GMing: The Bright Side of Failure

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In my Olympus gaming group, my Saturday online game, in a recent fill-in session, we were playing a Mad Max-style post-apocalypse one-shot. Our fearless protagonists found themselves in the upper levels of a toppled skyscraper, both the walls and floors slanted such that a misstep would send unfortunate soul sliding toward the outer windows, and a long fall to their inevitable doom. Lacking the necessary skills and equipment to safely navigate this hazard, most of the PCs succumbed to the inevitable failure on the Climb checks to advance in a controlled manner, and slid down the canted floor toward the outer wall, breaking through the weakened window glass; one PC ended up hanging onto another’s leg, dangling out of the window, many stories above the river below. It was very dramatic, as you might expect, worthy of typical action movies.

That failure was frustrating, as it generally is. But I realized some time after the fact that the scene we were playing out would have been horribly boring without it—we would have walked in, got what we came for, and left. Failure made the scene entertaining.

Later I recalled another such incident: another one-shot with the Olympus group, this time an Infinite Worlds game. The PCs were in an American “Old West” timeline, and were to be “taken in” by the local constabulary, and we resisted. My character, a (decent) practitioner of Kali, was attempting to take down a rifle-wielding cavalryman, and over the course of 5-6 rounds of back and forth—attack, defend, attack, defend…actually, I don’t remember how it ended, except that it was really frustrating that I was having so much trouble connecting with this yokel. Afterward, I complained a little, but everyone else at the virtual table exclaimed at how cool it was, all the back and forth, like a martial arts movie. Again, that failure turned out to be entertaining—for everyone else, at least. I’ve endeavored to remember that incident since then any time I find my character unable to get past his opponents’ defenses.

To reference the image above: imagine the beginning segment of Raiders of the Lost Ark if Indy had succeeded in his attempt to spoof the trapped idol with the sandbag, and walked out—his failure made the scene memorable.

So what does it all mean, then?

I suppose the moral to this story is to treat failures as an opportunity to entertain. As GM, give a little leeway to the entertainment potential of failures. For example: there’s an option spoken of in GURPS Horror for Fright Check failures (“Not Just Stunned,” Horror p. 141), that allows sufferers of all those “Stunned for X Rounds” results to run around in circles, crawl randomly, scream or cry—things other than stand there and get hit, so long as it’s “useless.” Make it funny. Make it dramatic. Make it cinematic. Embrace failure as a necessary part of the storytelling.

But…

This does present a bit of a problem when you consider Impulse Buys, Plot Points, or other mechanisms for subverting failure. If you can cancel out failures, it (obviously) eliminates any sort of entertainment value one might derive from them. For this reason, I’m considering whether or not to allow regular Impulse Buys for my upcoming Inception campaign, or if I should disallow the buying-off of failures. I don’t have an answer for this yet, but I’ll be thinking about it—we’ll see what I decide.

GMing: Paragon/Renegade, or the Ethics of Mass Effect

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What is it?

The first encounter I can recall with this bit of digital game-design was a BioWare title, Knights of the Old Republic, a CRPG belonging the Star Wars game franchise. In that case, it took the form of the “Light Side/Dark Side” mechanic: actions taken resulted in accumulation of positive (light) or negative (dark) points to an overall total score for each character. The balance between the two had an effect on how the character was reacted to by other NPCs, and even had a physical “cosmetic” effect, in that the more the character favored the Dark Side, the more pale and haggard he would appear. Mass Effect, also by BioWare, included a similar mechanic using what was referred to as “Paragon/Renegade,” which differed from the former in that the virtues represented less of a “Good vs Evil” flavor, favoring something more like “Nice vs Mean.” Though less black-and-white and harder to judge the quality of a given action, it did mean that the Hero™ could favor one or the other and still be considered a “good person” in the end. I preferred the new mechanic. Naturally, I wanted to find a way to bring it into GURPS. Accumulation of Paragon/Renegade points can be a meta-system mostly independent of the rules; the GM can evaluate a PC’s actions and award points as he sees fit. However, there’s not much point to it unless there’s some tangible, in-game benefit, which is where the game-system gets involved.

