the plea for mars

[reverancepavane]

More years ago than I care to remember I wrote an AD&D module for a tournament. It was a fairly standard conceit, in that it opened with the Bad Guys™ raiding the palace of a city and kidnapping the princess from her tower. The players, being the first responders on the scene, arrive on the tail end of this event, just in time to witness the bad guys make their getaway. After dealing with the rearguard, they have the option to pursue immediately themselves (something the gamemaster should encourage), or organise a proper rescue party. [If they did the later they'd automatically "lose" the tournament btw, as they could never catch up to the kidnappers, but they could still have fun as the module bifurcated heavily at that point. (They were warned).] The fun bit was the freedom of choice offered to the players, because we allowed them to build their own characters (using the rules we provided) and take whatever equipment they wanted. Often the players got to run the same characters in two completely different dungeons (I'm not sure if this was the case with this one as I wasn't present at the Con where it ran). This could end up with, say, a party deciding that 4 druids (plus 2 other classes) was the way to go and ending up in a situation where most of the druids special abilities don't really come into play. What I also enjoyed about this module is that it was set on the dying Mars (and where, in pulp SF conceit, Earth is inhabited by Stone Age primitives and Venus by dinosaurs). Fighters and thieves could translate almost untouched. The spellcasters used the remnants of the lost technology to duplicate the powers of spells. Magic users became "Scientists" who had a rote understanding of how such arcane devices worked and could create their own if they found the right parts. Clerics became the "Engineers" who through their devotions and under the command of their God(s) ran the cities aging support infrastructure (there were many cities which had been abandoned because the gods had withdrawn their favour), and could commune with the City God (or gods) in their Temples. And because you can get away with a lot more in a tournament than you can in a campaign, spells were single-use devices. So instead of having memorized the spells, it represented the devices that the spell-casting character was carrying at the time of the raid (and whose secret of operation was jealously guarded secrets). It lead to the interesting idea that players could regain unused "spells" from the body of their spell-casting opponents (after they had disarmed the requisite booby-traps that were a standard amongst Scientists who jealously protected their secrets). And yes, spellbooks were coded design schematics for devices. It also explained why the cleric with the party was most probably from the Order of Medik from within the city cult/temple. Similarly the basis of the various demi-human races changed (they were all engineered off-shoots of the Anyway, I wrote the module on this basis, beginning with a skimmer chase across the desert in pursuit of the kidnappers, with encounters along the way, and a final confrontation with the kidnappers. [Or if they waited and formed a proper posse, they got to have fun stomping around the desert with troops, lots of spell support, and eventually realise that the kidnappers had made their getaway. Fortunately everybody apparently took the rather pointed hints that they should immediately grab the remaining raider's skimmer (after having killed the rearguard), and pursue. But I don't like forcing people, so I gave them the choice.] But I wrote a lot more background than was really needed for a tournament module. Especially one built on the pun that "magic" swords and armour were manufactured from various grades of a material called plas (plas wun, plas doo, plas ree, plas orr, plas phi), and the idea that anyone could use a standard magic wand (a pistol) or a magic staff (a rifle) [although there was always a risk with such valuable relics that something might go wrong, and recharging or fixing one was a dedicated job for a Scientist, often needing resources that were zealously guarded by the temples (Scientists had inherited the blame for the world dying and were generally looked on in suspicion by most, especially the Engineers)]. Because I found the word quite attractive as somewhere to adventure. There is always something intriguing about breakfasting in the ruins. It's surprising how many people take an unreasoning dislike to roleplaying in a science fantasy D&D game (in general, I was never told if people freaked in the tournament, and the feedback I did get was that people thought it was fun). But it's a fairly standard trope from the very beginning of the hobby. Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign featured more than it's share of ancient technological artefacts (such as The Blue Rider's impressive strength-enhancing magical armour and flaming sword), and even Empire of the Petal Throne's Tekumel was originally a struggling colony that had been cut off by some cosmic catastrophe from it's space-faring roots. Not to mention it was also a standard trope of the fantasy of the time. [Many people credit Tolkein as being the inspiration for D&D, but whilst it had a profound impact on the wargames that D&D grew out of, I always found that D&D owed a lot to the pulp fiction of the time as well.] Why do I mention this. Well I've come to the decision that I'm not going to reboot my old D&D campaign, because it's tied too closely to the players who created it, and most of them are no longer around. So that leaves me looking for alternatives. I do like the idea of The Crater, which is the source of all magic in the world as a traditional megadungeon, but since that was envisaged to rely heavily on the third dimension (pathways clinging precariously to the sides of the crater with minidungeons and even entire towns carved into the sides of the crater). And good 3D design is something that the tabletop doesn't really do well, and probably best done with miniatures, especially with floors mounted on polystyrene blocks for height. And I don't really do miniatures. And there is an intentional separation from the wider world in play there, since the "Empire" is struggling to maintain control of the outpost there, especially in light of the hostility of the surrounding nomad tribes who believe The Crater is taboo and keep raiding the supply caravans (and any magic prospectors that they can find). And yes, it is more than reminiscent of Pavis (Runequest/Glorantha) for the set-up; that's because Pavis is such a brilliant adventuring idea. And I'm thinking I want something with a bit more campaign interplay in the style of my old campaign. And I've just been reading the excellent dungeon module Anomalous Subsurface Environment by Patrick Wetmore which makes me want to revisit a similar theme. The Orbital Gods are such an excellent idea, and they remind me of the City Gods of the Martian tournament. And City States are so much easier to do in D&D. The main problem is that, whilst my trick for dealing with spells worked well for a tournament module (since there was no effective difference between a mage memorizing a spell that disappears on use and a one-use magical device that must be activated, the application of such a distinction in a campaign is less clear, and may result in a fundamental change in the nature of the game. If it becomes a simple game of searching the ruins of the past for Lost Tech then it simply becomes another Gamma World, which is what I don't want. Although truth to tell, probably nothing will come of this either, besides copious notes, but then, it's a good thing I do like constructing worlds. The interplay of the necessary systems required to get the world to live on it's own has always fascinated me.

