Geek on the Borderlands

We´ve all seen this at one point or another. Our GM has this interesting, convoluted story that he has devised over the course of weeks, and once the group starts playing, it´s clear that there´s little they can do to stray from that path that the GM has set for them. The players, if they´re good, notice this, but decide to cooperate, for the good of the game. After all, it keeps the story going. However, things don´t change, and session through session, players are bending over backwards to do what´s sensible from a normal human´s point of view, instead of what any reasonable powergamer would do. They cooperate with the NPC´s, even if they know they´re gonna get betrayed. They happily get into an ambush because their characters still trust those NPC´s, although all the players know it´s gonna be a possibly lethal ambush. You know the drill.

But what happens when the players decide that it´s too much? This can bring a rebellion in the table, and send the game down the trash quickly, specially if the GM cannot react fast enough, or the players end up being driven into a dead-end. However, should things reach this state, the players will already be touchy when it comes to their lack of freedom, and even if the game manages to get back on track, it will be very hard to get them to cooperate with the GM again at all.

In short: give your players more freedom, even if that means changing your carefully designed plan. They will be happier for it.

I’ve been playing and thinking about superhero games quite often as of late and it got me to thinking about how different systems ensure that everyone at the table has something fun and unique to do in and out of play.  It’s not something most of us think about very often when rolling dice around the table, but I feel that solid niche protection between characters is nearly essential to ensuring that everyone at the table has a good time.

To my mind games break down into three broad categories of niche protection.  You have strict niche protection, also known as class based RPGs.  Then you have semi-rigid niche protection, common in a lot of White Wolf games (via the Clan/Auspice/Tradition style breakdown). Finally you have no niche protection, which is common in most point-based games and a lot of superhero games.

Now there’s a lot of wiggle room within these broad categories, but for the purpose of this little thought exercise I’m going to stick to generalities within the three categories and how they relate to game master and player enjoyment.  Over the next few days I’m going to examine each type of game and talk a bit about the common problems and benefits of each game style and how to use them to the fullest.

Strict Niche Protection (I.E. Class Systems)

It’s no surprise that class-based game systems offer the greatest degree of niche protection (to a certain extent).  In games like Dungeons & Dragons (of which I am a big fan) you have a narrowly defined area of expertise at which you excel and then a broad area of minimal competence or outright restriction.  To take a very obvious example fighters aren’t going to be tossing around fireballs and wizards aren’t going to be hewing through monsters with huge weapons (exceptions, of course, exist).  In a lot of respects this is actually a good thing: if you’re the only wizard in the party you pretty much know that you’re the boss when it comes to arcane magic.  They party is going to look to you when such problems occur and you’re always going to have something that you’re the best at doing.

The downsides are also just as obvious – sometimes there are going to be things that your character should be able to do that the rules don’t support.  If my fighter happened to be a member of the thieves guild chances are he should know how to pick locks – but some games won’t let you do this (though many others do allow for this sort of customization).  The cost of having a defined area of expertise is that exceptions and corner cases tend to very difficult or outright impossible to model sensibly.

There’s also the problem of class duplication – in class based games two members of the same class sometimes end up looking very similar.  Some systems are better at dealing with this than others but at the end of the day there is at least some degree of sameness between characters of the same class.  Ironically this actually leads to the very problem that class based systems are meant to prevent – characters that don’t have their own shtick.

Maximizing the Strengths

If you’re using a class-based system you obviously want to play to its strengths as much as possible.  You can do this by choosing a system with a broad spectrum of classes or niches to give your players a great deal of choice while still retaining a solid set of niches for your players to fill.  For me this system is D&D 4e, but it could be any other class based game with good deal of selection.  You want your players to point toward a class and say “that is my character exactly!” if at all possible, or at least offer enough selection that a class can be molded to fit with little work.

Beyond selecting an appropriate system you also want to make sure that everyone selects a class that compliments but does not overlap with an existing class (save for the generalist, which I’ll cover just a bit later).  This is best accomplished by setting aside a full session for character creation or using some other method to ensure that everyone knows what everyone else is playing.  This way you can avoid the “party full of thieves” problem that can crop up when you create characters in a vacuum.

Minimizing Weaknesses

As mentioned earlier, class based systems do have their weaknesses, but with a little work you can overcome nearly all of them pretty easily.  The biggest weakness is that of class and ability duplication.  In a perfect world everyone would choose a different class but we all know that the world isn’t perfect (even our game worlds).  When you do get duplicates you can either try to differentiate them with crunch or with fluff.

Differentiating duplicate classes with crunch is usually the more difficult proposition.  Yet it can be accomplished, especially if the system you’re using has rules for multiclassing (or something similar).   After all, a Fighter/Cleric and a Fighter/Wizard are going to feel pretty different from each other.  Obviously you’re not going to be able to use this all the time, but it can help quite a bit.

