The attempt to spawn a series of threads that will add up to something useful for my game design continues!  The first two threads wandered a lot: 

[Lendrhald] helping GMs create Challenges
Started as helping the GM of my game make challenges.  Morphed into 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'.  Some good points were made about how my approaches thus far might not be the best ways to facilitate a Gamist CA.

[ED&D] CA transience?
This included:

• long-ago game with possible GNS issues
• my attempt to decide What Gets Played
• creating a database/record of the world
• whether an opportunity for Gamist play was embraced or not
• why it's important that some version of losing (though maybe not Gamist losing) is an option
• exploration in Gamism
• problem of isolation of dungeon-crawls
• hopes for player interface with Setting

On this last point, I said:

I don't care if the players spend game-time exploring the gameworld for its own sake.  I don't care if they pursue interests in the world outside of their characters' experiences within it.  If they don't care about my neato backstory for how the Orcs were formed, or what the name of the faraway Eastern Emperor is, or why the southern end of the continent is melting/burning, then that's just fine.

Once again, I am forced to use a game that I don't remember in enough detail to answer some crucial questions.  But here goes:

Timing: two sessions, all day Saturday and all day Sunday (August 2005)

Players (all age 27):

Al: game co-designer, GM

Marc: our high-school buddy, playing Tom of Thulford, a young man with some sword skill

Jeff: Marc's roommate, playing Ed of Thulford, a young man with some sword skill

Joel: buddy from previous game (ED&D), playing Walter of Laster, a wannabe smooth-talker and thief

Me: first time playing Lendrhald under Al, unlike the others, who'd played a couple of multi-session adventures with these same characters.  I had no knowledge of any of Al's prep -- despite being co-designer, for this game I was just another player.  My character was Erasmus of Hereford, the only name I actually remember ("Ed", "Tom", and "Walter" I just made up now to reflect the basic naming convention).

Short Game Summary:

The PCs all boarded a ship traveling from Narse to Freeport.  On our third day at sea, the ship was attacked by Sea Devils.  They damaged the boat and killed everyone in their path, but seemed primarily focused on doing something in the cargo hold.  The PCs grabbed the one remaining rowboat and abandoned the sinking ship.  We set off on a course perpendicular to the main ship's course, hoping that meant East and land.

We landed on what was either an island or some jutting piece of the mainland.  Initial exploration showed no signs of Orcs (whew!) and a few paths that indicated Men lived or had lived nearby.  Further exploration revealed that we were on a small island, which included:

• a hill on the west side
• a valley on the east side
• a small leper colony atop the hill
• a 3-story tower near the eastern coast
• one major path around most of the island

We explored the tower.  The bottom level was blocked up by some unfathomable expanse of metal.  We climbed it and found the second and third levels included desks, chairs, and a chimney.  The door leading from floor 3 down to floor 2 would burst into flame when opened.  On the roof was a weird metal contraption whose shape suggested it was missing a piece.

Night fell and the eastern part of the island swarmed with giant rats.  We hid in the tower.  They climbed up it and attacked.  We had a fight in the third floor as the rats swarmed through the roof trap door and chimney.  We eventually managed to stuff the chimney full of furniture and incinerate a few rats with the flaming door before jumping out the 2nd floor window and running for the sea.  We got back into our rowboat and rowed away, seeing some hooded figure commanding the rats on the shore.

The next day, after spending the night in our boat, we went to talk to the leper leader and he told us to not mess with the rats.  We found him creepy.

A large ship arrived on the western shor eof the island.  We hid and kept tabs on the crew who arrived on the mainland, hoping for some sign that these were people who would take us off the island.  The crew had some interactions with the lepers and returned to their boat without raising anchor.

We went to the leper leader again to ask who the visitors were.  He said the ship was a pirate ship and probably wouldn't be friendly.

We decided to talk to the pirates anyway, sending one guy so as to seem both unthreatening and undemanding.  My character went.

The pirates brought me onboard and said they'd execute me to keep their island port secret unless I gave them a reason not to.  I tried to be friendly and draw some sympathy as a marooned fellow seaman, and asked if there was any way I could earn passage.  The captain told me that they'd buried treasure in a cave on the eastern face of the hill, but when they came to recover it, the cave was gone.  If I could recover their treasure, they'd take the PCs off the island and to Freeport.

After much discussion, the players decided that we'd rather risk pirates than head out to sea in our rowboat or try to survive nightly rat attacks until the next leper ship arrived in a month.  We remarked that the contraption on the tower roof was "aimed" at the spot where the pirate cave had vanished.  With the contraption's markings indicating phases of the moon, and the next full moon two nights away, we set ourselves the task of finding the missing part of the contraption in two nights.  (There were vehement votes for other plans; I think majority ruled on this.)

We went to the leper colony for the two purposes of asking questions and of sneaking around to unearth secrets.  Finding the leader not in his tent, we explored it, and found an opening to a network of tunnels.  We navigated (and mapped) a lot of tunnels and rooms before we came to a room with the missing piece of the contraption.  We grabbed it and continued through the tunnels until one led out on the eastern part of the island, not far from the tower.

We spent the night hiding (in the boat, I think), and once the rats had left at dawn, we went back to the tower, retrieved an object we'd previously found in the 2nd floor, and completed assembly of the contraption.  With a giant lens now pointing toward the vanished pirate cave, we just had to wait for the moonlight to shine through it.

I can't remembe how we protected the contraption while also entering the cave -- the rats would have threatened both areas.  Maybe the moon just rose before dark?  In any case, the moonlight caused the cave to appear, we hauled a treasure chest out of the cave and brought it to the pirate ship, they honored the agreement, The End.

Stongest Impressions:

I remember lots of engagement and fun, with very little unenthused muddling through (though I think there ).

Favorite recollection #1: the fight against the rats -- the tower seemed like a death trap, wherein the continuous swarm would inevitably wear us down.  The highlight was when we maneuvered/killed the rats so that there was a temporary opening in the chimney.  Jeff's character made a few rolls to hoist a huge chair (success), drive it into the fireplace accurately (success) and quickly (success) without hurting himself (failure).  The other highlight was when the rats stopped swimming after our boat and we realized we'd all survived.

