...In the details.

Every once in a while I come across some idea that I want to remember to add into my games on occasion. So I'm going to add just a tiny list here and maybe it'll grow.

1. Graffiti. I wrote about this before, but it is worth keeping in mind. It signals that you're not the first one there. It may be useful (warnings about what is ahead, arrows pointing towards an exit) or useless (Thomas was here). It's likely to be mundane or even vulgar.
2. Inscriptions. Same as graffiti, but higher in register. Kings pay for tombs and towers and bridges and there's no reason they won't try to get it known as their bridge or wouldn't leave a record of who built it, when, and why.
3. Occupations. If we're playing in a pseudo-medieval setting, most characters ought to have a pretty specialized occupation they know. Maybe they didn't follow in mom or dad's footsteps, but they probably know how to make a pewter mug or plate. And only a pewterer would know that shit. 2nd Edition DMG Table 60: NPC professions is a gold mine for odd little artisan backgrounds. Obviously country farmers may have a broader set of skills, but city folk are likely a bit specialized.
4. News travels by word of mouth. Travelers are a great source of information. In a world where news travels at the speed of merchants and horses or ships, it should not at all be uncommon for an innkeeper to ask about the news on the road. In the same way the PCs should be able to ask about the town. Wizards with sending spells are hugely valuable to any large government or group.
5. Wandering monsters. There's a few reasons to use random encounters (somewhat synonymous with wandering monsters), and one is to keep the action going. Sure it may seem like you're slowing things down with another combat, but even if the PCs are hiding in a dungeon room, the locked doors may draw the attention of a wanderer. And if its the right kind, one group of goblins can bring all hell down (or at least the rest of the goblins) on the PCs. Just make them reasonable: goblins patrol their encampment or just get drunk and need a piss (or a fuck?).

Know your Audience

So. Last night was a surprise birthday D&D Dungeon Crawl. The game was obviously well thought out, and the DM even recruited an adjunct DM to help manage the massive table. It tested out some new ideas, and afterwards I overheard the two of them talking about what to cut for the next night. 100% respect there.

However, if I can criticize one thing (and I will, obviously, but it's important to point out the massive strengths as well as weaknesses), it's that the DM didn't know his audience. Because it's through criticizing things, reviewing them constantly, and reflecting on how to do things differently that we learn and improve.

First off, I didn't realize it right away but a few turns in it became apparent that about half the players had played 0-1 games with the DM's house rules and setting (setting wasn't so relevant, house rules were a bit) but more than that, I think at least 2 of the players hadn't played 4th edition before, and some weren't a fan of the edition at all. Moreover, we used the full set of 4e rules, meaning when selecting characters we had Deva and Invokers and the like: even if you're coming from another edition of D&D you wouldn't know what you're choosing. I tried to help the person sitting next to me with her powers, but she wasn't the one who needed much help really, and its hard to do the assist to someone sitting 2-4 people away (it was a huge group).

Another issue is that some of these people were casual players (mostly the same subset of folk). That's odd to me, since I've almost always run games for people who own the books these days, though a decade ago I was probably running things for people who might borrow the book for a night, or we'd lend that short-story collection out so people could get a better grip on the setting. But some of these are people who would do much better with an earlier edition of D&D or perhaps the new edition. Its like how I feel about Pathfinder: I can't be fucked to learn all these feats and archetypes and stuff. Ok, I can read through stuff a bit, and I'll know the options on my sheet, but reading through a huge list of feats or spells or powers... Boring. Give me a few options so my character's theme or personality comes out. So I can really play an Enchanter or a Necromancer. Some people don't like having that obscene set of powers, or even any at all. It's enough to just hit things with a sword (ok, maybe the choice of sword vs glaive vs bow is enough choice). 4e is not the best system for casual players.

I tried to get a little bit of info myself about what the table would be like. At the beginning, during the character draft, I picked up the tone that the game would have lots of intra-party conflict. Something about rolling for alignment randomly, and being handed a goal slip which had me fill out the name of the PC that needed to die. I did ask about the general bawdiness levels at the table, but didn't get to whimsiness or anything since it seemed apparent. I was told that table didn't let anyone make fun of folk with cognitive or developmental impairments, which it totally fine. But I thought it odd that many people joined the chorus of "obviously", but it isn't at all obvious to me what's going to happen when someone is portraying a character with a low wisdom or intelligence (which, I think, would be the D&D equivalent). But I'm a linguist and a pragmatist, so that's a thought for another day. Also probably something for a less bawdy/whimsical game.

So, what's the answer? I've been thinking of a game constitution lately. It came up again when I talked about vampire games with folk at the amusement park this week. In a collaborative storytelling game, it's nice to set a few limits. I'm still bitter about how the old Giovanni LARP got turned into a Sabbat LARP, and a game constitution might say how things like new staff/gamemaster ought to happen. It might lay out things like the general levels of whimsy/gonzo, sensitive topics, general house rules (floor dice don't count, etc.), and the like. A general criticism of many of the old WoD LARPs is they used too many crazy/whimsical plots and cross-overs (constantly fighting werewolves, rare clans, hunters, etc) or generally ignored the morality stat (killing should cause degeneration for most vampires, no?). But that can be written in: there are certain types of antagonists allowed, certain types of PCs that fit with the setting/mode/theme/tone/etc. I also think those games need a staff member dedicated to focusing on new players if they want to retain folk at all. Maybe what I'm suggesting is more of a charter than a constitution. Or a set of a few guidelines. It at least lets the players know what to expect, but I suppose it doesn't do the reverse for the judge. But it's one step in knowing your audience: putting yourself and your game out there. And it might be the thing that is more doable for a one-shot.

