I'm back!

After a few years of quietly playing, running, and (as always) tinkering with games, I have something to add to the conversation again. Instead of focusing on tweaks to existing games, I find myself diving deep into design. Like many people involved in the RPG community I'm always messing around with some idea for a game, adventure, or scenario, but this time it feels different.

No limits! Yeah!

I have a few design projects on the go. Some of it grew out of regular play and some addresses problems I see. I still favour the rules-light systems based in the old school tradition, but love how games have grown and changed. There are so many options and tools we have now to mix and match and get exactly what we want out of the experience at our table or online game-space! I also find my professional life crossing over into RPGs as new game-based therapies develop. It's all exciting!

Most of the RPGs I'm working on are somewhere in the middle of the write, test, rewrite cycle. I tend to follow the muse as it jumps around so they all move forward at a glacial pace. I'll talk about each as they come up but the project that caught fire for me right now is my take on the Hardy Boys adventures. Originally the Mid Century Mysteries, the core of the game was in the works long before I decided to take advantage of the original Hardy Boys Books entering the public domain. My connection to this material is strange and deserves its own post, so I'll expand on that later.

Source material for the Hardy Boys Adventure RPG!

With my brain hyper-focused on the Hardy Boys Adventures RPG, everything else is still taking up space in my brain, but more in the background. There will be more about them in the future, but it may be a while.

My home game that grew out of playing the original Black Hack continues to develop. It was something all its own by the time the second edition of the Black Hack came out. I'll get it all in order at some point. It would be nice to put a book together for my own use and to have a better reference for my players. The reactions to the bits of it I posted before also make me think there's room for it as an option in the RPG market. Based on my experience, it could be a good game to use to introduce new folks to the RPG hobby in a way that is more accessible. For it to be accessible, it needs to be more than a pile of Google documents and hand-written notes. I want people to have a great experience then have something they could take away to try out on their own. There's more to it than that, but I can expand on the story of that game later. My big lesson from that one is kids can be the best playtesters! 

I'm working on a sci-fi game that came out of play-testing an original system I had planned to use for sword and sorcery. At that stage of the testing I wasn't certain what I would do with magic, so I ran the test using the system for a sci-fi scenario so I could have fantastic elements without magic. The system performed well, and turned out to be adaptable. After using it for sci-fi though, I realised the system supported one of the best science fiction RPG experiences I ever had. I tossed out the whole sword and sorcery thing and dove into creating a sci-fi game that made use of the core game mechanics. Then there was a lot more work to do! I'll go into the details, hopes, and motivations for that one in a later post too. 

Obligatory dice photo! These dice come from the Threshold Diceworks Holmes Retro Collection

The other project comes from people asking me to run "D&D" for them and while I doubt I'll ever publish it, organizing all the changes into a handbook would make my life easier when I run it. I used to run fifth edition D&D for a few years after it first came out, as scrolling back on the blog will show, and I enjoyed it. I find D&D's grown into a monster of supplemental rules, new options, and there is too much to keep track of when running. I still like to play it, but I don't run it anymore.  The same bloat eventually weighed down second edition D&D so much the game almost disappeared! The bloat brought me back to B/X D&D and Old School Essentials. As much fun as I have with it, I started smoothing things out. I mixed in some new approaches while keeping the core rules, benefits, and play style of B/X. I know there are people who think B/X D&D is some kind of sacred text that is eternal. I have no problems with that view, and enjoy playing at their tables. After speaking with folks that look to the old school for a set of rules that can be modified without breaking, I know there people who would like to take a look at the changes I made as inspiration for their own changes. I'll post pieces of that as it comes together as well. The last time I ran it was a great experience!

I'm not sure writing a post about posts I will write later is a good idea, but I'm back, and I'm doing different things these days. We'll see how it goes.

Review: Troika

I received a PDF of the "Troika! RPG" in one of the charity bundles I supported. Sadly, I don't even know which one. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time but the kickstarter has a bunch of people talking about the game in glowing terms again so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. Overall I was impressed and wished I'd looked at it sooner!

Daniel Sell and Jeremy Duncan created Troika and publish it under the Melsonian Arts Council.

It gives you a lot to work with in only 50 pages, but feels incomplete. It may not be an issue going forward because the new edition is projected to be nearly twice the page count and will come with a series of supporting chapbooks. Still, it's worth mentioning because I'm not sure if the brevity is a feature or a bug.

I like that the setting is baked into the rules. All of the character classes, called backgrounds here, are full of implicit setting information. The skills, the spells, and the handful of monsters, give you a strong sense of the setting. The way this is executed is great! These brief references to the world(s?) of Troika are an evocative way to root the different game elements to the setting without clogging up the game with pages of text. The problem is there is no other reference to the setting in the book. It's only implied, never described. For veteran gamers this setup is not a problem. The game master will simply run the version of the setting that blew up in their mind as they read the rules. Every group would be playing in their own unique version of Troika. I like this idea, but the game is billed as a good beginner role playing game. While the rules are easy, I think people new to RPGs would be a bit confused about what they should be doing and what is supposed to be going on in Troika.

The setting, as far as I can tell, is amazing and full of wonder. It takes place in a series crystalline spheres that hang in a "humpbacked sky" and serve as the stars for each other. It's possible to move between them on golden barges powered by mirrored sails. It also appears to be possible to fall out of one and land in another. Goblins seem to be able to connect underground labyrinths from one sphere to another. In these ways people and cultures from the different spheres mix with each other and adventurers have the option to get into all kinds of new brands of trouble. If things get stale in a long campaign the party need only move to another sphere to get a fresh start or new experience!

Troika is science fantasy, with a mix of swords, energy weapons, and magic. Personally I love the science fantasy, sword and planetesque style RPG setting. If you want a more pure fantasy game, the science fiction elements of Troika could be scrubbed out without much trouble. Certainly a lot easier than the old Star Wars RPG.

The rules are based on an RPG that grew out of series of solo adventure books. Both were called "Fighting Fantasy" and were apparently quite popular in the UK in the 1980s. Living in Canada, I never saw either and I don't remember any ads for them.

