Apathy Games

How to Alter a Published Rule

So you’ve decided to change the rules. Hold up a minute. Who do you think you are? The rules were designed by people who got paid to do it, probably comply with an underlying structure, and, hopefully, were extensively playtested. In many cases you may be implementing the rule wrong or are missing another rule which counters the unwanted effect you are seeing in your game.

On the Other Hand….

Maybe not. Perhaps the rule is coming from a splat book that was underwritten or lightly playtested, if at all. Perhaps it comes from a third party supplement. Whatever the case may be, try not to act in haste. Changing rules can have long reaching and sometimes unexpected consequences, and those effects may be far worse than the current “problem rule”.

So What Do I Do?

The first step is to find examples of rules with a similar concept but different implementation than the problem rule. When you find a similar rule and it doesn’t cause any problems, you have found an easy fix. If you can’t find any, seriously consider the place of the rule in your game. In most cases rules exist to add depth to our simulations, and completely removing rules from a game may remove depth you or your players would rather keep. Review the rules in depth to determine if changes are really necessary.

How Do I Change It?

Think about ways to strengthen or weaken the problem rule other than its complete removal. Think about the situation where the rule was a problem and decide what the outcome of the rule should have been. Set the rule at that level as your starting point. Next, consider the effects of the rule on the next several adventures/encounters you have planned and try to figure out how your new version of the rule will play out. Then adjust accordingly.

Finally, decide if all this thinking has been merely a knee jerk reaction. Perhaps the characters have reached a new level of power or the players have dusted off some underused rules because they know they will be effective in the situations they have been presented with. If the usage of an unexpected rule was something you had not planned for it can be startling, and if it messes up your closely laid plains it can be very frustrating, but it is not necessarily a reason to act.

Methods of Implementation

Now that you have your shiny new rule all thought out, you must present it to the players. Present your new version and your justification for it before it comes up in game. Waiting until the players attempt to use the old rule to roll out the new one is immature. Next, if the rule you are changing is a newly selected ability of a character, give the player the option to trade it out for something else. The player chose the old ability, not the new one, and might not want your new version.

In many cases players will accept a watered down version of a rule in place of something everyone knows is overpowered. While players are always looking for an advantage, most understand game balance. Conversely, if the rule was too weak, it is unlikely you will get many complaints from the players when you change it–unless, of course, you are using your new version to increase the effectiveness of their opponents, in which case they will probably give you “the talk”.

And If My Changes Fail?

If your changes turn out to be a total unmitigated disaster, acknowledge that you were wrong and go back to the old version. Do not immediately go back to the drawing board, as it will take significant time away from the game and probably not give you the result you want. Try to find in-game ways to work around or solve the problem. If that fails, start the process over at the beginning.

Your Comments: Slaughtered any sacred cows in your game?  Tell of about a rule you have changed or removed.

The Best Gaming Dice: GameScience Dice

We’ve all spent hours looking at dice in our local game store.  We’ve carefully chosen those that call to us, usually based on looks.  Eventually, long after we’ve paid for them and come home, we cast them back into the Bag of Shame because they fail us constantly with a slew of terrible rolls.  Or, perhaps we find that one d20 that never fails us, even though we hate the color.

Apparently, most of our dice are nowhere near as random as we imagine them to be, and it isn’t our imagination.   Mr. Zocchi, who created the original set of polyhedrals that have become iconic to our hobby, is currently the man behind GameScience, and his dice are intended to be precise pieces of engineering.    Let’s let the man make his point for himself, though:

I already intend to replace my dice with these.  You can buy them online from GameStation.net. I should also point out that Chessex does sell a small selection of the GameScience dice.  They’re the translucent jewel-colored dice with the sharp edges that don’t have their numbers painted.

Now, if only someone would start making machined casino quality polyhedrals.

Increase Your Players’ Immersion by Using a Home Base

When you run a game, you want your players drawn into the world you present. The literary term for this is _verisimilitude_, and it’s powerful when you pull it off. One powerful way to accomplish this is to establish a home base for the player characters.