The reverse would be having the players put this sort of info out there. Obviously if this constitution is collaborative, people will agree on a level of whimsy, jokes allowed, etc. But any kind of informal survey might help this as well. Asking how many of the participants had played the edition before might give you the info necessary to give them simpler pre-gens or even those companion characters which aren't full-fledged PCs with a full set of crazy heroic powers. I know I ran into this problem when I tried a rando game in Arizona. After a couple players bonded over their medications (super awkward) we ended up being railroaded into taking a quest from the quest board at the in for the Housewives' Guild, then I kept failing my skill check to "go to my happy place" because I was a fighter who didn't have the right skills. If I knew the game was going to be whimsical, I'da done things rather different.

The last major aspect of the audience for last night's game was that I was expecting a surprise birthday dungeon crawl (nevermind the mix-up that led to the birthday boy prepping to run some other game that night). We didn't get to a dungeon. And nothing screamed "birthday". There was a character draft (snake, but the second round of picking seemed unnecessary) and the birthday boy didn't get anything special. Characters were drafted and lots of randomness was added (a couple random bonuses, random alignment) which lead to obvious conflict as evil characters and good ones existed in the same party. I was expecting a birthday plot, like we're all escorting the birthday boy through dangerous territory, or the Birthday boy is our professor X leading us all out of the wilderness.

Would I have done it differently? Obviously, though hindsight is 20/20. It was a huge group though: asking the more casual players to play a companion character (Panthor and Screeech to someone's Skeletor) might have helped. A special role for the Birthday Boy. A set of rules familiar to all the players (though honestly, some had probably only done 4e and would have been equally lost with 5th or something more old-school). Running a one-shot for a group that ballooned up (everyone invited was attending, and even when one person couldn't make it another joined in) is an impossible and thankless task, especially when its not only a birthday game but a surprise game.

I was once told that I gave the wrong talk at a conference: I focused on the details rather than the theory. The advice was spot on: I should have focused on the aspects most relevant to the audience. So I think this holds equally well for running games: know your audience. New or casual players need something different than experienced players, either in terms of plots or rules. Light-hearted or whimsical games are great for some groups/players, terrible for others. And special events might deserve special rules or plots or roles. Bringing it all together is hard, but knowing who you're running with and why you're doing it should help. I haven't dealt with this much lately, but its something to keep in mind for whatever else I might run in the near or distant future.

Where's the writing on the wall?

So, I just got back from a tiny excursion to Rome. My head is bursting with ideas. But one of the big things I'm taking back from visiting those monuments is the use of writing in a D&D game. So often we ignore that list of languages and some skills like history or religion on a character sheet, when they could be constantly used for hints.

VENUSTUS

First off, if literacy is common in a game, there will be graffiti. Whoever made it to a fancy overlook or a cave mouth or a ruined monument is likely to at least write their name on the walls or door. Its really no different from how things work today. Most of it will be useless stuff (think: Thomas was here) but some of it could be warnings etched in stone or scribbled on scraps of parchment or broken pottery. A lack of graffiti is also a key sign that you're not in terra incognita. But being able to distinguish between graffiti written by the original inhabitants of a dwarven city and the orcish invaders might be a key hint as to what's up ahead, where treasure may or may not lie, etc.

Party Coherence

I've been reflecting a lot on D&D lately (I partly blame Antagonist Relations), specifically on the history and rules. But the game is really in the playing. A ruleset is a tool, better for some tasks than others. But any rule set will generally get the job done. What we don't really see rules for in RPGs, however, is party coherence.

I'm not sure why that is, but I suspect it stems from the general lack of social rules and cooperative attitude that games like D&D engender. What is party coherence though? My ideas on this are colored by my old LARP experience.

See, I used to play LARPs at conventions. These weren't long-term things, just one four-hour game. But the social interaction there required a skeleton of player knowledge. This was generally done by a lengthy list of the characters in the game and a short description of your relationship to each one. So-and-so was your brother in the Mafia family, or in your delegation at the peace conference. So-and-so was your rival, the person you wanted to take down. Without this basic background info, you were lost in this type of political intrigue game.

Some of the people who ran those games also ran D&D games at convention I used to frequent. And you see the same sort of thing in a convention game. My favorite one had my friend JG as my daughter, and I suspected that this other guy that I knew was playing my son that I put up for adoption. Instantly I had connection to the rest of the party. It was awesome.

When the Story was in the Stars

I was just recently reminded of a quite amazing Fading Suns game that I ran/played in a number of years back. I didn't document it as much as I might have liked now, but we tried. It was a great little game though, which lasted about two years. The original idea was for a character-focused drama, in the line of Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop. I even went so far as to post Tv-guide style summaries of some of the sessions, and title the arcs. I'm sure I might have more in my lost notes on some old backup CD somewhere. The best, of course, being the Revenge is a Big Fat Wealthy Bitch arc, where the party got revenve on a Scraver casino owner who had busted their balls in the Maltese Gargoyle incident in her casino earlier.

When I read the title of one of the episodes of that arc, Follow That Bitch!, I laughed out loud.
I'd like to get back into Fading Suns, or a similar game, eventually. Its really some of the character-driven stuff that I miss (along with playing in general). I think D&D makes some longer-term things easier, but some of the stricter party structure can make it harder to improvise or deal with missing characters. Even when you're not playing 4e, you know its going to be hard if you're missing one PC.
I've always said (or at least often remarked) that D&D is about 3 parts combat, two parts puzzles, and one part roleplaying. That's not necessarily true, but its what the rules lead one to believe. Its well-suited for busting into ancient tombs and finding treasure, but not always my tool of choice for doing more character-centered stuff. Right tool for the job and all that.