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How I’m doing it

I’m already using the official-alternative Impulse Buys in (most of) my campaigns, and have been, in some form or another, since 3rd Edition; details on my website. My first thought—which I’m currently planning to implement for the first time in the Inception campaign—was to allow the accumulation of Paragon/Renegade-specific points for this purpose, spendable only on actions that can be properly justified according to the associated virtue. In addition, currently, my plan is to allow the current balance between the two types—that is, the number of points by which one exceeds the other (FREX: Paragon 5 and Renegade 3 = balance of Paragon 2)—to be used as a sort of limited Reputation, positive or negative based on the situation (FREX: a Paragon Rep would be positive toward “do-gooders” folks and negative toward “mavericks”), the limitation being that the subject must witness or have witnessed the character’s behaviors, or at least, “read his file.” Gaining of such points in either direction will be evaluated on an action-by-action basis, and will be limited to one point of each per session. It is my opinion (not specifically backed up by my digital inspiration) that gaining of a new point in either direction should require an escalation—if a character gains a Renegade Point for stealing candy from a baby (in the name of justice, of course 😉 ), then to gain another the next time, he’d need to steal the baby’s blanket too—or maybe the whole baby. Spending of such points will be upon request, and also limited to one of each per session.

Other Means

I also briefly considered using Talents (B89 and Power Ups 3) to represent a Paragon/Renegade score; it could provide a bonus to a number of specific, appropriate social skills, and would have a built-in limited “reputation” similar to what I wanted. It would probably work well enough, but it would be a bit more complicated to employ—I opted for the KISS method. One could also treat Paragon/Renegade Points as a limited-use Higher Purpose (B59), applying its bonus only to ethically-appropriate actions; a score of more than one Paragon/Renegade point could be available as a combined, single bonus, or limited to +1 for an equal number of uses. Either of these would be suitable replacements if you aren’t using Impulse Buys or some similar meta-system.

My work on the Inception campaign has renewed, to my great relief. I’ll be sure to write about how this mechanic works out in play once it finally occurs.

GMing: A Carrot

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…In the “carrot vs. stick” meaning, that is.

One of the problems I encountered in the After the End campaign, as previously detailed, was a lack of proper forward-motivation in the players’ characters that made them more difficult to direct, as GM. Since then I’ve found a potential solution from an unlikely source, my current computer game obsession, Crusader Kings II.

Ambition:

For those not similarly afflicted, I will explain. In CK2, any character that is a ruler can voluntarily specify an “Ambition” to pursue. Examples include “Get Married,” “Have a Son/Daughter,” “Amass Wealth,” etc. Each Ambition has specific requirements, and specific rewards for completion of its objective(s); for example, “Amass Wealth” requires accumulation 500 wealth points (and is unavailable if you already have that much), and if successful, the character gains a free point in his Stewardship trait-score. An Ambition not yet fulfilled can be changed to another after a cool-down period has expired.

I’d be willing to bet that it’s a rare GM that hasn’t asked his players to submit some sort of “personal goal” for their character—it’s just common sense, and almost a necessity for a good GM. My revelation as a result of my CK2 exposure is two-fold. First, a GM could create a list of available Ambitions for players to choose from (“multiple-choice” is always easier/quicker than “essay”), perhaps with a “custom” option; this channels the players motivations in a direction useful to the GM’s plan, and can give players some idea what to expect from the campaign in general. Second, a GM could provide specific rewards for completion of the specified Ambition, such as free character-points toward related Traits or new Traits themselves, or perhaps some meta-game benefits like Plot Points (or whatever). In my mind, these Ambitions need not be tied to specific Traits already possessed by the character, but they would certainly benefit role-playing of those Traits through the resulting action-focus. I would suggest that potential rewards be scaled to the difficulty/scope of the Ambition—small reward for easy objectives, large rewards for long-term or difficult ones. I’d suggest that the “cool-down” should also apply; maybe allow changing Ambition once per adventure/series, or at set stopping points, or maybe even just a fixed number of sessions.

