The PCs in my Felltower game have defeated a 28' tall storm giant. He's badly wounded and unconscious, but not in any immediate danger of dying. In all likelihood, left alone, he'll recover enough to get up and move about on his own.
There is a very high likelihood they'll just deliver a coup de grace while he's out.
But there is a distinct possibility they'll try to restrain him and question him.
I thought I'd throw open the comments here to suggestions on how to do that.
They do have access to:
- Gift of Tongues
- Gift of Letters
- a PC with Interrogation, so their rolls shouldn't suck when they need to make them.
- probably a lot of rope, but not necessarily rope that'll hold a giant several times stronger than even the strongest of the PCs - he did 8d+11 swinging his war club.
They don't have access to:
- Compel Truth (anyway he's 5x cost to cast on, so . . . )
Any ideas people want to share? Game is Sunday.
Showing posts with label PC tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PC tips. Show all posts
Friday, June 6, 2025
Monday, November 25, 2024
Melee Academy: Three ways to dispose of worthy foes in DF Felltower
I just felt like writing this right now. It overlaps some other posts I've written, which I'll back-link to when I have a bit of time to pull them up.
A few of my players are very fond of "hit them in the hit points;" in other words, torso attacks. -0 to hit, no "wasted" damage, and pushing foes to -5 x HP is a certain way to get rid of them in the end. Nothing fancy, but it works.
It is a bit slow, though, and can turn mook aka fodder fights into slogs as you try to deal 6 x HP in injury x the number of foes. For a mere dozen foes with 12 HP each that's 840 injury . . . even at 3-4d + 10 that'll take a bit of time and usually multiple hits per target.
Add in worthy foes with higher HP and higher DR - say HP 18-20 and DR 4-6, and you're talking about an afternoon's gaming to defeat a bunch of foes.
How to deal with them more quickly? How to put them hors de combat efficiently? Or just how to render them ineffective as opponents?
Here are three ways to put foes in a bad way, quickly.
Sweep the leg! Limb shots are pretty good - legs, especially. They're only -2 to hit, and it takes only injury exceeding HP/2 to cripple the leg.
Where players tend to flub this one is both wanting a "cheap kill" by taking someone down with a leg shot, but also wanting an actual kill kill. In other words, crippling a leg can make a fighter much less effectiveness, but not totally ineffective in a fight. So it might just lower the target's defenses because they're prone or sitting, and limit their tactical movement, but not take them out entirely. It's a mobility kill, but not a kill.
For some foes, it's enough - they'll stay down if they lose a leg. For others, they'll do their best black knight impression and try to do you for that. And if you're going to murder them anyway, and they have reason to believe it (like, you do it to their friends earlier in the fight), what are the odds they'll just give up?
If your head comes away from your neck, it's over. Fatal shots do pretty well, obviously. Neck (-5) and Skull (-7) are excellent ways to drop a foe in a shot or two. Even if they don't take the guy out instantly, they can deal so much damage the foe will be making steady, penalized consciousness checks to keep fighting. Actually, Vitals (-3) attacks with high-damage impaling melee weapons are pretty uncommon in my experience. Guys doing 4d+10 don't like doing 2d+8, even if what gets through armor triples. But it's a good way to inflict a major wound on a foe with a penalty of -5 . . . and missing by 5 knocks you out. Even a moderate-to-high-HT foe is making a tough roll, here. The tougher targets means less Deceptive Attack to inflict on your foes, but if you get through, you have a better chance to end their ability to affect the fight.
If you love someone, better set them on fire. It only takes 2d fire damage to potentially set someone completely on fire - 10+ damage. You have a 50% chance of it with 3d. 4d is much more reliable, and will do it around 90% of the time. The foe will be fully engulfed in flame, which should keep them busy. It does have a tendency to ruin loot - if you're depending on selling their armor, clothes, and wooden weapons this is a bad idea. But it can reduce even an armored foe to uselessness as they try to put out the flames. 3+ damage will set something on fire, but 10+ is what you want - -3 to DX rolls and 1d-1 per second in damage. That'll add up quickly.
These are not the only ways to deal with foes, but all three have something in common - they make the foe much less able to affect the fight around them if not take them out entirely. They're worth considering when you want to win quickly.
A few of my players are very fond of "hit them in the hit points;" in other words, torso attacks. -0 to hit, no "wasted" damage, and pushing foes to -5 x HP is a certain way to get rid of them in the end. Nothing fancy, but it works.
It is a bit slow, though, and can turn mook aka fodder fights into slogs as you try to deal 6 x HP in injury x the number of foes. For a mere dozen foes with 12 HP each that's 840 injury . . . even at 3-4d + 10 that'll take a bit of time and usually multiple hits per target.
Add in worthy foes with higher HP and higher DR - say HP 18-20 and DR 4-6, and you're talking about an afternoon's gaming to defeat a bunch of foes.
How to deal with them more quickly? How to put them hors de combat efficiently? Or just how to render them ineffective as opponents?
Here are three ways to put foes in a bad way, quickly.
Sweep the leg! Limb shots are pretty good - legs, especially. They're only -2 to hit, and it takes only injury exceeding HP/2 to cripple the leg.
Where players tend to flub this one is both wanting a "cheap kill" by taking someone down with a leg shot, but also wanting an actual kill kill. In other words, crippling a leg can make a fighter much less effectiveness, but not totally ineffective in a fight. So it might just lower the target's defenses because they're prone or sitting, and limit their tactical movement, but not take them out entirely. It's a mobility kill, but not a kill.
For some foes, it's enough - they'll stay down if they lose a leg. For others, they'll do their best black knight impression and try to do you for that. And if you're going to murder them anyway, and they have reason to believe it (like, you do it to their friends earlier in the fight), what are the odds they'll just give up?
If your head comes away from your neck, it's over. Fatal shots do pretty well, obviously. Neck (-5) and Skull (-7) are excellent ways to drop a foe in a shot or two. Even if they don't take the guy out instantly, they can deal so much damage the foe will be making steady, penalized consciousness checks to keep fighting. Actually, Vitals (-3) attacks with high-damage impaling melee weapons are pretty uncommon in my experience. Guys doing 4d+10 don't like doing 2d+8, even if what gets through armor triples. But it's a good way to inflict a major wound on a foe with a penalty of -5 . . . and missing by 5 knocks you out. Even a moderate-to-high-HT foe is making a tough roll, here. The tougher targets means less Deceptive Attack to inflict on your foes, but if you get through, you have a better chance to end their ability to affect the fight.
If you love someone, better set them on fire. It only takes 2d fire damage to potentially set someone completely on fire - 10+ damage. You have a 50% chance of it with 3d. 4d is much more reliable, and will do it around 90% of the time. The foe will be fully engulfed in flame, which should keep them busy. It does have a tendency to ruin loot - if you're depending on selling their armor, clothes, and wooden weapons this is a bad idea. But it can reduce even an armored foe to uselessness as they try to put out the flames. 3+ damage will set something on fire, but 10+ is what you want - -3 to DX rolls and 1d-1 per second in damage. That'll add up quickly.
These are not the only ways to deal with foes, but all three have something in common - they make the foe much less able to affect the fight around them if not take them out entirely. They're worth considering when you want to win quickly.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
How to use hirelings to boost a Felltower Party: GM's View
This is a GM's view of a useful way to use hirelings in DF Felltower. I'm focusing especially 62-point hirelings, since they're pretty much available in large amounts in a way that 125 point ones are not. Expected additional reading: What are Hirelings Good For?
Repeat after me: Hirelings are Not PCs
One of the biggest issues I see is expecting too much of hirelings. I've heard of walls of polearm-armed NPCs keeping the enemy back, archers or crossbowmen keeping the enemy pinned down (I think that's much more a modern rapid-fire firearms idea, anyway) or "sniping," backstabbing foes, etc.
The thing is, 62-point hirelings are boderline fodder or actually fodder vs. 250 point delvers, depending on how efficiently built for combat they are. Against 300 point delvers, they're fodder. Why is that important? Because they're at best better than 1:1 equal with fodder, but more likely 1:1 equal with fodder. They aren't 1:1 equal against worthy opponents. If orcs are fodder, ogres are worthy. If large spiders are fodder, giant spiders are worthy. If goblins are fodder, trolls are worthy. Is your 62-point hireling equal to an ogre or a giant spider or a troll? No.
So don't expect them to accomplish anything more in combat than an equal number of fodder opponents.
So what are they good for?
Largely, freeing up PCs to do PC things.
Hirelings can be best used in Felltower, in my opinion, to do the following:
- Covering the flanks. In a place like Felltower, this is largely acting as a rear-guard tripwire, and watching crossing hallways to keep the PCs from being surprised - or at least reduce the odds of that. This also slows down any attackers until the PCs can turn around on them and engage. It's unlikely they'd win a fight, but they can provide valuable assistance just by starting the fight before the threat reaches the PCs.
Guards are your template of choice for this situation.
- Carrying the loot and the bodies. Way too often, the PCs depend on PCs to carry loot, carry out unconcious buddies, and carry out the slain. Worse, it's often getting a badly wounded PC concious despite being at negative HP and just hoping they can limp to safety. Having some NPCs - especially those designed to do so - carry stuff is helpful. Laborers are rarely considered because people assume that arms-carrying mercenaries are happy to stop being warriors and start being laborers. They might tolerate it, even willingly do it thanks to high Loyalty, but a guy with ST 12 and armor and weapons and a shield has less carrying capacity than a lightly-clad lightly-armed laborer with ST 13 and Lifting ST 2.
- Junk Work. Guarding the camp probably takes an actual Guard, while minding the rations and the left-behind loot is a good job for Servants. But when a job needs doing, and the sessions devolves into "I don't want to discuss how we do (X or Y or Z) for 10 minutes" the answer probably is a cheap NPC doing it, instead. Leaving NPCs behind policing up the battlefield, guarded by a few guards, is risky and has drawbacks, but if you need the PCs immediately in another battle, at least it's getting done somehow. Having an NPC to routinely guard camp spares the 10 minutes spent discussing how you'll conceal your stuff left outside the dungeon. And so on.
The rest of the potential uses? Makeweight combatants, augmenting the front lines, etc.? Generally a bit of a waste in a high-lethality situation like Felltower itself. They're useful when you need to cover lots of angles of attack and slow down the enemy, but they aren't going to win you a fight. They can reduce the cost of such a fight, and let the PCs focus on what they need to focus on.
In other words, let the PCs do their jobs, but have NPCs be your eyes, ears, and hands for the flanks, rear, and loot. Bringing your own fodder to the main battle is good, but better is preventing the enemy from flanking you because your NPCs block the corridor for a time. Having some crossbowmen shoot at the enemy (and all the time that takes in actual play for the GM resolving it!) is nice, but nicer is having your Scout shoot at the enemy while your fodder prevents the enemy from charging straight in. Having your knights and barbarians fight instead of carrying your unconcious buddies and the loot sure beats anything else.
