Advanced Gaming & Theory: May 2017

Gothic Earth Session 10: Return to the Haunted Belalp #3

via Pinterest

Played last weekend and it was fantastic! The players didn't know what to do next, session 9 had been an intense investigation that ended with a conclusion. They had no leads and low morale. The Village of Belalp was going to have a big party celebrating the end of the Witch murders, and the biggest scumbag in town made it look like he was the hero. Oddly enough, the players didn't want to attend this party.

I figured that this would be a good time to head back to Belalp #3, and have a dungeon crawl. This would be their 3^rd trip down into its depths, and there is a lot to do down there, so it was a good time to open it up some more.

Designing Kobolds

In Switzerland, the word for Fairies is Kobold. Above ground, Kobolds are seen as benevolent and helpful nature spirits, but below ground, they are twisted and evil. I've been using the word Kobold as well as Tommyknockers. The mine is haunted, but not all of the spirits in the place are dead.

I had never run kobold monsters. Never! In my power-gaming days, I saw them as too weak. They are weaker than the lowly goblin. As a DM, I just never had a place for them. Goblins in my worlds usually take the spot of booby trap-ambush experts, so in the book they stayed, until this dungeon.

I modified them some. I gave them a natural ability to turn invisible at will, and added “Spook”. I wanted them to be different, so while my goblins are traditionally forced into the wilderness, these sneaky things can quietly live among us. They are physically weaker than goblins, even a child could beat one up, so psychologically they had to be different, they depend on people. They are expert thieves. They rely on these skills to survive and are happy to live like rats. For the most part, their traps are designed as warnings and are more insulting in nature than dangerous, however, they rely on very dangerous traps to keep them safe. The tripwires for kobold traps are a bit more ingenious than Goblin's need. Traps are their primary method of attack, but for the most part, they are not nearly as aggressive as goblins are.

THE MINE

via Pinterest

The mine is a tricky dungeon. It is designed to open up over time; I don't enforce this; if the players find a secret door they find a secret door. It features a backstory that evolves and tells itself through play; it predates human history, first opened by Gnomes who lived here for centuries. Romans and Medieval men moved in to terrorize them, it was always the same story, the gnomes would allow the humans to share the wealth of the mine, as long as they kept to their sections, but without fail the humans wanted the whole thing for themselves.

There was a massacre, the humans crossed a line and murdered gnome women and children, ancient blood ran in rivers. The survivors of this genocide swore revenge, and something within the gnomes minds became twisted, they killed every last human in that mine. Not just killed, this was not war, this was murder. After the deed was done, and the Adrenalin wore off, they had time to reflect on what they had done. They had won nothing. Their families were still dead, they were still alone, and one gnome, in particular, believed something else; that he was cursed. He murdered his accomplices while they slept, leaving him totally isolated and insane. Rage was his motivation, it was all gone, the gods had abandoned them, and existence itself was punishment. He is still here.

This story is told in the Gnome section of the mine. This area, hidden from the main mine through residual illusion and kobold ingenuity, is being used by a small community of kobold miners who work sections that the humans don't.

There are other mysteries to be discovered in regards to the kobolds, but that is the story that the players have learned so far. Communication with them is very difficult, both are reduced to drawing pictures in the dirt, or pantomime.

The players stumbled upon their living quarters and stayed passive. Some communication was accomplished, the kobolds knew that if they attacked they'd be slaughtered, they'd die fighting if they had to, but they didn't want that. The kobolds were able to ask the party to kill some nasty spiders who also lived in these gnomish tunnels, which wasn't too difficult for the players, but impossible for the kobolds.

Heroic NPCs, how much is too much?

I was able to get my two wizard NPCs some XP, they are low level and both were able to use spells which the players themselves didn't have access too. I like playing them, they are totally in over their head but have no idea. This game the players had to first find them, they had gotten spooked by a kobold and when they ran, they put out their candles and were now lost in the dark.