If multiclassing isn’t attractive or unavailable, start looking at hyper-specialization.  If you have duplicate classes chances are that the basic are covered, so go right ahead and encourage the players to really specialize in one very narrow spectrum of the class.  If you have two fighters encourage one to go sword and board and the other to go with a big two handed weapon.  That way the two characters still feel a bit different, even if they aren’t all that different mechanically.

The other option is using background, characterization, and other “fluff” to make the characters distinct.  If both your fighters want to play guys in plate armor, a heavy shield, and a longsword you’re obviously going to have to do something to avoid the “we’re twins!” problem.  Perhaps one fighter is a noble knight all hung up on chivalry and honor while the other is a mercenary who works for the highest bidder.  Now you have a situation where two contrasting personalities share largely the same abilities, which can lead to a fun sort of “friendly rivalry” as each character attempts to show the other the error of his ways.

The other problem that is likely to arise is that of the “special snowflake” character.  Some players just have a very specific idea in mind for their character and sometimes the classes don’t cater very well to that idea.  If this happens you don’t really have a whole lot of solutions.  Either the player needs to adjust his character so that it fits within a certain class or you have to find a mechanical representation that works.

About the only other option is to take an existing class and “reskin” it enough so that it works for the character concept.  This obviously works better in some systems than in others.  Mostly this is a thematic change, where you take the raw mechanics and graft on new “special effects” to the existing class.  You can also take a class and make minor tweaks if you know the system well enough, such as changing a fire caster to a cold caster by changing a few damage types.  It’s not always recommended and it’s definitely a more advanced option, but it can work.

Attack of the Clones

So what happens when you have an entire party of adventurers all filled with one character class?  Obviously this isn’t going to happen very often but when it does simple reskinning and different personality types aren’t really going to give you enough differentiation between the characters.  This is the time where you have to start looking at your campaign itself and where you might have to bring in a few optional rules to make things interesting.

The first step is going to be working heavily with hyper-specialization.  Hopefully you have a robust enough system that each class has at least a few different options within the system itself.  If you have an entire team of priests perhaps each one of them worships a different god with a different set of divine abilities.  If you have that group of thieves perhaps each one of them specializations in a certain area of crime.  Break out all the extras for that class that you can and encourage the players to use as many optional extras as practically possible.

Then figure out why this group is together and form a story around their similarities.  The easiest example is that of a thieves guild, but anything will work.  The key here is to focus the game entirely around problems that can be solved by the class features of everyone present and then overwhelm them with so many problems that no one character can possibly solve them all.  Going back to the thieves, perhaps they have to break into a house covered in traps, with dozens of locked doors, and very alert guards.  Some of them are going to have to sneak in, some are going to have to disable the traps, and some are going to be unlocking doors.  Instead of giving everyone something different to do give them so many of the same thing to do that they all have to work together.

The Generalist

When discussing class based games there is one final exception that needs specific mention: the generalist.  This is the character who’s shtick is actually being the “jack of all trades, master of none.”  This is a class based upon being the second best at everything and they’re generally thrown in as a “fifth wheel” character.  How do you cater to a character that is by definition a lesser copy of everyone else?

The answer lies in how you design your games and encounters.  If you have a generalist try to set up situations where one character class isn’t quite enough to get the job done.  Perhaps the door is both locked and trapped and they have to get through it quickly.  Normally the thief could do both jobs but when time is of the essence the bard can step in and help out, effectively doubling their manpower for a short time.  Generalists also shine when the skills of an absent party member are needed, as they can step into that role for a short time and perform admirably.  Sometimes you can manufacture this yourself by splitting the party but at other times this will arise naturally – which is all the better if you have a generalist character in your party.

But playing second fiddle the entire time isn’t very satisfying, so you’ll want to come up with situations that require a broad area of skill to accomplish.  This is far easier said than done and I’ve never really mastered the art of doing this beyond a few specific circumstances.  The one saving grace is that even generalist style characters generally have one narrow area of expertise not covered by everyone else in the party, so you can sometimes play to this when you want to shine the spotlight on a generalist character.

Final Thoughts

The most important thing to remember when using a class based system is that communication is the key.  Players have to communicate with one another when creating their characters and the GM and players have to communicate with one another to ensure that everyone is getting equal spotlight time.  After all, classes are only unique if they’re the only ones at the table at any given time.

As a final point I would like to state that not all game systems work for all players.  If you’ve tried a class based game and found it too rigid or unappealing, there are many other systems out there to try.  Perhaps class based games aren’t for you and all you need to do is go looking for a system that does work for you.  There’s no reason to keep using the same system if it doesn’t work for you.

It’s almost the end of the year, and I’d like to talk a little about the past, present and future of FAD.

These rules have been around for 7 years now. They began as hastily written comments on a notepad, after playing and having my mind blown by Stargrunt II.

The things I knew I wanted, when I started the project was this:

Suppression should be automatic.