Pro Tips:
Have the Leader PC do the Hiring. Loyalty is set based on the reaction roll of the hiring PC; this PC should also be the leader. "We tell them to listen to any of us" sounds great, but in a fight, who do they turn to? Everyone? Anyone? "Listen to any of us" quickly becomes "Do whatever seems useful to someone at the moment." Better they have a set leader, who then delegates authority in non-combat situations.
Have a good mix. Don't just hire 10 laborers or 10 guards or 10 torch bearers. Get a mix depending on what you actually need.
Tell the GM ahead of time. If the GM is sitting down to play, the GM won't have so much time to generate NPCs and load in tokens and give them names and so on. VTT is slower on the setup than physical play.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong, but it's what I see from my side of the screen.
Repeat after me: Hirelings are Not PCs
One of the biggest issues I see is expecting too much of hirelings. I've heard of walls of polearm-armed NPCs keeping the enemy back, archers or crossbowmen keeping the enemy pinned down (I think that's much more a modern rapid-fire firearms idea, anyway) or "sniping," backstabbing foes, etc.
The thing is, 62-point hirelings are boderline fodder or actually fodder vs. 250 point delvers, depending on how efficiently built for combat they are. Against 300 point delvers, they're fodder. Why is that important? Because they're at best better than 1:1 equal with fodder, but more likely 1:1 equal with fodder. They aren't 1:1 equal against worthy opponents. If orcs are fodder, ogres are worthy. If large spiders are fodder, giant spiders are worthy. If goblins are fodder, trolls are worthy. Is your 62-point hireling equal to an ogre or a giant spider or a troll? No.
So don't expect them to accomplish anything more in combat than an equal number of fodder opponents.
So what are they good for?
Largely, freeing up PCs to do PC things.
Hirelings can be best used in Felltower, in my opinion, to do the following:
- Covering the flanks. In a place like Felltower, this is largely acting as a rear-guard tripwire, and watching crossing hallways to keep the PCs from being surprised - or at least reduce the odds of that. This also slows down any attackers until the PCs can turn around on them and engage. It's unlikely they'd win a fight, but they can provide valuable assistance just by starting the fight before the threat reaches the PCs.
Guards are your template of choice for this situation.
- Carrying the loot and the bodies. Way too often, the PCs depend on PCs to carry loot, carry out unconcious buddies, and carry out the slain. Worse, it's often getting a badly wounded PC concious despite being at negative HP and just hoping they can limp to safety. Having some NPCs - especially those designed to do so - carry stuff is helpful. Laborers are rarely considered because people assume that arms-carrying mercenaries are happy to stop being warriors and start being laborers. They might tolerate it, even willingly do it thanks to high Loyalty, but a guy with ST 12 and armor and weapons and a shield has less carrying capacity than a lightly-clad lightly-armed laborer with ST 13 and Lifting ST 2.
- Junk Work. Guarding the camp probably takes an actual Guard, while minding the rations and the left-behind loot is a good job for Servants. But when a job needs doing, and the sessions devolves into "I don't want to discuss how we do (X or Y or Z) for 10 minutes" the answer probably is a cheap NPC doing it, instead. Leaving NPCs behind policing up the battlefield, guarded by a few guards, is risky and has drawbacks, but if you need the PCs immediately in another battle, at least it's getting done somehow. Having an NPC to routinely guard camp spares the 10 minutes spent discussing how you'll conceal your stuff left outside the dungeon. And so on.
The rest of the potential uses? Makeweight combatants, augmenting the front lines, etc.? Generally a bit of a waste in a high-lethality situation like Felltower itself. They're useful when you need to cover lots of angles of attack and slow down the enemy, but they aren't going to win you a fight. They can reduce the cost of such a fight, and let the PCs focus on what they need to focus on.
In other words, let the PCs do their jobs, but have NPCs be your eyes, ears, and hands for the flanks, rear, and loot. Bringing your own fodder to the main battle is good, but better is preventing the enemy from flanking you because your NPCs block the corridor for a time. Having some crossbowmen shoot at the enemy (and all the time that takes in actual play for the GM resolving it!) is nice, but nicer is having your Scout shoot at the enemy while your fodder prevents the enemy from charging straight in. Having your knights and barbarians fight instead of carrying your unconcious buddies and the loot sure beats anything else.
Pro Tips:
Have the Leader PC do the Hiring. Loyalty is set based on the reaction roll of the hiring PC; this PC should also be the leader. "We tell them to listen to any of us" sounds great, but in a fight, who do they turn to? Everyone? Anyone? "Listen to any of us" quickly becomes "Do whatever seems useful to someone at the moment." Better they have a set leader, who then delegates authority in non-combat situations.
Have a good mix. Don't just hire 10 laborers or 10 guards or 10 torch bearers. Get a mix depending on what you actually need.
Tell the GM ahead of time. If the GM is sitting down to play, the GM won't have so much time to generate NPCs and load in tokens and give them names and so on. VTT is slower on the setup than physical play.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong, but it's what I see from my side of the screen.
Saturday, October 12, 2024
Who Gets the Magic Item You Found? - Addenda
This is related to Who Gets the Magic Item You Found?
Who is actually going to use it?
Another option for handing out magic items is simply, who will actually use it? This approach hands off items - especially charged or consumable items, although not always - to the person most likely to actually use it. Yes, the high-DX Thief might actually be the best person to give a grenade-type potion to, but if the Thief isn't ever going to be ready to throw it, it's not a great choice. The wizard might be the most likely to use a wand, even if giving it to another PC means you have multiple sources of magical attack. The cleric might benefit the most from an undead-turning item, but if the cleric will generally end up healing and not turning, giving it to someone else might be a better solution. Somethings this isn't template or character based, but player based - some players are more likely to hold on to items until they really need it, others to use it whever it seems like a good choice. Conversely, you might keep certain items away from certain PCs or players because they're unlikely to use it well - the guy who insists on using his new-fangled Wand of Fireballs every fight, or who tosses back rare potions just to get to use them up. This approach chooses actually basic utility over maximal utility, either chosen to avoid waste or avoid lack of use.
Finders, Keepers
Even in a cooperative game, sometimes the person who gets it is the person who finds it. Or the group that finds in. In a rotating cast of PCs game, a delve might leave out the dwarf fighter because that player is busy on game day, only to find dwarf-sized magic armor . . . and sell it, trade it, or give it to some dwarf NPC because the PC wasn't around to earn it. You may have to have some part in the finding to have any part of the keeping.
Any I missed, in this post or the previous one?
Who is actually going to use it?
Another option for handing out magic items is simply, who will actually use it? This approach hands off items - especially charged or consumable items, although not always - to the person most likely to actually use it. Yes, the high-DX Thief might actually be the best person to give a grenade-type potion to, but if the Thief isn't ever going to be ready to throw it, it's not a great choice. The wizard might be the most likely to use a wand, even if giving it to another PC means you have multiple sources of magical attack. The cleric might benefit the most from an undead-turning item, but if the cleric will generally end up healing and not turning, giving it to someone else might be a better solution. Somethings this isn't template or character based, but player based - some players are more likely to hold on to items until they really need it, others to use it whever it seems like a good choice. Conversely, you might keep certain items away from certain PCs or players because they're unlikely to use it well - the guy who insists on using his new-fangled Wand of Fireballs every fight, or who tosses back rare potions just to get to use them up. This approach chooses actually basic utility over maximal utility, either chosen to avoid waste or avoid lack of use.
Finders, Keepers
Even in a cooperative game, sometimes the person who gets it is the person who finds it. Or the group that finds in. In a rotating cast of PCs game, a delve might leave out the dwarf fighter because that player is busy on game day, only to find dwarf-sized magic armor . . . and sell it, trade it, or give it to some dwarf NPC because the PC wasn't around to earn it. You may have to have some part in the finding to have any part of the keeping.
Any I missed, in this post or the previous one?
Sunday, March 10, 2024
What it takes to live & thrive in Felltower, Part II: Players
This is part II of my series on what it takes - from the ref's point of view - to succeed in Felltower.
Here is Part I.
What does it take to be a successful player in Felltower?
This is what I think, looking from the GM's side of the screen. I think two things are critical for success, and one, for enjoying the game.
Creative Thinking
Felltower rewards flexibility and creative thinking. It's a simple framework - monsters in rooms with treasure. But it's not a simple game. You need to be able to look past the easy answers. If you solve your problems by looking at your character sheet to see what you character can roll against, you're likely limiting your own options. You really need to look at the situation in the totality of what a being could do in that situation, and then narrow it down from there by what you can accomplish given your tools and skills. Too often people get hypnotised by the stats and skills on their streets. And this isn't a GURPS thing. Any time you have things to use or roll against, you look to use them or roll against them. If you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. In Felltower, this can sometimes be, "If I didn't bring the tool or the spell or the skill, it can't be done until next time when we do." It's a self-imposed creativity constraint.*
You need the ability to simplify. A lot of the problems of Felltower - puzzles, monster issues, factional conflicts, character limitations, whatever - seem complex. Some of them actual are. Most are not. Felltower rewards players who can identify a way to get simply to the heart of the matter. What is your goal, and how can you get to that goal?
This isn't to say you have to play a simple game. You can't just, say, exterminate everything you face and expect it to go well. But overthinking can lead to issues - wether it is causing yourself a long, drawn out journey to avoid facing a problem head on, to talking yourself into truly bizarre solution attempts - like throwing a key at a door to try to open it.
You do have to think . . . and be clever . . . but avoid overthinking. You have to avoid the dangerous either extreme of oversimplifying and overthinking. Keep in mind here that when I write for Felltower, I really don't put a lot of thought into how a problem will be solved. I put them out there and see what happens. There might be a key for that door, or not. There might be a clever way around a situation, or not. I often don't know . . . some trying to discern the solution isn't helpful; trying to create a solution is. Sometimes that solution is very simple - break down the door, kill the monster, disarm the trap, grab the treasure. Other times, it is not.
An aside on engineering: All of that said, it's a dungeon exploration game, not a construction game - I've seen a lot of "creative solutions" that were just using magic and brute force to dig through obstacles. The game is designed to make that difficult and to generally punish the attempt; if Felltower is like a video game, it's Diablo, not Dig Dug.
Boldness
Caution is certainly important. But there are huge opportunity costs to not taking risks in Felltower. All success in Felltower comes from taking risks, not from playing it safe. Let me put it another way - in the long run, anyone who delves in Felltower eventually dies, unless the player just quits or retires the character.