I game mastered for a long time before I ran into this knowledge, due mostly to the style of games I play and my predilection for not running pre-built adventures. But, I went ahead and bought Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk for D&D 3.5. This was a modern revision of the original adventure by Gary Gygax. The adventured consisted of a major dungeon nearby the city of Greyhawk. Because the player characters weren’t traveling much, they always returned to their home base, the Green Dragon Inn.

The Green Dragon Inn was very well developed, with a large cast of characters, each with personalities and plot hooks. Near the Inn was a collection of shops where the players could get everything they needed, from weapons to magic items. These shop-keeps were also developed characters, with conflicts among themselves. The result being a very rich and dynamic environment that my players spent hours playing around it. They loved it.

How to Do It Yourself

The first thing you need to have is a place the character’s always return to. This means that the home base method doesn’t work as well with traveling adventures, unless it takes the form of a ship or caravan.

NPCs are the heart of a home base, so make the place itself a location with a lot of people passing through. An inn, dance club, mall, castle, keep, or trading post are all possibilities. All of these require NPCs to run their daily operations, such as barmaids, guards, owners, disk jockeys, and chefs, which is a valuable opportunity for your players to befriend them and get perks. In addition, all the visitors allow opportunities for adventure to come to your players.

In addition, you want NPCs nearby to provide for the character’s needs. Player characters need weapons, so make sure a weapon-smith is nearby. They may need elicit materials, so have a black market dealer hang around. Rumormongers and spies can provide information for a price, and nearby masters can provide training. Take some time to come up with NPCs that provide equipment, training, entertainment, information, and hirelings.

NPCs have Needs

You already know how to make a good and engaging NPC, but a home base gives you a few other things to consider. First, your NPCs have relationships with one another. Take some time to seed friendships and conflicts among them. All of these can be turned into adventure seeds at a future date.

Secondly, develop a plot seed for each significant NPC. These can be thought of as loyalty quests. At some point, each of these NPCs will need the player’s help, and accomplishing a goal for them should grant the players their favor, and possible some other benefit. Some of the NPCs might also be antagonists. For them, provide two possible quests, one for their loyalty, and one to bring them down. Each has it’s own rewards, and provides the players with support for whatever they decide to do.

Putting it all Together

Now you have a rich, deep environment, filled with an interesting cast of characters and plenty of adventure seeds. Let your players wander and engage in their home base, developing loyalties and believing that wherever they go, and whomever they talk to, it is a path to adventure.

Your Comments: Help our readers out.  Give them some various ideas for use in their own home base.  The more abnormal, the better.

Practice Makes Perfect

My wife has decided to kill me. Oh sure she guises it under the “let’s get healthy together” like “but water is good for you,” and stop drinking so much coke.” I know the truth however; I know what the half marathon, she signed us up for, is really about; my end. I know the body needs to be worked, and it really would be nice not to get winded walking to the fridge. I can’t help but think of another muscle that needs to be worked and with GenCon looming soon it may be time to go through some GM calisthenics to prep for your con game.

Give it a Solo Run

Even if you’ve ran the adventure before it’s a good measure to make another run through by yourself. This will get all the encounters fresh in your mind and give you a chance to think about how different people might react to it. Try to really think outside the box here, the idea is not to be able to predict everything your players might do, far from it. We’re doing some mental gymnastics to train up for the big show. The crazier and wackier you can come up with the less likely you’ll freak out come game day. After all con goers can be an intimidating bunch, mean the stench alone may cause some vigor rolls.

Prep Your Materials

Your solo prep will also remind you of all the handouts and prep work that needs to be done before the game. While you still have a minute to scratch your head and get everything printed out, organized, and packed. Organizational tip: Bring a binder with Sheet Protectors to keep everything in. This will keep you organized and all of your nice new print outs safe and dry until you can get to the con. Also this would be an excellent time to label everything you need so you don’t look like a buffoon digging the sheets out of whatever bag of holding you brought them in.

Memorize Everything

Well I guess not everything; I mean who really needs to remember Plank’s Constant at a time like this? However now is the time to brush up on any rules that you may not be familiar with, organize some mock combats and get a really good hold on the item table, assuming you’re letting your players pick their own equipment. Be prepared to answer all kinds of questions about the setting, rules and general play as you’re going to get all comers to the table.

