Unnatural Twenty

Previous post: My GV Maelstrom Dungeons & Dragons Dragon Warriors Rolemaster Vampire: The Masquerade Call of Cthulhu Deadlands D20 Advanced Fighting Fantasy Pathfinder The Dresden Files Microscope The Black Hack Lords of Gossamer and Shadow The Gaean Reach Spellbound Kingdoms Spark The Sprawl

GNS and the Big Model TTRPGs consist of three pillars, Gamism (use mechanics to have an enjoyable game), Narrativism (tell an interesting story), and Simulationism (create a credible story). Players can enjoy each to lesser or greater degrees, and some games are better at some than others, or are generally recognized as such. I recently realized that I like the Gamist part of games to be light enough that I can get down to playing pretty quickly, the Narrativist part is something I try to contribute to, and Simulationism means adhering to genre conventions, not trying to overturn them. GNS Theory at the RPG Museum Challenge versus Genre The most important thing in some games is to maintain the expectations of the genre, so that the story that is created seems appropriate. In other games, the genre informs some things, but the most important thing is to have fun in whatever way drives the characters to achieve their own goals. I don't think I really care about challenge ...

Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016? I haven't played much in the last year. I played two online sessions of Microscope and one face to face. I ran two sessions of the Sprawl, and about six of the Black Hack, both of which followed on from games of Microscope. I played Call of Cthulhu and D&D5 at a convention last December, and last week I played the first session of a new campaign of Spellbound Kingdoms. So I guess the Black Hack is my most played game in the last year.

I found myself wondering about a game like Pathfinder, that by now has a very long list of playable classes and races, and something like the Black Hack, which has no rules for races at all and only four classes. At first glance it looks like Pathfinder gives you more options for classes, since it has rules for hundreds. But in the case of races, the Black Hack actually gives players more options. Since there are no rules for races, the number of racial options is truly infinite. In Pathfinder there is a need to have rules for your race, so you tend to only choose from the options that are already there. Does having only four classes make the Black Hack limited? Again, you can use the warrior class in many many ways, it's possible to use it to describe many different types of martial characters. What I think I'm realizing is that, going into a new campaign, I don't want there to be a book that lists all the options for race, class, homeland, skills, and so on. I want ...

Gameplay tends to be about what you do in a computer game at any given moment. A game might involve stealth, shooting, driving, jumping, crafting, trading, or social gameplay elements. A game that is all about driving might have competition, maintenance, upgrading, repair, and design gameplay elements. A strategy game might have base building and resource management as gameplay elements while another might not, but have research and development among its gameplay elements. So what kind of gameplay elements do TTRPGs have? What kind of things do you find yourself doing for periods of time within a session? There’s combat, fighting, violent conflict, different to this is warfare, when characters are involved in large scale combat, there’s stealth and evasion, also there’s conversation, negotiation, deception, persuasion, seduction, there’s management and planning, and you could have research, learning, investigation, exploration and discovery, as well as choice and argument. Gam...

I think gameplay is a term that gets used in computer games all the time, but I’ve never noticed it used in reference to tabletop RPGs. Maybe there are bigger marketing budgets and more review sites for computer games, and the use of language to describe different types of gameplay have arisen to discuss those games. The language used to describe TTRPGs seems to discuss them at the rulebook level, at the campaign level, or at the session level. The equivalents for computer games would be the product level (e.g. Tomb Raider), the game level (e.g. my first play-through of Tomb Raider) or the session level (the time I spent playing Tomb Raider today). If I watch a promotional video for a new computer game, I’ll generally see all the major gameplay elements of that game in action, so I’ll know if the ones I like are present. I think publishers of TTRPGs don’t describe their games in the same way, they try to appeal to customers by talking about their mechanics, or the setting they use...

I realized that what I want to achieve from all my experimentation with RPGs is to settle on a system, group of people, and a setting, and then play one campaign forever. I don’t feel like I know a set of rules that I can do that with yet though, or at least a set that will enable me to do this with the people I know already. One problem I recently came to understand about D&D is levelling up. I find the changes from low level to high level come too quickly, and change the dynamic of a campaign too much. My current solution to this problem is to pick a starting level for the characters, and then stay there. Everyone gets comfortable with the abilities that they have, and nobody expends any effort wondering about what feat to take next level. Characters develop if the players let them, and they can come across new equipment that enables new abilities. Another game I’ve been playing is Lords of Gossamer and Shadow (linked in the sidebar). It’s a diceless game, so I imagine t...

