Sagas RPG.com

I recently finished watching a documentary titled “Second Skin” (its streaming on Netflix so you can watch it online if you have Netflix). It was a pretty well made take on how social gaming has taken root in our culture. It dealt primarily with MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Everquest, but has some surprising relevancy across a greater spectrum. What I took from it was not new to me, but I would say my idea on the subject is a bit sharper for watching it.

There were several points in the piece that stuck with me pretty strongly. The first was a woman who lost her son to suicide. She found him dead at his computer with an MMO still playing on the screen. The second is the general group of MMO players represented as being a huge part of their lives and how they generally look like caricature gamers. In essence, pathetic social weirdoes that latch onto something not real. The last is how these games have actually benefitted people with disabilities who can enter these worlds and be something more fantastic than normal which is the absolute opposite of their reality.

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So I have had some major breakthroughs with DPnP in the past few weeks. Primarily, I have brought the XML back to it through some help from a friend of mine. I also had a huge epiphany in regards to handling Load Out management. Load outs were introduced with the Modern Sagas Beta. They basically came from the idea that a single static inventory sheet that listed only what I carried, but not when I carried it and what it did was more or less useless. What I decided to do was create inventory sheets that included all stats for equipped items and armor, as well as items kept in packs, worn on the body, etc. Furthermore, they are designed to be written for multiple loads. For instance, you have a light load out for travelling, which may include light armor, a lighter weapon, and a dagger or back up with everything else in a pack. However, you have a separate load out for heavy combat with heavier armor and weapons, perhaps a shield, and no packs for unnecessary weight. The difference is plain. When you are travelling you need to stay light, but also capable of quick variation. However, when you know you are going to engage in heavy fighting you pretty much know exactly what you need, and only those few things. Weapons and armor change based on situation. You can play with load out combinations, name them, and modify them away from the game. Then, when you come back to the game, you can easily and quickly pull up a load out sheet with your favorite configuration for that situation. Its all very easy to use on paper, but much more difficult to implement electronically. It has to have a very easy interface as well as provide a multitude of variations and information. As many PC and console gamers know, electronic inventory management is usually the most unlikeable aspects of most RPGs. Very few games have done this well, and fewer still would even work with my situation. I have designed and tried to code no less than six variations so far. I finally found one that worked.

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The end of 2009 brings some sadness for me. Yet again, DPnP is not released, and still has much development to do. It also means another new year without any significant Sagas releases. I am hoping that 2010 is the year of Ironwood’s big coming up, but that all remains to be seen. (more…)

I am an avid NPR listener. I listen for about 2-3 hours a day while taking my daughter to and from school (she is in a magnet program so we have a way to travel). Earlier last week I listened to stories concerning a world AIDS organization’s difficulty in fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa due largely to rape. This got me thinking. This is not the first time that the issue of War Rape has been brought to my attention. Honestly, the concept is disgusting and horrific to me. The overall idea is horrible, but what is worse is the way it is handled, and must be handled, by the victims. What suddenly occur ed to me is that we have, in general, ignored it. Now, I don’t mean we should be addressing it as a subject. What I mean is that we, as gamers and game developers, may want to have horror and horrific war like themes. However, I think we, in general, gloss over the true horror of humans at war. If anything we should not be ignoring what evil truly occurs. However, there is a line between being honest and exploitative. I hope that in my next sidetrack the issue is tackled and seen honestly and with the intent I explain here, meanwhile not opening the door for people to feel alright with doing work that is exploitative.

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This week I am coming off of a short little vacation, mostly of the mind. In essence, I needed to take a few steps back and look at some issues from a mind that was not dragged down with progress. I escaped from the constant grinding away at the code and design elements and did next to nothing for several days in regards to working on DPnP, or E-RPG as a whole. It paid off.

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Chances are you are gearing up for you Halloween game that will play out this weekend. Chances also are that you will use some kind of horror theme, or even a horror game. Now, I haven’t played horror games like Call of Cthulu or much of White Wolf’s games, but I have run some very successful horror themes before. I gave on player nightmares for at least that night. The gaming group was equal parts creeped out, horrified, or afraid of what was happening in the game. However, these are GM story telling devices that I use that don’t translate well to an article. What you can do is apply some mechanics that are easy to use and fairly universal that do work very well for horror games. 

There are some basic ideas in horror. One is a sense of risk, which the character could come to harm or die. Desperation usually kicks in when risk is high and the opposition weighs heavily against the character. For instance, an injured character in a movie limps desperately to safety as a horde of slavering zombies slowly overtakes him. The desperation lies in the dwindling hope that the character will make it. They are slow, the distance not closing fast enough. In fact, the distance between him and safety is closing much more slowly than the distance from him and zombies is closing.         

Hindrance is the best way to hold a character down. If a character is hindered through  the actions or failure of the player, or that the dice just didn’t roll in his favor, the player is more willing to accept it rather than a GM who throws amazingly obscene challenges at the player. The player always has to feel like there is a chance of escape, no matter how bleak, not that the GM is there to destroy each hope.