In the end it’ll come down to being quick on your feet and the ability to deal with everything coming at you, but much like the marathon ahead of me, the more practice you get the better off you’ll be.

What kind of success have you had running con games?

Picking the Right Setting

Ever had the need to end your current campaign and pick up a new setting? Have you gotten a bit tired of dwarves and elves for one veterans lifetime? Not ready for a sabbatical but need a fresh idea to get you cooking? We all have, it’s part of being a GM. One of the vast numbers of problems can be, “What setting do I switch to?”

Jane Austin’s Fight Club

This video came up in the Savage Worlds chat room and while watching this hilarious piece of cinema I couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t being turned into a full feature length film. While a great short parody film I couldn’t help but think it would make a terrible movie. Adventures can be like this, one adventure might have a great story and craft a fantastic world around it but in the end there really isn’t much more of a story to tell when you’re done. The evil has been vanquished; the day is saved and so on. There is a reason Happily Ever After is placed where it is in the story, its cause it’s all downhill from there.

Prime Source Material

Consider also how much material is out there supporting your new found setting. While we all may be good at drafting up our own ideas and adding on to a world if all of the material just exists in the one adventure it may prove to be interesting expanding on the same feel. Tone and theme can be big parts of a world, and should be taken into consideration. Taking careful stock in if the setting is right for your table should be done with care. If a setting is too cartoonish or is to adult themed it can really drag down a game. Always take consideration into the feel of the game before switching settings.

Choosing the right style

I’ve never played a proper Horror campaign; I wouldn’t even know where to start crafting one. If I really wanted to run a horror campaign I’d likely fire up a pre-built adventure to get me going. I would have to tread lightly though moving into an entirely different genre of game can alienate not only your players but yourself. It can be tough to get your mind working in a new way. I mean let’s be honest, once dwarves have a Scottish accent they all tend to. So replacing Sauron with Cthulhu may end up making your brain hurt rather than getting it excited to continue running adventures. So consider what you’re switching to carefully, is this something that you have experience with, or have a passion for? Your players will be able to tell the difference even if you want to pretend it’s not that noticeable.

Switching settings or game styles is fairly common, how do you make it a success?

Game Gone off the rails? Time to Tapdance!

Sometimes, despite our best efforts and due diligence, we GM’s aren’t ready to run the game. Perhaps we succumbed to writer’s block, or thought we had something that would play out very well, but flopped in the first five minutes. Perhaps the characters turned right instead of left. Whatever the case may be, when these situations occur we have no choice left but to tapdance. Our job is to leap quickly and accurately in response to the characters actions, making no awkward silences or missteps which could indicate our lack of direction.

Sometimes this goes amazingly well. We deliver great content off the top of our head, delivering deep and involved roleplaying or epic combat that flows better than anything we have ever planned.

But, many times, we don’t. We stutter, stumble, mumble and digress. We lead the players on more distractions than any one of them, desperate to fill the time. We look at the clock every twenty minutes, wondering “how, how am I going to fill the next four hours?” The answer is, you can’t.

Instead, if you find yourself in this position, let your players run the game. Many times your players, with only slight prodding, can lead the group on merry adventures and diversions that require little adjudication on your part. Don’t take offense at this, this is your get-out-of-jail-free card! Maybe you will spend those four hours helping the players figure out how their characters can develop a transmission using only the science available in their fantasy game (so they can make a flying boat!), or how they will start a city spanning organization for good or evil. Perhaps you will spend it helping them design clothing for their characters with the help of in-game NPC’s. Whatever happens, the key is to give the players more control than when you are the one running the show. This gets you off the hook, and can lead to things that end up being  far more memorable than the boring dungeon crawl you were supposed to develop.

Cooking Up the Big Show

My wife is a fantastic cook, she can do things with seasonings that would you make you sing praises to your maker. She’s always telling me that cooking isn’t terribly hard and can be distilled down into a couple of main points. Use fresh ingredients (preferably organic), season well, and always salt the water. Gaming is like cooking, you have to be prepared, have all the rights ingredients and a little TLC goes a long way (that way they really don’t expect the traps).