The system uses regular six-sided dice for everything but manages them to get a wide variety of results. The core of the system is 2d6 + base skill + advanced skill vs opponent or 2d6 to roll target number or under of the total skill (base skill + advanced skill). So if your character is using a hammer to fight an enemy you roll 2d6 add your skill and any skill you have in hammers and hope you get more than the GM does with 2d6 plus the enemy's skill. If your character is climbing a cliff, you need to roll 2d6 and get the total of your base skill and climb skill or less to succeed. Advanced skills are attached to specific things like climbing, etiquette, specific spells, and swords. I found it easy to grasp and good for all kinds of situations. The roll high sometimes, roll low others I find a bit irritating but it's hardly the first game I've played that switches back and forth.

A sample page from the character generation section with two backgrounds.

The book opens on character generation which is fast, random, and wild. I like character generation at the front of an RPG rule book, since it is the portion used the most. The system allows you to produce a character in a few minutes. There are no classes, but there are 36 backgrounds rolled for using d66 (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, ... 65, 66). Because there is no class and level advancement these backgrounds are starting places for each player's character. The character improves the skills they use and learn new ones they spend time and effort on. With so many different starting places and no clear path forward, playing each character should be a unique experience.

The game only has three stats: skill, stamina and luck. Usually a game with so few stats ends up with little to differentiate the different characters from each other. In this case, Troika avoids that fate by having a long list of specific "advanced skills" that create the detail and flavour of each player character. It might be more accurate to say this game has one stat and two resources. The base skill is the raw talent the character can apply to any action and augment with a relevant skill if they have it. The stamina is the character's total effort that they use to take lumps and keep going or fuel their spells. It's recovered pretty quickly for an old school game. It is fairly close to 5e D&D's hit points in that respect. The character's luck is another resource they can spend to tip the balance in certain situations or as a saving throw. It's by no means certain, it is luck after all, but it can run out.

One thing I noticed with the advanced skills is there are none for social situations outside of etiquette. I'm guessing this comes from the creators relying on player skill and roleplay for situations that would call for a deception or insight roll in another system. Although the rules specifically invite the invention of more advanced skills, so it;s easy to adjust it to your play style.

The cover image from the game's first print run.

The backgrounds are summed up in a few paragraphs including starting equipment, skills, any special rules that apply and a brief description. The variety of backgrounds include some of the usual suspects with a handful of warriors, priests, and wizards each with a flavourful spin of its own. They also have odd things like a lost king from another sphere who no one has heard of. It turns our a king without a kingdom is just a random person in a crown with a high etiquette skill. The dwarves in Troika are not born, they are made by other dwarves. Each dwarf is an artistic achievement, except the poorly made dwarf character. To other creatures they look like an ordinary dwarf, but other dwarves either ignore them or have a discussion about their flaws and draw on them to emphasize the points made. There is definitely something for everyone in the list. A party randomly rolled of such options would be a motley crew and makes me think of the groups of characters found in Terry Prachett's Discworld.

The encumbrance system is streamlined and easy to use, but has a clever innovation for finding equipment in a hurry. Your character has 12 slots of carrying capacity before they become encumbered. Some items take multiple slots and others, like arrows, can be packed into one. Any time your character tries to grab an item you have stowed like a potion, or a crossbow bolt, you need to roll its position or higher on the list with 2d6. Otherwise they must stop and rummage through their belongings to find it. This set up means players need to "pack carefully" to keep the important stuff, like weapons and ammunition, within easy reach. It's a fun quirk and adds a sense of urgency and suspense to changing weapons or getting a rarely needed item.

The other big innovation is the initiative system. Players each put two tokens in a bag for their character while the game master puts in the appropriate number for the enemies' initiative and the end of round token. Tokens are pulled one at a time to determine the order in which each character or creature in the conflict acts. The bag is refilled and a new round starts when the end of round token is pulled, so it is possible some wont act in a given round while others act multiple times. This makes combat a completely chaotic mess where opportunities are taken as they come and sometimes you get caught flat footed! I love the idea of this system even though I'd need to dig out my poker chips or find something else to make it work.

For me, the section that could use the most expanding is the enemies section. The monsters are fantastic! The dragons are wonderful beings of light and thought, the manticores are brilliant bookworms living in splendor. Each monster entry only takes a few paragraphs and includes a d6 table of creature moods when they are met to keep the encounters unpredictable.

My favourite monster is the parchment witch. This is a long dead sorcerer that covers their bones and rotting sinew with leather, parchment, paper or vellum to hide their true nature. Their thin disguises are vulnerable to water and fire which can make things awkward. They can also wear someone's skin for about a week before it starts to rot and becomes useless. This one is so messed up and it doubles as one of the background options! The parchment witch is only part of the picture though. Some of the monsters are rooted in comedy, like the road knight that appears to be a reference to the black knight of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail.

The magic system has a simple skill roll and stamina cost to keep spell casters in check. It also has an "Oops!" table for when the player rolls box cars. This system means magic is a bit unpredictable and dangerous without making the casters a constant danger to themselves and everyone around them. The spells themselves have enough variety and are flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of circumstances. This section is probably the most complete in the book.

The equipment section is brief, but doesn't appear to need anything more than it has. One thing I like is how the damage for different weapons is on a d6 table. Rolling a 1 on the d6 does dramatically different damage when the character is using a polearm than it does when they are using a knife. The weapons are defined by their damage spread and how they punch through armour. The armour is a simple damage reduction.

The art is consistent and good. It fits the contradictory elements of comedy, grittiness, and the strange captured by the text.

From a GM's point of view, this game is easy to run on the fly with heavy improv but doesn't need to be run that way for it to work. The stat blocks for monsters are skill/stamina/initiative so everything is there at a glance. The damage tables are in the back of the book so they are easily referenced. I will definitely run this game the first chance I get!

I like that it's not another in a long line of similar games with a twist. Like the d20 retro clones, the Fate games and the powered by the apocalypse games that are becoming legion. By using lesser known system as a jumping off point their game is all twist! Troika is different in a way I respond to. It reaches for the wonder found in the best science fantasy art and I think it's a good tool for a group to get there.

Like my review of The Black Hack, this one is a bit late. I think the reason is the same though. Both games have terrible names that don't inspire me. I thought Troika had something to do with eastern European legends, which I'm not overly interested in. The fact that it hits my sweet spot for crazy science fantasy with a magnificent mixture of awe, darkness and silly, is not referenced in the name. I asked Daniel Sell about the name and he said it was combination of it being the name of the tri-city that was the main population centre of the setting (something not in the book), a reference to the three stats, and something that sounded funny. I can't argue with that logic.