Playing NPCs of this nature is a challenge, you don't want to take anything away from the players. You can give hints sometimes, and I often forget that they are even there, I got caught not rolling Saving Throws for traps. I coughed it up as NPC immunity, the odds of them making their saves would be annoyingly terrible and only serve to irritate the players and me. I want them there.

I got the idea from watching a show on the Syfy Network called “Ghost Mine” and wanted to incorporate it into this story. They supply the motivation to keep this mine open. If they die or aren't there, it will close and have economic repercussions on the village of Belalp which really needs this place to survive. If these investigators aren't there, the village won't be either; else the party will get paid to work here full-time and that isn't what this adventure is about either.

The mine is a piece of the Belalp Puzzle, but it isn't the point of the adventure. Is it railroading to keep these NPC's hiding behind the party, or as safe comic relief? I don't think so, they are an element of the design. They are open to attacks; when picking targets I remember that they are there, but they aren't destined to die in a trap. Not yet at least. If they bite it during an attack, then we'll deal with that. That is also up to the party. So far, they feel responsible for the safety of the investigators. One almost got eaten by a giant spider, and they hustled, took risks, and were able to save her. When she used her spell, it also furthered the story.

1st Level Mage To The Rescue!

The problem was a weird one. The spider webs chocking the hall needed to be burned, but nobody had any torches or oil because the cleric was using magic to light the place. The wood in the gnome ruins is ancient and not fit for anything. The party was going to have to go all the way back just to get something to burn the webs out, which was boring, so I offered up my NPC. She is a horrible wizard who has no confidence in her abilities, but she had gotten the spell to work a couple of times. She told the party that she needed some components which could be found in the area, namely bat-poop and some spiderweb clippings. She ground it up and made a powder which she poured into her hand and blew onto the webs, then she said the magic words . . . and! Nothing happened.

She apologized for getting everybody's hopes up when a web shot out of the passage and got her, quickly pulling her in. Without even thinking the party all raced through the webbing, everybody getting stuck but one person who was able to get a hold of the NPC's foot, and THEN the fire spell was activated, forcing everybody to make a saving throw vs. spell for half damage.

That, to me, was more interesting than having to leave the dungeon. They got to be heroes, and I got to burn them all, so it was a win-win. Was I manipulating the game? Yes, but sometimes I think that the DM has to. This scene needed a bit of spice, and I wanted to remind the party that the investigators were there. They had to serve a purpose. Do you think that I over did it?

The hall was cleared and the creepy spiders were dispatched, opening a hall that hasn't been seen by even the kobolds. That is where they found the bulk of the gnome story, in a room, at the end of the hall is a temple to a Gnomish God, the floor glittering with huge piles of cursed gems and a pickax stuck in the statue of the god. The heroes were able to pry that pickaxe out of the statues head, hoping that maybe that would end the curse . . . it didn't. The mystic used her sense of touch to learn what had happened in this place, it wasn't perfect, but she does know that the angry gnome who put that pickax there still haunted the dark.

https://retrorpg.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/kobolds-in-germanic-folklore/

Instead of murdering the kobolds, they figured out that the things were using an ancient gnome press to mint coins. Why they are doing this, the party has no idea; well, actually that isn't true. They have an idea, but they don't like it and aren't sure what to make out of it. Anyway, they decided to pay the kobolds off and figured out a way to tell them that the mine was to be shared. They could work their section, but they had to leave the human section alone, and not scare or attack any more miners, nor sabotage any more equipment. The kobolds agreed, and the mine was reopened.

Zudet?

In regards to what the kobolds are up to, they got a clue. One of the kobolds pulled out a small bone statue of a dragon, calling it Zudet. The PC Wizard, instead of going up to the village right away had gone to the city of Brig to research the area and had found mention of a medieval settlement somewhere in the mountains called Zudet Castle. He also learned that an archaic name for the Alpine Skinks that infest the area every Spring and Summer is “Spawn of Zudet”. Is Zudet some kind of Pagan god? A symbol of some kind? Or is the statue literal?