I’ve been talking to people recently about getting new games started, and I find I often run into a little problem. I’ll be trying to nail down what the game is going to be about, and I’ll mention “the story.” This seems to be a problem for a few people I’ve come across. They don’t want to have a GM write “a story” and then have them stroll through it. But I’m looking at the story as being the events that happen. After the campaign is over, if you tell someone about it, that’s the story. Every RPG will involve events, and anytime you talk about your last game or last session, you’re telling a story. It just seems like some people don’t like using that word to describe the game. They don’t mind an RPG being called a game, but they do mind it being called a story. It’s even worse when I talk about the story before we even start. If I imagine the campaign as a revenge thriller then that’s the kind of story I expect will be created out of the campaign. If we say we’ll play a pirates g...

A flash riot occurred today at the monthly cosplay gathering at the Copenmalm Main Square. As the prizes were being awarded disgruntled non-winzers, dressed as KravOS personnel, stormed the stage and attempted to mock arrest three prizewinners, who were dressed as McWales Cyberrugby players. The ensuing scuffle caused the collapse of the stage and eight injuries, as well as untold damage to various costumes. The situation escalated when actual KravOS personnel who were providing security to Coschamp Nielsson were drawn into the riot. A KravOS spokesbot was characteristically blunt when it stated later that their personnel had done their job and no more. The Northern regional final of Starcraft 4 took place at the EcasinO Golden Pyramid late last night. Despite problems with the elevators the capacity crowd cheered local favorite EzergzeR to victory in a tight match against her long time rival Und1ne. Blizzard announced that next year’s regional finals will be held in the same venue, ...

​EcasinO reported record profits for the month, citing the Cyberrugby WL final match and the Andersson-Perez-Taggart MMA fight as major draws to the Golden Pyramid. A spokesbot revealed that the annual conference of McNations will be held at EcasinO next month, as well as the Northern regional final of Starcraft 4. While major events contribute heavily to footfall, the spokesbot repeated last month's claim that daily rake far outstrips the money made from such events. The bot also revealed that the casino was switching its elevator services from Otis-ESA to S-Kalyay, citing failure to meet response time agreements as the reason. A spokesbot for Otis-ESA spewed the following: The meeting of response targets is paramount to our business, we wish EcasinO well and are confident that we will work with them again in the future. ​ Lavanchy-Grovaloi Media GmbH announced they had acquired a nine hundred and ninety nine year lease on the KFSA tower, vacant for seven years. Michelle Grova...

(This is the first new report for the game of the Sprawl that I'm running) Nokea announced today that they were shutting down their internal security wing and contracting all their duties to KravOS. The changeover was effective immediately from the announcement on Noweb. A spokesbot for Nokea said that the partnership would allow Nokea to concentrate on their core businesses of research and design, while taking advantage of the expertise and efficiency of KravOS. When asked by @fenr1s what prompted the changeover, the spokebot spewed the following: All outstanding debts will now be collected by KravOS. KravOS is a security firm that formed during the Lever-Heinz War, with personnel from former military and state-sec organisations. They have partnerships with Armani Beretta, LG, and the Vatican Bank. The partnership with Nokea is expected to bolster their communications and cybertech, while providing the latest smart weapons to their personnel. The partnership was denounced a...

Here's a list of the RPG books I've purchased on Lulu.com . Petty Gods: Revised & Expanded Edition (Premium Softcover) KEFITZAT HADERECH - Incunabulum of the Uncanny Gates and Portals The Night Wolf Inn Whitehack – Second Edition Booklet Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls Stonehell Dungeon: Into the Heart of Hell Augmented Reality Obscene Serpent Religion The Nightmares Underneath (Paperback) RPGS - Your Fantasy Toolkit Supersetting v1.6 (Softcover) Mythic Russia (paperback) Yoon-Suin Fire On The Velvet Horizon As for things I may get in the future... Deep Carbon Observatory Perdition Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure Microscope Hollowpoint

Looking back at my post on Boundaries I had the idea of setting a 'no combat' boundary for a game. In a game that devotes a lot of pages to damage, attacking, healing and defense, I think it would be a major constraint, one that many players wouldn't want to try. The benefit would be the ability to focus on other aspects of the story, including other types of action and danger. There could still be traps, stealth, natural hazards, rivals, enemies, success and failure, just no direct combat. If enemies are massive monsters or whole armies, then it wouldn't make much sense for a small group to want to fight them anyway. The threat of violence can still exist, but we just don't play through any fights. So for example, a scene might find the heroes trying to sneak through the camp of the enemy army. The tension comes from the knowledge that, if discovered, they are surrounded by armed enemies. If they somehow fail to get through undiscovered, they'll have to su...