If you are looking for a tight, rules-light science fantasy game with a wide open setting, check out the kickstarter for the Numinous edition of Troika they are running now. It's already funded and the stretch goals will add to the supplementary setting and adventure material that this new version will have to expand what is at its core a solid game. So solid that I think we may see some Troika clones next year.

Have a crazy character sheet I found online.

Why Let D&D Be the Gateway?

Teach Your Kids to Game Week last week started me thinking about introductory games. In my last two posts I talked about wonder in RPGs and gave some advice to non-gamers on what to buy to get their kids into tabletop RPGs. These two things are tangled up in another idea I have struggled with for some time as well.

The Problem

It feels like the RPG hobby is set up to make D&D and all its assumptions the default. This situation is perpetuated by WotC being the only company actively marketing to people who are not gaming yet. By ceding this introductory space to D&D we allow the idea to persist that D&D is the default RPG and for many, the correct way to play.

There is certainly good aspects to the situation. It makes it easy to jump from game to game as all fantasy RPGs have familiar elements such as elves, dwarves and hobbits. It is easy to understand who the good guys and bad guys are and understand the basics of the world without instruction. In this way, the bar is lowered for entry as the D&D platform for play has been repackaged for other media over the years, from video and board games to books and films. These advantages only serve the argument that D&D is the best product for introducing the hobby to new people who do not have someone to guide them into the hobby.

In my last post I explained why Fifth Edition D&D would be my first choice as a tool for someone to introduce themselves to RPGs. The thing is, I would not use it to introduce new people to RPGs when I run. I have done so, and it works well enough, but I prefer using something else for many reasons.

Philippe Caza

Genre is not one of them. I love playing in fantasy worlds. I love the possibilities allowed by the magic or blend of sorcery and super-science that is available in such settings. Genre may be a factor for others though and it is certainly a valid reason to try to grab people before D&D gives them ideas about the right way to play.

This past year, I used The Black Hack to introduce my kids and some others to playing fantasy RPGs. With my kids and their friends we call it D&D even though we're using a completely different 20 page rulebook designed for experienced GMs to run fantasy games with simplicity and flexibility in mind. I've reviewed it before if you are interested. Although, between their play and the blank spots in the rules we've added and changed so much it's not the Black Hack anymore either.

What bothers me about D&D as an intro-RPG is also one of the reasons it works so well. It is generic. It is the fantasy that everyone is familiar with and that means it in many ways is not fantastic at all. My struggle with this issue is mixed up with my post on wonder in RPGs. When I started playing D&D it was an amalgam of the different ideas in the fantasy genre. It drew on all kinds of fantasy traditions to create a tool to allow groups to play in worlds of their own creation, inspired their favourite stories and themes used by the game's creators or jump into their favourite worlds from the list of influences, such as E.R. Burroughs' Barsoom, R.E. Howard's Hyborian Age, Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Tolkien's Middle Earth, H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, and the world of Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions.

Forty years later, controversy and corporate design has scrubbed it clean. Now its place in fantasy has eclipsed the media that inspired it and the elements in the game are part of regular fantasy.

"Regular fantasy."

"Normal fantasy."

"Mainstream fantasy."

As accurate as these descriptive terms are, they are words that simply do not belong together! Fantasy is expansive and wondrous! I think the first game should open doors to new spaces, like it did in the 70s and 80s, rather than present people with a well-worn path. While the well worn path leads to fun, it does not often lead to wonder. (I know it can, and since that earlier post generated so much discussion I'll certainly talk about that in another post. There's a lot to process!) I don't want new people who pick up an RPG, flip through it and try it with their friends to only have fun. I want them to have their minds blown the way ours were blown when I first started playing.

I'm not saying it is bad that so many people are exposed to fantasy as a genre, but the regulation of it makes the achievement of wonder more difficult. Reinforcing the walls around the fantasy gospel with the intro to fantasy gaming only makes it harder for people to hit one of the the high points of the gaming experience; the 'holy shit that's amazing' moments.

Sundered Skies is a campaign setting for the Savage Worlds RPG that suffers from where it stays inside the walls. The world is a shattered collection of rocks floating in an glowing mist full of madness and fantastic creatures. These islands of rock float in a chaotic arrangement that only increases the dangers of travel between them. Many could be lost or cut off to develop outside of the core society. Adventures feature characters sailing through the mists to explore these floating islands. The concept seems ripe for moments of wonder, at least in the short term, but it is populated with elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. Everything largely follows its type with a few changes to the elves. There are some playable fantasy creatures created exclusively for the setting that are interesting because they interact with it in unique ways, but even their origin is tied to the elves!

That's not the real problem though. Even if the publisher had committed to the setting and created everything to enhance their vision of the world no new players would have discovered it as their first RPG experience. It was made for Savage Worlds, a generic RPG system that is marketed to experienced gamers. In fact, the target audience for Savage Worlds is people tired of playing crunchy games like Pathfinder and 3e D&D.

If you agree with me, and I'm sure many of you don't, we're still stuck with a number of serious problems. How does a person design a game with wonder in mind? As an introduction, how much is too much when it comes to RPG conventions like levels and hit points? How do make sure the game works as an intro but is still fun for experienced players so they don't need to abandon it in favour of other games? How do we get an introductory game in front of the potential player without millions of dollars and 40 years of cultural capital?

Can a game be created to introduce the concept of RPGs, be fun to play and be a good platform for moments of wonder? What does that look like? To design something like that every element of a game's design could be examined with the criteria in mind to make sure it supports these three goals.

Hacking It Together

My home game, based on the Black Hack, could be a good place to start such an experiment (it certainly is for me), but almost any system or setting could work. I think simplicity is important for entry so a medium to light rule system is probably the best way to go. The lighter the better to keep rules from becoming a distraction that pulls people out of the events in the game.

Because the Black Hack is a D&D clone with bits cribbed from other, more modern games an intro version might be a gateway into regular D&D. The mechanics are different enough, and take enough from other sources that it should lead different places for different people. Hopefully, this means they explore RPGs with less of a bias than they would had they started with D&D. Besides, I think the main problem is the assumptions built into D&D that keeps it and many of its fans trapped in its lane.