There has been other news in town! But, that will have to wait until next game. This one is in the bag!

Dave Arneson's True Genius (Review)

Half way through reading Robert J. Kuntz's book, DAVE ARNESON'S TRUE GENIUS, I wrote the following response on the Ruins of Murkhill BBS

You have, I feel, given the best definition of what it is that we do. Describing to others why we sit around a table and play pretend either ends well or it doesn't. You also identify and clarify thoughts that I have had about the system for years but in a concise way which both strengthens and expands what I have been grasping at for so long.

I had taken a very long break from gaming, and when I came back to it, I played MUCH differently than I did as a youngster. The game functions better, we took our time and just did what we wanted to. You go into a house to search it, there is no dice for that now, I make the player search it. One of the club's founding members returned for a game, he had heard that it wasn't just a hack and slash anymore and he got curious about it. During play he'd try old tactics that rely on dice, and would get frustrated when I forced him to use his brain instead; however, the very next session he came back ready to go.

I had a hard time grasping what I did, what was different, and I finally figured it out! I allowed the player's thoughts and ideas to become more important to the game than the dice. If the player can't mentally accomplish a goal, or just becomes overwhelmed, we can always use the dice, but we don't have to. People come first, not the system. This philosophy, once it takes hold, changes the dynamics of the game in a positive way. This book really reinforces this principle, and even extends my personal awareness of how far this knowledge can really take us.

Thank you!

After finishing reading the book, my thoughts about it really haven't changed. The book contains a bit of personal history from an original designer; but, it isn't a history book. The book has no mechanics, nor does it tell you how to design worlds; what this book does do is that it describes the engine that makes the game so addictive and allows you, the reader, to understand the engine for yourself. True Genius is much longer than the page count, it is interactive as it requires you to take the ideas presented to continue the thought processes and what they mean to you personally.

The engine itself is larger than Dungeons & Dragons, in fact, Dungeons & Dragons places limitations upon it to stop it from reaching its full potential. The purpose of the game system isn't to help you, the end user, nor does it govern or improve the engine, the primary purpose of Dungeons & Dragons is to sell you Modules and to pretend that it is the best at what it does, when this is far from the truth.

If you are ready for this book, it is here, but beware that it will challenge what you know and encourage you to evolve. It exposes things that other designers know but don't want you to. The only critical issue I have with the book is that I feel that it could had been improved by a harsher editor, I sure wouldn't want that job! On average, most people have a 9^th Grade reading level, however since this is a hobby primarily made up of readers, that average is probably somewhere in the collage level, still, I find it to be a bit too academic minded at times. Some find his word choices to be either intellectually intimidating, or thought provoking. The man is describing something that has never been fully described yet, with ideas as large as this (the engine), language itself is slow to catch up. This barrier has always been an obstacle, going right back to Arneson.

What I was hopping from this book were some insights on Dave's behavior while in the company, which are addressed, very clearly. I also wanted to know what Mr. Arneson's lost notes said, they, regrettably, are gone, but Rob does elude to some motivations of why this is. While those notes have no doubt been destroyed, Rob Kuntz, I believe, does his best to describe the contents of them. They didn't describe D&D, there was no D&D, they attempted to define the engine itself, which, like I said, is the exciting part of this book. This engine is the focus, and it, my friends is a very large yet illusive concept. The intent of the engine wasn't to recreate games that had already happened, it can do that, but as a resource, it is capable of so much more; how much more will only be discovered once we unshackle ourselves from the influences of people who aren't even at our gaming tables.

The target audience for this title is for those who are very very advanced. Those who have noticed the limitations set in place by their system of choice; any system. It is also of interest to those who study the history of our hobby, the information presented here is first-hand accounts, however that is not its goal, outside of helping you grasp what the engine is and how it was restricted right from the gate.