The Hook

The beginning of every story starts here; the event that starts the characters on their course. Your hook has to be strong; enticing players with its alluring provocative scent. A good hook should scream of enchanting mystery and adventure. It should waft out to the players luring them in until it’s too late, and the jaws of the hook sink into them. Slamming around them and thrusting them into the adventure, powerless to stop the course of events that has been set into motion their only course of action is to follow where few dare tread.

The Plot Twist

A good soup is one that is done slowly, the ingredients have time to soak in the juices of everything and really bring out the flavor. Good seasoning is a subtle art, too much and the dish is spoiled; too little and you can’t taste that it’s there. The art of the plot twist is that it’s unexpected (I mean it is called a plot twist) so letting it fester in the background until the last minute is half the fun, well at least for the GM. When coming up with the plot twist try coming at it from unexpected angles but be wary of being to over the top as it becomes rather obvious.

The Big Finish

They say that presentation is the biggest part of food. For me it’s the build up to seeing it, smelling the food, talking about the food, and then finally seeing the food. A big final finish is much the same way, its 90% build up. All of the careful planning and work we put into all the details leading up the end is all presentation. It’s nothing more than window dressings, which is why some fail even after careful planning. Still if all your ingredients are there and you’ve been simmering it just right, it should be one hell of a brawl.

What are your three tenants of game design? What can you compare to gaming that, like cooking, has a simple enough idea?

How to Make Your Wizard More Magical with Skill Trappings

Unlike their D&D counterparts, Savage Worlds Wizards don’t have a plethora of spells littering their character sheet. Also, there isn’t a described cantrip mechanism that lets them do little magical things all day. But that’s a problem that a little imagination can fix without altering the rules at all using skill trappings.

What are Skill Trappings?

Skills are just a mechanic to differentiate characters who are good at something from those who are not. The Healing skill doesn’t go into detail as to how to stitch a wound or apply a bandage. All it cares about is success for failure at healing someone. How is left up to description and the trappings of the setting. For example, in a fantasy game, Healing would include the use of herbs and prayer. In a futuristic setting, it would include dermal regenerators or bacta tanks. The result is the same, but the trappings differ.

Applying that to Magic (aka, The Harry Potter Effect)

A wizard knows magic, so there really is no reason that he wouldn’t employ it to assist him in using skills. Instead of using brute force and nimble hands to repair something, he’ll apply heat and telekinetic forces to do the same thing. This doesn’t mean he gets any sort of bonus for using magic. Instead, the trappings of the skill change for him.

Let’s look at an extreme example: Harry Potter. The characters in Harry Potter use magic for everything from dominating friends and family to folding laundry. In fact, if you took a wizard’s wand away he couldn’t operate a toaster.

So, let’s pretend that you wanted to play a Savage Harry Potter game. You wouldn’t go through and pull out every little spell they used. Instead, you’d just make all those little spells trappings for normal skills, then give extra bennies to players who are good at roleplaying their skills (i.e. having a eidetic memory for made-up Latin).

Mechanical Effects

There are time, occasionally, where a specific trapping should have a mechanical effect. These are more rare than it often seems, as trappings are powerful and extra mechanics should be avoided, but sometimes it happens.

For example, in Harry Potter, if you take a wizards wand away, he should get a -2 penalty to all skill rolls because he lacks the proper equipment. If the party is being tracked by a magic-sniffing wolf pack, the wizard will draw their attention when using a little levitation to help him climb a tree (+2 to their notice rolls). Alternatively, if the party is in a mana-rich environment, such as at the crossing of two lay-lines or in a mana pool, the wizard might get a +1 bonus to all skill rolls. These are small, incidental mechanics that can probably be adjudicated on the fly, but should be considered.

What We’d Like From You

The idea of magical skill trappings seems sound, but we need more examples if people are going to be convinced. We’d like you to come up with some and leave them in the comments for other readers to be inspired.