Favorite recollection #2: convincing the pirate captain not to kill me and to help the party (the odds were in my favor, but it still would have been rather easy to screw up).

Favorite recollection #3: various inquires about the contraption and guesses as to how it worked.

Favorite recollection #4: thinking the tunnels were a useless discovery and then suddenly finding the contraption piece and being glad we'd gone poking around the leper leader's tent (when we easily might not have).

GM Prep Notes:

Al made all decisions before play started; he didn't invent anything based on PC actions, save the responses of the people we interacted with.

He had thought of other ways for us to escape the island besides the one we chose.

So, here's the question the Al and I are currently trying to answer via e-mail:

What types of decisions are most meaningful to players in this kind of game?

Any questions you can ask (or suggestions you can make) that would help me get to the heart of this would be much appreciated.

Here's what Al and I have discussed so far as potential answers to the question:

• decisions about what gets played -- coming up with goals for the PC party
• long-range strategic decisions -- coming up with strategies to achieve PC party goals
• short-range strategic decisions -- e.g. reacting in combat
• decisions that determine success / failure of PC missions
• decisions that determine success / failure of PC encounters (e.g. fights)
• decisions that demonstrate tactical genius regardless of necessity
• decisions that get you rewards (loot, points) unrelated to specific goals
• decisions that create changes in the Setting
• decisions that create Exploration of their own Character's Effectiveness
• decisions that create Exploration of their own Character's aesthetic
• decisions that create Exploration of whatever they find most cool in the Setting / Situation
• decisions that create Exploration of Color appropriate to the game's aesthetic

The points about goals assume that these are genuine player goals as well as being PC party goals.  If the two do not match, I would think that stuff about PC goals is off the list of contenders for "meaningful".

Okay, those first three posts were the Orientation Day Lecture.  Pillows probably should have been provided along with it.

Now (hopefully), something of more awesomeness:

Rats in the tower

After using up a fair amount of time (in the game and in reality) dicking around in the tower, Al told us we heard scraping sounds along the wall.

We all looked at each other.  We weren't expecting that.  "Uh oh..."

The PCs climbed up to the roof.  It was dark.  The moon hadn't risen yet, and we hadn't made any torches.  We couldn't see anything.  The noises were louder, clearly from numerous sources, coming up the tower.

"Fuck...  Let's get inside and bar the trap door to the roof."

Done.  Skittering sounds continue, things move about on the roof.  We have our weapons out.  Marc is messing with the booby-trapped door, trying to see if we can get out without incinerating ourselves.  We all know the menace on the roof isn't simply going to vanish, but maybe we can just barricade ourselves in until-

With a shriek, a rat the size of a Saint Bernard rockets out of the chimney.

"Gah!  Kill it!"  But the big realization is, "Oh god, how many of them are there?!"

And indeed, after one swing at the first rat, there's another.  Al informs us that the skittering and shrieking is quite loud, answering our question:

"Too many."

See, from the first exchange, we can see that we outclass the rats individually.  Our swords and armor deal and prevent more damage than rat teeth and hides.  But no Lendrhald player character can survive more than a couple direct hits.  So with 4 PCs and a SWARM of rats, it's just a matter of time.

We all know this quite well as we yell to each other:

"Marc, keep at the door!"
"Joel, help Dave flank the chimney so they don't surround us!"
"Jeff, look for a way to plug that damn chimney!"

At this point, Al mentions that there are loud scraping and chipping sounds at the roof trap door.

Now I'm thinking, "Fuck, we wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time, we're dead.  Al designed this tower with one exit, designed the island so that rats overrun this part of it at night, and we didn't get out in time."  But at the same time, I'm going, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, think of something!"

It's a rush, man.

Joel and I take some minor wounds while Jeff is grilling Al on the contents of the room and whether the desk and chair look like they could fit in the chimney.  He pushes a desk into the fireplace, but there's still enough room for the rats to come through.

Some rats get past Joel and me, and they head for Marc, who has made no progress in moving through the flaming doorway.  Marc winds up with a 2 on 1, with no way for the other PCs to help him.

We all look at Marc and grimace with that, "Hope you didn't like your character too much," look.

Next combat round, Joel takes a bad hit -- one more will probably kill him.

Marc grills Al on the exact shape of the corner the door is in, rolls successfully to maneuver himself to the right spot with being rat-impeded -- and opens the door.  Boom.  Rat flambe.

"Yes!"
"Nice!"
"Hot shit!"

Jeff's got a chair hoisted and announces his intention: "I'm going to charge across the room with the chair bottom braced against my torso, atop my forearms, and ram the chair's back into the fireplace, just under the opening, atop the desk."

Joel and I just need to kill one rat to create an opening.

"Joel, you get hit you're toast, let me fight it."
"I think we're all toast if we miss this chance to plug the chimney.  I'm attacking."
"Cool."

We kill the rat.  Joel doesn't get hit.

"Whew!"  Eyes WIDE.

"Okay," says Jeff, "Here goes!"

Al nods.  "You hear the next rat sliding down, but it hasn't popped out yet.  You need to make a Strength roll to maintain your grip as you charge; then an Agility roll to jam the chair into the right spot, quickly.  Hmm, and it's not gonna be pretty when you slam yourself into the chair as your momentum's stopped.  I guess another Agility roll to see if you nut yourself."

We all chuckle at that visual, but it's short-lived, as Jeff picks up the dice.

As he shakes them, we're looking on in a state of semi-panic.  The rules only allow so much communication per combat round, so we've had to come up with this plan pretty quickly -- we certainly haven't been given time to assess whether it's really the best option, or what the hell to do if it fails.

First roll -- success!
"You charge across the room and drive the chair into the fireplace!"
Clenched jaws, squinted eyes, and raised fists all around.