If you are serious, or just on the fence about developing your own designs, as I was; this book will provide motivation and direction. It defies my normal grade standards as it isn't a DM or Player Guide, it isn't something that you can apply to your current system, it is it's own thing. I will, however, state that this book is important. It's ultimate goal overshadows the status quo and forces you to question it. It also sets out to, hopefully, allow the hobby to grow beyond its current stagnation set in place by traditional formulas and be allowed to take greater leaps into future innovative designs. Wouldn't that be nice?

The book itself is only available on the Three Studios webpage if you are waiting for it to come out digitally, I've been told that that isn't going to happen. A Kindle version would had been nice, but for the small press, Amazon takes a huge bite and leaves the Author unfairly compensated.

BONUS LINK: Rob Kuntz Interview with Grognard Games (Video)

Gothic Earth Session 9: Burn The Witches (Experimental Design Notes)

Via Pinterest

This session report is mostly about game design; we tried something new and the players got a ton of work done. I've tried a couple of times to write up the notes into some linear fashion but they always turned into short stories, so instead, I will make this very brief.

In session 8 the players got one over on me. For years I have always been able to get away with mobs. Lynchings involving lots of people are dangerous and wicked things! For the most part, my players have never been able to settle one down; until session 8. Through very good Role-play and quick thinking, the players were able to stop the terrified and riled up citizens of Belalp from playing into the villain's game plan.

From the enemies point of view, this was a well-thought out and calculated move that was critical to the master plan. There are agents operating within the village of Belalp, and one specifically was going to be rewarded that night. They had framed the old woman, instigated a lynching, and planned to use it as a distraction to steal a baby for a vile ritual which would greatly increase the agent's power as well as the mastermind's.

This didn't happen, the mastermind found themselves perilously exposed to discovery, the evidence against the old woman was solid enough to cause a gut reaction but not good enough to withstand any close scrutiny, and no baby was stolen; thus no ritual was performed and the plan was thwarted.

The players definitely earned this win! They now had a chance to force an encounter with the enemy before it had a chance to reach its full potential. The players had been able to give themselves a three-day window to figure out what is going on, identify the enemy agent, and deal with them.

The elements of having the perfect game were there: Allow the agent to steal the baby, accurately predict where the ritual was to take place and catch her and her boss in the act. Of course, we all know that the perfect game is an elusive thing, but the potential was there.

I wanted things to be tense, as well as frantic; I've toyed around with time-based adventures before, but never really was all that happy with the results. My villains had their work cut out for them, they had a lot to do in a very small window, they had to strengthen the evidence against the old women, create another diversion, set the groundwork for a fast and precise kidnapping, and complete the ritual while the old woman burned, preferably along with the PC's.

I decided to try something new, I really enjoy strategy games and I thought that this scenario would fit that format in a very interesting way. Instead of using a clock to count time, the players, and the villains had a limited amount of actions allotted to them to complete their goals.

Now there is a problem with this, strategy games are difficult, you have to experiment for a while until you hit upon formulas that work, D&D is very different. There are no redos in Dungeons & Dragons. There are no take-backs, either. I had to figure out a way to make this game fair for both sides; while I enjoy strategy games, my players might not, and it is them on the hot-seat, not me.

So, I got to designing. I decided that 13 Actions might be enough; it would hopefully give them enough wiggle room to let them make an error or two without the entire thing becoming impossible to win. I wanted a really good challenge, and a difficult game, but not something that was too mentally demanding.

Prior to play, I laid out the ground rules.

Play is broken up into a set number of actions. Day 1 has 3 actions, Days 2 and 3 each have 5.
At the end of the game, Events will play themselves out, independently.
The party is not allowed to split up, each action must be done as a team. This is out of fairness to the enemy who has the same amount of actions as the players do.
Movement Rates are going to be ignored, it is free to walk in all civilized spaces, but there is a charge of 3 actions if one goes out into the wilderness.
There is no need to go out into the wilderness.
While the players are limited in actions, once one is declared, you are allowed as much time as you need to to explore the location and complete the action.

