere meaningful.

The player should always let the GM know how quickly he wants or expects to achieve his current Destination, so the GM can either make that possible or tell the player to re-think things.  Since all first-time players must start their characters from relative poverty, some Destinations simply will not be achievable without extended play.  If you want to meet your first Lendrhald objectives quickly, make them modest.

A Path is a description of what motivates your character, and a predictor of what choices he will make.  A Path can have implications on matters outside of your Life Goal.  Think carefully about the personality you wish to play, and whether you *can* play it (Lendrhald includes no stats and rules to help you do this!) before you pick a Path.  E.g., a player who wants his character to forego personal gain in order to help others should probably not choose the Path of Power, even if his Life Goal is a position of some influence.  If the Path of Power is pretty close, however, he might wish to change the name a bit to be more reflective of his true intentions (Path of Leadership?).  Customize away!  The Paths provided here are the most general categories, which we expect will play well with others in an Extended Campaign.

Path of Renown (achieve fame or notoriety)
Path of Plenty (achieve wealth, spouse, safety, nice home in nice place with nice things, etc.)
Path of Power (gain control over your environment & other people – subtle influence to overt domination)
Path of Humanity (save Men from Evil!)
Path of Creation (build something lasting that will outlive you – book, building, organization, custom, etc.)
Path of Sevice (find a cause, organization, or religion that you wish to devote yourself to in perpetuity)
Path of Hate (kill, destroy, or inflict suffering upon certain people, places, or objects)
Path of Growth  (increasing knowledge, strength, or mastery of some skill or craft – personal improvement for its own sake, rather than as the means of achieving some other strong desire)

In a Quest game, any of these can be used as a way to simply get “even” if your character starts out in some bad situation.  A Path of Renown could simply be the quest to clear yourself of a bad reputation or bounty; a Path of Power could be to escape from slavery; a Path of Growth could be to learn what the tattoo on your ankle means.

For anyone reading who doesn't want to go through that whole blurb, the most relevant topic of the moment can be found about 2/3 of the way down, at:

"A Destination is the more immediate version of the Life Goal . . ."

This is an interesting set up. It's like setting up a social contract between the group at the start of play, where each players combines their interests to determine a collective goal and theme for the game while giving them the scope to explore their own storylines in the longer term forms of play.

I like it.

David wrote:
I think that's the crucial issue here.  I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to get just as pumped about saving a village in a gritty, immersive game as about getting Megatron's gun in a (e.g.) competitive, unrealistic game.  The excitement and investment comes from the Challenge: "Can I pull this off?"

Michael,

My understanding of the relevant GNS concepts is:

All roleplaying includes Exploration.  Any Creative Agenda can have relatively low or high degrees of exploration of any of Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color.  High-character-exploration Gamism or high-setting-exploration Narrativism are totally possible -- "high-exploration" does not dictate "Simulationist".  As I understand it, if an effective Gamist reward structure is in place, then you're playing Gamist, regardless of your degree of exploration of any component(s).  If you are playing a very high-exploration game with no Gamist (or Narrativist) reward structure occurring, then you might be playing Simulationist, or there might be no coherent C.A. at all.  If everyone is on the same page that the payoff of play is all about enjoying the imagined experience and its resilience against violation (see Ron's "constructive denial" post that Callan linked), then Sim oughta be happening (other confounding factors notwithstanding).

Ron's take on high-exploration pseudo-Gamism can be found in his essay on Step On Up -- it's called "The Bitterest Roleplayer in the World".

I'm going to start a new thread in Actual Play discussing a game I played that may have had some Sim moments and some Gamist moments.

Away from theory and back to the point of the thread, this thread has officially been derailed from "helping the GM of my game make challenges" to "helping make sure that the challenges I'm making actually are played as Challenges (in the Gamist sense) and not just 'something to do while immersed'."  I'm fine with this change of direction, because my former concern can't be resolved without discussing the latter.  I think I missed the proper point to close this thread and start a new one, so I'd just like to continue the discussion in progress.

Actually, I think that it's more likely for someone to get pumped about saving a village in a well crafted and immersive game

David wrote:
I'm going to start a new thread in Actual Play discussing a game I played that may have had some Sim moments and some Gamist moments.