Comments

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

Well, you've been playing too many LARPs recently and that sort of thing wears off on you. The problem with a LARP is that it is automatically player versus player, in order to create enough conflict to create an interesting scenario in a very limited time. Plus it's very hard to bring NPCs in to the game to be preyed on. A good LARP will be set up so that everyone can get what they want if they work at it, sort of very much like the classic farce, and where there is a happy ending. Really good ones invoke the rules of poetic justice in doing so. [This is one of the reasons I think Fiasco is an excellent game, especially for developing this sort of thing at the tabletop.] However most LARPS use the fact that there are limited resources to drive conflict, resulting in winners and losers. And because of the strong identification between the player and the character (remember all those rules to stop you acting fully as your character when you get carried away in the moment), if your character loses it often feels like you, the player, loses as well. Additionally, when involved in a LARP campaign, you get the problem that your character becomes the measure of success in the game. This is true at the tabletop as well. Take away a character's gold and equipment and they may mutter about it, but they always know they can get some more. Kill a character, or even worse, drain their earned abilities, and you are directly attacking what they see as being successful. It's also why games where the PCs are "protected" for the sake of the storyline tend to be very uninteresting, as there is no risk to go with the reward. [This does not mean that the character should be gratuitously killed by a disease or someone dropping a chamber pot on their head (unintentionally, that is), but one shouldn't shy away from letting the character die when the system says they should die. Although it's good to make that clear from the outset.]

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

[continued] Too many people identify with the idea that rewards for the character equate to rewards for the player. Instead, a good play experience (and having fun), is the player's reward. And it behooves the gamemaster to try and ensure everyone at the table (including themselves) is having a good time. [My measure of complete success is when a lynch mob of player(s) are physically chasing me and I'm laughing too hard to run away very effectively. It's happened four times. Fun!] One of the things I like about the stage analogy is that you can bring in terms like limelight and blocking. Also as director of our little drama, the gamemaster can bring little noticed characters to the front of stage. And a trick with large groups is that you can give the spotlight to characters that want it by giving them the audience of other players. Your time resource as a gamemaster is too critical to be an audience for them, which is the case where the gamemaster is active. At the tabletop it is actually more often the case with modern games that the gamemaster is seen as the antagonist who must be beaten for the players to win. And in accepting that role the gamemaster loses out on a whole bag of tricks that can be used to help the game along. So having a referee who is not an antagonist is good, but that doesn't mean that the referee should be unbiased. They should be biased in terms of a good story and the players having a good time. This means, in a LARP throwing wrenches into the plans of people being too successful and reducing the difficulty for people who are not. [In one LARP I was in, the normally factious Sartarites where being swayed by a demagogue to unite against the hated invaders, so one of the gamemasters (it was a large LARP (130 players) with 7 of them), threw in a comment from the crowd "But who will be King?" and it all collapsed in a screaming, but fun, heap.] As for "storyteller," it was the name originally given to the system, not the gamemaster, and was designed very much to allow the players to tell the story of their characters. It's why there is such a massive difference between the first edition and later editions of Vampire. The first edition concentrated on the angst of being a blood-sucking leech. By third edition it was definitely all about being a super-cool and dark character with lots of powers. They had adopted the traditional gamer paradigm that success is measured by your character's abilities, rather than the experience of role-playing that character, and if that is your idea of success then the only way to show you are successful is to use them, which goes against the whole original idea that there is in fact a Masquerade. And because of that the gamemaster became the storyteller, the author of the piece, in order to give the players something to rail against. [First edition was broken under this paradigm, which is why the storyteller system evolved from very simple roots. Like RQ, it worked best in the sweet spot of mid-range abilities and broke once people started min-maxing and having very high (and very low) abilities. The original rule mechanics themselves were never meant to be the arbiters of the story. You were.]