One big thing from D&D that I did away with that is so ingrained in the system is initiative. The words 'roll initiative' signal a change from open roleplay and exploration to regimented, turn-based combat. 'Roll initiative" is such a part of the D&D culture it is an easily grasped punchline or image caption. I threw it out in my game with the kids because it was boring. Their short attention spans makes the moments where they are waiting their turn excruciating. Also, as the Black Hack has all player facing rolls so it seemed silly to keep it. Because they don't know when the monster will turn on their character or have a set time to act, they pay attention throughout the round, tense with anticipation or looking for opportunities. It's good for adults with smartphones too!

In practice, instead of switching from doing stuff to the combat game the players continue doing stuff in combat. This lack of transition is supported by the resolution for combat staying exactly the same as every other action. I've found this set up stops players from staying inside the box in combat. There's very little 'I roll to hit' and more of the 'I throw my maul at his legs' and 'I jump on the lion's back' I enjoy so much as a GM. It probably helps that I threw out half of the rolls from combat to cut down on needless die rolling as well. Anyone who plays Dungeon World will recognize these things as pretty normal, but from a D&D perspective, it's pretty revolutionary to separate RPGs from their wargame roots.

I'm keeping humans as the main playable choice because I think it is good to have us as a reference point to start from. I also added other options for creatures that characters can play as well as a host of human origins. The human origins help place the characters in the setting and add an extra dimension to them without needing too many character classes. They range from traditional staples like Barbarians and Street Rats to extraordinary ones like Child of the Prophecy, Driven by a Terrible Secret and Haunted. One good point made in the discussion about wonder was that it was most effective if it was interactive and personally relevant. These origins help flesh out the character's background with a single role or choice and that is something that can be used. The head of a giant statue might invoke wonder, but one that opens its eyes and delivers some important bit of information about a character's situation takes it up a notch.

I made playable creatures other than humans each its own origin. It makes the shared identity of each alien group important. Their otherness presents opportunities for conflict, roleplay and maybe even wonder. That's where I want to keep the focus. Otherwise the players are merely playing humans with pointy ears, etc. Lizard Folk have a different set of cultural values from humans largely based on their biology. Siebh (sheeve) are utterly alien hedonists cloaked in dreams. I was mocked on the internet for including felinoids and the like in my campaigns before because of the popular derision of furries, but they are fun to play, some people love them, and if I can think of a reason they support the presentation of wonder I'll keep them!

Goblins remained much as they were from our campaign as these malformed creatures, hatched fully grown, with a basic set of genetic knowledge and instincts. How does entering the world without a childhood change a creature's outlook? How much of that influences goblin behaviour, culture and history? Does playing that out give opportunities for wonder? I'll have to playtest it to find out.

I think there can be wonder found in playing something that thinks or feels different from humanity. Committing to that otherness might lead to some interesting ideas or interpretations of events that could change the whole group's perspective on events.

One game that built up each fantasy race as a different element well was Talislanta. It had a great variety of creatures to play with unique cultural identities. An example is how the desert people always wore elaborate masks. At one point in the fiction the masks were likely for protection from the elements but by the time the game was set in the masks had cultural and even religious significance. How does such a thing create opportunity for wonder? I'm not sure in that particular case, but room needs to be made for players and GMs to create those moments.

I don't feel like there is much room for wonder presented by another dour dwarf with a wretched Scottish accent. Fun? Certainly, but probably not wondrous. Do dwarves sap a game's or setting's potential for wonder simply by being present?Should they stay part of the mix because so many people love playing them? Is there a line that needs to be drawn? Am I being too hard on dwarves?

Maybe we accept dwarves the same way we accept humans and make sure there are no hobbits/halflings. The last time someone tried to make hobbits more interesting we ended up with kender. No one wants to take a chance on anything like that happening again!

The next thing is classes. Do character classes contribute to wonder?

Having each character inhabit an archetype of some sort ensures them spotlight moments. Dungeon World commits to that idea by not allowing two characters of the same class and going as far as saying the cleric, ranger or thief in the party is the only one of their class in the game world. Their archetype is unique in that setting. With the mix of stat variety, origins, classes and player choices every player character should be different enough to present the spotlight moments for everyone.

Is a spotlight moment wonderful though? On occasion, maybe, but they certainly are fun. With a good GM classes aren't necessary for spotlight moments but they might be for the sake of wonder. If anyone can cast spells is magic still magical? Besides, classes or any other form of specialization helps to ensure spotlight moments which might be important in an intro game where there is a learning curve for the GM.

For an intro game I think it's important to have clear differences between the classes. My nine options even start with different letters to make it that much easier to differentiate them (or put class in an NPC stat block with a single letter). In my campaign we have two spellcasting classes with the cleric and the magician. Their magic differs in significant ways. There are three classes that have magical abilities but no spells with the bard, druid and sorcerer. I set them up as reflections of each other, being structurally the same but thematically different. There are three classes that are exceptional at doing certain things with the expert, thief and warrior. The last one, the ranger, is so skilled at certain things they are kind of magical. I find this covers plenty of bases for fictional archetypes without being overwhelming. I didn't want to have more than nine because I read somewhere that the ideal number of significant choices is seven, plus or minus two.

Bards get a lot of hate for being lame, but in our campaign they are keepers of the law and truth. They are semi religious figures more like paladins, celtic bards, viking skalds, or biblical judges than the singing fools the class is often identified with. It works well with the Moorcockian Law verses Chaos vibe that I like to have in my games.

Levelled character improvement does serve the idea of presenting wonder. It allows the GM to scale events up so the experiences in the game can become bigger, more amazing and more epic. That process allows for more or easier opportunities for wonder. There's also an upward curve so the campaign feels like it is building. It's also good for new players as they get to grow with the character, learning how to play their archetype in slowly increasing stakes as they become more effective.

Hit points are a sore point for many and I can see both sides of it. I won't go into all of that in detail again since I've posted about it before. The real question is do hit points help with the presentation of wonder?

Hit points as an abstract certainly promote the cinematic style of play. That can help a group get to a place of wonder. The loss of hit points is often presented as a wound or other damage sustained which quickly becomes silly and makes it difficult to suspend disbelief as the characters level and gain more hit points. Making the recovery of hit points a healing process only exacerbates that problem. To keep new players from scratching their heads and to make hit points cinematic they need to be presented as the ability to continue fighting rather than soak up damage. Then hit point recovery needs to match the concept. With all of that, the abstract matches up with the levels and it all serves to get to those moments of wonder without breaking the fiction.

