Spes Magna Games

A couple of days ago, I talked about ignorance. That post ended with a reference to knowledge, touching on the intersection of player knowledge and character knowledge. In the wonderful world of Venn diagrams, player knowledge and character knowledge obviously cannot be kept completely separate. Permit me to bust out my minimal skills as a computer artist:

When playing a roleplaying game, one aid to the laudable goal of staying in character is maintaining the distinctions between player knowledge and character knowledge as much as possible. As a most basic example, a player, when speaking in-character, should avoid specific reference to game mechanics. The character does not know he is fictitious. The character, insofar as the game is an exercise is interactive creative fiction, thinks he’s a real person in a real world.

Torina the Paladin would never ask, “How many hit points do you have left?” Hit points are a game mechanic, not a real measure of health. A couple of years ago, I fell and split my elbow open to the bursa. If the doctor had said, “Wow, that looks like it did at least six hit points of damage to you!”, and he wasn’t making some sort of gamer joke, I’d have just cause to question that doctor’s competence. Like Pinocchio at the end of the story, I’m a real boy. I don’t have hit points. Likewise, Torina qua Torina wouldn’t think of injuries in terms of a temporary depletion of a point-measured character resource.

The player, on the other hand, knows all sorts of things about the game and his character that the character does not know. The player, for example, probably knows that skeletons have damage reduction against all but bludgeoning weapons. This does not mean, however, that the player’s character necessarily knows that fact.

Torina the Paladin, at 1st-level, never having before encountered an undead skeleton, might know about the monster’s resistance to her longsword. If she does, it is not because the player knows. Rather, Torina may know about the skeleton’s resistance due to a successful Knowledge (religion) check or because the GM decides that this particular undead fact is part of the campaign background information, possibly related to Torina’s pre-adventurer history. Otherwise, Torina must acquire knowledge of the skeleton’s damage resistance through direct experience (e.g., attacking with her longsword and seeing it do less damage) or from a second-hand source (e.g., the party’s cleric, who makes a Knowledge check).

Maintaining the distinction between what the player knows and what the character knows means, at least some of the time, that a player must roleplay his character’s ignorance, even when (especially when?) doing so puts the character at a disadvantage.

There’s a flip side to distinction maintenance. The GM has the responsibility to inform the players of those things that the characters know but the players don’t know. I bump into this fairly often during my current campaign, which I’m most sort of making up as I go along. The characters lived in the new campaign region for a few months before gameplay in that region actually began. Two players brought in new characters, who are both natives to the region. When the players ask for background information, I must take into consideration what the characters could have reasonably learned during that time not actually depicted in gameplay.

A further aspect requires the GM to keep distinct those things he knows about the players’ characters and those things that the monsters and NPCs the characters meet could know. Bad guys who’ve no knowledge of the characters should not be able to act upon knowledge of the characters’ abilities and tactics ahead of time. After the fact, surviving bad guys might be able to adjust their tactics, as my players discovered when they encountered dromite knights packing a few scrolls of dispel magic in order to counter the characters’ reliance on entangle spells.

(Unfortunately for the knights, these preparations availed them nought. The characters launched a well-planned ambush, and managed to foil the would-be scroll-users.)

What an acceptable level of distinction between player knowledge and character knowledge looks like in your campaign is a conversation worth having within your gaming group. To the extent that everyone maintains whatever that level is, the quality of your game is likely to improve.

Tags: A to Z, game play

Way back in the early days of D&D, playing a monster as a character posed certain difficulties. Chief among these was that most monsters didn’t have any ability scores other than a general range for Intelligence. Monsters (as opposed to NPCs with class levels) and PCs weren’t built using the same rules. Indeed, there were few rules for building monsters at all. Sure, if a GM wanted to let you play a troll as a character, he could, but there really wasn’t any defined way to balance the troll’s abilities against those of regular PCs. If you wanted to build a new monster, you just sort of built it, maybe not quite willy-nilly but definitely without lots of hard-fast guidelines about Hit Dice, Armor Class, et cetera.

Enter 3E D&D. All of a sudden, monsters have the full range of ability scores (barring special cases such as undead — no Constitution — and vermin — no Intelligence). Monsters have types, which are sort of like character classes. The monster’s type determines Hit Dice, skill points, which skills count as class skills, and usually what can be viewed as racial abilities. Monsters also get feats pretty much the same way PCs do, and they choose those feats from pretty much the exact same list as the PCs. Monsters could be played as normal characters thanks the inclusion of Level Adjustments, a system almost universally panned as being, at best, deeply flawed. On the plus side, the conformation of monsters to basically the exact same rules used to create PCs was almost universally declared a Good Thing. I’m in agreement, but with one caveat.