Given this, it's understandable that players might play with great caution - this is a very risky environment. But it's a false choice, really. If your paper man is going to die eventually, no matter how cautiously you play, you aren't gaining your desired end - longevity of your paper man - by being maximally cautious. You might even be shortening it, by playing a succession of sessions that each pull in very little XP, very little treasure, and don't pave the way for future gains. Starved of XP, the PC doesn't improve. Starved of funds, equipment can't be easily replaced or upgraded. And starved of success in the dungeon, it's less and less likely you'll want to play.
You have to be willing to bet the "life" of your paper man. I've long argued that from my side of the screen, I see a lot of strategic caution and a lot of tactical risk. Felltower is built to reward strategic boldness and tactical caution. That's not just fighting in hallways and bottlenecking foes into doorways. My players over the years have turned to tactical caution, but strategic caution + tactical caution doesn't work any better. It's what leads to resting in the dungeon in a dead end so no one can sneak up on you, when neither resting nor cornering yourself lead anywhere good.
Being unwilling to fully commit is a related issue. You have to be willing to push your chips in when it matters. You can't wait for the perfect time because it's never the perfect time. There are bad times to do things, but no perfect times to do things. A delve or two from now, you'll wish you did the thing this time.
Felltower is designed as a pick-up game, lethal, on "hard mode," and generally a erring on the less-serious side of the serious-silly spectrum. It's not above being meta, having the world designed to support the play style, and otherwise being a construct for a style of play. It's not a long term, serious fantasy campaign with long-lasting characters. You can try to play it that way, but ultimately, it's going to fail. There is way too much baked in to the premise to undo with roleplaying and heroic characters intended for long-term play. The adventure in Felltower - the intended source of fun - is the experience of the good and bad happening to PCs. It's a meta kind of fun. You, the player, should enjoy the discoveries, the riches, the wins, and the losses. The PC is a tool to do that job. You don't have to play it that way . . . but the game will revert to form.
Finally, you need a Sense of Humor. It's a dumb game, deliberately. You have to be willing to have you, or the dice, or your friend, do something mind-bogglingly frustratingly stupid to your guy . . . and laugh. Straight-up enjoy it. If you can't, this isn't the game for you. It's just a way for those of us who are already friends to do some activity together that's entertaining for a few hours. It's satisfying when you win. It's annoying when you lose. But it better be fun the whole time. Taking it all too seriously is a bad idea.
* I'm a big believer in the ability of constraints to help teach physical skills, though - but that's not the same thing as you get in a TTRPG.
Here is Part I.
What does it take to be a successful player in Felltower?
This is what I think, looking from the GM's side of the screen. I think two things are critical for success, and one, for enjoying the game.
Creative Thinking
Felltower rewards flexibility and creative thinking. It's a simple framework - monsters in rooms with treasure. But it's not a simple game. You need to be able to look past the easy answers. If you solve your problems by looking at your character sheet to see what you character can roll against, you're likely limiting your own options. You really need to look at the situation in the totality of what a being could do in that situation, and then narrow it down from there by what you can accomplish given your tools and skills. Too often people get hypnotised by the stats and skills on their streets. And this isn't a GURPS thing. Any time you have things to use or roll against, you look to use them or roll against them. If you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. In Felltower, this can sometimes be, "If I didn't bring the tool or the spell or the skill, it can't be done until next time when we do." It's a self-imposed creativity constraint.*
You need the ability to simplify. A lot of the problems of Felltower - puzzles, monster issues, factional conflicts, character limitations, whatever - seem complex. Some of them actual are. Most are not. Felltower rewards players who can identify a way to get simply to the heart of the matter. What is your goal, and how can you get to that goal?
This isn't to say you have to play a simple game. You can't just, say, exterminate everything you face and expect it to go well. But overthinking can lead to issues - wether it is causing yourself a long, drawn out journey to avoid facing a problem head on, to talking yourself into truly bizarre solution attempts - like throwing a key at a door to try to open it.
You do have to think . . . and be clever . . . but avoid overthinking. You have to avoid the dangerous either extreme of oversimplifying and overthinking. Keep in mind here that when I write for Felltower, I really don't put a lot of thought into how a problem will be solved. I put them out there and see what happens. There might be a key for that door, or not. There might be a clever way around a situation, or not. I often don't know . . . some trying to discern the solution isn't helpful; trying to create a solution is. Sometimes that solution is very simple - break down the door, kill the monster, disarm the trap, grab the treasure. Other times, it is not.
An aside on engineering: All of that said, it's a dungeon exploration game, not a construction game - I've seen a lot of "creative solutions" that were just using magic and brute force to dig through obstacles. The game is designed to make that difficult and to generally punish the attempt; if Felltower is like a video game, it's Diablo, not Dig Dug.
Boldness
Caution is certainly important. But there are huge opportunity costs to not taking risks in Felltower. All success in Felltower comes from taking risks, not from playing it safe. Let me put it another way - in the long run, anyone who delves in Felltower eventually dies, unless the player just quits or retires the character.
Given this, it's understandable that players might play with great caution - this is a very risky environment. But it's a false choice, really. If your paper man is going to die eventually, no matter how cautiously you play, you aren't gaining your desired end - longevity of your paper man - by being maximally cautious. You might even be shortening it, by playing a succession of sessions that each pull in very little XP, very little treasure, and don't pave the way for future gains. Starved of XP, the PC doesn't improve. Starved of funds, equipment can't be easily replaced or upgraded. And starved of success in the dungeon, it's less and less likely you'll want to play.
You have to be willing to bet the "life" of your paper man. I've long argued that from my side of the screen, I see a lot of strategic caution and a lot of tactical risk. Felltower is built to reward strategic boldness and tactical caution. That's not just fighting in hallways and bottlenecking foes into doorways. My players over the years have turned to tactical caution, but strategic caution + tactical caution doesn't work any better. It's what leads to resting in the dungeon in a dead end so no one can sneak up on you, when neither resting nor cornering yourself lead anywhere good.
Being unwilling to fully commit is a related issue. You have to be willing to push your chips in when it matters. You can't wait for the perfect time because it's never the perfect time. There are bad times to do things, but no perfect times to do things. A delve or two from now, you'll wish you did the thing this time.
Felltower is designed as a pick-up game, lethal, on "hard mode," and generally a erring on the less-serious side of the serious-silly spectrum. It's not above being meta, having the world designed to support the play style, and otherwise being a construct for a style of play. It's not a long term, serious fantasy campaign with long-lasting characters. You can try to play it that way, but ultimately, it's going to fail. There is way too much baked in to the premise to undo with roleplaying and heroic characters intended for long-term play. The adventure in Felltower - the intended source of fun - is the experience of the good and bad happening to PCs. It's a meta kind of fun. You, the player, should enjoy the discoveries, the riches, the wins, and the losses. The PC is a tool to do that job. You don't have to play it that way . . . but the game will revert to form.
Finally, you need a Sense of Humor. It's a dumb game, deliberately. You have to be willing to have you, or the dice, or your friend, do something mind-bogglingly frustratingly stupid to your guy . . . and laugh. Straight-up enjoy it. If you can't, this isn't the game for you. It's just a way for those of us who are already friends to do some activity together that's entertaining for a few hours. It's satisfying when you win. It's annoying when you lose. But it better be fun the whole time. Taking it all too seriously is a bad idea.
* I'm a big believer in the ability of constraints to help teach physical skills, though - but that's not the same thing as you get in a TTRPG.
Sunday, March 3, 2024
What it takes to live & thrive in Felltower, Part I: Characters
Felltower is a tough, tough place. It has a graveyard list that dwarfs the pool of available, current PCs. The only real-world Felltower swag I know of is a I Died in Felltower sweatshirt someone had made. Eventually, everyone seems to end up on the graveyard list at least once . . . and the lucky few don't end their careers as an entry on it. Most do.
The environment is proudly DF on hard mode. It's old school in some of the worst ways. A neutral referee, a hostile environment, and cruel rulings. It plays fair in the sense that the rules aren't broken for the environment, but it's set to harsh.
But what would help you gain success in Felltower, besides quitting while you're ahead or just not entering the place at all?
For characters, here is the referee's view of the situation.
Statistics
Really, any level of stats are fine . . . as long as they are at least a 10+. That said:
ST is really helpful. High ST delivers damage. Importantly, it also helps open doors (see Forced Entry in skills, below) and carry your dead friends and your loot.
HT is a double-edged sword. It's mostly good, but the longer you stay standing in a fight going bad for you, the more you get shredded down towards instant death. Still, you're better off with it, and it's worth the 10/level it costs you. Templates don't come with HT under 12, and you shouldn't, either.
Secondary Characteristics
Perception is key. Noticing danger is critical, and finding hidden loot isn't always as simple as just casting See Secrets. You want 10+, preferably 12+, and 14+ is necessary for a group. Combat Reflexes will negate some of the issues with getting attacked by surprise, but won't help you spot an attack coming out of the darkness or from a blind spot. And there are some amusing treasures people have literally walked past since 2012 without noticing because they're dependent on insufficiently high Perception and magical support that doesn't always work.
Will is vital. There aren't a huge amount of Will-affecting abilities and spells deployed against your paper man in Felltower, but they're all save-or-suck. You can coast on your Knight's 10 for a while, but in the end it will limit where you can go and how much your friends have to plan to do to you when the bad guys make you change sides. You won't get out of mental domination by evil with Sense of Duty as a get out of jail free card. It's not that kind of game.
Hit Points aren't as critical as you think. From a breakpoint perspective, you want 20+ for any fighter type for the doubling of healing effects . . . although this does double your damage from falls (see The Bigger They Are . . ., Exploits, p. 67)
That said, while being fragile doesn't help any, you'll find a lot of high-HP guys in the graveyard alongside low-HP guys. It provides a buffer but errors that cost HP will get you even with 40+ HP. IIRC Bruce was closing in on 50 HP and he's dead . . . he would have died if he'd had 100 HP in that situation. High HP, like high DR or HT, can fool you into thinking you're invulnerable. Bring all the HP you can but they're not enough on their own.
Move is critical. Oh, I mean Speed, right? Or Basic Move? No, Move. Your actual Move will determine your ability to exploit tactical advantages, or escape fights you don't want, or don't want anymore. It's a combination of encumbrance (see, ST) and Speed. Being slow will always be a liability. The PCs with the most mobility tend to last the longest and have the most impact.
Skills
PCs will get further with everyone having all - or at least most - of these skills. Magic can sometimes substitute, but you really need:
Climbing comes up so often that it has halted play as people try to magic their way around poor or lacking Climbing skill. This leads to less actual time spent killing and looting, has forced extra rest times in the dungeon because of FP expended to make up for the poor or lacking skill, and fights with treasure-free wandering monsters that occured because of extra time in the dungeon. We've made Levitation much easier to do but it's not always the answer.
Swimming - PCs have died without it, and arguments that it's not worth it are really funny when your paper man dies because you wouldn't spend 1 point out of the 305 you start with.