Only 6 sided dice.

Combat should be squad based.

The core mechanics would be roll 2 dice and pick the highest or roll 2-3 dice and see how many score over a certain target number.

With that in mind, the original game came into existence. My friend Paul liked it and gave some feedback, and I proceeded to talk it up a little on theminiaturespage.com and the old GW fan site Portent.net. As time went on, I realized that I had struck something that people actually took an interest in. I saw threads where people asked for advice on a rules set, and people I didn’t even know would suggest FAD. I googled it occasionally and found it mentioned on forums and websites I had never even frequented.

As time went on, I even learnt that people had run games using FAD at a few conventions across the world. That blew my mind.

Yeah, it’s nowhere near the popularity of games like 5150, Stargrunt II, Warhammer 40.000 or any of those. The twohourwargames yahoo group has 3600 members and multiple posts every day. The FAD group is fairly quiet and has just shy of 500 members. But it’s something I had never anticipated or experienced before.

Now it’s November of 2009, and FAD4 has been out for a good while now. So what is lying ahead of us all?

First and foremost are a few projects that have been in various states of development for the past year. We have a lot of little additions to the core rules (night fighting, more traits, some clarifications of points that could be clearer, that sort of thing) which will eventually become FAD 4.3. I don’t think there’s any chance of having this done by December so expect something in the first half of 2010.

We have been working on a campaign setting as well (Cyberia) which will give a “out of the box” option to people who don’t want to fiddle with designing their own units from scratch. There’s also work on a WW2 and possibly modern day options. These are propably more distant projects though.

One thing that have been churning in my head lately is the idea of having money go into, and come out of, FAD. I am not talking about making the game commercial only (I watched my old ww1 rules Trench Storm whither and die from that decision) or making a living off it. Let me explain:

There’s a lot of things I think could be achieved with a bit of cash. A few include:

Commissioning artwork, writing etc: This is by far the biggest one. We’ve been extremely lucky in having some very talented volunteers provide us some great art to use. However, volunteers are subject to the randomness of life, and are motivated mainly by interest and passion.

Being able to have some artwork commissioned for FAD products would give us another, additional source of material. It could also go to additionally reward and motivate people who have volunteered their efforts.

It would also permit some additional incentive to prospective rules writers who may otherwise be disinclined to spend hours developing a rules supplement.

Advertising: I would like to do a bit more work advertising (and thus paying money into supporting) popular tabletop gaming sites like theminiaturespage.com and rpg.net. Having some cash flow would allow for that, as well as give FAD some additional exposure.

Miniatures: This is faraway and expensive idea, but having a range of miniatures developed for FAD would be pretty cool.

Conventions: I’d love to have something setup where we could showcase FAD at conventions, and possibly provide some stuff for that, such as freebie print copies of the rules or whatever might be the case.

Cooperation with a miniatures supplier: This talk has come up before, and at least one supplier showed interest, however the arrival of my son into this world made me unable to follow through on this. I am however very interested in having some cooperation with manufacturers of scifi figures, particularly some of the small-scale operations. This would enable us to provide FAD stats and points values ready to use, and give them more exposure and advertisement, while giving FAD more exposure as well.

There’s other incidental expenses that could occur as well, such as server space if we move to our own server, website maintenance and whatnot.

So where does money for these ideas come from? Well, it can come from my pocket. I generally can’t really afford that, and I’d love for FAD to sustain itself.

I am also not keen on the idea of selling PDF’s. Anyone can develop for the game, and that is how it ought to be. So if I sell a supplement on urban warfare, and another guy does it for free and his is better, nobody will buy mine, and for good reason.

The core FAD products should be free and readily available.

Printed copies: An option that will almost certainly be used is to offer the printed version of FAD through a print-on-demand service such as lulu. Last I checked the cost of a book of this size would be about 10 dollars, so it could sell for a few bucks more. Based on polling on the yahoo group and comparing to existing products, most people are willing to pay 12-15 dollars for a game of this size.

This would not change the fact that it’s available for free, and there’d be no “exclusive” version. It’d simply be a service to people who prefer getting a printed, spiral-bound copy, rather than dealing with pdf’s and printing it themselves.

Ransom model: Those who play RPG’s may be familiar with Greg Stolze’s ransom model. You offer up a game or supplement and set a ransom. People pledge whatever money they feel is fair. When the ransom is met, it’s made available for free to everybody. This avoids PDF piracy, and nobody pays more than what they want to. If the ransom isn’t met, the money either never gets deducted, or is donated to charity.

Donations: Asking for money is basically begging, and in addition to being distasteful, people aren’t inclined to give money just for the sake of doing so. In the past when the topic of commissioning artwork came up, a few people showed an interest in donating towards that, so its conceivable that specific expenses could receive some funding through donation.

These are all ideas I have been mulling over, and I am still trying to lay out the best path to really push FAD forward into the spotlight more, and capture more ground.

