Encounter Tables

There are times when I don't prepare for games but I let the players drive everything about their characters. You know this kind of game. The GM just starts the session with, "So, what's your character up to? The last time we saw them they were..."

This is great in a group of improvisers. Everyone just responds to what the others are doing in that moment. I play in a game of PTA that does this every single time and we all have fun with it.

On the flipside, there are games in which I plan much more. I start the session with a recap of the previous events and often set the first scene. To raise the bar more, I might have several scenes prepared to open throughout the game. This works well when I'm playing with my kids. They're quite young and they like a linear story so that's what I usually give them.

Another way to think about that kind of preparation is what I gleaned from Spirit of the Century a few years ago. It's not about scene preparation. It's about antagonist preparation. Their example revolved around the question of what the antagonist would do in the circumstances of the game. That is, they wanted to steal the sacred jade egg from the museum. If they were foiled by the player characters, what do they do now? Do they try and steal it from the player characters? Perhaps they weren't foiled by the player characters. Now we need to know what they wanted to jade egg for (some ritual?) and then add that.

I think of this as a kind of intervention encounter. GM characters need to have their own motivations and plans, with contingencies, or with new plans that they formulate only because the player characters meddled in Plan A. These kinds of interactions, when committed by a meaningful GM character, connect the character to the larger story. All the other encounters run the risk of having no connection to the details on the character sheet. A character might be described as the second son of the village chief, but the encounters might always be about defending against coastal raiders. The disconnection is a wasted opportunity.

And round out this post, I also use a fourth kind of encounter, the random encounter. We know they add a little spice to a story, often by giving a chance for players to show off their character in some way. It's a good pipe beat that can return later in the story climax. The other thing I like about random encounters is that the universe is random, and sometimes it makes sense that life is also random. No one expected that storm, that car accident, that economic downturn, or whatever.

And yes, I have a game to prepare for tonight. Better get on with it.

Narrative for non-wounding hits

In the last couple of months I've listened to a number of D&D 5e actual play podcasts courtesy of the Podcast of Foes series. Of the many things I've noticed is the way in which combat hits are narrated. Most GMs and players describe hits in the same way.

The weapon creates a wound.

I mean that even if it's a dagger used against a paladin in plate, the narrative is still about the dagger drawing blood or sinking into flesh. Hit points seem to be a bit more nebulous than that. They're a pool of points used to describe fatigue, bruising, cuts, poisoning, burns, infection, psychic pain, and so on. As such, we need to tailor our narrative to each strike. Let's consider a paladin with full hit points taking a few different hits.

From a lizardman's spiked shield: "The shield crashes into you, each spike delivering a painful bruise."

From a rogue's poisoned dagger: "The dagger thuds against your armour, and slides across to find the space between the plates, nicking your skin."

From an orc's sword: "The orc's sword comes down in an overhead arc. You lift your heavy shield high to block it and stagger back from the effort required to hold back the brute."

From a monk's flurry of blows: "The monk moves faster than your armour allows. Strikes land and miss, but all of them force you back and forth under the weight of your armour. It's exhausting."

The challenge is to find a fit between all the aspects that hit points represent and the details of the attack. The other challenge is to break the mental model that all attacks create wounds. As players we need to change the way we think about hit points.

I'll take a leaf from Vincent Baker's theorising about games. He described it as an interaction between Dice and Clouds. It's probably more accessible than using semiotics theory to describe it, so let's go with it.

The dice (the physical game component) have produced a number. The number is interpreted by the rules as a hit. The hit needs to be translated by the players into the cloud of the narrative. We know the first two parts of this chain quite well and have the opportunity to do better with the third part. Broadening our understanding of what hit points represents opens the possibilities for how to convert the interpreted die result into fiction.

So think broadly! What else does a successful hit look like in your game?

Two things I'm working on as a GM

1. Pacing. This seems to be easily forgotten while playing. We become entrenched in a moment of play, captivated by a detail of the situation, and when it's resolved we've spent too much time in part of the story that doesn't move things forward. There are things I can do for this. 

a) Reduce the number of things the NPCs do to the PCs. 

b) Weaken the NPCs to lessen the challenge and finish things quickly. 

c) Strengthen the NPCs to force a surrender or retreat.

d) Increase the stakes for each die roll.

2. Compels. This is part of my current Diaspora game. Each session I start with a pool of fate points that I haven't spent by the end. Each session also has plenty of fate points left over for each character. I'm going to try the following. 

a) Write three compel situations for each character. 

b) Force a lot more die rolls for each character, preferably with higher challenges, to burn through their own pools so they feel the need to be compelled. 

c) And if they don't work I'll reconsider the refresh levels again. 

How about you? Which GM techniques are you improving, and how?

Why They Avenged

I watched The Avengers last night. Let's put to side all the rambling, incoherent phrases of joy about how happy it made me feel. Instead, let's just point out something I'll polish in my GM kit: why they avenged in the first place.

It's a group of adventurers and do-gooders, after all. They're not all on the screen at the same time and they aren't all friends, so why work together? It's more than just the motivation for glory, it's a concrete thing. Without giving away spoilers, if CENSORED hadn't died, none of them would have come back from their in-fighting in order to take on Loki and the invading horde. It was enough to make them see beyond themselves in order to work as a team.