Second roll -- success!
"Yes!"  First from Jeff, then from the rest of us.
Al says, "You get the chair back right in there!"
Jeff high-fives Marc.

"Okay, last roll... and, I nut myself."
Everyone cracks up. 

The laughter is followed by a din of:
"Good call with the furniture!"
"Thank god you killed that last rat!"
"Thank god it missed you!"
"Our positioning worked!"

So what now?

Marc looks at Al and says, "Okay, this time I'll try tapping the third step with my stick."

Al shakes his head.  "Flames again."  Pause.  "Splinters are falling from the trap door as the scratching continues."

Panic mode returns, with everyone yelling suggestions to Marc.  Will our epic victory over the chimney can't buy us time to escape, or was it just an awesome moment that delayed the inevitable?

"Try ripping the door off its hinges!"
"You're not strong enough.  A chunk of the trap door falls from the ceiling."
"Try ripping it off with a rope!"
"Okay, we tie a rope like nyah, get our two strongest guys nyah and nyah, and 1-2-3-pull!"
"Sounds good!"
"Okay, you get the rope wrapped.  You can see snouts and teeth poking through the hole sin the ceiling.  Dave's here and Jeff's here?  Okay roll Strength checks.  Chunks of the trap door are raining down now."

"Success!"
"Success!  So what happens?!"
Never having encountered magical doors in Lendrhald, we don't know if we're about to fry ourselves, or if the door can't be removed, or what.

"The door comes flying off.  The flame goes off.  It burns briefly, then stops."

"I poke my stick through the doorway."

"Nothing."

We all look at each other.

"I'm the least hurt," I volunteer, "and have a high Toughness."
Everyone nods.

I give that, "Make a new character?" look to Al, and say, "I step through, onto the first step."

Everyone looks at Al.  Are we truly in a death trap?  Is it burn or be gnawed?  Or did we buy enough time to actually find a way out?

"You step through.  Nothing happens."

We all look at each other.
"We fucking run the hell out of there!"

Upon finally making it to safety, we all slump back in our chairs and exhale loudly.
Awesomeness.

So Dave - using your best judgment, your best critique, and putting aside all romance and emotion ...

Was that a managed experience? Did Al pick and choose exactly what to inflict upon a given character at a given moment, for maximum effect? Did he choose  "nut yourself" over something more lethal at the most opportune moment, or to say it better, upon realizing that you guys were right at the crux of "lethal but we have a chance?"

Because I did that, as GM, for many years. It's a bit like conducting an orchestra, I suppose, or perhaps like managing an emotional crowd who've gathered for a given purpose but are not quite ready for it. You say A, they respond with a given degree of unity, a given degree of direction, and a given degree of energy. Which is weakest? Put pressure on it, so it heightens. Then put pressure on another of the three, and keep shifting as you go. To the people in the crowd, it feels extremely natural, as if unity, direction, and energy are all swelling at once.

Let's say Al did not do that, though. Let's say he improvised rat action and fire action (fire acted as a character in that scene) but did not adjust content or the rate of the content's pressure on you. I know that's possible too, because it's core to my Narrativist GMing. I also experimented with it in a Gamist context with Tunnels & Trolls, and it was a blast. That was some pretty hard-core, relatively low-Exploration Gamist play, though - or rather, the Exploration was of a humorous, highly local sort that would not have pleased many role-players one bit (for instance, Setting was 99% pitched out).

I'm not sure you'll be able to answer that question here in this forum, and bluntly, I would prefer that you not get distracted by speculation. It's up to Al to confront it. Based only on my own experience, with no judgment or knowledge of Al, I know that I tried to design games for ten or fifteen years, and every unsuccessful attempt was the result of my designing an arena for play (setting, character creation, resolution) which did not provide anything for what I actually did, as player or GM, that made play successful. The projects became exercises in Color - all very fun to be sure, with plenty of maps and plenty of cultural notes and stuff, but it wasn't game design.

So that's a key question, I think. Here's another.

Were the two rat encounters like two peaks in a plain, or were they reinforcing what was already one big peak (i.e. the whole island)? H'mmm, I'm not sure if that is a good way to ask. Just in case, I'll re-state: Did you enjoy the island scenario because the two rat encounters were so viscerally fun, or did you enjoy the rat encounters because they were embedded in an engaging scenario?

Neither is a bad answer. I am thinking of our Hero Wars game, in which the power and urgency of the scenario made smaller crises within it very, very poignant and/or exciting. Looking back on it, playing out any of the fights in isolation would have been boring. It was an enlightening reversal from my older attempts at RuneQuest, in which the excitement of the fights was supposed to be the engine that made everything else worthwhile. Whereas the T&T experience was quite the opposite. Not that the fights were totally isolated; there existed a higher level of strategy too, but the fights were the core.

In discussing this game design with you, I often find that the most energy seems to be spent on "the world," but the most fun and excitement seems to be based on much more local, much more moment-to-moment stress (the good kind) based on harm to the characters. As a result, when hypothetically contemplating what I'd bring to the table if I played with you guys, I have zero interest in "Lendrhald," the place - I'm just interested in a good hot fight.

Best, Ron

Ron,

I'm mulling over your questions.  Re: this question:

Ron wrote:
Did you enjoy the island scenario because the two rat encounters were so viscerally fun, or did you enjoy the rat encounters because they were embedded in an engaging scenario?

I asked Al about the orchestration/not issue, and here is what he said:

I try to keep the 'management' to a minimum, but I do inevitably manage somewhat.  Before play started, I knew that the rats would swarm the beach and the tower at night, and that the fire trap existed and roughly how it worked.  I had a notion that there would probably be some kind of good stressful encounter involving the rats showing up while the PCs were exploring the tower, but wasn't sure what form that would take.