I’ve seen an increase in the amount of metagaming about monster abilities. The players (rather than the GM) have built their PCs, and they understand that the monsters are pretty much built using the same rules. Too many players then decide that this means that they can reverse engineer monsters during game play, and that those parts of a monster that don’t reverse engineer are somehow wrong.

I’ll toss out two examples to playfully tweak one of my players. Once upon a time, I ran an adventure where the PCs encountered some undead monstrous vermin. When it was painfully discovered that these zombie vermin were venomous, complaints ensued, such as, “But they don’t have Constitution scores. They can’t have poison.” Or, “That ability is lost when applying that template.” Another time the PCs met mummified hell hounds. The mummified hell hounds, much like non-mummified hell hounds, were immune to fire, which prompted complaints that “Mummies are vulnerable to fire. They shouldn’t be immune to fire if they’re mummies, because all mummies have that vulnerability.”

And thus we arrive at i being for ignorance.

What I want is a perfect game where the players (rather than the GM) are completely clueless about the rules that monsters follow. The players don’t know what a template is. They don’t know that a dragon’s breath weapon’s save DC is based on Constitution. Et cetera. Instead, they accept the game world as it is revealed to them, and have their characters react to that world, not the presumed rules violations embodied by a particular encounter.

Barring that, folks can just agree to stop the metagamey reverse engineering and work more on roleplaying their characters’ reactions.

“I hit the mummified hound thing with a scorching ray.”

“The searing flames of the spell have no apparent effect. The mummified hound charges to attack.”

“Ye gods! What manner of mummies are these, that they are immune to fire?”

Note the difference in the character’s reaction. It’s in-character. It also opens up the possibility for the character to learn the answer to his question, whether through something as simple as a Knowledge skill check or as involved as searching through musty tomes in the city library while consulting the sages.

“Huh, those mummified hounds were created from the corpses of hell hounds, which, even after the mummification process, retain their fiendish resistance to fire. They are, however, particularly vulnerable to cold. I must remember this…just in case.”

Tags: A to Z, game play

Since I’m a guy, I like it when things explode. Cars that fly off cliffs, buildings full of bad guys, vampires exposed to sunlight, et cetera. Of course, these things are most fun when they’re not real. I don’t like it when real people are inside exploding cars, and even bad guys and vampires deserve something resembling due process. (Well, maybe not vampires, especially the sparkly kind.)

In game terms, an exploding die is a die that when rolled and yielding a certain, predefined result, is then rerolled, and the various results are totaled to give one uber-result. For example, if a d6 explodes on a 6, and I roll a 6, I roll the die again, and add that result to the 6. If I roll another 6, the die explodes again, and so on. Many game systems incorporate exploding dice. Torg had them. AD&D had them for Forgotten Realms firearms damage. Savage Worlds makes extensive use of exploding dice. I think Pathfinder should use them also, so let’s spitball what that might look like.

Ability Scores: Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary

First, let’s borrow a concept I discovered in Go Fer Yer Gun! by Beyond Belief Games. A PC’s ability scores are divided equally into three groups: primary, second, and tertiary. The player chooses which abilities are which at character creation. Once these choices are made, they cannot be altered.

Wes is making up Torina, a new paladin. Wes assigns Torina’s stats this way:

Primary – Strength, Charisma
Secondary – Dexterity, Wisdom
Tertiary – Constitution, Intelligence

An ability score’s type determines which exploding die the player gets to roll whenever the PC makes an ability check or skill check for that ability score.

Primary Ability Score Exploding Die – 1d8, explodes on an 8
Secondary Ability Score Exploding Die – 1d6, explodes on a 6
Tertiary Ability Score Exploding Die – 1d4, explodes on a 4

Saving Throws

A PC’s saving throws get an exploding die as well, based on whether it is a good save or a poor save. To continue with our example, Torina has two good saves, Fortitude and Will, and one poor save, Reflex.

Good Save Exploding Die – 1d6, explodes on a 6
Poor Save Exploding Die – 1d4, explodes on a 4

Attack Rolls

Unsurprisingly, a PC’s attack rolls also enjoy an exploding die, depending on whether the PC’s Base Attack Bonus uses fast, medium, or slow progression. Considering our examplar Torina again, as a paladin she uses the fast BAB exploding die.