[maelorin]

in the olden days, we used to reward characters with xp, and players with caffeine :p nowadays, the kiddies just want their shinies ^_^ (i agree with you on the problem that many/most players don't distinguish self from character. this also leads to the ubiquitous white-anting that comes with abusing out-of-character knowledge ...)

i've seen player jealously played out in-game many times. most often in larps. almost everything my characters tend to achieve in larps is behind-the-scenes. often peeps have no idea what (or how much) i'm up to until they kill my pc, or i leave the game ... then the threads untangle ...

i have always preferred 1st edn vampire. but ww can't see any other way to make money than to trash their previous offerings every few years.

i like systems for their flexibility and playability. wargaming holds no interest for me because i prefer to roleplay, not ruleplay (and they also tend to trigger my competitive-crush-kill-die emotions rather than my play-and-stay. for very much the same reasons chess and go do, i suspect).

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

I always role-play my wargaming, probably because it wasn't a game to the person who first taught me. One of his early lessons was the fact that your troops aren't just bits of plastic but represent living human beings, and you didn't want to have to write condolence letters to their parents. Something he had to do too much during Vietnam. Which is why I can't stand a lot of modern computer games that are set up on an "acceptable casualty" basis. It's also why I'm generally better at strategic games than most of my friends, because I'm not willing to take risks and I maintain an active reserve to exploit opportunities. And it made an easier transition when I later had to command units in the field. My first reactions are always going to be conservative and defensive. I'd much rather get you to attack me than the other way around. As long as I'm prepared for your attack. I like playing open secrets. It's a technique where you, and everyone else are public about your deep dark secrets. It allows the other players to tease you about the secret. In fact, done properly, the secret generally never gets invoked unless you are caught point-blank. It works well, because people now know something about you and can play to that. Whereas if your secret is actually a secret then no one can play with it and a whole crutch of your character goes unrevealed. Of course people who aren't used to this might try to use this to their advantage, in which case, unless they have actual evidence, you greet it with great disbelief and ridicule. [A good example of this is the "He's a girl" scene in Shakespeare In love.] Of course, cleverly forcing a reveal is probably fun for both parties, but it should mark a critical part of the campaign play, not just be used as an opportune advantage of the moment. And of course, there is always the opportunity for bad play to be taken as an example of the character's moral inrectitude. ["Thank you for telling me. Yes. I do know. I've known for a long time," he says drawing the curtains. "And I'm glad you've come to me and no one else. You see, I've secretly loved her for a long time and this allows us to see each other. And now, you loathsome little worm, I shall have to reward you and protect her."] As I say, it's best to be on stage with your characters and larger than life. Especially with LARPS. The players are your audience as well as your fellow players. Play to them. As for our favourite albino lupine, the actual situation is a lot more complicated than that, although there is an element of truth, especially for the Masquerade/Redemption phase. On the other hand, I got sick and tired of Champions coming out with a new edition every few years with no actual changes apart from presentation. One of the reasons I look forward to a Harn-like system of integrating electronic rules into one document, so you can buy rule updates and supplements integrate into the base rule system. Sort of like D&D4 with it's DDI web interface, which not only negates the needs for the books but has actually relegated them to being obsolete.

[maelorin]

i agree with all of this.

most larps i've been involved with have encouraged/required a 'dark secret' and/or 'fatal(ish) character flaw' ... but short of putting it on a badge, they rarely ever get revealed - since players think it's awfully clever of them to have this secret motivation.

but, as you suggest, a larp is *theatre*; a live-action, ad-libbed movie. i come back to by earlier comment: i prefer to play cooperatively rather than competitively with others.

and i've tended to find that more in table top than live action roleplaying. tt games tend to be party-centric, so players tend to see the point of cooperation. larps have come to be viewed as everyone-for-themselves scrambles...

the two times i've broken open the 'seal of my secrets' in larps*, to further the game and to try to encourage roleplaying, others have reacted so badly (ic and ooc) that within weeks i've actually left the game entirely. people forget that they can actually *talk* to other players in both ic and ooc modes.