Then there is the character point of view. Stay with me as these things will merge together. Now, you, as a player, may not feel much of a sense of fear the first time your new character sees, for the first time, some supernatural horror like a zombie. Think about it, does your character become nervous, fearful, or any natural emotion, or do you start attacking? This is a sticking point for me as our Meta knowledge sometimes overshadows our ability to play our characters properly.

Here’s how it comes together. As a GM you can add a new element to your game that reflects your character’s first impressions of a situation. Now, I am not talking about some kind of insanity check or restriction on how your characters are role-played. I am talking about a modifier that actually will change the way a player plays the character. 

Try this: the first time a character sees a new horror, such as a zombie (for this example) make them roll a Wisdom test, or a Will save or some kind of mental defense test (whatever your game requires). The difficulty is based on your world, but lets assume that zombies aren’t something that is pretty common. Lets also assume the test is high enough for all players to fail. Now, take the number that they should have rolled, and compare it to what they did roll. The difference is now a modifier to any test requiring thinking, perception, etc.

 In Sagas this changes quite a lot. It alters initiative, spell casting, tactics tests, etc. You could also affect attack rolls, suggesting that the character is more concerned with defense (i.e. protecting him as a natural instinct) to the point that finer combat ability is suffering.

Now, this seems a little rough. However, we are not trying to kill the characters. You may have to point out that your characters are afraid, and that because of this they are not themselves. The best thing for the player to do would be to play defensively, maybe even retreat if things are bad enough. Are one character’s modifiers so high that it seems safe to retreat alone than stand with the group, i.e. running in a panic?

What will begin to take shape is the characters actions. Start describing the lousy die rolls. “Your character hacks desperately at the thing before you” or “You can’t seem to focus on your spell, what are these things? What are they going to do? You’re not sure what you should do!” or “You desperately fumble to reload your weapon and drop the clip on the ground.” Describing the characters actions for the players may help them to get the picture of what is happening to their characters. Fear, desperate, confusion, all of these elements should be present in the descriptions and moods conveyed.

Now, imagine it from their point of view. The players actually start to get the picture. Their characters are in a desperate situation. They could die because they are rolling badly. They are rolling badly because they are hindered with a penalty. Their penalty is caused by fear. The characters are afraid and could die because of it. Now, the player is actually hindered by what has become an overwhelming force. Sure, the group should have been able to kill the zombies with ease. However, fear changes the environment, hindering their ability to think and act clearly. Now the player has a weaker character against a force he isn’t so sure he can beat anymore. Now the player starts looking for a way out too. 

As in every situation you usually have a character with a more level head than the others. You will likely see that character cover a retreat or come up with a plan that allows the other characters to help with easy tasks. Eventually they will get away or defeat the encounter.

If they defeat the encounter it is likely that their fears will go away. You can choose to try this again, but lower the target levels significantly to reflect the new confidence. You may have one or two characters nervous, and hinder because of it. However, the overall group should handle things much easier.

Ultimately it feels like a cheap trick. Some players may hate the new test, but it will always work better than throwing overwhelming odds (i.e. higher level monsters or much more monsters than the characters can really handle) at the characters. That message is generally received as “The GM doesn’t want us to win here so run away” rather than any kind of sense of fear.

Give it a try this weekend and let me know how it works for you. It generally works better than “Your character has suffered from dragon fear and runs away”, or even “900 zombies come at you.” These things seem like contrived mechanics and don’t offer any real sensation. However, the contrived mechanic of adding modifiers that cause a change in behavior very well could.

The DPnP system so far is developed primarily for two purposes: creating and managing campaigns, and creating and managing characters. One of the first future expansions to the suite will be to create an adventure creator. However, I have found that DPnP is still quite useful in the creation of adventures out of the box (per say as there is no real box).

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I decided to write about this as I am working on two related projects. One is some sidetracks I will be releasing after they are edited, and the other is a return to a weekly campaign I am running. The weekly campaign adventure is a bit different than writing adventures for published projects. The general approach is the same for me. However, writing for weekly adventures is much more easily handled as it can be done in weekly episodic installments rather than as a collective whole. This being said, the adventures I play, as run by a wide range of GMs, have had some glaring issues within them that are easily corrected with a rather simplified approach, while being aware that there are pitfalls within any adventure plan that should be avoided with extreme prejudice.

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I was hoping to have some good screen shots to show concerning this article. However, I spent the better part of last week engaged in a serious migraine battle that threatened to put me back in the hospital. I think we have the problem identified with this and should have it resolved this week. However, that slowed down some progress. However, the Digital GM Screen is a huge addition to the CRM. Its potential is immense. It not only handles basic information, but it also has tools to allow you to run some amazing scenarios that would just be too cumbersome to do without it.

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There is on element of DPnP’s success that is somewhat out of my control. That element is community involvement. Ironwood has a community forum that receives some lurker traffic but not much discussion. That forum is really just a placeholder. While all of the forum is a valid community forum, there are large sections that will be or is dedicated to growth through DPnP. The idea is simple, you create content, then you share it with the community. This is an important feature as it makes a potentially limitless library of content available for free. (more…)