Fast BAB Exploding Die – 1d8, explodes on an 8
Medium BAB Exploding Die – 1d6, explodes on a 6
Slow BAB Exploding Die – 1d4, explodes on a 4

Multi-Class Characters

Multi-classing doesn’t affect which exploding dice a character uses. Rather, the types of exploding dice are locked in at 1st-level. Therefore, if Torina later picks up a level in rogue, she doesn’t get to use the Good Save Exploding Die for Reflex.

Using Exploding Dice

Whenever a player makes a d20 roll for an ability check, skill check, saving throw, or attack roll, he also rolls the appropriate exploding die. The result of the exploding die is added to the d20 roll, and this total determines success. Please consider these examples:

* Torina must convince a city guard to let her pass into a restricted area. She makes a Diplomacy check aided by a d8 exploding die because Charisma is one of Torina’s primary ability scores.
* Later, the assassin Torina has been tracking hits Torina with a lightning bolt. A d4 exploding die aids her Reflex save.
* Torina survives the lightning bolt and smites the assassin. She adds a d8 exploding die to her attack roll.

Other Considerations

If you use exploding dice, remove most of the Big Six magic items from play. The Big Six magic items are armor and shield, magic weapon, natural armor item, deflection bonus item, resistance item, and stat boosters. Get rid of those Big Six items that do not modify Armor Class. The exploding dice provide automatic (albeit variable) modifiers to attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and skill checks, which are the main things the Big Six boost other than AC. This will perhaps put a dent in spellcaster save DCs over time, but this can be remedied by adding items that specifically boost a caster’s save DC without boosting the caster’s ability scores. Thus, a wizard can’t have a headband of intellect +4, but he could perhaps have a headband of spell power +2 that would increase the DCs to save against his spells.

When considering magic weapons, simply ignore enhancement bonuses that directly affect attack rolls and damage. Furthermore, waive the requirement that a magic weapon cannot have a special ability without having at least a minimum enchancement bonus of +1. This way, a character can have a flaming longsword that does +1d6 points of fire damage, but that sword would not have a static enhancement bonus as well.

Also, the attack roll exploding die has a special effect. For every four points a d20 + exploding die attack roll exceeds the target’s AC, increase the damage from that attack by +1. This bonus gets multiplied on critical hits. Back to Torina smiting the assassin. Let’s say Torina needs an 18 to hit. She rolls 1d20 + 1d8. She gets a 15 on the d20, and rolls an 8 on her exploding die. She rolls again for another 5. She adds her Strength bonus and BAB for a total attack roll of 32, which exceeds the assassin’s AC by 14 points. This is enough to earn Torina a +3 bonus to her damage.

Lastly, if you use Hero Points as described in the Advanced Player’s Guide, consider modifying them so that a Hero Point grants an extra exploding die of the same type that would be rolled. If Torina really wants to nail that assassin, she could spend a Hero Point and roll 1d20 + 2d8, with both d8s being exploding dice.

Tags: A to Z, game play

How many ways are their to motivate players? Well, if we’re to believe cliches, there are two: the carrot and the stick. Since today is C, I’m going to talk about the carrot. I know from years of teaching that a great way to get students invested in learning is to give them choices about how they want to show what they’ve learned. So, when we got done reading Don Quixote, my students didn’t have a single, mandatory assignment, but instead had their choice of one out of five or six different assignments. One of my students produced the delightful boardgame shown in the picture to the right as her project.

Borrowing an idea from Gnome Stew, you the GM can give your players choices in order to foster a greater sense of investment in your game. Give each player four index cards and about a week’s time. Ask them to write on each index card their ideas about what they’d like to encounter in the current campaign, dividing those likes into four categories: Enemy, Friend, Setting, and Reward. Let them be as vague or as specific as they’d like, as long as the idea fits on an index card. Let your players know that the ideas on the cards don’t need to be related to each other, although they could be. The cards also don’t need to be related to the player’s own character. Why suggest a reward for your character when you can suggest that a fellow player’s character receive the honor of an Amazonian queen asking for his hand in marriage?

Enemy: This could be something as simple as scrawling “ogres” on the card, or as involved as requesting the existence of a nefarious organization of wicked psions who masquerade as benevolent seekers of enlightenment. These cards are your players’ chance to get some of their favorite bad guys into game play, an option that could be especially attractive to folks who play rangers.