When y'all chose to barricade yourselves in the tower, that gave the encounter its shape.  That the rats should try to get in was just a logical outcome; so were the ways in which they could try to enter (my map had things like the chimney on it already).  I guesstimated how long it would take them to get in through the chimney, and how long it would take them to chew through the trap door.  I knew the figure controlling them would cause them to keep coming unless something specific was done to stop them, and that roughly one per round could fit through the chimney.  At a finer scale than that, I fell back on orchestration - that there should be 2 rats arriving on this round, and then 3 more two rounds later, and that it should take 7 rounds instead of 5 or 9 for the rats to chew through the trap door, were driven primarily by keeping things at the edge of manageable for the PCs.

The nut-shot thing was just "what would happen", born of me visualizing what was going on, and completely independent of attempts to manage the stress of the situation in general.  I hadn't thought through all of what would happen if you tried to dismantle the fire trap door, so I had to make something up on the spot for that.  That decision was based on "how should fire trap doors in general work, for consistency and world-makes-sense-ness?", and not on the PCs' current situation.

Ron wrote:
I know that I tried to design games for ten or fifteen years, and every unsuccessful attempt was the result of my designing an arena for play (setting, character creation, resolution) which did not provide anything for what I actually did, as player or GM, that made play successful. The projects became exercises in Color - all very fun to be sure, with plenty of maps and plenty of cultural notes and stuff, but it wasn't game design.

Ron wrote: Did you enjoy the island scenario because the two rat encounters were so viscerally fun,

Ron wrote: or did you enjoy the rat encounters because they were embedded in an engaging scenario?

Ron wrote: In discussing this game design with you, I often find that the most energy seems to be spent on "the world,"

Ron wrote: but the most fun and excitement seems to be based on much more local, much more moment-to-moment stress (the good kind) based on harm to the characters.

Ron wrote: As a result, when hypothetically contemplating what I'd bring to the table if I played with you guys, I have zero interest in "Lendrhald," the place - I'm just interested in a good hot fight.

Hi David, I was wondering what came of your challenge creation rules and if they were used at all by Al for this game. Also, do you have anything to say about how the game's system fed into how the situations played out. For instance, you talk about a series of die rolls deciding the outcome of one event... how did that influence the level of tension/the sense of immediacy.

I'm very interested in Lendrhald as a setting and as a game system, and though I think I have a good idea of what it would be like sitting at the table with you and your friends I can't really imagine what I would do if I was presented with the same rules/setting info you guys are working with.

Is there more info somewhere that I'm missing. I read both of your last posts and didn't catch a lot about what the rules/setting was. The mention of Freeport makes me think that you might be using the setting from the modules of the same name, or including elements of them in your own world, but... that might be connecting too many dots.

Nolan,

Sadly, 0% of the processes used by Al to run the Rat Island game were formalized at the time.  Well, actually, the combat mechanics were, and they haven't changed much.  They are:
atacker rolls 2d6 to hit; margin of success determines damage
attacker (if hitting) rolls hit location (head/body/4 limbs)
defender rolls armor soak; physical damage taken is now determined
defender (if taking physical damage) rolls toughness soak; Shock taken is now determined

It's a mixed bag; the fact that the outcomes make sense and factor in everything of real-world relevance* is vital, but the handling time and multiple points of contact risk interfering with the flow of immersion.

As for the sequence of rolls in Jeff slamming in the chair, that process isn't built into the system anywhere, it's just an occasional result of the GM going, "What does the PC need to do to pull this off?"  I personally am a fan of multiple rolls on one high-impact action, to heighten the suspense and drama.  It conveys that what's beeing done is difficult, and makes everyone wait an extra beat to know the outcome.

As for building the challenge, Al basically drew maps and thought up gizmos and planned events etc. for about two-and-a-half months.  (Thus my desire to streamline and assist prep with my design.)

I seem to recall Al liking some Warhammer modules called Bluffside and Freeport that have heavily influenced two of our major cities.  He's a big WFRP (and GW in general) fan.

*+ Shock, an invention so there is less character death on bad luck combat rolls

How are you guys generating characters?

masqueradeball wrote: How are you guys generating characters?

Is there a predefined structure for how these points are spent and how they feed back into the system, or do people just make up skills, abilities, etc... and assign them a point cost on a purely subjective basis?

Nolan,

The skills are predefined (though intended to cover everything you might want to do), and costs are set largely based on adventuring utility, with "more useful" equaling "more expensive". 

You get more points by showing up and playing, and you spend those points however you want.  I'm pondering bonus points for succeeding at something really hard and/or facilitating others' immersion (as voted upon by them).

I've reflected further on Al's response that there was some orchestration involved... and it seems quite possible that such orchestration added a lot to the experience.  So I think it would behoove me to understand how to do that well (when I've GMed and tried winging it, without much functional understanding, some times have worked better than others).

Ron wrote:
Because I did that, as GM . . . You say A, they respond with a given degree of unity, a given degree of direction, and a given degree of energy. Which is weakest? Put pressure on it, so it heightens.

Hi Dave,

Finally, I'm getting around to this. One minor factor in the delay is my surprise. Maybe it was just my phrasing that didn't work for you. That would be easy to understand; I'm having a hard time fathoming that you aren't familiar with the actual techniques.

OK, let's say I'm the GM for a game of ... ohh, let's pick any strong 1980s game which includes a commitment to spatial relations among characters, distance modifiers, and other wargame-y features, as well as a commitment to some kind of saga or emulating a genre known for the power of its stories. Rolemaster is a pretty good example; Champions is an excellent example. I played a hell of a lot of both. Let's say there are five other people playing, with pretty well-developed characters, and that the pack of us are good at entering into conflicts and developing conflicts' outcomes into the next session's prep, without confusion.

So here we are in a fight. The players have sheets absolutely packed with tiny scribbles, so they have lots of formal options, and there's our battle-map, so everyone knows what's happening in terms of movement options and the constraints they pose on attack and defense.

Now, the players are usually thinking in terms of individual actions, either singly or in terms of setting up a group-facilitated optimized attack by one or two characters. I, as GM, am thinking more in terms of whole "sets" of events - one such set is the fight up until the point someone is taken out in some way; another such set is whether the fight stays all in one spot or breaks up into sub-fights in different places. There are lots of these, conceptually; one favorite for superheroes play is whether and when the rogue-psycho hero balks at the orders or leadership of the good-guy straight-arrow hero.