Forced Entry is important for a party. At least one person will need a solid skill, here. It's effectively ST-based, and until you put enough points to be ST+1 it's the same as just rolling ST . . . but it's cheaper than extra ST for a few bonus points on those rolls and a lot of extra damage when breaking things. I've had players disagree with me, here, and agree but not spend the points . . . but I've seen plenty of doors hacked or plans changed because they couldn't force the door. That works, too, but again, Wandering Monsters bring damage but not treasure.
Search is more useful than most people suspect; you can't depend on pure Perception to find hidden things. And "real quick we check the bodies" is a gaming and video gaming thing; it takes a while to find pea-sized gems or hidden coins or other small bits and doodads on a person.
Fast-Draw (Potion) will literally save your life. You need this if you expect to get hit while carrying healing potions. Do that and have this skill.
Diplomacy isn't critical unless you want to negotiate; since most players seem to default this it's not helpful if your PC does, too. Don't make these mistakes, especially without any skill to back it up. Intimidation won't always get you what you want.
Those aren't the only skills you need, but they're standout ones that don't get enough attention in my experience, and which aren't always required on the templates.
Hopefully this will help my players, any readers who in the future become players (okay, that basically only happened with Doug and Vic), or spark your own ideas and comments for your own games.
Part II will be next week, on the next Felltower Sunday.
The environment is proudly DF on hard mode. It's old school in some of the worst ways. A neutral referee, a hostile environment, and cruel rulings. It plays fair in the sense that the rules aren't broken for the environment, but it's set to harsh.
But what would help you gain success in Felltower, besides quitting while you're ahead or just not entering the place at all?
For characters, here is the referee's view of the situation.
Statistics
Really, any level of stats are fine . . . as long as they are at least a 10+. That said:
ST is really helpful. High ST delivers damage. Importantly, it also helps open doors (see Forced Entry in skills, below) and carry your dead friends and your loot.
HT is a double-edged sword. It's mostly good, but the longer you stay standing in a fight going bad for you, the more you get shredded down towards instant death. Still, you're better off with it, and it's worth the 10/level it costs you. Templates don't come with HT under 12, and you shouldn't, either.
Secondary Characteristics
Perception is key. Noticing danger is critical, and finding hidden loot isn't always as simple as just casting See Secrets. You want 10+, preferably 12+, and 14+ is necessary for a group. Combat Reflexes will negate some of the issues with getting attacked by surprise, but won't help you spot an attack coming out of the darkness or from a blind spot. And there are some amusing treasures people have literally walked past since 2012 without noticing because they're dependent on insufficiently high Perception and magical support that doesn't always work.
Will is vital. There aren't a huge amount of Will-affecting abilities and spells deployed against your paper man in Felltower, but they're all save-or-suck. You can coast on your Knight's 10 for a while, but in the end it will limit where you can go and how much your friends have to plan to do to you when the bad guys make you change sides. You won't get out of mental domination by evil with Sense of Duty as a get out of jail free card. It's not that kind of game.
Hit Points aren't as critical as you think. From a breakpoint perspective, you want 20+ for any fighter type for the doubling of healing effects . . . although this does double your damage from falls (see The Bigger They Are . . ., Exploits, p. 67)
That said, while being fragile doesn't help any, you'll find a lot of high-HP guys in the graveyard alongside low-HP guys. It provides a buffer but errors that cost HP will get you even with 40+ HP. IIRC Bruce was closing in on 50 HP and he's dead . . . he would have died if he'd had 100 HP in that situation. High HP, like high DR or HT, can fool you into thinking you're invulnerable. Bring all the HP you can but they're not enough on their own.
Move is critical. Oh, I mean Speed, right? Or Basic Move? No, Move. Your actual Move will determine your ability to exploit tactical advantages, or escape fights you don't want, or don't want anymore. It's a combination of encumbrance (see, ST) and Speed. Being slow will always be a liability. The PCs with the most mobility tend to last the longest and have the most impact.
Skills
PCs will get further with everyone having all - or at least most - of these skills. Magic can sometimes substitute, but you really need:
Climbing comes up so often that it has halted play as people try to magic their way around poor or lacking Climbing skill. This leads to less actual time spent killing and looting, has forced extra rest times in the dungeon because of FP expended to make up for the poor or lacking skill, and fights with treasure-free wandering monsters that occured because of extra time in the dungeon. We've made Levitation much easier to do but it's not always the answer.
Swimming - PCs have died without it, and arguments that it's not worth it are really funny when your paper man dies because you wouldn't spend 1 point out of the 305 you start with.
Forced Entry is important for a party. At least one person will need a solid skill, here. It's effectively ST-based, and until you put enough points to be ST+1 it's the same as just rolling ST . . . but it's cheaper than extra ST for a few bonus points on those rolls and a lot of extra damage when breaking things. I've had players disagree with me, here, and agree but not spend the points . . . but I've seen plenty of doors hacked or plans changed because they couldn't force the door. That works, too, but again, Wandering Monsters bring damage but not treasure.
Search is more useful than most people suspect; you can't depend on pure Perception to find hidden things. And "real quick we check the bodies" is a gaming and video gaming thing; it takes a while to find pea-sized gems or hidden coins or other small bits and doodads on a person.
Fast-Draw (Potion) will literally save your life. You need this if you expect to get hit while carrying healing potions. Do that and have this skill.
Diplomacy isn't critical unless you want to negotiate; since most players seem to default this it's not helpful if your PC does, too. Don't make these mistakes, especially without any skill to back it up. Intimidation won't always get you what you want.
Those aren't the only skills you need, but they're standout ones that don't get enough attention in my experience, and which aren't always required on the templates.
Hopefully this will help my players, any readers who in the future become players (okay, that basically only happened with Doug and Vic), or spark your own ideas and comments for your own games.
Part II will be next week, on the next Felltower Sunday.
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Felltower, Players, and PC Bite-Sized Backstory
One of the conceits of Felltower is that players can add to the setting . . . within limits.
What are those limits?
Fun first
The first and most important guideline for adding backstory to the campaign is that it's all about the fun for the people playing - all of us, since it's Our Game. The game is really a pick-up game where the priorities are:
- us having fun together
- exploring a sometimes humorous but usually lethally unpleasant dungeon
- getting loot
. . . in that particular order. Yes, that mixes real-world and in-game priorities and that's okay with me. If something gets a lot of loot but isn't fun, we generally find a way to rule that it doesn't work. If exploring feels onerous in the real world, we handwave the exploration. And so on. The main thing is the fun.
And it's got to be fun for everyone.
So your backstory can't undermine other players or detract from the game itself. No guys who hate looting and exploration. No guys who are ferocious loners. No guys who have some power that makes everyone suffer so they can be great. No guys that come along with a backstory that explains away someone else's events or paints them in a new light.
Keep it Short and Punchy
The longer your bit of backstory, the less likely it'll stick. I'll say it outright - I won't even read it. I don't care. But I'll listen to a sentence or three that speaks volumes. The less sentences, the better. "Father Marco of the Order of Inquisitors" plus "True Faith with Turning" and a vow to use no edged weapons? Great stuff! I can work with that. I've got an order with a set of rules out of that and I don't need much else.
We have a joke related to another campaign run by my buddy Ryan. If I recall it correctly, someone (I know who, but let's say someone) showed up with a new PC and started to read his description of his guy. Another player said, part of the way through a long description of clothing and hairstyle and whatnot, "I stop looking." Our player Jon never fails to bring this up at exactly the right moment.
Don't make us stop looking.
Throwaway Details
Details, if provided, should be throwaway. As in, we should be able to ignore them later if they stop being helpful or funny.
Don't Force It
Don't try to put in backstory, or make backstory stick. If it's good, we'll repeat it forever. If it's not . . . let it die. Don't brainstorm good details for your guy. Let it happen organically, like the time Gerry said he brings his skeletons to church every day, or when Galen mentioned a dryad and "I don't want to talk about it," and so on. It'll stick if it sticks. And humor is hard . . . better to let it just become funny. Don't try to force that, either.
Cool is What You Do, Not Who You Are
Maybe aside from the first point, this is the most important. Don't use backstory to tell me you are cool. Your actions in play make you cool. We shouldn't have to remember you were raised from birth by ninjas after being orphaned by a demon attack on your village to prevent you from dual-wielding kukris in service to the death cult's elite guard of hand-selected black-clad holy warriors on behalf of god. We should just remember you have two blades and holy crap you killed four orcs in one second that time rolling three 3s and a 4. That's what we care about. The backstory is in the back. Remember we remember what we experienced with you, not what you decided explained why your paper man is awesome.
This whole damn post is far longer than all of the backstory of all of the PCs put together should be. All of this would have been better, in play, as "You are what you do, not what you are - so tell use your backstory in one punchy sentence and if we remember it, great, it's canon."
What are those limits?
Fun first
The first and most important guideline for adding backstory to the campaign is that it's all about the fun for the people playing - all of us, since it's Our Game. The game is really a pick-up game where the priorities are:
- us having fun together
- exploring a sometimes humorous but usually lethally unpleasant dungeon
- getting loot
. . . in that particular order. Yes, that mixes real-world and in-game priorities and that's okay with me. If something gets a lot of loot but isn't fun, we generally find a way to rule that it doesn't work. If exploring feels onerous in the real world, we handwave the exploration. And so on. The main thing is the fun.
And it's got to be fun for everyone.
So your backstory can't undermine other players or detract from the game itself. No guys who hate looting and exploration. No guys who are ferocious loners. No guys who have some power that makes everyone suffer so they can be great. No guys that come along with a backstory that explains away someone else's events or paints them in a new light.
Keep it Short and Punchy
The longer your bit of backstory, the less likely it'll stick. I'll say it outright - I won't even read it. I don't care. But I'll listen to a sentence or three that speaks volumes. The less sentences, the better. "Father Marco of the Order of Inquisitors" plus "True Faith with Turning" and a vow to use no edged weapons? Great stuff! I can work with that. I've got an order with a set of rules out of that and I don't need much else.
We have a joke related to another campaign run by my buddy Ryan. If I recall it correctly, someone (I know who, but let's say someone) showed up with a new PC and started to read his description of his guy. Another player said, part of the way through a long description of clothing and hairstyle and whatnot, "I stop looking." Our player Jon never fails to bring this up at exactly the right moment.
Don't make us stop looking.
Throwaway Details
Details, if provided, should be throwaway. As in, we should be able to ignore them later if they stop being helpful or funny.
Don't Force It
Don't try to put in backstory, or make backstory stick. If it's good, we'll repeat it forever. If it's not . . . let it die. Don't brainstorm good details for your guy. Let it happen organically, like the time Gerry said he brings his skeletons to church every day, or when Galen mentioned a dryad and "I don't want to talk about it," and so on. It'll stick if it sticks. And humor is hard . . . better to let it just become funny. Don't try to force that, either.