Here’s a practical example of a few appropriate Ambitions, using After the End.

  • Turtle Up: Find a safe place to call home and get set up there; reward: 5pts to spend on crafting/survival/traps-type Traits
  • Find Missing Family/Friend: Success conditions are obvious; reward: 5pt Ally, or -5pt Dependent (and allow the 5pts to be recovered as usual, spent on whatever)
  • Acquire Favorite Weapon: Success conditions are obvious; free Weapon Bond Perk
  • Go Home: Success conditions are obvious; reward: free buy-off of related Disads (like Obsession), or just freebie Plot Points, but should scale with how far or difficult-to-reach “home” is—maybe allow a character “rearrangement”

I haven’t tested this yet, but I’m quite confident this would solve some problems and be extra fun to play with. I plan to use it in all my future campaigns, unless it turns out to not work for some reason. Of course, my examples here are assuming use of GURPS, but it could fit as easily in any system.

Table News, 9 Feb 15

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I haven’t done a damned thing all January (as it concerns GMing).

Got plenty of excuses, but it really just comes down to a lack of motivation, as always. The fire’s not out; the coals are still hot, though there’s no visible evidence. I figure it won’t take much to get it going again, but there it sits.

On the other (not-so-helpful) hand, this month marks the return of The Walking Dead from its winter hiatus, and that always gets me in a post-apocalyptic mood. Snippets of related conversation lead me to believe that a recurrence of the After the End campaign would likely not involve zombies, though—but that doesn’t bother me.

Table News, 8 Jan 15

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Obligatory New Year’s post 😛

My GMing projection for this year: cloudy but promising. I expect to run two campaigns this year, but exactly what (in one case) and, more importantly, when is difficult to say.

Work on the next Inception one-shot is progressing, and I’ve started putting some pieces together for the full campaign. I’m beginning the push for the players’ characters, which means getting some of the basic info organized. Much will depend on how the one-shot goes, but I feel pretty good about it.

Table News, 1 Dec 14

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There’s not much to report this month.

For the Olympus group, the Inception campaign preparations are still progressing forward; I’m down to the last bits before I start moving it to my website for public access. I’m still working on a new one-shot, which should see production in 6-8 weeks, at the end of the current campaign (though I’m having some trouble with the details on that one).

For the Core Group, it’s even farther out. We delayed the start of the continued Savage Tide campaign due to the usual end-of-year holiday madness—we’ve been playing a Savage Worlds Star Trek game in the interim—and I have no way of knowing when that will wrap. Already, it’s been long enough with no player push that the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign plans effectively lay dormant, and as it generally goes, may not rise again—depends on the players. Personally, I’d still rather run a reboot of After the End, no doubt, under new assumptions regarding the setting and tone. But we’ll see.

Table News, 4 Nov 14

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I’ve been pressing hard to complete my Inception mechanics to a sufficient degree since it was decided to turn it into a full-on campaign; I’m not quite finished, but good progress has been made—a couple of chunks that need attention before I consider it good enough to use. Research has meant watching the movie over and over—I’ve practically got it memorized now 😛 Once it’s finished (enough), I’ll be posting the mechanics on my website for availability to the public, though I expect I’ll continue to polish it over time. I decided to start preparing another Inception one-shot, specifically to playtest the mechanics; I don’t know when this will occur, but “this year” (what’s left of it) or near to it seems likely. The new one-shot is intended to use the actual campaign characters, and depending on the results it may be considered “canonical” to the actual campaign. A new consideration for this campaign is the addition of another player to the Olympus group, a total GURPS noob, taking us to 7+1—this has the potential to complicate matters, but we’ll see how the new guy settles in; as of this writing, he’s been a bit in-&-out of the game. I have also decided to do the session recaps on the Olympus blog, but keep the GM behind-the-scenes stuff here. Overall, I’m feeling pretty positive about it.

As I’m expecting the Inception game to see production first, before the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, I haven’t done much work on the Temple campaign. Mostly it’s just organizing NPCs and converting monsters to GURPS—I could start without that if it came to it. I’m resisting the urge to switch to something else for the Core Group—too long “inactive” usually results in a non-starter; ultimately, it depends on the players, but I’d really like to take another stab at After the End.