After reading this post I remembered a plan to blend a few different campaign settings together. I have Yoon Suin, Qelong, The Nightmares Underneath, Weird New World, and I could add Spears of the Dawn. I can fit all these on a map of the real world, using these settings as fantasy versions of their real counterparts. I don't know if any group would ever visit them all though, but given enough time a group might trek all the way across Europe and Asia.

I got my hands on quite a few RPG products in 2016, some new ones, and some older ones. Looking ahead to 2017, I have some plans for what I want to run or play. So far I've run two sessions of the Black Hack online, and I'm running a Lords of Gossamer and Shadow forum game. In terms of rule systems I want to try, there are the following. Dungeon World (run) Whitehack (run) Troika (run & play) De Profundis (play) The Nightmares Underneath (run) Shadowrun (run & run!) Eclipse Phase (play) It looks like I'm not too keen on playing RPGs at the moment, I'm more interested in running them. I also have plenty of ideas for creating custom rules and settings, so I'll hopefully make a few more posts about these. I think what I want most is a group of people willing to try out new things on a weekly basis, and the time to play once a week. Those are my two RPG goals for the year.

I'm just starting off with a text based Lords of Gossamer and Shadow campaign, using roll20.net. I've never run this system before, and I've never participated in a text based campaign. So I'd better figure some things out. I'll take my old standard, Microscope, as the baseline for getting the game going. An initial round of posts from the players to veto things they don't like, and include things they want to cover, is a great way to get people on the same page, or at least in the same book. Hopefully from the people who expressed an interest I'll be able to identify a group that I think can play well together. As for gameplay, there doesn't need to be the equivalent of a session, like there would be in a live game. I think the round based structure of Microscope will work well again. One player can make a new thread, outlining some new plan, an event, the arrival of a new character, or the arrival of their character in a new place. Other players ca...

I've been thinking about discovery in role playing games recently. A science fiction setting where you can explore new star systems and new planets is pretty topical. A West Marches style fantasy game has become a staple. But there is also discovery of plots, storylines and new characters. A player might even discover new mechanical options among rulebooks and websites, or come up with combinations of abilities that provide more power or more fun. Some players like this, some don't care for it, I guess some would even oppose it altogether. But how to provide it in an RPG? So telling your friends that you're starting a new campaign about discovery might mean different things to different players. They might assume the characters will literally be exploring the unknown, something like King Solomon's Mines. One player might think there will be scientific research going on, like the Xcom games, or magical research and discoveries to be made. Some players might even wonder...

I was annoyed a while back in my D&D game because I felt i was being pulled along by other player characters, and going along with schemes I wasn't interested in. Eventually I came to the realization that it's a game about escapism. Players play to experience things they wouldn't get to experience in real life. I decided that if another player wanted to do something in game I would go along with it, rather than hold them back. At that point I assumed that this would mean that I'd get support when I wanted to do something for myself, and that has generally been the case. So rather than each player having the power of veto to exclude anything from the game, I saw each player as having the power to bring in whatever they like. But this seems to be a problem now too, where many players want to include something that nobody else wants. My go to example of this is a player who wants to play a dragonborn. I generally ask such a player, "Do you want to play a dragonb...

I seem to be thinking about the end of campaigns and character death a lot lately. I remembered the idea of rolling or your character's life expectancy around the time I was using the D&D Rules Cyclopaedia. I just had a look through the Dungeon Crawl Classics book and saw something about wizards burning through ability scores. Warriors in DCC get to perform mighty deeds, and I'm sure there are other aspects to the character classes to make them all interesting and cool, but I straight away found myself coming up with a new homebrew mechanic for getting yourself killed. This whole concept might need to exist in a campaign where the player characters are headed for some great destiny. At the very least there needs to be collaboration among the players to get everybody moving towards the same goal: the end of the story. So, I initially thought that warriors would have an ability to deal a massive blow to a single enemy. Something like "reduce a target to 0hp, and...

If the players agreed to play an RPG based on a TV show, e.g. Star Trek, Angel, or Dark Matter, then it seems logical to structure each session as an episode of that show. I don't know if there would be mechanics to support this, but I can see some benefits in doing this. First is timing. Many episodes last for about forty minutes, but my game sessions can be three to four hours long. Perhaps these sessions actually cover less plot than an episode though, depending on how 'efficiently' we play. I'd like to analyse whatever TV show we model our game on, and count how many scenes there usually are. Then in the game sessions we can actually count out each scene, expecting to get to the final scene in time for the last bus. We might have romantic scenes, exposition scenes, combat scenes, stealth scenes and so on. Second is the gradual revealing of plot. In a show like Supernatural, each season (at least lately) has its own big bad. They are introduced early on, and grad...