With such a scale of "sets" in mind, I launch into the first part of combat with a frontal attack by relatively uninteresting minion types led by one of the bad guys who can fly, and maneuver my other power-hitters into different positions, using subtler abilities. (This is "A" in my post above, or the first one, anyway.)

What do the players do? Unlike them, I am not thinking in terms of this particular energy-blast or spell, or that particular weapon-maneuver or degree of success on the roll. That stuff is pretty much automatic for me as GM, by this point. No, I'm thinking of these three things:

1. How coordinated are the players' characters' responses to this immediate situation? Do they communicate with one another? Do they organize themselves spatially in a team-like way? (consider the possible negative answer: a spray of dis-united individual character actions, regardless of how effective they are)

2. What are they trying to do? Merely survive the fight? Get to a particular item and blow it up? Take out a key NPC among the foes? Escape? (consider the possible negative answer: no particular direction at all, or a variety of conflicting goals, or constantly shifting goals)

3. How "into it" are the characters, as a function of how "into it" the players are? This is easy to assess, based on both the imagined situation of the heroes hurling themselves into action, and the obvious and present observation of the real people playing. Is this exciting? Is someone on tenterhooks about the outcome of a given punch or a given spell? When the much-loved/hated foe NPC who'd been hiding reveals himself, is there a collective gasp? When the wall collapses or when the death-bot sprays the room with plasma bolts, do players seize their dice for their dodge rolls with great enthusiasm? Are people delivering lines for their characters with no prompting? Are people chattering constructively as one player prepares an action, or, conversely, going attentively silent as another player prepares his? (consider the possible negative answer: when everyone just keeps looking to the game master and makes the roll he requests, and sort of just moves the characters around in a desultory fashion, without imaginative commitment or enthusiasm)

The fight isn't going to be about who survives; player-characters rarely die and usually come back in this kind of game. Nor is the fight going to make or break the scenario as a whole; even if they lose, that just sets a different starting point for the next scene (e.g. the prison cells), and that's just another road to Rome; the overall point of the scenario at the highest level is not going to be put at risk by any outcomes of any fights prior to the climax. The GM's goal, in this type of fight for this type of game, is to facilitate the highest possible "scores" on #1-3 as possible. This is the essence of being a "good GM" in the rules-heavy 1980s sense, the kind who runs romping fun fight scenes with intensely complex and wargame-y rules, in the context of a genre-colorful scenario whose ebbs and flows and eventual climax are never at risk. (Exalted players, take note - that game is the product of designers who honed these skills to the max using the games I'm talking about, as well as a handful of others.)

So! How do I do it? I look at #1-3 and see which has the most negative answer at the moment.

If #1 is weakest, then I maximize a common threat: some aspect of the environment changes, which they all have to cope with; or the damage-potential of the incoming attacks increases; or I tap into a given NPC's major attack in order to lay the smackdown on a player-character. I will really focus on rules-use, especially optimizing some specific action, in order to show the players that the book (and the attendant possibility of all its vicious outcomes) is arrayed against them. Often, this tactic involves in-game time, as crudely as "you have three rounds before it blows!" or more covertly perhaps in other ways. A subtler version of this tactic is to increase the weirdness factor, based on the NPCs saying or knowing unexpected things, or going so far as to shift the venue of the fight someplace surreal (like the inside of an NPC's mind, et cetera). All or any of this creates sort of a "wake up and pay attention, this is dangerous" moment.

If #2 is weakest, then I make it clearer what the scenario-based consequences of losing this fight are, and in fact modify them to be higher right then and there, if necessary. This is when the wall rolls back to reveal their NPC friend held in mystic or high-tech bonds, obviously in agony. Or when the train-car, suspended over the city and full of citizens, lurches alarmingly. Or when the priest character's patron god appears for a second and shrieks in desperation. Or have the big villain simply turn his back to exit the fight, saying "I have plans elsewhere," or something like that. Or, most important, suddenly provide the revelation that I was planning for next session right here in this fight. All or any of this is saying, "This fight matters, and I'll do something really fucking bad (i.e. your heroes will fail as heroes) if you don't give it all you've got."

If #3 is weakest, then the solutions are much subtler. One of the most aikido-like solutions is to call for a break. Another is to do one of the above two, to a lesser extent, but with maximum emphasis on description and Color. Yet another is to role-play a player-character to some extent, perhaps describing his or her feelings, or perhaps using features of the sheet ("previous occupation: ranger," or "psychological disadvantage: paranoid"). The best way to do this latter is to imitate the player's past enthusiastic depiction of that character, and also to focus on sensations that roll over or hit the character, rather than the character's actual resopnses. Vast dangers exist in this! But a subtle touch with one's friends, and above all, backing off if necessary, can be highly effective. All or any of this is basically modeling to the players how they should be acting and committing to the game, by showing your commitment to it, as well as seeding them a little bit, leading by the nose as it were.

You probably notice that most of the tactics can be easily applied during players' actions as well as my NPCs' actions. You also probably notice that I can introduce sub-sets of actions' consequences (upon felling a minion, "his ray-gun drops from his hand at your feet!") pretty much at will, for anyone's actions, and it will look as if I'm not doing it.

Again, the scale of when I assess #1-3 and address myself to one of the tactics is not dictated by "my turn" during the iniative-based steps of the fight, and it's not dictated by anything like rounds or whatever. It's dictated by those "sets" I was talking about, which come in many forms and are highly tuned to the particular genre, the particular characters involved, the position of this particular fight in this scenario, and these players as people.

Does that help? A lot of Forge talk and design is based on already-existing expertise with these games and these techniques, as well as a desire to move beyond them some fashion.  I'm pretty sure I'm telling you stuff that you already know and practice. Um ... right?