Cool is What You Do, Not Who You Are
Maybe aside from the first point, this is the most important. Don't use backstory to tell me you are cool. Your actions in play make you cool. We shouldn't have to remember you were raised from birth by ninjas after being orphaned by a demon attack on your village to prevent you from dual-wielding kukris in service to the death cult's elite guard of hand-selected black-clad holy warriors on behalf of god. We should just remember you have two blades and holy crap you killed four orcs in one second that time rolling three 3s and a 4. That's what we care about. The backstory is in the back. Remember we remember what we experienced with you, not what you decided explained why your paper man is awesome.
This whole damn post is far longer than all of the backstory of all of the PCs put together should be. All of this would have been better, in play, as "You are what you do, not what you are - so tell use your backstory in one punchy sentence and if we remember it, great, it's canon."
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
How do the NPCs know you're not to be trusted?
A lot of NPCs in my games react poorly to delvers in general.
How do NPCs who haven't met the delvers in particular know they are untrustworthy greedy violence-mongers?
It seems unfair from a player perspective that somehow people "know" you don't take prisoners, you don't tell nobody your business, and yet somehow people know not to surrender to you or run because they know you'll slit their throats or shoot them in the back. What gives? How do GMs justify this unfairness?
Here are four ways.
1) Word gets around. Let's face it, PCs are terrible, terrible, terrible at covering their tracks. They also want credit for all of the cool stuff they did, adulation for their special loot, and respect and fear of all around them. So they don't tend to do much besides destroy everything like rabid wolverines, sell stolen loot at a premium as a collection that fails to disguise its provenance, and so on. They also tend to either leave corpses around or blood splatters where their new zombies walked off from. So "we didn't tell anyone or leave survivors, how do they know?" You've left enough clues to make Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes.
2) People jump to conclusions. They're stereotyping you. Why is that?
3) You're not the only one. If you're going around plundering and murdering and betraying and taking no prisoners except to question and later kill and zombie, others probably have done this. It's not like you invented being ruthless and greedy. So people assume you are. You have to prove you have Sense of Duty but they'll probably assume you have Greed and Bloodlust and a Quirk: Kills everyone who ever wronged him in any way and "wronged" means "inconvenienced."
4) Summon Spirit. The kicker. Divination. People can find out a staggering amount about you even if you kill all of your enemies. Their friends can use Crystal Gazing to look in on you. They can summon their dead buddies and talk to them, even if you destroyed the corpses. They can use History spells to check out where that goblet you won't discuss came from. They can just ask and get a solidly accurate answer.
So really, being a murderous delver is fine . . . but it's hard to conceal. Foes will assume this is you, and foes with any knowledge can find out what you're like if they hear you are coming. And even random NPCs in town curious about the loot you sold them can find out very solid details on how you found it, with some access to magic. Pretending otherwise is failing to recognize that a fantasy world with common divination magic means just doing something is probably enouugh for someone with enough cleverness and will to find out what you did.
That's why the NPCs don't trust you quite as quickly as you'd hope!
How do NPCs who haven't met the delvers in particular know they are untrustworthy greedy violence-mongers?
It seems unfair from a player perspective that somehow people "know" you don't take prisoners, you don't tell nobody your business, and yet somehow people know not to surrender to you or run because they know you'll slit their throats or shoot them in the back. What gives? How do GMs justify this unfairness?
Here are four ways.
1) Word gets around. Let's face it, PCs are terrible, terrible, terrible at covering their tracks. They also want credit for all of the cool stuff they did, adulation for their special loot, and respect and fear of all around them. So they don't tend to do much besides destroy everything like rabid wolverines, sell stolen loot at a premium as a collection that fails to disguise its provenance, and so on. They also tend to either leave corpses around or blood splatters where their new zombies walked off from. So "we didn't tell anyone or leave survivors, how do they know?" You've left enough clues to make Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes.
2) People jump to conclusions. They're stereotyping you. Why is that?
3) You're not the only one. If you're going around plundering and murdering and betraying and taking no prisoners except to question and later kill and zombie, others probably have done this. It's not like you invented being ruthless and greedy. So people assume you are. You have to prove you have Sense of Duty but they'll probably assume you have Greed and Bloodlust and a Quirk: Kills everyone who ever wronged him in any way and "wronged" means "inconvenienced."
4) Summon Spirit. The kicker. Divination. People can find out a staggering amount about you even if you kill all of your enemies. Their friends can use Crystal Gazing to look in on you. They can summon their dead buddies and talk to them, even if you destroyed the corpses. They can use History spells to check out where that goblet you won't discuss came from. They can just ask and get a solidly accurate answer.
So really, being a murderous delver is fine . . . but it's hard to conceal. Foes will assume this is you, and foes with any knowledge can find out what you're like if they hear you are coming. And even random NPCs in town curious about the loot you sold them can find out very solid details on how you found it, with some access to magic. Pretending otherwise is failing to recognize that a fantasy world with common divination magic means just doing something is probably enouugh for someone with enough cleverness and will to find out what you did.
That's why the NPCs don't trust you quite as quickly as you'd hope!
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Adventuring Mistakes III: Is there a correct path?
If it's a mistake to go, "Oooh Shiney!" and too-easily get distracted from your goal . . .
And if it's a mistake to go, "Stay on Target!" and stubbornly refuse to get shifted fron your goal . . .
. . . then what is a poor adventurer to do?
Without a rule that is "Always turn left!" or "Never get out of the boat!" and can absolutely be followed, how can a delver delve?
It's really some variation of this:
Always keep the goal the goal.
I've heard this stated a few different ways by a few different people - usually attributed to someone's ancestor or old neighbor or something. I doubt it's a new concept.
It's simple in thought but together in execution. Pretty much all "how to succeed at adventuring" guide has some variation of this. And it's harder in practice than in statement.
You just keep re-evaluating, what's the real goal here?
If staying on target gets you there, you stay on target. If veering off gets you there, you veer off.
Is it possible?
A pitfall of this approach is, you need to really know your actual goal. Not just your stated goal. You must know what you will actually strive to do when it gets tough.
If the goal is, say, garnering treasure, then anything that best advances the garnering of treasure is worth doing wether or not it's part of the original plan.
If the goal is defeating evil, then anything that results in defeating more evil is worth doing - again - wether or not it's part of the original plan.
If your goal has contrary aims, you're going to struggle with this on. If you aim to defeat evil at all costs while getting as rich as possible, well, when the Truly Evil demon-worshipping vampyre-lich-troll says he'll reveal his otherwise unobtainable loot stash in return for his unlife, which do you choose? Or if going left fights evil and going right leads to loot, and you don't have the resources to do both, do you go right or left? The one you choose is your primary goal. If you don't know - or the group is split on which is "nice to have" and which is "the plan" then trouble will ensue.
Goals with hidden contrary aims also present a problem. The often-unstated, ". . . without undo risk or getting any PCs killed" addendum to most goals is also a contrary aim. You can't get maximally rich, or slay all the dragons, or fight all the evil, or find the bottom level of the dungeon, or whatever and satisfy that goal easily. If you try to do both, you usually veer off of the stated goal to satisfy the concerns of the unstated goal of minimizing the chance of harm. It can sometimes get you killed anyway when you turn away from a known risk into a "surely less dangerous" approach that contains more risk.
You can have a goal that's a little more vague - fight monsters, or investigate interesting things, or something of that sort. If you all understand what that consists of, it's easy enough to follow through on. Such goals rarely get coupled with "Stay on Target," but it's possible.
Overall, though, this maxim is something you do benefit from keeping in mind. Your plan isn't ruined if you're distracted by something that advances your actual goals. Your plan is worth a repeat of "Stay on Target!" if the distractions or opportunities don't further your goals. Sure, those are fun monsters to fight or that door is interesting, but you are after loot and know where it's to be found.
There isn't anything min-blowing in this post, but it's true. The goal is to keep the goal the goal, and not to let that slip aside too often. The goal of the game is to have fun but there is usually a specific in-game goal you're after. Figure it out, get agreement on it, and try to stick with it and it's usually easy to figure out what to do.
And if it's a mistake to go, "Stay on Target!" and stubbornly refuse to get shifted fron your goal . . .
. . . then what is a poor adventurer to do?
Without a rule that is "Always turn left!" or "Never get out of the boat!" and can absolutely be followed, how can a delver delve?
It's really some variation of this:
Always keep the goal the goal.
I've heard this stated a few different ways by a few different people - usually attributed to someone's ancestor or old neighbor or something. I doubt it's a new concept.
It's simple in thought but together in execution. Pretty much all "how to succeed at adventuring" guide has some variation of this. And it's harder in practice than in statement.
You just keep re-evaluating, what's the real goal here?
If staying on target gets you there, you stay on target. If veering off gets you there, you veer off.
Is it possible?
A pitfall of this approach is, you need to really know your actual goal. Not just your stated goal. You must know what you will actually strive to do when it gets tough.
If the goal is, say, garnering treasure, then anything that best advances the garnering of treasure is worth doing wether or not it's part of the original plan.
If the goal is defeating evil, then anything that results in defeating more evil is worth doing - again - wether or not it's part of the original plan.
If your goal has contrary aims, you're going to struggle with this on. If you aim to defeat evil at all costs while getting as rich as possible, well, when the Truly Evil demon-worshipping vampyre-lich-troll says he'll reveal his otherwise unobtainable loot stash in return for his unlife, which do you choose? Or if going left fights evil and going right leads to loot, and you don't have the resources to do both, do you go right or left? The one you choose is your primary goal. If you don't know - or the group is split on which is "nice to have" and which is "the plan" then trouble will ensue.
Goals with hidden contrary aims also present a problem. The often-unstated, ". . . without undo risk or getting any PCs killed" addendum to most goals is also a contrary aim. You can't get maximally rich, or slay all the dragons, or fight all the evil, or find the bottom level of the dungeon, or whatever and satisfy that goal easily. If you try to do both, you usually veer off of the stated goal to satisfy the concerns of the unstated goal of minimizing the chance of harm. It can sometimes get you killed anyway when you turn away from a known risk into a "surely less dangerous" approach that contains more risk.
You can have a goal that's a little more vague - fight monsters, or investigate interesting things, or something of that sort. If you all understand what that consists of, it's easy enough to follow through on. Such goals rarely get coupled with "Stay on Target," but it's possible.
Overall, though, this maxim is something you do benefit from keeping in mind. Your plan isn't ruined if you're distracted by something that advances your actual goals. Your plan is worth a repeat of "Stay on Target!" if the distractions or opportunities don't further your goals. Sure, those are fun monsters to fight or that door is interesting, but you are after loot and know where it's to be found.
There isn't anything min-blowing in this post, but it's true. The goal is to keep the goal the goal, and not to let that slip aside too often. The goal of the game is to have fun but there is usually a specific in-game goal you're after. Figure it out, get agreement on it, and try to stick with it and it's usually easy to figure out what to do.