Lastly, I’d like to put out a call for support and aid. I am at a spot where I have projects that I think FAD needs, but I do not have the luxury to work on all of them myself. I need people who are competent designers and tinkerers, creative writers or just plain thinkers, who may be willing to pitch in for some specific projects.

I’ll put forth more specifics, but the two main projects are: FAD WW2 and help with the Cyberia setting. I have two people lined up for the latter, but I need more, to really make progress in a reasonable time.

It’s been a strange and amazing 7 years, and I’d like to thank all of you out there for everything you’ve done. Here’s to another 7 years of fast and dirty wargaming

Ivan – authordude

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I always find my best inspirations for blog posts after I have played the worst RPG scenes.

This is a problem that plagues online roleplayoing, but I think it also ventures heavily into tabletop gaming across all genres of games – how do you make your game work for your group as a whole?

Lets go backwards on this a bit and look at the most basic question: why should you run for every player you have?  I swear it seems such a simple, stupid question but time and time again groups form where the ST/DM/GM gathers a big group of players and then proceeds to lead only for his or her best friends leaving the other players feeling useless.  The why is tied inextricably in the basic goal of roleplaying: fun.  Very few players find it fun to ride along on the coattails of others, and usually they are the sort of players who gain more fun by spectating rather than playing anyways.  Most players find it fun to affect the game and in return be rewarded for their actions.  Even in a game where there is a strict rank whether this is military or nobility – no one like to have thier options in a RPG limited solely to what someone else tells them to do.  We play RPGs to make choices and see how those choices affect the outcome.  No matter whether this is how does your combat strategy stack up against the DM’s baddies to how does your social manipulation scheme affect the plots of the ST’s villains.  So if you plot adventures that only appeal to a portion of your players – or worse can only be solved by a portion of your players the neglected players will start to resent the game and get very bored very quickly.

That is not to say that personal storylines or highlighting a character is a bad thing – as long as it is something that is shared equally among the playerbase.  The storyline that deals with a paladin fulfilling an oath to his order one session, afterward the fighter making a drunken bet and dragging his party into a monster-hunt; and then a gang of old enemies catching up with the rogue the next is cool.  The game where each and every problem is only solvable by some obscure spell your wizard possess while the rest of your party is getting mutilated and and doing zero damage is fundamentally broken.  Honestly – if you are running a tabletop game and you decide that you enjoy running for only a portion of your players and therefore favor them suck it up and either A. split the group or B. find ways to enjoy and/or run for your other players.

And if you’re running an online chat game, and you favor your friends exclusively you should probably admit that you’re not cut out to be a good GM and step down.  Period, end of story.

So now that the problem is defined, how do you kep your game running smoothly?  First – live by this rule: interested players make a more interesting game for all involved.  It takes some work, but in my opinion finding out what trips your players triggers is well worth the effort because once they are interested they will be giving both feedback and energy – and oftentimes story ideas through their play.

2. Give them what they want.  Some DMs I know specifically put something in every adventure for every character, some are more loose about it and just give open ended situations that are well suited for a variety of players – however you care to do it, make sure there are plenty of opportunities for everybody to think up solutions and act upon them.  This leads directly into …

3. Think before saying ‘No.’  Sometimes we trust our friends but don’t trust the new guy – so we’ll buy the wildly creative plan our best bud throws out but immediately shoot down the solution presented by the new player.  You know what?  If you trusted them enough to let them in your group give them a chance.  If everything goes to hell, kindly stop the session and either teach them the game or don’t invite them next time – on the flip side if they are wildly creative and make it work everyone might just be sold on the story and be thrilled with it.  I find too many GMs say ‘no’ too often and yet when you say yes not only do players feel like they are empowered in the game but they have more fun and are encouraged to be more creative.

4. If you have a railroader, stop them – even if (or especially if) it is you.  Some people feel that everything needs to go their way.  Some players like to order everyone else around and some GMs will force players into their tightly preplanned storyline.  But control isn’t fun.  No one likes playing out orders – people go to work to do what they are told.  They roleplay to have fun and explore the boundaries of their creativity.   So if you have a player who likes controlling everyone else, tell them to stop – trust me, even if the others aren’t complaining they will thank you.  And if it is you as a GM controlling them too strictly, start coming up with open-ended problems for them to solve.  This has the added benefit of taking stress off your shoulders.

5. If you are running a story based game, find out about all the PCs backgrounds and bring them into play.  If you are running a strategy or combat based game, find out each of the player’s tactical strengths/weaknesses and bring them into play.  Challenging each person individually or bringing up secrets of character’s pasts is a good way to get that player involved and tied to the other players in the game.

6. Personal SL are great.  Personal SLs that affect your entire group but can only be solved by one PC suck.  No one wants to stack dice and twiddle thier thumbs while waiting for one PC to finish defeating the big bad that only he or she can defeat.  Either run personal SLs on the side or make them so every player can get involved.