Best, Ron

Ron,

Yeah, I was just having trouble parsing the idea of "put pressure" on "unity" etc.  All of those techniques are things I've done, but not with full awareness.  I can probably do them better if I think about it in the terms you're talking about, consciously evaluating "what do the players do?" by degree of interaction and focus of investment (my paraphrase of your "unity" and "direction") in addition to evaluating general enthusiasm (which I already do; I assume anyone who doesn't do that doesn't really want to GM for others*).

At this moment, I'm out of practice.  I orchestrate fights a little more than Al did in Rat Island, but not a lot more -- as GM, I allow many of my declarations to be dictated by "what would happen".  If I've previously decided that the villain would only use his uber-badass spell if personally threatened, then I'll refuse to break the spell out early just because the PCs are bored fighting his flunkies.

Applying your categories to Rat Island, I can come up with some examples (actual and hypothetical):

1) If Joel and I had been able to keep the rats entirely away from Marc in perpetuity, leaving him to futz with the fire door at his leisure, the situation would not have required us players to interact to the extent that we did.  So this was a good threat in that it couldn't simply be handled by a subset of the group.

2) I think an immediate threat of death handles this one pretty easily.  There were a few options thrown out about ways to avoid death -- someone suggested getting onto the roof and holding a position there to cover PCs rappeling down, someone else suggested finding a way to completely bar the rats from the room we were in -- but this argument was fun interaction around a shared basic goal.  So this was a good threat in that there was a clear reason to bother with it, instead of doing something else.  This is often tricky to achieve in Lendrhald, where we place a high priority on allowing the players to explore whatever most interests them.  I expect there to be many fights where "Why don't we just bail?" is a valid question.  In the cases where one player wants to bail and another doesn't, I'm honestly not sure what to do.  As GM, I could obviously pick a direction and make it happen ("More goblins surround you, now you can't leave!"), but that messes up the whole player-determinism thing.  I'm not sure if here in this thread is the best place to ask for suggestions on this... but if you have any, I'd love to hear 'em.

3) Ah, telling players how their characters feel.  :)  I used to do this a ton.  My buddy John loved it, but all of the crew from the Rat Island game felt their character-determination sovereignty infringed upon whenever there was even a hint of this.  I think Al's approach for keeping a high energy level (and the one I feel is "correct" for Lendrhald) was adding Color to the PCs' environment -- essentially, running with the game's large-scale goal of "feeling like you're really there".  Dust and wood chips falling from the ceiling as the rats chew through the door; an armchair that isn't quite conveniently-shaped for lifting; a fireplace too tall and open to be blocked by a desk.  I know that if I feel "really there", I can't help but respond to any dangerous situation with excitement.

I don't see any loose ends on this particular topic; please let me know if you do...

Was there a larger point you were heading toward with "Did Al manage the experience or just set it up and watch it run?", or was it just food for my own thought?  (Same questions applies for peaks and plains.)

Thanks,
-David

*as opposed to simply showing off "my world" or "my story", which I consider to be more "GMing at others"

Hi Dave,

Here's the larger point: if the fun and excitement that you described for this fight scene is an important point of play for you, maybe even the point, then all the dedication to the world of Lendrhald, all the dedication to the logic of the resolution methods, and all the dedication to any other traditional element of RPG rules isn't going to do you one bit of good. Your game will join the ranks and ranks of perfectly reasonable derivations of AD&D2 and Champions (perhaps mediated through their later manifestations of Shadowrun and Vampire), all of which add up to a wonderful, echoing nothing.

I was recently perusing my rulebooks for a game that came out about nine years ago, if I remember right, called Providence, written by Lucien Soulban. It was a solid Champions hack, basically, with some neat world ideas (a former prison planet, hollow world, a winged race with a caste system based on how much one's wings had degenerated), a few too many Powerz and Guildz and stuff like that, and, in all seriousness, an admirable and inspiring vision of shooting for heroism in SF/fantasy role-playing, on the model of the comics series Kingdom Come. Guess what? It had everything you've mentioned in your discussions of material for Lendrhald, not the same content, but the same game stuff. I shook my head sadly ... it was, basically, not playable, either in terms of GM effort, or in terms of player attractiveness - because all the what was there in maddening detail, but the clearly-stated what-for did not exist save for Soulban's introductory text.

That's where you're headed, it seems to me.

Best, Ron

Hi Ron,

It's probably some sort of statement about where I'm coming from that after reading your description of Providence, I thought, "Dude, now I kinda wanna play that.  I'm sure I can make it playable."

I do understand what you mean about the "what for?", though.  Al and I have been flitting back and forth between two answers:

1) a particular flavor of Step On Up, where the strategic options and win conditions are 100% correlated with in-game elements and outcomes, and the "sense of really being there" adds a unique sort of intensity to the challenge.  Rat Island seems to me to be a reasonably good model for this... does it seems that way to you?  In this model, screw a pre-established setting, it doesn't matter.  But some degree of modeling realism does matter, in order to pull off that unique flavor.

2) a game which is all about the pre-established setting, which basically allows the players to explore whatever they find most cool in the gameworld, and rewards them for doing so by giving them more ability to explore more cooler stuff.  The technique for achieving these rewards would basically be tackling dangerous scenarios (including a fair number of dungeon-crawls), because (a) we find that imminent threat to the characters is a great additional incentive to participate in the "feel like you're really there" process, and (b) it's a relaibly fun form of tension and conflict leading up to the payoff.  A Rat Island game under this model would have been about getting off the island with the gizmo, which we can now use to open the secret door in some other dungeon, which would give us the key to the Orcs' underground kingdom etc. etc.

I was pretty sold on #1 for a while, until Callan started showing me how much I'd created obstacles to a working Gamist reward system, and Al admitted he wasn't actually cool with the world being ignored.  So now I'm leaning toward #2.  My plan right now includes:

A) book-cover text that includes descriptions of the setting flavor and PC niche in that (basically, normal folks pushing the frontiers of a threatening medieval world where Evil Stuff lurks in the dark woods) -- hopefully setting some expectations for, "We players agree that this is the kind of stuff we'd enjoy exploring."