Friend: The PCs need more than just enemies. They should also have an assortment of friends, allies, and supporters, garnered during their adventures as well as part of their respective backgrounds. These friends can be valuable sources of aid and information, as well fodder for plot hooks.

Setting: A memorable setting can be a great boon for an encounter, an adventure, and even an entire campaign. Odds are good your players have always wanted to explore or survive some exotic place. I know I’ve always wanted to play through a high-action brawl atop a maze of unstable catwalks that collapse above a rumbling pool of magma.

Reward: Here’s your players’ chance to think outside the treasure box if they want. Forget yet another magic sword or a bag full of platinum. How about a grant of land accompanied by knighthood? Maybe free room and board for life at a famous tavern would be something worth having? A PC could somehow earn a reward that would otherwise be difficult to provide via the rules-as-written. I remember way back in 1E days when my dwarf fighter/thief acquired the ability to speak with wolves. Why? Because it was cool!

Best of all, encourage the players to not discuss their cards with each other. That way, as each requested element is brought into play, most of the players will be surprised by the turn of events. Imagine the limitless possibilities:

Terry: “The Amazon queen asked me what?”

Mark the GM: “For your hand in marriage before the assembled court of the Warrior Women. An expectant hush has fallen across the entire banquet hall. What do you do?”

Terry: “Wes, why are you giggling? Was this your idea?”

Tags: A to Z, adventure design, game play

It’s time for your weekly game. You’re ready to sit down and roleplay for the next six to eight hours. You’re in character. Your fellow players are in character. The scenario is interesting, engaging, and then combat starts. Three hours later, you’re on round six, and there’s no end in sight. You start to consider having your character commit suicide.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with a long, complicated combat unless that combat gets boring. The problem isn’t the combat’s length per se, but instead comes when every round is the same thing: waiting for five to ten minutes for each other player to get finished with his turn so you can have yours, and that’s not counting the minutes that drag by while the GM figures out what the various enemies are going to do.

It’s also not just combats that can cause the game to grind. Don’t you just enjoy those long, meta-gamey discussions about the absolute best tactics to use prior to a fight? Yeah, me neither. And how about those lengthy in-character discussions between the GM and one or two other players while the rest of you sit and twiddle your thumbs? I’ve never found that particularly enjoyable either.

What’s even more frustrating is that these bouts of boredom can happen even in the best prepared games with the most experienced, dedicated players.

Do Something! Chips

At the start of each game session, give every player, including the GM, a do something! chip. This chip can be any suitable item, such as a poker chip, a game token, or a shiny penny. When a particular scene starts to get dull, toss your do something! chip onto the table (or into a special container, such as a boredom bowl). Clever, considerate players will note your displeasure and maybe take steps to ameliorate the situation. If other players are bored as well, they can toss in their do something! chips.

Boredom’s Critical Mass

If during any scene more than one-half of group’s do something! chips are tossed onto the table, then that scene has reached boredom’s critical mass. What happens next? Well, it’s time for some shared narrative control.

After all, surely you’ve not just been sitting their being bored. Surely you’ve been thinking of some way to make the scene more exciting. The player whose do something! chip triggers critical mass has the responsibility to offer a suggestion as to what could happen next in order to make the game more exciting. The entire group can then take a quick five minute break while the GM figures out how to best implement the suggestion as quickly as possible.

An Example

Wes, Christopher, Eric, Terry, and Mark, the GM, are playing Pathfinder. The PCs are trying to solve a puzzle that will open a magically locked portal leading deeper into the dungeon. Unfortunately, the players’ puzzle-solving skills are lacking this particular day, and the group has grown bored. Wes tosses his do something! chip, setting off a chain reaction. Eric and Terry toss their do something! chips also. Boredom’s critical mass is reached, and it’s up to Terry to offer a suggestion.

“Um, how about this? Uh, previously undiscovered secret doors linked to magical timers slide open, reacting to how long we’ve been in the puzzle room. Undead monsters attack. The undead monsters were the puzzle room’s original designers, sealed in the chamber to forever hide the puzzle’s solution. If we win, a grateful spirit can reveal the puzzle’s solution as a way of thanking us for releasing him from his horrid unlife.”

Players nod and grin. The GM fires up the search engine at d20pfsrd.com. A few minutes later, the PCs face down a gang of undead terrors.

Tags: fun, game play