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Adventuring Mistakes II: Stay on Target!
Yesterday was Part I of this mini-series: Oooh Shiny!
If you just clicked on that link, never to return . . . you probably suffer more from Oooh Shiny than from Stay on Target.
If you ignored it because you're here to read this post and you'll get to it later . . . maybe you're more of a Stay on Target type.
Stay On Target
This is a refusal to be swayed from your plan once you've set on it. You have your task, and you go after it without varying from it.
Just remember this famous proponent of the "Stay on target!" approach, Porkins.
Everything turned out for him okay, right?
The Stay on Target approach can cost you opportunity. You have a chance encounter that presents an action you can take or pass on . . . do you pass on it to stay on the plan, or do you swap to this new thing? What if that "new thing" is a clearly better option, or a one-chance option?
Sometimes Stay on Target is, like Oooh Shiney, a way of avoiding decision making. Ironically, a cost of Stay on Target is missing out on your real goal. For example, you may plan to find a set of stairs down and explore there . . . but really you're doing so because you want to find a way to avoid a specific monster. Then you find a different potential way down and ignore it, because Stay on Target! We're looking for stairs! This especially happens when your plan is even more vague, or is really just a hope disguised as a plan (Step 1: Find monsters. Step 3: Profit!) Instead of shifting to an actual opportunity, you stick with the sunk costs of a plan that isn't as valuable as what you came across.
What kind of behavior do you see with Stay on Target?
Usually some or all of the following:
- insisting on a plan
- refusal to adjust or change the plan, even in the face of evidence of something better
- unwillingness to entertain changes
- arguing for continuation based on the costs expended on the plan already (sunk cost fallacy)
- risk aversion, especially in the form of avoiding new risks while insisting on surmounting old risks
How do you know you do this?
This one is generally very clear - you refuse to take opportunities or shift to something else until your original plan is done, or until it becomes completely untenable.
So which is better?
Like the choice of being frozen to death or burned to death, neither is really what you want. Neither is better than the other - they're both mistakes. One is an inability to stick with a plan. The other is an inability to be flexible in the face of changing circumstances. Both are built on logical fallacies. There is a third option - always keeping the goal the goal. More on that tomorrow.
If you just clicked on that link, never to return . . . you probably suffer more from Oooh Shiny than from Stay on Target.
If you ignored it because you're here to read this post and you'll get to it later . . . maybe you're more of a Stay on Target type.
Stay On Target
This is a refusal to be swayed from your plan once you've set on it. You have your task, and you go after it without varying from it.
Just remember this famous proponent of the "Stay on target!" approach, Porkins.
Everything turned out for him okay, right?
Note, however, that inflexibility or stubborn foolishness is often fatal.
- Gary Gygax, "Successful Adventures," AD&D Players Handbook, p. 107
The Stay on Target approach can cost you opportunity. You have a chance encounter that presents an action you can take or pass on . . . do you pass on it to stay on the plan, or do you swap to this new thing? What if that "new thing" is a clearly better option, or a one-chance option?
Sometimes Stay on Target is, like Oooh Shiney, a way of avoiding decision making. Ironically, a cost of Stay on Target is missing out on your real goal. For example, you may plan to find a set of stairs down and explore there . . . but really you're doing so because you want to find a way to avoid a specific monster. Then you find a different potential way down and ignore it, because Stay on Target! We're looking for stairs! This especially happens when your plan is even more vague, or is really just a hope disguised as a plan (Step 1: Find monsters. Step 3: Profit!) Instead of shifting to an actual opportunity, you stick with the sunk costs of a plan that isn't as valuable as what you came across.
What kind of behavior do you see with Stay on Target?
Usually some or all of the following:
- insisting on a plan
- refusal to adjust or change the plan, even in the face of evidence of something better
- unwillingness to entertain changes
- arguing for continuation based on the costs expended on the plan already (sunk cost fallacy)
- risk aversion, especially in the form of avoiding new risks while insisting on surmounting old risks
How do you know you do this?
This one is generally very clear - you refuse to take opportunities or shift to something else until your original plan is done, or until it becomes completely untenable.
So which is better?
Like the choice of being frozen to death or burned to death, neither is really what you want. Neither is better than the other - they're both mistakes. One is an inability to stick with a plan. The other is an inability to be flexible in the face of changing circumstances. Both are built on logical fallacies. There is a third option - always keeping the goal the goal. More on that tomorrow.
Monday, June 7, 2021
Adventuring Mistakes I: Oooh Shiny!
Today and tomorrow I'm going to talk a little about what I call "Adventuring Mistakes."
These are mistakes that players make that disrupt the accomplishment of their goals.
I discuss them mostly from a megadungeon perspective, or a limited sandbox perspective, where you have a choose-your-own-goal approach to play. A more mission-oriented game might not allow for this to happen, or give you such built-in focus that it's hard to get pulled out of the overall plan. You might get tactically distracted, but you're less likely to get distracted from the main goal of the day's delving.
Obligatory "Wrong, these aren't mistakes" pre-response: Anything that doesn't accomplish what you're trying to do, or actively undermines what you're trying to do, is a mistake in my book. It might be chosen deliberately, it might be fun, but it also might mean that you don't accomplish your stated and intended goals and miss out on more fun regardless of your intention either way.
With that out of the way, let's go make some mistakes.
Oooh Shiny!
Sometimes called "Adventurer ADD," or some similar construction, this is the mistake of letting every side issue pull you out of your planned delve. Instead of accomplishing your goal, you get lost in a seemingly never-ending series of distractions, each pulling you away from what you're really after.
How far back does the issue of getting distracted go?
Pretty far.
You don't give advice like that because everyone is always keeping to their plans with hard-nosed rigidity.
What kind of behavior do you see with Oooh Shiney?
It's usually one or more of these types of things, all done despite a plan that specifically involves doing none of them.
- let's chase down those fleeing wandering monsters (or fight them in the first place, often enough, because "they might have treasure!")
- let's check that door
- let's see if this hallways on the map connects up to that hallway on our map
- let's investigate that sound
- let's run away from that monster to this new area
- let's check this one thing out real quick on the way
etc.
The list can go on and on.
In other words, you have a plan, but then let yourself get pulled out of the plan to do some other thing that seems attractive or interesting. Or, often enough, easier than the plan itself. This is especially the case if you've chosen a plan despite a lack of enthusiasm for it, or because you couldn't think of anything else, or somehow hoping something better would come along. It's grasping at a straw of convenience because you didn't want to go through with your plan in the first place.
It can also be something that disrupts a good, solid plan that you really do want to follow through on. You can just get yourself distracted by something that seems like it must be done right now.
This can often take the form of combat, too - getting into a fight can solve a lot of questions about "what next?" and what to do right now, as well. It provides relief from the decision-making process that following through on a plan often requires.
The inability to follow through on a plan isn't in and of itself a failure to adventure. However, it can mean:
- wasted time planning (you spend 45 minutes talking it out, which isn't spent playing, and you don't follow through anyway.)
- wasted resource acquisition - you bought and brought stuff that isn't going to be needed because you didn't stick the plan out.
- lack of resource acquisition for the next task - lack of rations for a side trip that might call for them, lack of purchasable magic that is needed for a new plan, etc.
- inefficient adventuring, especially if you have a series of tasks you need to accomplish.
How do you know you do this?
Looking back at your delves, how often do you have a plan and follow through, at least to a degree?
How easily are you distracted from an ongoing task with a new task?
Getting pulled from Task A to Opportunity Task B isn't a bad thing, if B is something you may have wanted to accomplish in the first place had you given it some thought. Sometimes opportunity knocks, and you have to answer right now if you want to reap the benefits.
But if you find that opportunity is always knocking, or you're depending on it knocking, or assuming it's knocking whenever something new comes along . . . you might be making the "Oooh, shiney!" mistake.
Tomorrow: Clearly, getting distracted is a problem. So let's go to the other extreme! The natural opposite to Oooh Shiny: Stay on target!
These are mistakes that players make that disrupt the accomplishment of their goals.
I discuss them mostly from a megadungeon perspective, or a limited sandbox perspective, where you have a choose-your-own-goal approach to play. A more mission-oriented game might not allow for this to happen, or give you such built-in focus that it's hard to get pulled out of the overall plan. You might get tactically distracted, but you're less likely to get distracted from the main goal of the day's delving.
Obligatory "Wrong, these aren't mistakes" pre-response: Anything that doesn't accomplish what you're trying to do, or actively undermines what you're trying to do, is a mistake in my book. It might be chosen deliberately, it might be fun, but it also might mean that you don't accomplish your stated and intended goals and miss out on more fun regardless of your intention either way.
With that out of the way, let's go make some mistakes.
Oooh Shiny!
Sometimes called "Adventurer ADD," or some similar construction, this is the mistake of letting every side issue pull you out of your planned delve. Instead of accomplishing your goal, you get lost in a seemingly never-ending series of distractions, each pulling you away from what you're really after.
How far back does the issue of getting distracted go?
Pretty far.
"some firm objective should be established and then adhered to as strongly as possible."
Gary Gygax, "Successful Adventures," AD&D Players Handbook, p. 107
You don't give advice like that because everyone is always keeping to their plans with hard-nosed rigidity.
What kind of behavior do you see with Oooh Shiney?
It's usually one or more of these types of things, all done despite a plan that specifically involves doing none of them.
- let's chase down those fleeing wandering monsters (or fight them in the first place, often enough, because "they might have treasure!")
- let's check that door
- let's see if this hallways on the map connects up to that hallway on our map
- let's investigate that sound
- let's run away from that monster to this new area
- let's check this one thing out real quick on the way
etc.
The list can go on and on.
In other words, you have a plan, but then let yourself get pulled out of the plan to do some other thing that seems attractive or interesting. Or, often enough, easier than the plan itself. This is especially the case if you've chosen a plan despite a lack of enthusiasm for it, or because you couldn't think of anything else, or somehow hoping something better would come along. It's grasping at a straw of convenience because you didn't want to go through with your plan in the first place.
It can also be something that disrupts a good, solid plan that you really do want to follow through on. You can just get yourself distracted by something that seems like it must be done right now.
This can often take the form of combat, too - getting into a fight can solve a lot of questions about "what next?" and what to do right now, as well. It provides relief from the decision-making process that following through on a plan often requires.
The inability to follow through on a plan isn't in and of itself a failure to adventure. However, it can mean:
- wasted time planning (you spend 45 minutes talking it out, which isn't spent playing, and you don't follow through anyway.)
- wasted resource acquisition - you bought and brought stuff that isn't going to be needed because you didn't stick the plan out.
- lack of resource acquisition for the next task - lack of rations for a side trip that might call for them, lack of purchasable magic that is needed for a new plan, etc.
- inefficient adventuring, especially if you have a series of tasks you need to accomplish.
How do you know you do this?