Based on the ideas above and my experience running it for the better part of a year I think our version of the Black Hack could deliver fun and wonder. I know it works for new players, but it needs to be repackaged for them.

Organization and Presentation

The problem with an intro game is how much of the necessary parts of it become useless the more it is played. The hate for the "what is a role playing game" section of every rulebook has featured in game reviews and internet arguments running back for years. It is a waste of space the moment it is read and understood, but it is necessary info to deliver in an intro product. This problem could be solved by putting the what is a roleplaying game on the back of the book along with the description of what is this roleplaying game.

As a reference an RPG works best with character generation in the front, followed by the rules and other resources for play. The how to play, and how to run are not necessary for most of the people using the book. In fact, the only person that likely needs to read such information is the first person to run it in a social group. They know their group better than any game designer and can explain it far more efficiently than we can. That means all the how to play, sample play transcripts and other nonsense can go in the back with the how to run a game advice.

The only problem with that is, as an intro book it's pretty crazy to expect someone to slog through all the other bits before getting to the context in the back of the book! Does that mean there should be a companion pamphlet that can be discarded? Would a 'how to use this book' section of the introduction/first page pointing new players to the relevant appendices in the back do the trick? I like the idea of the the context of what an RPG is and how to play it staying in the book because I'd like to be able to hand someone new the book and know they have everything they need. That's part of the problem with the game I'm playing now. I have nothing to hand to one of my players and say: "Here's the game. Have fun!"

What About the Marketing?

Let's say it's possible to have everything on how to play in the book without ruining it for experienced players. That still leaves the biggest problem: How do we reach the people not playing RPGs yet that would enjoy it without the advertising budget and place in our culture that D&D has?

Numenera owes much of its success to how its early marketing communicated a sense of wonder. The art was a huge component of that, but the setting itself seemed full of possibility. The idea of the Ninth World, an impossibly ancient version of Earth, filled with relics of an advanced past captured my imagination. The game itself is simple, the mechanics are easy to grasp and system takes no experience to run. It is organized so all the important rules are in the first 60 pages. The layout and design is nothing short of brilliant and it is a great reference book for game play. It could do all the things as far as presenting wonder and introducing new people to gaming.

Too bad it's marketed to experienced gamers based on Monte Cook's reputation in the gaming industry. It makes sense to do that. It's difficult and expensive to create new players for a game. Why not market to a receptive audience? It's good business!

Fate is dramatically different from D&D despite being part of its Open Gaming Licence. The gang that published Fate spent more than a decade building the audience for their game that they leveraged to create a hugely successful Kickstarter for the current version. With the exception of the Dresden Files fans who came to to Fate through their licensed RPG for it, Fate's core audience is gamers looking for something different. It's more of a game design kit, than a game itself.

Certainly there are games other than D&D used to introduce people to gaming. Plenty are brought into the hobby with all kinds of small press and indy games, but only when introduced by an experienced gamer. That limits new people to what they can find. For instance, there's no way anyone in my area plays Fate. I haven't even found anyone who has heard of it and there's no place to buy the special dice it uses within several hundred kilometres!

Even Hero Kids, a game designed as the first RPG for children, is marketed to gaming parents who are looking for a system they can use to introduce their children to the hobby. It's great for that, but it's not likely to be purchased by someone not already invested in the hobby.

D&D's fifth edition is the only RPG marketed effectively to new people. Pathfinder has its own starter set but you'll only find it at a gaming store. Even then, I'm not sure how many store owners would suggest Pathfinder to brand new gamers. When it comes to access, D&D is in the local bookstores and toy shops on top of the gaming stores. It is everywhere and that means many people will start with it not even knowing there are other possibilities. That's how it managed to cement its place in the market in the first place. I bought my first copy of D&D in a department store in 1982.

When successful gaming companies are shying away from the intro market what can a person with no money, reputation or cultural impact hope to accomplish? How can I get an alternative to D&D into the hands of the new people that don't even know they want it yet?

The 3 iconic player characters from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG - LotFP.com

I can think of two ways to approach it.

The first is a grass roots marketing effort. I'd reach out to people I know in the library system and try to get open games running there (because it fits with their mandate of promoting literacy). I'd need to convince them to support it with copies of the game book in the city and town library branches. It's possible local success could be built on to roll it out to other city libraries.

The local library also runs the local comic con. That's another cost effective way to get the word out to people receptive to the genre and possibly interested in the hobby. Getting some tabletop RPG intro games into the Con as events might even be possible.

There's a video game con that is put on locally that has potential as a place to reach the like-minded gamers. A lot of the common themes used in tabletop RPGs made their way into video games so it shouldn't be too hard to get some people at the con to try it out.

Both of those would do better with an online component. Luckily I'm married to a film maker who could shoot and edit a series of actual play videos. With those in place the people on the fence could see a demo that looks like actual fun. It also allows for a reach beyond the local area, which is key. A solid website is another necessary component but also not that hard to manage these days. That online component could then be delivered to bloggers and podcasters in any space that overlaps with RPGs. Building out from the face-to-face built core.

The other facet of the grass roots campaign would be marketing it to the current RPG market. Plenty of current players would love a solid tool they could use to introduce new players to the hobby that they could also hand off to them. Building some excitement in the gaming community for the game on its own merits would be important too. The more people playing it, the easier it will be to find a group to play with! A Kickstarter for an edition with colour art or a large print run might help build excitement and a reputation too.

As for the second method, I'm working on another approach that might completely change the RPG market. I'd be throwing out most of what I have above to operate on a level no one has conceived of before for gaming. I'll get to that in a later post. There's a lot of work I need to do first to see if it's even possible.

In the meantime, I'll at least get my rules into a printable version so I can hand it over to my players. The sooner they don't need me to play the better!

Bloodthirsty Children!

It turns out my daughters have something of a bloodthirsty streak. My ruthless little gamers are quickly becoming the scourge of the minions of chaos!

In my last post I talked about running the first ever campaign for my daughters. We're using The Black Hack with the old D&D module B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. This post is the first in a series of campaign play diaries of my daughter's first RPG campaign.

The first session went well, with the girls getting the lay of the land in the keep and interacting with the odd characters there. They spent some time asking around about the area and collecting rumours about The Caves of Chaos to the northeast. Unfortunately for them they picked up plenty of false rumours, including the one about "bree-yark" meaning "we surrender" in goblin. Random tables are a wonderful thing. Thanks to a critical success with their roll to find information, they managed to get some decent directions to The Caves of Chaos on top of their bundle of rumours, so they were able to find the valley without much trouble.