B) starting the book with a short story that's basically an example of play, wherein some explorers go looking for some missing children, enter a creepy place, find a rune, and get chased off by a monster, all written with lots of description of the environment -- hopefully showing the players, "THIS is what play is supposed to look like; if you're not into that, play another game."

C) formalizing the acquisition of "Secrets" as a reward that you write on your character sheet after completing ("win" or "lose") a mission, and instructing the GM to make a campaign chart in which many Minor Secrets lead up to one Major Secret, many Majors lead up to one Ultimate, etc., to provide a cumulative experience over repeated play.  Ultimate Secrets would give players the greatest ability to affect the setting; Majors less; Minors less still.

The emphasis on setting immersion and reality-modeling resolution would remain.

Does #2 being reliably fun sound feasible to you?  Do A, B, and C all sound potentially effective, or beside the point in terms of making #2 actually happen?

Thanks,
-David

Hi Dave,

Sure, you could make Providence a hell of a lot of fun. So could I. That's my point - it would require making it fun to play with secondary and relatively secret skills that aren't even mentioned in the book. I call that a design flaw, regardless of the fact that this flaw defined role-playing design among the so-called industry for about fifteen years.

You described a fun event during play. I'm questioning whether the game makes that possible for anyone to be inspired to do, or whether it was fun due to specific GMing techniques which can be applied to any traditional rules-set. If it's the former, then you're on the right track with your design, but if it's the latter, then all your design is just spinning wheels with words, because the fun is all found in the GM's skillful hands. You'll have to assess that yourself.

As for your other questions, my only answer is, "I don't know." Much of what you describe is a matter of taste, and my reactions to that don't matter. Anyway, ultimately, the #1 vs. #2 is a game design choice that only you can make. My concern is only to arrive at clarity for such questions.

For instance, your #1 seems most consistent with what you described in the Rat Island fight, but what you say about it is almost incomprehensible to me ... I cannot understand why choosing #1 be dismissive of setting. Such an approach benefits greatly from setting, although not necessarily the Codex Gazzetteer Cultures Worldbook variety of setting.

So what you ultimately decide to do with #1 and #2 is up to you. But I urge that you not create false dichotomies when asking yourself such questions.

Best, Ron

Hi Ron,

Crap.  I seem to be asking the wrong questions.

First, let me just clarify a few points:

- I absolutely understand what you're saying about a game design that leaves success purely up to skillful GMing being a crappy game design.  I agree wholeheartedly with this characterization, and I do not aspire to crappy game design.

- What I meant by "screw a pre-established setting" w.r.t. #1 was "screw emphasizing The World of Lendrhald".  The way I see #1, the setting's job would be to serve as cool Challenge modules.  Having any sort of consistent "here is The World of Lendrhald!" framework around those mods would be a nice bonus, but it wouldn't be integral to play working.  In #2, on the other hand, enthusiasm for The World of Lendrhald would be the reason to play.

As for my questions:
You spoke of "designing an arena for play that provided for what you actually did to make games successful".  I am having trouble figuring out how to actually implement that. 

What did Al actually do to make Rat Island successful?  To me, the answers seem to be:

1) he built a Challenge mod that contained a few goals for the players to choose between, a few threats to survive, and few puzzles to figure out.  My attempts to make these happen via the game's design have thus far consisted of writing up "instructions and helpful tips for GMs", largely of the checklist variety.

2) he helped everyone stay immersed via a large number of techniques that I have assembled into a manual (which breaks play into 3 modes and provides strict rules for what you can do while in "immersed" mode, and minor punishments for breaking these rules)

3) he ad-libbed what would be "most fun" when ad-lib was necessary, as described in his quote response above.  I don't have any brilliant thoughts on how to formalize such techniques into a game design; my first thought would be to say, "GMs, when ad-lib is necessary, keep things right near the edge of lethal."

What have I actually done in the past to make games like my #2 idea successful?

The first things that came to mind were the A, B, and C methods I listed in my last post.

I was expecting you to look at them (particularly C) and go either, "Yeah, that might make #2 happen," or, "No, that might be fun, but it seems totally insufficient to make #2 happen."

"I don't know" makes me feel like I must be looking in the wrong place, addressing the wrong concerns.

If that is the case, any further pointers on how to identify the right place to look would be appreciated.  I am having trouble seeing any forks in the road to Fantasy Heartbreaker Land.

Thanks,
-David

P.S. I hope to playtest a version of #2 soon, but it would really help my evaluations if I can separate "here's what the game as designed is making happen" from "here is what I the GM am making happen regardless of the game design".

P.S. I hope to playtest a version of #2 soon, but it would really help my evaluations if I can separate "here's what the game as designed is making happen" from "here is what I the GM am making happen regardless of the game design".

Hi there,

I'll do my best. I'd like to be clear that when I say "I don't know," the strongest likelihood is simply that I'm the deficient one, rather than there being anything wrong with your questions.

I looked over the last few posts again to figure out what I can really do to help this thread. So ...

1. One small thing: the GM's consideration of "what would happen" is part and parcel of the three tactics I described above, not an alternative to them.

2. You wrote,

What I meant by "screw a pre-established setting" w.r.t. #1 was "screw emphasizing The World of Lendrhald".  The way I see #1, the setting's job would be to serve as cool Challenge modules.  Having any sort of consistent "here is The World of Lendrhald!" framework around those mods would be a nice bonus, but it wouldn't be integral to play working.

Ron,

Ha ha ha!  Okay, I feel much better.  Thanks for the personal perspective.  I can see how #1 would be a lot of fun for a lot of players, which is why I was pursuing it pretty exclusively for several months.  And I can see how #2 simply wouldn't be someone's cup of tea.  So, yeah, I mistook your "not my bag" for a technical critique.  I'll hope to pursue feedback from other folks who are more into this sort of thing.  (Other folks, if you're reading, that's your cue!)