For my games, this is an important technique for group cohesion - assuming that it's the kind of story that needs it. The Big Threat (tm) sometimes isn't enough by itself and needs to be made personal to each of the characters so that they take action. Characters need to be personally motivated, not generally motivated. "Fame and fortune" are bad motivations. "Imprisoning the black knight for his crimes against my beloved people" is better, especially if the black knight has done horrible things which have personal significance to the player characters.

The motivation for the Avengers to work together is personal, not general, with the possible exception of Captain America, but even he was prone to in-fighting before CENSORED died. Make it personal and you'll get better response from the characters, creating better story.

Make Failure Ironic

I've heard the GM advice to make failure interesting. I've even given that advice to people. It's good advice and worth adding to your game. I'd like to refine it, though, based on the most interesting failure stories I've heard. Sorry, I won't recount them now. You don't get my raw data, just my conclusions.

So, the old dictionary on my shelf says that irony is the expression of meaning using words which normally have the opposite meaning. I've also seen it defined as something that comes from an opposite or extremely unlikely source.

And that's what the most interesting play examples of "make failure interesting" are. A failed Circles test actually finds the contact, but they're hostile to you. The expectation is a good and useful contact, but it turns out to be a bad and (potentially) useful contact. A failed lockpick roll unlocks the door to - not the treasure - a room full of guards! The expectation is opposite to what happens.

There are plenty of examples outside these, some are ironic. Another substitute for interesting is complicating. Make failure complicating. Failed detective rolls succeed in identifying the villain, but at the cost of revealing your sister's identity to the villain. (FYI: Don't call around the crime world from her phone.)

"Interesting" is a broad term. I think it's more fun to make it complicating, and even more fun to make it ironic. It might wear thin after a while, so don't be a one-trick-pony about it. But try and make failure ironic.

Don't Rest Your GM Head

I'm working out which games to personally run at Auscon next month and am considering my beloved Don't Rest Your Head. While listening to Narrative Control episode 61, I realised that when I GM that game, I have an unarticulated goal to drive one of the characters to lose all Discipline.

To do that, I need to force them to use Madness as often as possible and this goes against some advice I'd used from Fred Hicks about running DRYH at a convention. He suggested that characters should start with a couple of points of Exhaustion. I've done this a few times but what I find is that it's then harder to convince players to bring the Madness, without a succession of high Pain challenges. It does, however, bring them to Crash much sooner and that takes the game in a different direction.

So, dear reader, I want some more advice from you about how you run DRYH. What's your GM tip for the game, especially for convention play?

iPads and Game Information

I ordered an iPad the other day. It's not here yet, but it's not far off either. One of the reasons I bought it was to save me the trouble of carting gaming books around. Since most of the games I play also come with a PDF, a decent PDF viewer will help out no end. I hear that GoodReader is the way to go for this, so I'm sure I'll get it and cram every gaming PDF (along with lots more besides) into the iPad. It won't replace my interest in having the game book as a physical artefact, or even as the primary source for learning the rules. Rather, it'll be useful as a supplement to the book. A searchable PDF is more useful than a sparse index any day.

But, ah hah! This is a workaround to a larger problem: having the relevant information close to hand so that the story is uninterrupted. Most of my gaming is convention gaming, introducing people to new games. I have three hours to introduce them to a game, including explaining the rules and playing out a scenario. Even with the speedy resources of an iPad at my disposal, it's still a distraction from the fiction and a disruption to flow of the game.

So I'll still prepare my cheat sheets, the one-page summaries of the rules for new players, and hand them out (I may even save them as PDF for my iPad). These are more useful than you know. The only thing more useful than a cheat sheet, is a cheat sheet that is part of the character sheet. Giving a new player a single page, complete with their character and the relevant rules is the best supportive artefact I can give in that context. It keeps the focus on the game, not on the game book (paper or virtual) and allows us to fit more game into our day.

A Good GM

It may surprise you to learn that one of the many podcasts I listen to is the WOTC podcast for D&D. Not very indie of me at all, I'm sure. So when you get over the shock of my class betrayal, continue reading.

The aspect of the podcast that I want to bring to your attention is an example of great game mastery. Currently, the podcast is a series of actual play episodes with a WOTC GM (Chris Perkins), the Penny Arcade guys, Scott from PvP and Wil Wheaton. Not only is it hilarious (with much foul language), it contains the work of a great GM. Listen carefully to what he does.

Knows the rules - quickly! The players want to try something and Chris very quickly has an answer. He doesn't let the rules get in the way of the game. Where necessary, he involves the players for the text on their powers and abilities, but only to help them know how to use those powers.

Evokes without cliche. NPCs have voices and attitudes, but they aren't crappy cliches like a bad 80's fantasy movie. His rendition of a bar-wench and of a dwarven warrior are great, without making me cringe.

Lets the players shine. This crowd has a particular sense of humour. Chris gives the players enough material to work with to make the snappy jokes, the one liners, and the moments of exultation that they enjoy about their games.

Keeps the adventure moving. This game doesn't bog down. If a combat takes a long time, it does so with interesting components. It's not long and boring, it's long and interesting.

Makes NPCs multi-facted. NPCs almost never attack with a single attack type, they use everything available to them. This is partially (I suppose) to advertise to the listener about all the great features of D&D, but it makes for great listening. When the NPC has a turn, it's not always with the same weapon or spell, it's one from a wide variety of actions.

If you are a GM and have time for podcasts, I strongly recommend listening to this and critically analysing the GM techniques. You'll learn a lot.

And to Chris Perkins, well done. You're a great GM.