They had some luck on their first foray into the valley with all the caves and I rolled no encounter on their way in. The girls had heard there was magic armour in the southern caves so they started by sneaking into the entrance to the goblin caves.

They crept through the rough tunnels with care, avoiding one group of goblins walking through the halls by ducking down a dead-end passage. For all that sneaking around, when they found the goblin guardroom they decided to walk in with their weapons drawn and say: "Hi goblins! What's going on?"

While I loved that they strutted in there liked they owned the place, the response from the six goblins was negative. One pointed and shouted, "Bree-yark!"

At first the girls were excited, "They surrender? Wow!"

"No, not so much. They leap to their feet and charge at you with their spears raised," I said. "Looks like 'bree-yark' means attack or something like that."

Snekava let fly with an arrow and one-shotted the leading goblin in the face.
As the goblins closed, Wojeb whipped his rapier around like toddler going after a pinata. Most of the goblins went for Snekava and with three twenties, she was tasting the stone floor by the end of the round.

Snekava is even sneakier at level two!

It was looking bad for the group as the not so hand-to-hand characters tried to turn the tide back in their favour when Olys decided to use that Sleep spell she had prepared that morning. With that action the fight was over, but a failed intelligence check meant that Olys expended her spell slot for the day.

They placed Snekava on the table in the guardroom and Wojeb set about patching her up while Olys stabbed the crap out of the sleeping goblins with her dagger. Despite their desire to continue they realised they were not in any position to handle another fight. They looted the goblins and left the caves. They were lucky again and I rolled no encounter on their way out of the caves.

Once back at the keep they were pretty bummed about their poor performance in the caves. I've set the adventure in the old Grand Duchy of Karameikos. The Keep is on the Duke's Road just before it passes into the Black Peak Mountains. This information is relevant because it means the chapel in the keep is part of the Church of Karameikos. The party cleric is from the old Church of Traladara and was sent north to tend the old Traladaran shrine in the fountain square of the keep. The reason he is adventuring is he was given no funds for his mission and living in the keep is expensive.

The party managed to find a Traladaran priest who is staying at the keep. He was friendly and willing to heal Snekava for free as a favour to his fellow cleric. He also convinced the party of the dangers of touching any artefacts or altars of chaos. They promised to return to the keep and get him if they found anything like that in the caves. He was interested in their adventures and talkative. He was also surprised and grateful to learn about the old Traladaran shrine.

The next day they headed back to the caves with vengeance on their minds. They approached the goblin cave through the tree cover and spotted an ambush near the cave entrance. They used their longbows and made short work of the four waiting goblins.

They did better with the first guardroom this time and found the reinforced door to the hobgoblin lair. They heard what sounded like monsters too big and numerous to handle on the other side and decided to return, "When we're more experienced."

They found the second guardroom and entered with an actual plan this time. With no armour besides her shield, Snekava was finished with her bow and ready to mix it up with her sword from now on. They started the battle strong. Since the goblins were on alert, the goblin squad leader kicked over the water barrel and made for the hidden door with a large jingling sack.

Once it was clear the goblin was summoning help through the door, Olys decided it was time to use her sleep spell again. She rolled close to maximum on the 4D6 (twenty-one!) for the hit dice (HD) put to sleep. There are no restrictions on what creatures are affected by the spell in The Black Hack. That meant the Ogre coming through the door folded up like a cheap lawn chair and went to sleep along with the goblins.

They thought that even sleeping, the ogre was too big to kill outright, so after dispatching the goblins with their daggers, they left him alone and walked past into the lair. With no limit to their time, they searched all the nooks and crannies of the ogre's caves. Between his treasure and the gold the goblins had to pay him to fight, the girls hit the motherload!

They raced back to the keep, again with no encounter on the way out.

Once back at the keep they spent some money on better equipment, purchasing leather armour for Snekava and chain mail for the cleric. They basked in the glory of their success and partied in the keep's tavern, The Duke of Cups. I decided this was an effective milestone, having experienced both failure and success. They also had bested the ogre. They were thrilled when I told them they had levelled up!

Olys specialises in conjuring cans of whoop-ass!

The levelling process for the Black Hack was a blast with the kids. They rolled up the improvements to their characters with gusto! Cheering for each incremental bonus gained to their stats and hit points. My oldest, Chloe, actually managed to roll over her 17 intelligence so now Olys, her Conjurer, is a magical force to be reckoned with.

As far as first games go, it was a good one. The girls are hooked and it looks like my Wednesday nights are booked solid until the end of the winter.

Mechanically, I made a change to shields. They absorb damage every round, with small shields soaking 1 hit point of damage and large shields taking 2 points. The rest of the armour I left the same. It doesn't make a huge difference but it is nice for the shields to continue to be useful throughout all the fights. Otherwise, players could have their characters drop them after the first round. It also means characters will continue to use shields at higher levels when armour seems like not much of a big deal.

The other thing I'm considering is cutting the power of the Sleep Spell. At 4D6 hit dice it is always going to wipe a small group of opponents. There should be less certainty when it comes to using magic so I might use the 2D8 hit dice from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess version of the spell in the future.

#TheirFirstCampaign

The Problem With Damage In RPGs

Role playing games feature many kinds of conflict but physical conflict is nearly always a big part of the game. With that comes the problem of tracking damage to Player Characters and its effects. I haven't written much about the system I'm developing here on the blog, but now that I'm ready to playtest the "3D System" that's going to change. Here's a look behind the curtain at my reasoning for how I dealt with the problem of damage in RPGs.

D&D and many of the games that came after it use the idea of: "Hit Points." A character or creature can take a certain amount of damage before it's mortally wounded and goes down/dies. Hit Points as an abstraction of a character's survivability causes some confusion since it's tied to weapon damage. The concept is more of an expression of script immunity and games like Neoclassical Geek Revival are more explicit about it by calling them luck points instead.