I've never heard the term "breadcrumb-style rewards" before, but I love it.  Al and I have had both good and bad experiences with breadcrumb rewards.  Basically, when the breadcrumbs have met our personal definitions of cool (in terms of aesthetic sensibility and neato functionality), we've loved 'em.  But mostly, we've disagreed with our GMs about what's cool, and have had to fight to stay engaged.

Accordingly, Lendrhald has, at times, been our attempt to create play full of Our Favorite Breadcrumbs, and market it to players who think, "Yeah, I like those breadcrumbs too!"

Thanks for the reading suggestions.  I'm familiar with the D&D and World of Darkness examples.  None of those share my ideas of "what's cool", but it does seem to me that they have some history of success in going, "Look!  Cool story in cool place with cool characters and cool shiny things!  Play like this!" and getting players and GMs to go, "Hell yeah!"  Obviously the players don't always get what they came for, but I think some GM prep and organization along the lines of my (C) idea makes it vastly more likely.

Happy holidays!
-David

One more post before I head out for a mostly-computer-free week:
Xenopulse, thanks for the suggestion.  It struck me as such an obviously good idea that I forgot to respond.  I'll see if I can find some interested folks via Connections here or via NerdNYC where I live.

Hi David,

Some games do this thing where they add a small list of color bits that get used during play that add color and help keep the fictional style consistent, without adding tons to handling time.  Capes, Spirit of the Century, The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, Grey Ranks, Covenant, and Trollbabe are some examples.  You might also want to check out John Harper's Suffering Mechanic idea here. (http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2007/12/suffering-mechanic.html).

This kind of stuff is a bit different than older design like Over the Edge, Hero Wars/Quest, or Story Engine/Maelstrom in that instead of being a general description of your character, it covers genre cliches, events, and color which help build the expected fiction of the game.

Basically, the point is to include inspirational color bits as part of play, small enough they don't crowd out play itself, but there that players are forced to engage with it while engaging the mechanical bits.  It also makes it easy to put in the stuff you think is cool without necessarily having to harp it out and make the players read tons and tons of setting material to try to catch the feel of it.

It also lowers how much stuff the players or the GM has to keep in mind while handling mechanics, and makes it less breadcrumb reward style as much as getting the players to fall into the fictional vision you have in mind without having to have another person correct them.

Also, in terms of excellent breadcrumb reward, take a look at the different ways in which Burning Wheel rewards different kinds of Artha for different things.

Chris

Chris,

Cool stuff.  Thanks.  I've been meaning to check out Burning Wheel for a long time now, I may finally buy the friggin' thing this month.

Chris_Chinn wrote: Basically, the point is to include inspirational color bits as part of play, small enough they don't crowd out play itself, but there that players are forced to engage with it while engaging the mechanical bits.  It also makes it easy to put in the stuff you think is cool without necessarily having to harp it out and make the players read tons and tons of setting material to try to catch the feel of it.

Chris_Chinn wrote: It also lowers how much stuff the players or the GM has to keep in mind while handling mechanics, and makes it less breadcrumb reward style as much as getting the players to fall into the fictional vision you have in mind without having to have another person correct them.

Hi David,

The key to color lists is that they're more generalized than what you're going with there.  A list of color elements is designed to inspire specifics, as opposed to provide them.  For example, in Trollbabe has "A useful piece of geography", Capes has, "Property Damage".  And, for the most part, color lists are not "If A then B", but mostly, "Pick from these 5 options" and one of those generalized things is probably going to fit perfectly.

The other option which some games use is to force players to add color if they want to use a certain mechanic or ability.  For example, Burning Wheel's helping mechanics demand that you explain how you're helping- you can't just go, "I help" without any explaination.  These offer more flexibility, but then, it also can leave some players stuck, especially if they're used to "I hit, I defend" kind of play, which is usually tied into dealing with mechanics with high handling time.

Either one might work for you and your system, but you should really check out some of the games that already use these methods in order to really see what they're doing and how it might apply to your game.

Chris

Chris_Chinn wrote: for the most part, color lists are not "If A then B", but mostly, "Pick from these 5 options"

Chris_Chinn wrote: one of those generalized things is probably going to fit perfectly.

Chris_Chinn wrote: The other option which some games use is to force players to add color if they want to use a certain mechanic or ability.  For example, Burning Wheel's helping mechanics demand that you explain how you're helping- you can't just go, "I help" without any explaination.

Chris_Chinn wrote: you should really check out some of the games that already use these methods in order to really see what they're doing and how it might apply to your game.

Hi David,

Or are you saying the application of "B" (or C, or D, etc.) isn't prompted by a pre-defined "A"?...So it's more about providing a type of Color; and then you fill in the specific during play?

The Color goes down, though, when it's the same types of characters in the same types of environments over and over.  Incentivizing players to describe their characters' actions in colorful ways would be great, but I can't offer any gameworld-result rewards for that, as it fucks up causality.

Chris_Chinn wrote: Maybe in order to spend a luck point you have to use one of your color list bits.

Chris_Chinn wrote: If you want to use a reward system, I recommend rewarding on the spot, every time.

Hi David,

I have found generally games that use a physical token for metagame rewards, such as chips or dice, work really well for handing out rewards while not interrupting the play flow.  Because you can hand over a token while someone is talking, or you, yourself are talking, it's a good way to communicate on a parallel level.  And, finally, because it's a physical token, the person doesn't have to shift gears to mark down something on their sheet- they just put it in a pile or in a cup while dialogue is still happening.

Chris

Nice.  Thanks!

Hi David,

As one of the players mentioned in the Lendrhald game and the Telvar game, I would be remiss not to link the online summaries of the aforementioned games, written at the time in 1998:

http://blog.telvar.net/defenders/

In particular Dave is referring to summaries # 27- 34.

Incidentally, that's quite good recall for a game that happened 10 years ago that you were new to!

The entire site of summaries (including various parties of different time periods) can be found at:

http://blog.telvar.net/

As for impressions on the gameplay, I generally think Dave is spot on.  I'll have to mull over these discussion points.  Good work on Lendrhald so far!

Joel

I would love to reply to your PM, Dave, but I can't seem to send personal messages?