* both times were entangled with plots surrounding my character and the princedom of the current vampire game. months invested in political manoeuvring dashed against the wall of ooc jealousies** (the first time, that my lowly character kept upstaging an st's girlfriend's character; the second time, that my lowly character was not only out-counter-manoeuvring theirs and their whole clan *and* covenant but also, again, jealousy - this time between a bf and gf over ic interactions between my character and her character.)

** if anyone had bothered to talk to me, instead of just about everyone else, the ooc situations could have been resolved, and their ic entanglements likewise. instead, i was forced to reveal ic secrets in response to the way players acted ic over their ooc jealousies. having done so, *other players* then reacted badly (in the roleplaying and personal ethics senses) ... and i chose to leave the games rather than try to salvage what little trust was left between us.

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

What use is there having a Dark Secret if it can never be discovered? As a character or a campaign? One advantage of everyone having an open Dark Secret is that it is often mutual annihilation if you invoke it. Another trick is to use the Paranoia method where everyone knows that everyone is a Traitor, it's just that they need proof. A lot of Paranoia games with inexperienced gamemasters fall apart far too early as the players assassinate each other without proof (and then get terminated for wasting valuable Computer resources - the other Troubleshooters). Again it's a matter of where the gamemasters put the focus of the game. Straight power conflict is a lot easier to write. And yes, Vampire games have always had a big ooc relationship problem, mainly because vampires are big on seduction. It's just a game, but few people are secure enough in their relationships to be able to view such a thing without becoming green-faced monsters. [It's one reason I'm very fussy over my dance partners. I'll willingly dance with people who are definitely not interested in me (and whose partners also realise this) or with those whom I am an item (<sounds of chirping crickets>), but am very chary about any of the middle group.] But it's a cultural thing. Because people have never tried opening up their characters they haven't realised the benefits of doing so. Then again, mostly they are after being the top of the power struggle, which is actually very very very (and I say this as a contributor to the original Vampire Players Guide), un-Vampire. It's called the Masquerade for a reason guys! [Think formal measured dances and masks and hiding from the outside world, not flurries of activity. That's the caitiff problem signifying the End of Times.] Again differences in what people want. [BTW, you'll really like Ver Sind Die Nacht ("We Are The Night"). A decent German vampire flick. German's understand vampires.]

[maelorin]

i tend to play vampire as a game of manipulation, rather than muscle or magic. i can do more with a few jedi mind tricks than most with a plate of dots on their sheet. (of course, with some dots, i can really go to town :p)

in my first big vampire larp (over 1998-2001) we had sub-games for different styles of players. i managed to straddle the brujah-gangrel battle game while also playing the ventrue-toreador political game. but then my character was technically a caitiff, albeit one accepted by the ventrue clan as a ventrue offspring. [auspex, fortitude, potence as in-clan disciplines, with ventrue feeding restriction plus loyalty to the ventrue clan as bloodline weaknesses - his childer all gained the same traits]

i shall have to look for a subtitled copy of "we are the night".

[maelorin]

i just wish there was less emphasis on pvp. or that it's every damn thing for itself.

a white wolf larp is pretty much an n(n-1) brawl, dragged out over weeks as players jockey for enough xp to have that cool power.

a no.less pvp larp is possible - the st team can bring in npcs, if they're organised and at the right ratio (imnshe, 1:6 (st:pc) is almost /neccessary/ for white wolf - unless you're just gonna throw rice to a room full of pigeons.)

sadly, finding a good tabletop game in adelaide is hard. you have to already know about one to even be invited. and starting a game is fraught with who to invite, and juggling calendars/timetables.

risk is one of the dimensions of a good game. but too many are either unbalanced, or the players are ... >.<