Hit Points as a concept are illustrated by the typical action hero movie. Action heroes take a tonne of punishment over the course of a typical film. They are banged up, bruised, cut and bleeding all over, but never seem to loose their effectiveness as bad-guy-killing machines. Sometimes a particular wound will have some kind of dramatic effect for a while, such as John McLean's feet cut up by the glass in Die Hard, or Jack Bauer's heart being stopped during torture in one of the 24s. Even these consequences for critical hits are not permanent, resulting only in a quick bit of first aid or an ill-timed, dramatic nap. As characters "level up" in an RPG of this type they gain more ability to stay in the story despite the negative impact of opposing forces. Basically, they are allowed to be heroic longer and have bigger adventures. It's only that last swordstroke that really gets through the character's defences that actually connects in a way that matters. The one that brings the characters down is the mortal blow that can put a character into coma or a fight for it's life.

The Fifth Edition of D&D embraces this model by allowing characters to recover some Hit Points merely by taking a break to rest and recover and get them all back with a good night's sleep. Barbarians of Lemuria is similar, allowing the recovery of half of what is lost in a combat merely by taking a break to have a drink and rest. If Hit Points are just a matter of staying power and not actual serious wounds, they should be easy to recover.

My favourite part of 5e D&D is the fight for survival after losing all Hit Points. Rolling saves to either stabilize in unconsciousness or die without help show how deadly that last hit was. Old D&D countered the massive hit points with some things like poison and magical effects like a Medusa's stare coming down to a single roll to avoid death. Fail that saving throw and the character is dead, no matter how many Hit Points they had. Even the greatest hero could be killed by a serious threat. A poison dart was all it took to kill Achilles after all.

Playing big damn heroes is fun, so this abstraction works pretty well for a lot of games but some of the genre fiction that these games are based on takes a grittier approach. The idea that you could take a beating and still be as effective as you if were fresh also requires more suspension of disbelief than some people want in their fiction or games.

Some games stick with the hit point approach and limit them to keep things tense. Games like Talislanta and Barbarians of Lemuria have hit point values for characters that allow the character to handle a few hits, but there is no expectation they will ever be tougher than that. Traveller, which I talked about in a recent post, uses a random physical stat as a stand in for hit points. These values are pretty low compared to the damage that can be done so combat is over quickly, usually going to whoever surprises their opponents. It also makes combat in Traveller a deadly prospect that players will want to plan with care. In these cases every combat has the potential to be the last one but there's no expiration of the characters like you get with the hit point model.

At least as characters run low on hit points the players become more wary and don't want to commit to a fight they might lose. Even the highest level characters are slowly run down by a succession of combats. This change is a way of mechanically expressing the exhaustion caused by life-or-death struggle and the change in play to a slower, more careful pace is representative of the effects of exhaustion without having a direct mechanic for endurance. It's also why the Constitution stat in D&D is used to modify hit points. The healthier you are the more staying power you have for fights, adventures and shenanigans.

(One of Frank Frazetta's many paintings of Conan)

Hit locations are sometimes used to create effects from damage beyond coma/death so characters could lose the use of an arm or leg and have penalties to actions instead. I find that annoying to track for NPCs and it gets even more silly than hit points when the luck of the dice spreads the damage of lighter hits across all the locations for no effect. This one has always felt fiddly to me and never worth the effort to track.

Hit points are a nice simple solution to express a complex situation. Even when people don't understand how much is going on it still works as a game mechanic. As much as I like it in D&D and other games, I don't want to use it for the one I'm designing. Because my game embraces the pulp feel where heroes are worn down but still succeed, I decided to make damage an increasing penalty rather than a ticking clock.

Part of the inspiration came from reading Robert E. Howard's Phoenix on the Sword [Spoilers! this paragraph only] in which an older Conan is set upon by a group of assassins.  Because he's Conan, they can't get around his defences to land a definitive killing blow, but they do wound him making it impossible for him to do much more than defend himself. As the minor hits and cuts pile up he slows down and becomes more vulnerable. It is an awesome fight with great tension! It would be so much fun to play that way! As damage makes the fight more desperate players get creative to end it quickly. When that happens it's more fun for me whether I'm playing or running.

The old D6 System from West End Games had a wound track with increasing penalties. This method worked great for the cinematic action they were going for with games like the original Star Wars RPG.  There are other games that use wound tracks and some of them integrate them into the game exceptionally well. Mouseguard is a great example. I have a lot of love for D6 Star Wars though, and the more I think of it, the more I realise it may be game that gave me the subconscious push in that direction when I was deciding on the damage system for the 3D System. The pace of the game and the pulp-cinema swing of the action are things I love in a game. I've said it before, D6 Star Wars only needs little tweaking to be a sweet sword and sorcery game itself. Based on the pedigree of the wound track, I'm confident it will fit the feel of the play I want at my table.

My take on the wound track is pretty simple. Humans and their equivalents have two boxes in their tracks that correspond to Wounded and Down similar to the Wounded and Incapacitated statuses in D6 Star Wars. In the 3D System each box ticked means another -3 penalty so that Down character is rolling -6 to do anything and is more likely to push too hard and wind up dead than succeed. Other creatures will have different tracks but this model is the character kind of resilience.

The wound track is not enough though. It still doesn't catch the flavour of the fight in The Phoenix on the Sword or the other pulp fiction I'd like my games to feel like. That's why I added minor hits. These light wounds are the flesh wounds and bruising that can be shaken off or ignored with a little rest and quick medical treatment. These cumulative -1 penalties can build up in a fight and make it hard to continue a fight without ever threatening the actual life of the character. First blood is a serious advantage.'

"It is but a scratch"

The difference between wounds and minor hits is the size of the penalty (-3 vs -1) and speed in which they are recovered. A proper wound will take time to heal whereas a minor hit can be recovered from with a roll after some rest and possible medical treatment. Rolling to recover means some of these light wounds will persist in hampering the character's ability. The timeline is tight, and it means the characters can continue on, but fate will catch up with them eventually if they push things too far. This system blends the grittiness of low hit points and would tracks with the limited endurance of the hit point system.

From what testing I've done in scenarios for my #3DSytem, it looks like will work. We'll see how it plays soon enough. There's no perfect solution to RPG damage, but I'm hoping this one works out for my gaming style.

UPDATE/NOTE: In playtest the wound track created a situation one of my players dubbed the "death spiral" where the advantage gained by one side or another allowed them to push the loser into ineffectiveness quickly. That turned combat into a situation where the two sides fought for the upper hand and once it was secured surrenders started. In one case a character that was wounded stepped away from the combat and tried to help in some other way because they were too wounded to continue.