GURPS Inception, One-Shot

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On 9 Aug 2014 I ran a one-shot game for the Saturday (Olympus) group via Fantasy Grounds, the first screen-time for me since After the End. The Inception movie concept is very conducive to a traditional RPG party mechanic, allows a wide range of possible experiences and encourages creative thinking—in short, perfect for gaming. I had intended to run an Inception one-shot for a while, and had been prepping for it, and when the opportunity presented to run it, I went ahead and jumped into it. A number of players were going to be quite late to the game—the reason we weren’t playing the regular campaign that week—so I didn’t make a big push for finished characters beforehand (though I had intended to have some pre-generated characters ready, that didn’t quite happen), and used the first hour or so to deal with that stuff. With that in mind, and wanting to be certain to finish in one session, I wanted to keep it short and simple.

Regarding the Rules:
At its core, this would be a GURPS Action game, with the more-cinematic behaviors reserved for within the Dream; I would be using BAD pretty much as-is. GURPS already has a Dreaming skill, B188; I just used it. I took “mechanical” inspiration from Mage: The Ascension, and its official GURPS conversion; Dreaming would be the go-to skill for pretty much everything within the Dream, and could be used to “boost” actions. The basics:

  • Roll against the higher of Will or Dreaming when you first enter the Dream; failure can result in some glitches, Crit Fail=Paradox. In addition, whenever you make a skill or attribute roll to interact with the environment or Projections in the Dream, use the lower of Dreaming and your attribute or skill.
  • Architect has to fight against Subject’s influence; QC Dreaming vs Subject’s Dreaming or Will to prevent warping when Subject gets bored, frightened, etc. Affected by current BAD.
  • Must hide/disguise changes to the Dream from the Subject; Fail=BAD+1 (MoF <5 allows a “save”), from increased attention/aggression. Doesn’t matter what the Projections see, but what the Subject detects (Projections react to the Subject’s observation)
  • SK:Dreaming is always available as a Complementary Skill to any skill or attribute check within a Dream, and may provide a larger-than-normal bonus (or penalty): ±1 per 2 MoS/MoF (minimum ±1)

Also, I decided to use my normal Impulse Buys in the form of Planning Points (based on the planning rolls) and Architect Points (specific to the Architect, for setting up blockades and whatnot).

Regarding the Characters:
I recommended the use of Action 1 Template+Lens at the usual point levels (250/50/5). Characters would be already teamed up, or have worked together before. Required of All:

  • Dreaming @12+ (higher is better—would be often penalized, and would be used heavily; think SK:Free-Fall in a zero-gravity mission)
  • At least one Disadvantage would affect the Dream
  • At least one Advantage would affect the Dream
  • New Perk: Trademark Technique; +1 to Dreaming when using/activating the associated ability

Needed Character Archetypes:

Regarding the Mission:
Essentially, the mission revolved around an American-turned-jihadist captured in Afghanistan who needed to be interrogated to find out who his boss was, but due to legal restrictions couldn’t be interrogated in a more traditional manner, so the government organization turned to the “extractors,” whose influence would be otherwise undetectable. The Subject was a young college kid, recruited and brainwashed (given Extreme Fanaticism; -3 to attempts to mind-control or manipulate, which I applied to BAD). Being a one-shot game, I had the organization provide the team with a basic plan, so I could prepare the necessaries without having to consult the players directly: the kid was a regular first-person shooter player, so I used a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare map as the “maze,” and gave them the plan to lead the Subject through the map to a location where his “boss” would be waiting, faceless, for his subconscious mind to fill in the details of his face, after which, the team would be able to identify him from a book of mug-shots. I threw in some complications, like an interruption by the kid’s father, and used the Projections to demonstrate the kid’s programmed prejudices. Simply, the PCs would fight through a bunch of FPS shooters, the Subject’s Projections, and convince the Subject to take them to see the boss.