We took our time before beginning, this is a strange playstyle and I wasn't sure if it would work or not, we were play-testing. I let them know that if I feel that the game failed because of something that I did, then we'd replay it in a more traditional game. By the third day I knew that the game had worked.

SECRET RULES

I kept some rules of play a secret for pacing reasons, I also had to keep the game fair. Like I said, D&D doesn't give one much time to think, evidence has to be loud enough so that puzzles can be solved in real-time at the table.

At the end of each day, if they went back to their cabin they got a free turn which was used as a briefing. The NPC ally Dr. Van Helsing would talk with them about what they had figured out. Now Van Helsing, in order to function, had his own motivations and biases. I didn't give anything away, I just asked leading questions so that they could have a better chance of thinking clearly and faster than if they had just been left to ponder this stuff on their own. I did limit the number of times that Van Helsing could eliminate a false lead and point them into a different direction.

In regards to enemy activity, for the most part, I kept it so that when the heroes made a move, the enemy moved at the same time. I had a short list dictating daily objectives for the enemy, however, they were not limited to these actions, they had to be responsive to the players. An attack meant to draw attention to itself would force the players to make a decision, complete their planned action and let the police handle the attack, or investigate the scene itself. As always, my villains played to win. Some enemy actions were just distractions while others were productive. Some went undetected, while others; since the players were close to the locations in question, were noticed.

If at anytime the enemy and the player chose the same location, I would have rolled a secret initiative but this never came up. What I ended up with was a nice clean investigation game, it made in-town exploration exciting, everyone was on the same page, and running the NPCs was a breeze!

The time required to play this scenario out was perfect for the time we had allotted to us, as DM I was able to maintain a strong grip on pacing, which was important because I wanted the players to experience the pressure that their characters were under. They were able to acquire LOTS of information about the village and the people who live there (too much to write here). They had to choose their moves wisely, they did make a few errors which I had expected, but by the last turn I judged that the game had succeeded, they knew who the agent was, what her plan was, now they just had to predict her last move.

The game wasn't perfect for either side. That last turn was one of the most intense moments that I had ever had in D&D, I so wanted to help them, they had almost played the perfect game but this last move had to be precise for them to pull it off. In the end, they made the wrong decision but this was a really difficult game. They still ended up winning. The agent hiding in the village of Belalp was exposed and became a loose end, the mastermind knew that it was just a matter of time before she led the heroes right to them, so the agent was eliminated.

The heroes were able to stop the enemy from thripling its strength, but the agent who eliminated his co-conspirators and former boss is now a local hero as he was able to steal all of the glory from the players and become untouchable.

Over all, this was a very well played game that was demanding on the players' skill to get a job done in a limited amount of time that was simulated perfectly. It was definitely gamey, the mechanics were more out in the open than I normally have them, but it more than made up for it in playability. This is something that I will definitely be doing again.

Balance By Design: It isn't what you think it is

http://mythcreants.com/blog/four-reasons-balance-matters-in-roleplaying-games/

Folks around here hate the word “Balance”, and I get it, there is no movement with balance. I myself am on the record as stating, “When the players can try anything, there is no such thing as balance.” Yet, you look in the books, and you see designers talking about balance all the time, and they insist that it is present.

There is a problem in translation: for most of us laymen, we associate balance with equality. Chess is a seemingly balanced game. Everyone starts out with the same amount of pieces in the exact same spaces and it is all equal until play begins.
Chess, however, from a design standpoint, is not a well-balanced game. It is a game of skill: while two people of the same skill level can enjoy the game, the most skilled player is always going to win. There is no way for me to beat a chess master, I may enjoy getting clobbered, but the skilled gamesman is going to win every time.