If all else fails, admit your strengths and weaknesses as a GM and run for only your close friends and let someone else run for everyone.  Because the game is fun, but sitting around watching someone else have fun isn’t.

All right, I don’t drop into personal mode here very often, but this one really gets to me. A fine gentleman had a very piece of artwork stolen at Dragon*Con.  As an artist I find this utterly reprehensible and beyond contempt.  I want to see this bastard caught and this artworked returned to the artist.

So, took a look at the piece again. If you see someone wearing this, report it to the artist.  I’m personally offering free print design work to anyone who helps track this piece of artwork down.  Have that RPG sitting around you want to get produced?  I’ll do it free of charge at the professional level.  If that doesn’t float your boat, I’ll do your entire campaign map instead.

I want this bastard found and I want this artist to get his work back.  As an artist myself I can find nothing lower than stealing the work of an artist.  In fact, mere words cannot describe my anger at this.  Keep an eye out – this kind of shit can’t go unanswered.

After lots of anticipation and wait, I finally received my preordered copy of Space Hulk´s rerelease. Most of out readers should know what Space Hulk is, but for those who might not know, we´ll travel 20 years back in time.

Back in 1989, Games Workshop hadn´t turned into the “evil miniatures empire” gamers tend to know they company as, and it still would publish boardgames that people still remember fondly. Heroquest, published together with Milton Bradley, was probably the most famous of them all. However, despite of that popularity, there is one game that most gamers remember for its apparently simplicity, but high tactical complexity, tension, and sheer fun. Space Hulk.

Space Hulk pitted a small squad of five Space Marine Terminators against a host of deadly Genestealer aliens. The game itself involved lots of tactical decisions in a very short expanse of time, since the marine player had a limited timer, and the odds were heavily stacked against him.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release, Games Workshop has put together a limited rerelease edition of Space Hulk… And boy, did they deliver.

It is hard to describe the sheer impressiveness of this package. Even describing all the bits and bobs inside it doesn´t do it justice. However, to give you a rough idea of it, I´ll mention the stuff that impressed me the most (and refer you to check out Games Workshop´s webpage for images of the actual thing).

For starters, the one thing that you notice is that there are a few sheets of cardboard, packaged together inside a plastic bag. Those cardboard sheets hold the various tiles for the game, the doors and bulkheads, and the counters for the game. Every tile is made of very thick cardboard (about 3 mm. thick, which is approximately twice as much as they were in the original game), and they come out nicely of the punched sheets. They´ve also included 4 small plastic bags to keep the counters in, which is a very nice touch, in my opinion.

The second thing you notice is two very beautifully illustrated booklets, the rulebook (which sports a terminator´s head on its cover) and the mission book (which has a genestealer´s head. Lovely detail, isn´t it?). The rules are decently explained, and they mostly mirror 1st edition´s rules, with a couple of minor touches (the addition of the broodlord, and a couple of balance changes and clarifications, mostly). The game also includes most of the new stuff in the Deathwing and Genestealer expansions, only leaving out stuff that´s ended up mostly outdated due to fluff reasons, like the genestealer magi.

Finally, and I suppose this is Space Hulk´s most impressive part, you get to the miniatures. Oh boy… I´ll let a couple of images speak for themselves.

A genestealer:

A Space Marine Terminator:

Another Space Marine:

That should give a good indication of the quality of the stuff they´ve put in there.

So, is the game only a pretty display feature? No, not at all. The game plays just as well as it did 20 years ago (or maybe even better), and even though I still am not sure one or two things aren´t errata (the storm shield, in particular, seems ridiculously powerful, for example, and the rules for it are a tad awkward), the marine player keeps having that oppresive sense when the genestealers are coming close and time is running short, as well as the feeling of achievement when you get to finish mission nº 1, suicide mission (yes, that´s the actual name of it, and I have to say that it´s far harder to beat than some of the ones that come afterwards in the campaign).

Finally, for those that love to critizise Games Workshop, I have one thing to say. In this case, GW are offering a very high quality product for a hefty sum (78 euros for the box in spain, nearly $100 US), but the game is well worth it (might as well point out that 5 terminators cost $50, right now, and the box includes 10, plus 22 genestealers, and a whole bunch of other stuff). In fact, the box´s content is so massive that once you open it, there´s no real way to put everything back in it. Pandora´s box, anyone?

Tonight I had the final and epic battle of a short 3 adventure campaign I ran for my regular group and a long lost gaming buddy who returned to us for a limited 3 month run.  I’m happy to say that things went smoothly, everyone had a lot of fun, and the good guys won out in the end.  Yet when I think back over tonight I’ve come to realize that the most memorable battle for me wasn’t the final encounter with the nasty evil menace, it was one of the previous encounters.  The reason it sticks out in my mind, at least to me, has to do with the fight environment.