Looking back at your delves, how often do you have a plan and follow through, at least to a degree?
How easily are you distracted from an ongoing task with a new task?
Getting pulled from Task A to Opportunity Task B isn't a bad thing, if B is something you may have wanted to accomplish in the first place had you given it some thought. Sometimes opportunity knocks, and you have to answer right now if you want to reap the benefits.
But if you find that opportunity is always knocking, or you're depending on it knocking, or assuming it's knocking whenever something new comes along . . . you might be making the "Oooh, shiney!" mistake.
Tomorrow: Clearly, getting distracted is a problem. So let's go to the other extreme! The natural opposite to Oooh Shiny: Stay on target!
Monday, April 5, 2021
Standardized equipment for PCs
Does your game feature standardized equipment for the PCs and NPCs?
The safe bet is that it probably does not.
You see this in gaming all of the time, where every person is unique. To some degree, each is run and equipped as if they were a solo hero ready to take the world on alone. Fair enough - each person has their own vision of an enjoyable paper man.
The downside, though, is when you really need someone in a particular spot to deploy a particular thing, and the group has this thing, but said person does not.
Standard loudouts help. I wrote a bunch of kits for the DFRPG for just this reason.
"Oh, I have one of those."
Standardization is really helpful.
Drawing on my recent play of X-Com: Apocalypse, I give everyone a standard loadout:
- one stun gas grenade
- one smoke grenade (rarely used, but when you need it . . . )
- one anti-personel grenade
- one promixity mine
- a medi-kit
Later in the game this may include other alien gear.
I scatter around one-per-group stuff like motion sensors (I rarely need them, but they're critical when I do) or specialty weapons (missile launchers or demo charges).
This way, no matter who is in position, they can toss a proximity mine, or stun gas, or smoke. It's never, "I don't have one of those."
It's worth identifying in a tabletop game what might be useful for everyone to have. Items that are situationally important, and for which you can't necessarily wait for a person with it to deploy it for you.
It's tougher in a game like GURPS, especially my games, where encumbrance is enforced ruthlessly, so people only carry within certain bands of weights. You want to ensure your maximum Move and Dodge, and adding a vial of holy water or a smoke nageteppo or an alchemist's fire might just be enough to push you past a threshold. And hey, you say, I won't use it anyway.
But there is an upside to doing so, and knowing that every party member is equally capable of setting fire to a fallen troll, or covering a hex or two with smoke, or spilling some holy warrior on a vampire's corpse, or whatever. In a more military-type game (like Gamma Terra), it might even suit the game image better. Worth a thought when you're prepping for your next delve or mission.
The safe bet is that it probably does not.
You see this in gaming all of the time, where every person is unique. To some degree, each is run and equipped as if they were a solo hero ready to take the world on alone. Fair enough - each person has their own vision of an enjoyable paper man.
The downside, though, is when you really need someone in a particular spot to deploy a particular thing, and the group has this thing, but said person does not.
Standard loudouts help. I wrote a bunch of kits for the DFRPG for just this reason.
"Oh, I have one of those."
Standardization is really helpful.
Drawing on my recent play of X-Com: Apocalypse, I give everyone a standard loadout:
- one stun gas grenade
- one smoke grenade (rarely used, but when you need it . . . )
- one anti-personel grenade
- one promixity mine
- a medi-kit
Later in the game this may include other alien gear.
I scatter around one-per-group stuff like motion sensors (I rarely need them, but they're critical when I do) or specialty weapons (missile launchers or demo charges).
This way, no matter who is in position, they can toss a proximity mine, or stun gas, or smoke. It's never, "I don't have one of those."
It's worth identifying in a tabletop game what might be useful for everyone to have. Items that are situationally important, and for which you can't necessarily wait for a person with it to deploy it for you.
It's tougher in a game like GURPS, especially my games, where encumbrance is enforced ruthlessly, so people only carry within certain bands of weights. You want to ensure your maximum Move and Dodge, and adding a vial of holy water or a smoke nageteppo or an alchemist's fire might just be enough to push you past a threshold. And hey, you say, I won't use it anyway.
But there is an upside to doing so, and knowing that every party member is equally capable of setting fire to a fallen troll, or covering a hex or two with smoke, or spilling some holy warrior on a vampire's corpse, or whatever. In a more military-type game (like Gamma Terra), it might even suit the game image better. Worth a thought when you're prepping for your next delve or mission.
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
PC Mistakes: That's not how I want to solve that problem.
I read this article the other day, about the difficulty of seeing "Star Wars" as it was originally released (or close to it.)
Why Finding the Original 1977 Star Wars Verges on the Impossible
Basically the author explains how important it is to see the original movie, how he hasn't been able to, and how hard it is to do so. And then says:
"I couldn’t do laserdiscs because no sane person has a laserdisc player these days."
I read that and laughed. One of my friends of the past 15+ years or so buys and sells laserdiscs. Enough that it went from a side thing he did to a full-time job.
Getting a laserdisc player won't be trivial, but it's far from impossible - eBay has a selection for $100 or so. And then getting a laserdisc copy of "Star Wars" is possible. I know, I've seen one, and watched it.
This is not an impossible problem nor one that requires a crazy amount of resources to solve.
The thing is, I read this as, "I see a solution, but that's not how I want to solve it."
I think this is a trap you can fall into as a player.
It's easy to get tunnel vision and only see a few - or one - way to get past an obstacle:
"We can't get through that door without the key."
"We can't get past those guys without killing them."
etc.
But it can also be easy to reject a solution out of hand not because it's impossible, but because you reject an obvious solution.
"We can't defeat those guys without cold-based attacks and we don't want to invest in cold-based attack spells or liquid ice grenades."
"We can't bribe our way through without a lot of money and we don't want to pay a lot of money."
etc.
Once you've rejected a solution, you can fall into a weird form of self-defeating thought. Instead of saying, "We'll do X unless we can think of a better solution" or "We can just do X and solve this problem," you end up with "Not X, so no solution." You wrack your brains and sit around noodling around on it and eating snacks and going off on tangents. All the solutions reject the obvious one, and eventually it's likely the answer is, "We can't do it" and not "Let's just do X."
In Felltower, we had this for a long time - there wasn't a way off of levels 2 and 3 down deeper. The silvery door was to a staircase but "the Lord of Spite's apartment" was how it was referred to. It was always rejected because, well, open that door and the Lord of Spite comes out. Eventually new players knew it was "the Lord of Spite's apartment" and not a staircase . . . and were shocked when they found it there were stairs down there. Similarly, we had an issue with opening a puzzle door using rotating statues because getting to all of the statues was hard . . . so people tried a lot of other ways to get through before they tried, you know, getting to all of the statues. We've seen the same in a lot of situations. We're probably doing it with something in Gamma Terra without realizing it.
I've found that a good solution is to keep reminding yourself of the obvious way out. "We could try Y, instead, or just do X." "Or Z, or X." It's not foolproof. Having an awareness of this thought-trap is a good way to avoid it at least some of the time.
As a quick note, as a GM, you can fall into the trap of "I don't want the problem solved this way." That's a very different issue, as the GM can secretly change or re-frame almost anything. The post above really concerns what you do as a player to get stuck trying to solve a problem a given way.
Why Finding the Original 1977 Star Wars Verges on the Impossible
Basically the author explains how important it is to see the original movie, how he hasn't been able to, and how hard it is to do so. And then says:
"I couldn’t do laserdiscs because no sane person has a laserdisc player these days."
I read that and laughed. One of my friends of the past 15+ years or so buys and sells laserdiscs. Enough that it went from a side thing he did to a full-time job.
Getting a laserdisc player won't be trivial, but it's far from impossible - eBay has a selection for $100 or so. And then getting a laserdisc copy of "Star Wars" is possible. I know, I've seen one, and watched it.
This is not an impossible problem nor one that requires a crazy amount of resources to solve.
The thing is, I read this as, "I see a solution, but that's not how I want to solve it."
I think this is a trap you can fall into as a player.
It's easy to get tunnel vision and only see a few - or one - way to get past an obstacle:
"We can't get through that door without the key."
"We can't get past those guys without killing them."
etc.
But it can also be easy to reject a solution out of hand not because it's impossible, but because you reject an obvious solution.
"We can't defeat those guys without cold-based attacks and we don't want to invest in cold-based attack spells or liquid ice grenades."
"We can't bribe our way through without a lot of money and we don't want to pay a lot of money."
etc.
Once you've rejected a solution, you can fall into a weird form of self-defeating thought. Instead of saying, "We'll do X unless we can think of a better solution" or "We can just do X and solve this problem," you end up with "Not X, so no solution." You wrack your brains and sit around noodling around on it and eating snacks and going off on tangents. All the solutions reject the obvious one, and eventually it's likely the answer is, "We can't do it" and not "Let's just do X."
In Felltower, we had this for a long time - there wasn't a way off of levels 2 and 3 down deeper. The silvery door was to a staircase but "the Lord of Spite's apartment" was how it was referred to. It was always rejected because, well, open that door and the Lord of Spite comes out. Eventually new players knew it was "the Lord of Spite's apartment" and not a staircase . . . and were shocked when they found it there were stairs down there. Similarly, we had an issue with opening a puzzle door using rotating statues because getting to all of the statues was hard . . . so people tried a lot of other ways to get through before they tried, you know, getting to all of the statues. We've seen the same in a lot of situations. We're probably doing it with something in Gamma Terra without realizing it.
I've found that a good solution is to keep reminding yourself of the obvious way out. "We could try Y, instead, or just do X." "Or Z, or X." It's not foolproof. Having an awareness of this thought-trap is a good way to avoid it at least some of the time.
As a quick note, as a GM, you can fall into the trap of "I don't want the problem solved this way." That's a very different issue, as the GM can secretly change or re-frame almost anything. The post above really concerns what you do as a player to get stuck trying to solve a problem a given way.
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Tabletop Characters Being Foolish (Screen Rant article reaction)
Every once in a while, the clickbait headlines of Screen Rant get me to click. I mostly try to avoid it, but sometimes there is something that really looks like it has some potential value.*
Why Tabletop RPG Player Characters Sometimes Lack Common Sense
I gave this one a think after I read it.
There are three categories:
#1: Tabletop RPG Players Are Often Unfamiliar With The Game World & Its Rules
#2: Tabletop RPG Gamers Develop "Tunnel Vision" When Under Pressure
#3: Tabletop RPG Gamers Use Roleplaying To Do Things They Can't Do In Real Life
I don't see a lot of #1 in my games. People do mess up the rules - at least once a session, someone makes a mistake. But it's a tactical issue 9 times out of 10. People don't make big, game-changing, "I attack the guardsman" or "I insult the king" kinds of errors because of rules misunderstandings. Unless they misunderstand the campaign rules about what can get your paper man killed. If you haven't made it clear that insulting the king means you can die, players might assume it's a valid campaign choice. Those don't happen much in games I run. In games I've played in, though, I've seen this. Mostly it's willfull, and those players aren't lacking common sense but lacking a desire to fit in with the game. That's choice #3, really.