I enjoyed the moment to moment consequence and the way it changed the flow of the game from the abstract hit point style combat. I've rarely seen surrenders happen in D&D because the bad guys might be only one HP from defeat. No one wants to give up. Because the flow of the fight is obvious to everyone involved, the fight to the death is becoming less likely in the 3D System.

Religious Magic in RPGs

This post was inspired in part by the contest Zak S is running over at his blog: Playing D&D With Pornstars. The Thought Eater Tournament is a series of match-ups of two writers per topic to encourage better, deeper writing about RPG topics. The first one is about religion in fantasy role playing games and is something I've thought about a lot myself. More specifically, I've thought about the source of religious magic in RPGs while designing my own fantasy RPG.

We don't need to have actual gods to have religious magic in a game. D&D and other fantasy games have a long history of making gods characters in the setting. Certainly there was plenty of inspiration for meddling gods from the stories of Greek and Norse myth. Some of the fantasy stories that inspired the original Dungeons and Dragons had extra-dimensional beings locked in a war between the forces of law and chaos that spilled over into the fantasy world. It was often expressed as a kind of dimensional cold war fought through proxies who were champions and spellcasters given extra powers by their extraplanar backers. It also mixed in the crusaders, saints and biblical stories. D&D, especially the older editions, calls back to the legends of the middle ages and invokes the Arthurian tales of chivalry and knighthood.

With such material informing the setting it's no surprise you end up with gods granting spells to clerics and special powers given to paladins. For me it's never quite sat right though.  The idea of gods showing up, messing about with human affairs and having the odd affair of their own to create demigods has a certain quality to it, but it's more like the brat pack era of Hollywood than a group coming together over a common belief. Fantasy religions are less about faith and devotion to the idea than they are hierarchies with a supreme being at the top. They are more like corporations with clearly defined goals based on the godly portfolio coming down from head office.

With freelancers like adventuring player characters it's often a kind of contract. There's give and take with the godlike creature. Some characters who deal with extra-dimensional beings, performing sacrifices, other services and advancing their patron's goals in exchange for powers are called Warlocks/Witches/Cultists and others are called Paladins/Clerics even though at the core they are doing the same thing.

There's no reason why the existence of a god needs to be settled to account for religious magic. In a world where magic exists, reality is already disrupted. It can be bent and even broken with the correct pressure. In such a world a large enough group could form a kind of psychic pressure that could be used to disrupt reality in the form of miracles and other faith-based abilities.

A large enough group of people believing in an idea gives that idea power. The more people that believe, the more power that builds behind the idea. This power might manifest randomly in miracles and other unexplained phenomena. They could be mysterious like burning bushes, epic like earthquakes and thunder, or ridiculous like the visage of the god appearing in common food items like toast. Where it becomes interesting and gameable is when there are individuals who can tap into this power provided by the belief of faithful. People who can shape the will of others into particular effects like healing or even a plague.

These conduits of the faith would be as rare or common as is needed by the setting. They could be found leading a faith, drawing on the power of the faithful to perform miracles and gather more to their religion through these demonstrations of godly "intervention." They could even begin as charlatans who are suddenly surprised by their ability to perform real miracles thanks to the faith of their flock, despite having no belief of their own. The idea that a religious leader could fake it until they make it has all kinds of possibilities. They could also be individuals operating outside of a hierarchy as chosen champions, druids leading their communities, or even hermits serving in remote shrines.

It's the champions of the faith that are the most likely to become adventuring characters and played. Powerful missionaries carrying their message into the wide world or passionate believers living as examples in the dark times. Certainly a player character might want to build their own religion or religious faction of an established church. Depending on the campaign your group is into, the intrigue and challenge of creating a new religious order might provide the best adventure hooks.

When the characters get their power in the form of spells from some deity or demon prince there's not much incentive for them to do much in the way of religious boosting. If the character's power is tied to the faith of those following the same religion there is a good reason to spread the good word.

In game terms it could break down to numbers and distance. The larger the group the more power that would be available to an individual able to tap into it. How much of that power they could access would depend on the talent and experience of a particular character though. There would need to be some critical mass to get the minimum required to perform the most basic of miracles, the cantrip in D&D for example. It could be a number with some kind of meaning or completely arbitrary. Each level of power could require a different number of believers, growing exponentially from a single village to the population of a country or empire.

The distance would come into play as the champion moved away from the centre of religious belief. As they move farther away from the faithful the harder it is to tap into the psychic power provided by the belief of the masses. This could be overcome by setting up missions and chapels as outposts of the faith to form a kind of psychic corridor back to the power base of the faithful.

The idea that the smaller groups of worshippers could connect to the larger faith and carry the signal forward to the conduit of that faith like radio relay towers. If war or change disrupted the reach of the original religious organization the new churches could provide their own faith for the character to draw on. Regardless, there's an incentive for them to convert new followers and set up churches wherever they go. Also giving them something on which to spend any treasure they happen to find. The rest of the party might be keen to chip in since the one character's ability to access the power of faith affects their fortunes as well. The amount of available power would drop by one level for a particular distance so the faith of a theocracy might be felt and used on the far side of a continent or even ocean while a village of believers might only provide useful power out to a day's ride away.

As a factor of belief the faith magic becomes more dependant on religion and the religious instead of the terms of a contract with a god-like creature. This changes the game and creates some new incentives for players of religious characters to play their role as proponents of their religion or religious order. These are the reasons I chose this direction for the system and setting I'm working on for my own game but I don't see why the concept couldn't be used for any other fantasy RPG. It's just a matter of tweaking the setting a little.

In this model of using the common belief of the group as a source of magic rather than a god or group of gods gives the GM quite a bit of latitude in defining the place of gods in the game world. Their existence could be a question that is not answered, which is my favourite but certainly not the best. They could be remote and uncaring like Conan's Crom with the worship of lesser beings passing unnoticed. They might be like Terry Prachett's Small Gods that draw power from the devotion of mortals and are even created by it. They could need the worship to allow them power in the world. Perhaps with enough believers they could even enter it. That makes the Cthulhu cults a little more dangerous if they can frighten or bribe or fool enough people into devoting themselves to the great old one it might show up!

NOTE: This is an updated version of the original blog post. The original had an unnecessary definition of faith that people were stumbling over. I'd rather people engage the premise than debate my use of an overly simplistic definition, so I took it out.