oh for the halcyon days of first year ... :p

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

LARP campaigns are hard. Most good LARP games are one-shots. Which is popular at the tabletop too. Look at Spirit of the Century for example, which is designed for one-shots since the characters can't grow or change to any great degree. Some LARP campaigns work with players earning extra bennies by playing NPCs. Or even better, you set up a troupe style of play with each player doing multiple characters at different levels of interaction. Ars Magica is a good example of how that can work on the tabletop. Games either then occur with everyone at the same level, or in a natural pyramid. The problem is that most Vampire LARP storytellers can't envisage anything other than a power-political play.* There are other alternatives which focus play outside the group, but they require more effort to craft. And the Camarilla regulation system encourages this sort of thing. As for locating a good gaming group, I can't help you. Scheduling is always really bad, especially if, like me, you like large groups and you aren't sure of your own ability to make games due to illness. =8( If I was healthy and had a venue I'd seriously consider running competitive games. Perhaps setting up another mega-dungeon challenge. Post public rules for character generation, and welcome any team to try and get something out of the dungeon. But as much as I'd like to do this I'd like to play in it even more, so perhaps a round robin of tournament dungeons, with scorecards for teams. Form a team, bring a dungeon, and compete in each other's dungeons for victory. [Although this might mean I might actually have to get copies of 4th Ed. shudder] Either gives players the social currency (a leader board) that they crave (which doesn't necessarily reflect on their characters like XP), and results in a lot of input into the construction of the environment. Win. Win. Take my gold pieces and go back to the entrance.

[maelorin]

the camarilla is emotionally, politically, and financially crippled. not merely in australia. and that's *before* one entertains the jungle that is the 'game' as such.

i think i prefer middlish-sized table top games. 6-8 players. enough for group dynamics to matter, and to do interesting things. enough for social cohesion and so on. not so large that the gm is buried under the mechanics and admin.

i also like rotating the game and the gm on a regular basis. say, every 3-6 months or so. long enough to get some progress in a game, not so long that anyone gets stuck in a rut. though i have been in a game that ran for 3 years, and was 'epic' in all senses. [ad&d from 1st level to deity-hood, from scavenging to dungeon-crawling to full-scale war and the siege of a city-fortress.]

i miss the creativity, and the camaraderie, of cooperative roleplaying.

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

I miss it too. Unfortunately I prefer running groups of about a dozen or so people ... and the best games I've run have had 18 to 24 people. My minimum is really about 6 people for my style. Which makes getting a group together nigh impossible. Then again, there is a lot of groundwork needed to run such games, because you have to get the characters to be active rather than reactive. Besides the last time I had role-players around here the neighbours complained. For me there was a regular Friday night Runequest game that took characters from raw character sheet to rune lord level over far too many years. If the SCA hadn't gotten in the way I might still be playing now. An actual wargames club is good as it offers a venue for people to meet and play. However they tend to be uneconomic to run. SAHWS worked well for many years until bad management moved it out of the city and lost most of the membership. It's replacement worked well, but suffered the same political problems when the problem children from SAHWS joined. Not to mention the crassness and boorishness and rubbish strewn rooms. So it died. FLGS unfortunately have opening hours that don't make it possible to have a game. The Uni no longer has a Student Union or facilities in which one can game. So it's no wonder people prefer to game at home amongst friends. Or preferentially, play Eurogames or World of Warcraft instead. Although I'm thinking I might run something electronically. Or who am I kidding? <sigh>

[maelorin]

playing at home with friends is a very different experience to playing in a club. both have their pros and cons. but it mostly comes down to the people.

clubs tend to fail because the amateurs/children running them fail to learn, fail to run them as businesses, and then personality issues drive wedges between factions ... a hobby centre isn't a hobby. *sigh*

plus city rents make it hard to have enough space for decent gaming at prices gamers are prepared to pay.

i have played pbem and irc-based rpgs. they can work well, so long as the players commit adequate time to reading-before-responding.

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

Actually, in my experience (based on the collapse of four wargaming clubs I've been associated with, as opposed to the single example you are familiar with), you usually end up with a wargamer who thinks he is Machievelli's favourite son, who manages to end up alienating everybody (except his own pet cadre). At which point the reliable core you depend upon decide it's actually less hassle to game at home, and newcomers interested in seeing what is on offer are put off by rude privileged members, notices that they are organising a trip to a strip club, and unemptied garbage bins. Which means a drastic loss of revenue, and given the rents and utilities, the financial collapse of the club (even not counting bad management practices). The best model for such a club is the same used by actual social clubs, and that is you hire a business manager to manage the club, rather than relying on a committee to do so. But that's an added expense. Besides, the halcyon days of wargaming (the 70's) and role-playing (the 80's) are long gone. Most of the members of both groups now have other commitments (families et al), which mean that they are satisfied when a shop opens it's basement to allow gaming. The current trend is Eurogames, which don't have as a great an infrastructure requirement and can get away with renting the various community spaces that can be found around the place. And I was thinking of using a dedicated client, complete with tactical map and movable pieces, rather than just having a text-based IRC/MUD/MUSH game. Probably a commercial client as they tend to be much more developed. [Then again, we once all bought NWN in an idea that we would recreate our old dungeons in it. Unfortunately the amount of scripting required is beyond what we were ever willing to put into it, and ComputerRPG, especially at that time, were rather boring anyway.]