The more interesting battle took place in a temple that was built deep underneath a lake.  It was filled with air, but the bottom level had the corners open out into the lake and channels of water that flowed around the room.  Every round one of the channels would fill with water and try to wash away whoever was foolish enough to stand in them.  It featured enemies who could swim and who understood the terrain.

This area forced the players and characters to think about where they moved and opened up some interesting tactical considerations and roleplaying moments.  The poor swordmage got pushed into a channel of flowing water by the tail slap of a lizard man, but she managed to escape thanks to the quick thinking of her friends.  That was interesting.  It was dynamic.  It was memorable!

The final battle, in contrast, took place in the village where the nasty monster from beyond the stars crawled out of the well.  Sure, it had a lot of interesting things in the environment to use, but none of the players were forced to interact with them, or even encouraged.  The fight was tougher, sure, but it was less interesting because the environment was so darn passive.

These days I think that an environment that changes the field of battle and provides interesting ways to use it is far preferrable to stagnant and passive environments.  Especially in a game so tactically crunchy as 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.  I’ve stopped thinking about the battlefield as a passive place and started treating it more like a monster or active participant in a fight.  The terrain should move, or provide new options in a fight, or even just provide some really interesting set dressing.

Sure, this concept isn’t new to roleplaying and I’m sure that a lot of you out there have done this for years.  I’ve done it myself once in a while, but this is the first time since I started running games where it’s in the front of my mind.  And let me tell you right now, that’s a really good thing!  It’s made my fights more interesting and memorable and really forced me to think about how the players might actually move about a space.  It makes things seem more real.

So, the next time you’re planning that epic battle for your group, sit down and really thinkg about where it’s going to take place.  See what you can do to make the battle more interesting by spicing up the environment.  You might be surprised what a difference it makes!

So this kicks off the WW2 rules quest.. what will hopefully become a series of blog posts about ww2 wargaming, as I and my friends go through a ton of wargame rules, analyze and talk about this, and test out the same scenarios with each system.

The series will cover both commercial and “freeware” rules.

The first on the list is Landser, which is free from the yahoogroup located at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Landser/

This is a first glance before putting the rules to the test. The rules are short and compact: Only 4 pages in total and only covers infantry combat (which is all I am interested in, generally). No army lists are included, though the downloaded included separate PDF’s covering US, German and Soviet squads. The game is aimed at about a squad on each side.

Turn sequence is a straight (I go, then you go). When its your turn to go, each figure can perform one action, such as moving, hiding, firing etc. Its possible to fire on the move, but at very low accuracy. There’s a fair number of actions, and I like the inclusion of a hide and sneak option, though I’d prefer an alternating activation sequence

There’s not much in the way of command/control. Figures can move off as they see fit, and there doesn’t seem to be any particular benefit to the squad leader.

Combat looks very quick and dirty. You roll to hit, and then roll for effect. Automatic weapons get a template, and there’s rules for the most common weapons types (various machine guns, grenades and rifle grenades). As an interesting touch, most hits will simply force the target to hide, causing a suppression effect.

If you do get wounded, the wound may be light or heavy, and each has a small chart to roll the actual effect. Very nice touch as it gives a good range of possibilities. As it reads, it looks like long range fire will be relatively safe but can easily disrupt a squad, while an MP40 at point blank range is bad news.

Morale is simple. Once 2 men are dead, you test morale with a D10 against the number of men left. If you fail, you break off the fight. Its unclear if you are supposed to test once, every turn, or every turn you take an additional casualty, though the latter makes the most sense. This “break point” increases for more determined or well trained units.

National traits are briefly discussed in the separate PDF’s. Soviet soldiers cannot fire on the move, while Germans and Americans can only assault if a leader does so.

Fielding most infantry types should be relatively easy, though I did not find rules for the Sturmgewehr and no distinction between self-loading or bolt-action rifles.

Overall, Landser is nothing anyone havent seen before. It is however a nice, quick and effective skirmish game, with some fun touches to it. I definately look forward to playing it, and I could see this little freebie becoming a recurring game at my table.

Super Mario STing
(or why White Wolf STs should go read a DMG)

“Thank you, Mario,
But our princess is in another castle…”
~Super Mario Brothers, NES

I have a confession to make: I play on online White Wolf chats.

As I am a fan of the Old World of Darkness, it’s tough to find players anymore.  Online chats were a natural interest as you could find players, even if physically they were hundreds, if not thousands of miles away.  And while I have found some terrific players and stories on those chats, I have also suffered through some of the worst games of my life online.  Recently I have been hit in the face with something that has become a massive pet peeve, something I call the ‘Super Mario Syndrome.’