The Result:
We got off to a somewhat shaky start with the character creation, but the dust finally settled, and we ended up with a pretty solid team; very competent, due to the point-levels. I started them on the plane to Pakistan to do the job, a 19 hour flight, which gave them that time to do some basic research and plan the operation; they rolled extremely well, and ended up with a lot of points for Impulse Buys, of which they only ended up using a few. They all adopted FPS “clan” names associated with the Subject’s past activities. I threw them right into the fight, which went in the PCs’ favor, for the most part—I planned to do a little more fighting, but for the late start, I held back. They had a good social-engineering angle to start with, and the Subject followed along without any resistance. When they encountered the Subject’s father, they opened fire on him, and convinced the Subject to “cowboy up” (with a Critical Success) afterward. The Architect arranged for some rockets to hit the boss’ compound to punctuate the need to go in, and coaxed the Subject through his fears to confront him. While a few of the PCs remained outside to hold off the incoming Projections, the rest went in with the Subject and saw the face of the boss before he shot the Subject for his failure (for being captured; as he had feared), ending the Dream. One or two of the PCs had Eidetic Memory, and were easily able to ID the boss, and so the mission was completed, and they got paid.

The players enjoyed it enough, in spite of the “unfinished” nature of the mechanics, that they recommended it be taken on as a regular, ongoing campaign. So, I’ve begun working on refinements to the mechanics and preparing for a full-length treatment to occur, hopefully, in the not-too-distant future.

Table News, 1 Jul 14

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The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is moving right along. I still don’t have a definite start date, but I’m progressing as if it’s next in the queue (which may be true). I’ve made some Lego purchases for miniatures now, so I’m definitely “invested” in seeing this to production.

I’ve been mostly concerned with casting the Hommlet NPCs and organizing them; and getting to know them in the process. Ironically perhaps, I’ve found that while the campaign material does give quite a lot of detail on the town’s NPCs, it gives essentially nothing with regard to their operations. For example, it might say this guy over here is a spy, but it doesn’t say why he’s spying, or what he’ll do if something interesting happens. I suppose the designers intended the GM to be responsible for that sort of thing, but I think a little direction would have made sense. That said, my plan to make up for that shortfall is to use a combination of the Story Forge cards for the town-based meta-plot, and tarot for the rest—I’ve had a good experience with both, and I think it will work out. I’m planning to work in some interactions with personalities outside the town itself, to give it a feel of being a small part of a larger world.

There are a few other minor systems I need to work out, like weather—random or reality-based? Minor enough I don’t really need to be bothered about them right now.

I have done a fair bit of research and work on the CP wagering system, the preliminary results of which will be posted in the near-future here. I will probably be posting some of the Non-Player Groups here and there, as I find myself satisfied they aren’t likely to change.

Table News, 5 May 14

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Things change…we all know that, I’m sure.

The Terra Nova campaign took too long to spin up, and interest wasn’t as strong as it needed to be, so it fizzled. It occurs.

After some wrangling, the Friday (Core Group) group is pretty much settled on my next offering there: I’ll be running the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in GURPS. Essentially, Dungeon Fantasy. The plan is to play low-level characters (75pts is being discussed for starters) with full harsh-realism settings in force—we’re expecting deaths. I’m planning to use a new meta-system to allow proposition wagering of unused character points on things like “who dies first,” etc.; I’ve been studying up on how sports betting works so I can do it right. This dungeon has a reputation for being difficult to survive, of course, and not a lot of opportunity for the usual role-playing, so I’m considering this an “experiment”—it could be incredibly annoying or wildly amusing. I’ll be posting whatever information I can in preparation for the first run as soon as I have it.

For the Saturday (Olympus) group, the current plan is still to pick up The Crusade where it left off. The group makeup has changed considerably since it first ran, and I’m pushing for character concepts from the new guys, at which point I will know more about when the campaign will occur. I really liked this campaign, and I’m looking forward to a recurrence (for once 😛 ), but time is always my enemy in these matters. I do have a unique problem with this one, though: where do I post the play-logging? Olympus has its own blog, so I haven’t decided whether it would be best to do the writeups here and link to them there, or vice versa. But I can work that out later.