In the Land of Minis

Figures, flats, minis, dice, tokens, we’ve used all of them. Sometimes, to mark where enemies are on the map, I’ve gone so far as to actually draw them on, in pen, because it’s all I had. Although I’d have to say that using LEGOs with custom made weapons is a new one on me, but that’s exactly what one Savage chatter has done. Andrew Linstrom aka entonfire was discussing in #savageworlds this week that he actually uses a combination of LEGOs and BrickArms weapons packs to up the ante on his games and bring a more hands on approach to the minis.

“We were running Day After Ragnarok, so players dressed up and armed their minis appropriately. When they defeated enemies with different or better guns, they had a tangible piece that they could take and arm their mini with. We also used the vehicles that came with the Indiana Jones sets, so I built ambush encounters around the jeep, truck, and tanker that their convoy consisted of.”

He said that he found that the players just seem more engaged when they could actually pull the weapons off the enemy’s corpses and put them on their characters. “[It] was cool being able to watch your character evolve directly from session to session or even scene to scene, switching a gun or a sword or a hat or hands or something; [e]ven swapping to a head with a different expression. I like being able to evolve your mini as you evolve your character.”

LEGOs and BrickArms weren’t the only props he brought to the game table. “Oh! And I commissioned little plush, coiled snakes from one of our friends who does plush monsters. About the size of your palm, but sized against Lego minifigs, perfect scale for a Day After Ragnarok giant snake.”

The ideas of swapping out guns and weapons to your figs just sounds like a great way of really connecting with your character. Often times I feel removed from them because I can’t hold the weapon in my hand or have much of a sensation of it beyond the stats on paper. I think swapping out parts on a figure might bring back the joy of finding a new shiny.

What props do you use on your game board? Anything different than the normal mini fare? Or do you have some extra special minis you want to share?

Wanted: Imagination

Yesterday I wrote about my love for pre-builts, be it adventures, characters, or settings. Anything that I don’t have to generate earns some love from me. When I was writing the article however I couldn’t help but come up with a rebuttal against my own argument. After all when I started gaming it was extremely fashionable to hate on pre-built anything; the era of the OGL did ruin it for a number of people.

Stifles My Creativity

The biggest complaint is the stifling of creativity. Pre-built don’t offer the same freedom that I can have with my own adventure. It doesn’t allow any changes for player’s taste or opinion; it’s all laid out in front of me, immutable as stone. If the wrong adventure is picked, my players or I could burn out before its done burden down by the pacing of the story. I can attest that adventure burn out has happened to me in my gaming career. Designing my own games allow me to make adjustments to the overall story. I mean who wants to stick with just one adventure, when you have a whole world you could make up?

Pushing the Envelope

I’ve never run a horror game; never really been my bag. While I could reach for a one sheet or pre-built adventure to help learn the craft, I’m far more likely to reach for what I know. While I could make my players go crazy with Cthulhu, or send the back to High School with Pinebox. All are fantastic settings to tell a story in. It’s just; I’m more likely to throw a band of orcs at them; my old school D&D colors shining through. With pre-built games I’m actually less likely to try something new; I’m just not sure how to run it. I look for comfortable dungeon dives, and fantasy settings where the bad guys are well defined. Why stray far from the tree?

Makes for Lazy GMs

Let’s be entirely honest with each other, we fall into lazy patterns when running pre-built adventures. We fall back on the adventure being balanced, and that it would provide all the necessary components to be fun. We don’t try as hard and we have a tendency to railroad our players towards the goals. We fail to think outside of the box instead relying on the scripted dialogue to convey any meaning. The way most games are written we can look at our players with apathetic looks on our faces and blink at them until they do what is obvious. No thinking required. What’s the challenge in using pre-built games?

I still fall on the side of using pre-builts, my love for them is strong and while I am lazy I’ve gotten pretty good at tweaking adventures to fit my needs. I know I’ll have fully lost any respect as a GM when they come out with Choose Your Own Adventure for Savage Worlds and I run that game. Feel free to take away my blogging credentials when that happens.

So where do you fall on the debate, pre-builts, or your own worlds all the time?