How does that work in roleplaying?  Easy.  The ST schedules a scene (or a game session if you’re playing tabletop) and everyone gets together to solve problem A or seek out Badguy X.  And the PCs sally forth to the someplace (hideout 1) where they have a clue that Badguy X will be, encountering a big group of his goons or traps or what have you.  The PCs fight a valiant and (because it’s old White Wolf) exceedingly long battle with the goons, only to find that Badguy X is not there and they cannot get much useful information from the defeated goons.  Only “Sorry, PCs but the Badguy is in another hideout.”  So the session ends, you may or may not get XP, and you schedule to play again.  Next time you go to hideout 2, to find more of Badguy X’s goons, have another long fight, and find out once again that ‘Oh yeah, Badguy X is in another hideout…” and so on.

I can stomach the idea of having to defeat multiple villains to collect multiple MacGuffins (to continue the classic video game references: The Zelda Plotline) as long as every chunk of the game offers a tangible reward.  It is too easy to forget the ‘reward’ part of a poorly thought out, ongoing storyline.  This problem is complicated tenfold in White Wolf style games because the game does not offer inherent rewards for combat, unlike Dungeons and Dragons.  You might get a few XP, which in turn you can use to raise your physical stats, and fight more things.  But unless your players are completely content with fighting endless hoardes of baddies, rinse, repeat the game quickly becomes tiresome if they can never accomplish story goals.

I have a negative gut reaction against running a scene with no purpose.  Both as a player and as an ST I dislike the convention of fighting for no reason, or questing without reward.  Some STs use this to build up tension or to make the players ‘work’ for something in order to earn it, but I find all too often that it only builds frustration in the players and stretches out a watery plotline for longer than it is worth.  Having been victim of the Super Mario Syndrome in several games, in my experience it always ends the same way: sooner or later the players get frustrated without getting anywhere.  They get up the gumption, complain to the ST, and the ST in return gets angry because he or she feels like their hard work STing isn’t being appreciated.  In rare cases I have seen STs learn from their mistakes and reform their plots – but more often I see an ST go ‘well, if you want and ending, then fine!  I’ll end it!’ and they make up a sudden and unsatisfying ending to the plot.  Players and ST go home unhappy and the game starts to fall apart, which just isn’t fun in any sense of the word.

So, let’s dissect the possible reasons for the Super Mario Syndrome:

1.    The storyteller seeks to build tension.
Tension is an integral part of a dramatic plot.  However tension at the expense of the group’s enjoyment is a waste.  I find it far better to build tension with scene settings, good descriptions, and by making the villains connected to the PCs in some way.  By giving them a reason to give a rat’s ass about a villain (whether that means they have some positive connection to them or they have a deep and personal hatred of them) your players create tension for you through their PCs own personal struggles.

2.    The Storyteller seeks to challenge the players.
Oftentimes as an ST I worry about ‘is this challenge difficult enough for my players?’  Unlike 3.X DnD and beyond there are no ‘challenge levels’ in White Wolf.  There are no clear guidelines as to when something is challenging enough, too easy or too hard.  So, in order to get a proper sense of challenge, some STs like to drag things out to make sure the game is properly difficult.  But it is all too easy to drag things out too long.

My suggestion?  Make individual encounters more difficult.  Swallow your fear of killing your PCs and make each scene potentially deadly, and if they succeed, “Let it Ride.”  That’s a term pulled directly from Burning Wheel – which I highly suggest any ST should go pick up because reading the concepts in that system is well worth the $25 even if you never play it.  Anyways, let it ride is a mechanic that says you cannot call for re-rolls and you cannot reneg on success or failure.  If the PCs succeed on a roll (or working from there, succeed in a task) they succeed.  You cannot try to go back on your word and suddenly make the task again more difficult.  If need be pre-define the conditions for success and let the players know them.  If they succeed, they succeed and you move on.  And honestly, the game isn’t about the ST versus the PCs.  The ST doesn’t ever need to ‘win.’  The PCs do because the players play the game for success.  So if they succeed, let them win.  There is nothing wrong with that.

3.    The Storyteller wants to ‘hang on’ to a great recurring villain
Oh, the curse of the awesome NPC.  You created them in a burst of inspiration and now you can’t let them go.  The PCs love them – or at least you thought they did.  But now they can never reach their goals because he is standing in the way.  You can deal with this in a few different ways, and one of the simplest and best is sit down and talk to your players OOC.  Do they love the recurring villain as much as you do?  If the answer is yes, they all love to continually hate him, then structure your game with a smattering of other, defeatable villains and you know you will always have your ‘Lex Luthor’ around to show back up.  Or perhaps the PCs could confront their favorite recurring villain and cause him or her to convert to being a good guy.

The hardest part to this is when you find that no, in fact your players don’t share the same love of a particular NPC that you do.  Then there is really only one thing to do, and that is to go back to the above point, suck it up and let them have the chance of defeating him.   And if they do, you let the NPC go.  You’re an ST.  You should be able to create an equally awesome villain for the next plot – or save this one and reuse him in a different game with different players.