To best examine the inner-workings of game balance as it applies to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (since it is such a hidden system), we'll look at another game that is popular and itself providing a giant leap in game design: Axis & Allies (A&A). There is no game master, so the rules controlling the game are all out in the open, it hides nothing. A&A is a strategy game, but like D&D, it is also both a team and an individual game.

http://avalonhill.wizards.com/games/axis-and-allies

Setting up the game and playing it for the first time, A&A doesn't appear to be balanced at all, however, it is, very beautifully so. On the surface you've got the Axis powers, they appear to have the best position: their forces are centralized and they have the most powerful military, however, as the game progresses this balance will shift during play. The Allies are able to build units more quickly than the Axis.

The early game favors the Axis
The middle is equal
The late game favors the Allies.

The balance of the game isn't fixed, it fluctuates, thus it dictates different strategies. The Axis have a limited amount of time to win the game through offensive force, while the Allies are playing a defensive game, slowing down the game as much as possible to give them time to gather their strength. That is a balanced design.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/126739/axis-allies

The balance in the game isn't equal; play is dynamic and allows everyone to play the game on equal terms, regardless of skill level. Sure the odds are in favor of the most skilled player, but they can choose more difficult countries to run, and give less skilled players the easier ones. Victory isn't just dictated by skill alone, nor does it depend simply on luck, these things factor in, but that is what makes this game so playable.

More in relation to D&D, A&A is a team game, if the players who are playing the Allies don't work together, they are going to get annihilated. Like the D&D Fighter, you have England, it has a huge army, however, it is scattered around the map, not centralized like Germany. England has to give its allies enough time to build up their forces, but at the same time, if they sacrifice too much then their removal from the board will cause the downfall of the Allied forces.

You have the United States that begins play much like the wizard class, it is weak but it has the potential to become the strongest force on the board, but even at its most powerful, it still needs England. Each nation has it's own group strategy, as well as a personal strategy. Each nation is different, some are so difficult it is almost impossible to play, but skilled A&A players gain respect if they are able to master them.

This is all esoteric really. Let's move on to something that more closely resembles D&D.

The majority of users don't play wargames, but the original designers did. Wargames teach you a new definition of balance and how it applies to the D&D system. Let's set up a simple scenario:

You've got a Prince returning from war, he's been gone for a few years and the Regent really doesn't want him to return, everything was going so great without the Prince!

We'll set up our scenario out in the open, the Regent has chosen a spot to do battle on the road. He wants a nice open space to use his superior numbers to his advantage. His units out number the units of the Prince three-to-one.

To make things interesting, we'll give the Princes men more skill and a higher morale rating than the Regents troops.

Who is going to win? Will the Regent's numbers overwhelm the Prince's elite but battered troops? Or will the Prince be able to break the Regent's defenses and move on to retake the capital? We don't know. We could probably run this simple scenario a few times and have different results each time. That makes things interesting, and while it doesn't appear to be balanced on the surface, it is.

If this battle was perfectly even, we could decide it all with a percentile dice, but since each side has weaknesses and strengths, we have an interesting scenario that is worth running on our table.

Balance isn't about keeping things fair, it is about keeping the game interesting.

If we introduce a dragon to first level characters, we should strive to end up with a scenario that they will lose, but can survive if they are skillful and a little lucky. Something has to be there which allows escape or an equalizer of some kind, even if that strategy is to run like hell and regroup.

But are the players actually beaten? Now the players know what they are up against, and can start a defensive game to minimize the creature's influence until the players feel they are strong enough to challenge its power or come up with a scheme which gives them an advantage over the more powerful opponent. The DM can kill them at any time, but what would the point of that be? In this case, we balance player skill vs. the chaotic might of a dragon. Who is going to win? We don't know, not until we run it.

Balance has nothing to do with keeping the game fair, or even. A high-level wizard is still going to need the protection of the fighter if he doesn't then why make the fighter play at all? On the same note, the low-level wizard is still able to contribute, he isn't just a liability. This is balanced as well, but that enforces the idea of teamwork and really isn't our problem. The players still have to pick their moves based on individual and group benefits. The better the team, the cooler the adventures that they are going to have.

Additional Links:

Nerd out with me: 'Axis & Allies' - A Buyers Guide