4.    The Storyteller hasn’t planned his or her story to the end.
This is the monster that destroys games: lack of follow-through on the part of the ST.  Sometimes it manifests in a wandering lack of plot while the ST searches for inspiration on how to draw it all into a conclusion and sometimes it manifests in the ST being wholly unable to tie all of his or her complex threads together.  Super Mario tends to show up while the ST is trying to stall for time.  Now, I do not believe that planning a game should feel like a chore, but that a good ST should put a reasonable amount of time and effort into planning.  Many good STs enjoy that planning.  But at base, your game needs a plan for what the problem is, what the resolution will be and what the reward for success is.  How the players get from problem to resolution is up to them and it can comprise the bulk of your game, but the ST needs to know what the eventual conclusion is.  If the game is long-term and/or epic there needs to be clear ‘chapters’ of play, allowing minor successes to add up to a final success in the overarching goal.

The difficulty with flexible story-based games is that you need to start with an interesting story.  Part of the job of the ST is to decide how long a planned story (or game) will last.  Some stories are far better suited for short campaigns, while others more able to sustain long-term play; and a smart ST can separate the two.  If you have a short-term story run it as a one-shot or a few-shot and don’t try to drag it out past its prime.  But most importantly: figure out what plot you are running before everyone sits down to play.  Not a railroad, but a general idea that “The PCs want X.  When they get X, they will get Y reward” or something that gives a sense of conclusion to the basic structure.

Getting over the roadblocks allows the players to feel like they are a contributing part of the game and that their actions have meaning because they advance the story somewhere else.  No one wants to play a game where they feel like they are at the whims of an ST.  If we wanted that we’d all go get cubicle jobs and get pushed around by our bosses all day and call it ‘fun.’  An ST needs to step back and let his or her players affect the game or story with their actions as much as the ST shapes them.

Then Super Mario will be the one in another castle.

So, you all might have noticed not only a new look for the site but some new and old posters chiming in here.  That’s because I realized that I just don’t write often enough to really make this site worth visiting very often.  So I’ve asked my friends to join in (and some have been posting here for while now).  I find that it’s a lot better to offer a variety of viewpoints beyond my own and I’ve been blessed with a great many friends that have taken up the challenge of writing random things here.  I figured that I should take a moment to talk about them a bit.

Runequester has been posting here for a long while, and thanks to the new look you can actually pick his posts out from mine now.  He’s been a good friend and it’s probably pretty safe to say that at times we’re on opposite ends of the gaming spectrum.  I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a few of his games and his style is a lot different from mine.  I tend to love new systems while he might be what you’d call a Grognard.  Which is good for me as a gamer, as he keeps pointing out things that I might have forgotten as a embrace the shiny new systems of tommorrow.

The one place where we really meet and have fun is with wargaming.  Runequester is the author of the fabulous Fast and Dirty (http://fad.savevsdm.com/) rules.  We have a lot of fun pushing some lead around a table and drinking beers.  A solid friend all around and a credit to his country and gamers everywhere.

I have known Plain Simple Garak even longer than Runequester, and she’s been a wonderful friend to both me and my wife.  She’s the one who broke me out of my power gaming and hack and slash ways that I had for so long.  She ran the finest Vampire game that I’ve played in and her Changeling games are very, very good.  She’s the one who showed me that I didn’t have to always follow the rules, that games could be more about killing things and taking their stuff, and that sometimes it’s better to ignore the rules.

She tends to run games that are very story and background based, and I’ve learned a lot playing in her games and talking with her.  She showed me that the Forgotten Realms could be interesting and that maybe I could find something better in the older editions.  I think that she’s done more to change the way I think and run about games than just about anyone else I’ve had the pleasure of gaming with.  Which is a good thing, trust me.

Javier is a good friend who happens to hail from Spain, which means that he’s a dashing and handsome young man with a dialect that my wife tends to call “sexy.”  That and he’s got a really good head on his shoulders and a keen mind for crunch in a game.  In some respects he’s the one that thinks the closest to me, save that we tend to like different editions of D&D.  That and he actually got me interested in running a Star Wars game, which is a credit to his silver tongue.

Javier is also quite up on Warhammer and a lot of other systems that I don’t know a lot about.  Which is great, because he’s filling in a niche here that none of the rest of us can really fill.  Sadly I’ve never had the pleasure of actually gaming with him for any length of time, given that we live in different countries.  But I think that I’d really like the games he’d run and that we have talked at length about our various games, giving each other encouragement and ideas.

So, those are the new (and old) faces around here, each of them with a different perspective and voice to add to this little site.  I hope that you all enjoy reading their stuff as much as I do.  Posts and articles are probably going to remain on an erratic schedule for the time being, and I’ve long since given up on promising any sort of regular schedule.  But with more of us here new stuff should be going up a lot more frequently.  Which is good.