I think #2 carries a lot of weight. I've seen players myopically focus on some tiny detail while ignoring a larger issue. I've seen players make very odd decisions simply because they can't see another way around it. This happens a lot, even when the solution is at hand. I had a player argue very strenuously that I should bend or change the rules on Resurrection to allow the dead to come back with no penalty despite weeks between the death and the ritual . . . while sitting on a Wish that could bend solve the problem without changing the campaign. I've had players spend hours of game time trying to figure out a five-piece puzzle only to realize there are only four pieces and their map was wrong. Or ignoring stairs down because they were misnamed in discussion. Or trying spells they know won't work because they can't see that there is an easy non-spell solution because they're hypnotised by the list of spells. Add this onto the telephone game of mis-remembered details and one person's description of a situation and you get a total inability to see the forest for the trees.
The point about people getting focused on their record sheet over seeing the situation as a person in it is well taken, too.
A sub-point to #2 is sunk cost, I think. Sometimes players get invested in what they've done so far, and evaluate future choices based on past choices. Let's say you are badly battered party of adventurers, and you face a badly battered potential foe . . . who has something you'd like and you have something they'd like to trade for. They might not have traded if they weren't in desperate straights, and you the same. Do you trade? It's an easy yes . . . until I say, "you're badly battered because of a previous fight with these guys." Now it's personal, and they all need to die die die die die for fighting your characters and daring to not immediately surrender everything they own. That's a sunk cost fallacy. I think it's related to the tunnel vision of #2.
Point #3 has a lot of merit, too. A good chunk of RPGing is the lack of consequences to your real self for doing foolish stuff. It's a chance to act out that fantasy of being a total badass, or a reckless warrior, or whatever. So you get a lot of avoiding taxes, pulling knives in bar brawls, attacking the king (which happened in a high school AD&D game). I think that leads to some of the decisions in #2, actually. You get focused on being X or Y and having ability Z and not backing off the think about what you're trying to accomplish. "I'm a badass who doesn't take any guff," you might think, forgetting, "but taking a little guff here actually gets me what I want pretty easily." So you don't say, "Yes, sir" to the Baron and instead cut his head off, and bad stuff happens from there. And so on. I think #2 and #3 feed into one another in a way that #1 doesn't.
Overall, though, I think it's a worthwhile read.
* There are some poorly-researched articles on D&D on the site, though. This one, for example, misreads the AD&D Unearthed Arcana badly - cavaliers ignoring enemy troops isn't stated in UA, just ignoring friendlies, and it mentions provoking "attacks of opportunity" which isn't an AD&D rule. So I read anything on the site with more caution than usual because they've failed my "look it up before you write" rule. I'd mention that there but hey, Facebook login required and I'm not on Facebook.
Why Tabletop RPG Player Characters Sometimes Lack Common Sense
I gave this one a think after I read it.
There are three categories:
#1: Tabletop RPG Players Are Often Unfamiliar With The Game World & Its Rules
#2: Tabletop RPG Gamers Develop "Tunnel Vision" When Under Pressure
#3: Tabletop RPG Gamers Use Roleplaying To Do Things They Can't Do In Real Life
I don't see a lot of #1 in my games. People do mess up the rules - at least once a session, someone makes a mistake. But it's a tactical issue 9 times out of 10. People don't make big, game-changing, "I attack the guardsman" or "I insult the king" kinds of errors because of rules misunderstandings. Unless they misunderstand the campaign rules about what can get your paper man killed. If you haven't made it clear that insulting the king means you can die, players might assume it's a valid campaign choice. Those don't happen much in games I run. In games I've played in, though, I've seen this. Mostly it's willfull, and those players aren't lacking common sense but lacking a desire to fit in with the game. That's choice #3, really.
I think #2 carries a lot of weight. I've seen players myopically focus on some tiny detail while ignoring a larger issue. I've seen players make very odd decisions simply because they can't see another way around it. This happens a lot, even when the solution is at hand. I had a player argue very strenuously that I should bend or change the rules on Resurrection to allow the dead to come back with no penalty despite weeks between the death and the ritual . . . while sitting on a Wish that could bend solve the problem without changing the campaign. I've had players spend hours of game time trying to figure out a five-piece puzzle only to realize there are only four pieces and their map was wrong. Or ignoring stairs down because they were misnamed in discussion. Or trying spells they know won't work because they can't see that there is an easy non-spell solution because they're hypnotised by the list of spells. Add this onto the telephone game of mis-remembered details and one person's description of a situation and you get a total inability to see the forest for the trees.
The point about people getting focused on their record sheet over seeing the situation as a person in it is well taken, too.
A sub-point to #2 is sunk cost, I think. Sometimes players get invested in what they've done so far, and evaluate future choices based on past choices. Let's say you are badly battered party of adventurers, and you face a badly battered potential foe . . . who has something you'd like and you have something they'd like to trade for. They might not have traded if they weren't in desperate straights, and you the same. Do you trade? It's an easy yes . . . until I say, "you're badly battered because of a previous fight with these guys." Now it's personal, and they all need to die die die die die for fighting your characters and daring to not immediately surrender everything they own. That's a sunk cost fallacy. I think it's related to the tunnel vision of #2.
Point #3 has a lot of merit, too. A good chunk of RPGing is the lack of consequences to your real self for doing foolish stuff. It's a chance to act out that fantasy of being a total badass, or a reckless warrior, or whatever. So you get a lot of avoiding taxes, pulling knives in bar brawls, attacking the king (which happened in a high school AD&D game). I think that leads to some of the decisions in #2, actually. You get focused on being X or Y and having ability Z and not backing off the think about what you're trying to accomplish. "I'm a badass who doesn't take any guff," you might think, forgetting, "but taking a little guff here actually gets me what I want pretty easily." So you don't say, "Yes, sir" to the Baron and instead cut his head off, and bad stuff happens from there. And so on. I think #2 and #3 feed into one another in a way that #1 doesn't.
Overall, though, I think it's a worthwhile read.
* There are some poorly-researched articles on D&D on the site, though. This one, for example, misreads the AD&D Unearthed Arcana badly - cavaliers ignoring enemy troops isn't stated in UA, just ignoring friendlies, and it mentions provoking "attacks of opportunity" which isn't an AD&D rule. So I read anything on the site with more caution than usual because they've failed my "look it up before you write" rule. I'd mention that there but hey, Facebook login required and I'm not on Facebook.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
How to be a Bad Player - Combat Edition
I've written a bit of advice about being a good player, mostly for GURPS.
Trying to be a good player is hard. So let's be bad players! It's way easier. Or is it? Here is some advice to get the job done really poorly.
Help everyone!
Nothing is harder for everyone else than running their characters. So, help out.
Remember to make sure to do the math for everyone else. Especially if they've done it for themselves. Re-calculate it. Check to make sure, with them and with the table in general, about what modifiers apply.
Tactically, they're probably a mess. Make sure you take time to give them advice on every aspect of their play - where to step, where to look, what weapons to use, everything. Oh, and don't neglect your guy - point out where they should go to help you do your thing. Not that you're not going to decide that later, anyway - but don't let them cut off your options.
Right after you give this advice, you want to make sure the person doesn't feel too pressured. A hearty, "nevermind, you go ahead, I was just going to say you could (fill in whatever Maneuver or action here), but you just do what you're going to do" is a good way to go. It's simple, clear, concise, and above all makes sure you put plenty of doubt in the person's head. That way, they're likely to listen to your help. Remember, it's their characters you need to mind.
Don't remember what you did last turn.
Or the one before, frankly. Stunned last turn? Forget it. Dropped your weapon? Swing with it anyway. Concentrate on the battlefield as a whole, and who should go where, and all the people you're helping out. The GM will probably remember for you. If not, how important could it be?
And don't bother looking up the effects of any spells on you, hostile or negative conditions, or debiliating effects of terrain you're on between when it happens and when you next go. Pleny of time to do that on your turn itself. Once the game can't proceed without your input, then find out what effects that all has on your paper man.
No need to know the rules.
"Rules mastery" is a new school concept for people who play wrong. Mastery of the rules shows you are a new-school noob who doesn't understand how it was done back in the day when Gygax and Arneson strode the earth, reffing dungeons from behind towering screens and rolling the dice for you. Or an old-school fool who doesn't get that you are Role-playing here, not Roll-playing. The GM will handle all of the rules. If you learn any of them, don't bother learning the ones that apply to your character and your situation.
Don't visualize your situation, either.
Also, only the rules matter. Unless they say X or Y specifically, then X or Y doesn't happen. The rules don't say you can't open a door with your shield hand while taking a Wait action with your sword ready while backing up to make space and stepping into the room if that's better . . . so clearly you can do it. Seeing the situation with your mind's eye and playing it out like a real person in that situation is very limiting. Don't limit yourself!
"Just make sure" of every single modifier.
For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost - remember that! For want of a -1 or a +1 on any given turn, an entire campaign can collapse. Better check on all of them. Check every time. Make sure if you have a conditional modifier to "just make sure" if it counts or not. Have a +1 versus demons? That orc has a pretty demonic-looking shield, so that's probably worth a +1. Is that a +1 to your skill and your roll against that skill? Probably. Better check. Have a +3 against poison? If you get poisoned, you better check and make sure it counts. It might or might not, so ask every time!
Alternatively, don't make sure of any of them, ever. You know your rolls. Just roll them. Circumstances may change, but negative modifiers probably even out in the wash. So just skip them all. You probably are missing some bonuses - make sure of them. Negative modifiers are the GM's job, anyway. The GM will tell you them, and if you've been told them before but not recently, like, on this turn, they're almost certainly gone. This is especially true of Disadvantages - they probably don't apply here, so don't fret them. The GM will let you know when they should apply. Playing out your disads in combat limits your choices . . . and that's the GM's job, not yours!
Don't plan ahead.
Figure out what to do on your turn. Knowing ahead of time is a sucker's game. Wait until you go, and then fully assess the circumstances. Make sure to get everyone's opinion on what you should do, and give yours on what they should do on their turn. Once they've established their plan, you can start on yours. After all, this turn's action has to be the most efficient, most tactically effective thing possible to do. Anything less is bad play, at best, and leads to a TPK just like all roads lead to Rome.
If you're using an unusual attack or spell, use it first, then figure out what it does. Not right away - wait until you absoutely need to know. If the enemy defends, no point figuring out how much damage you do with a headbutt, or the defense penalty against your attack, or the default roll for your technique. Oh sure, you probably need to know the last before you roll to hit, but that's not critical. GMs know this stuff of the top of their head. Besides, if you decide ahead of time and figure it out, the modifiers might have changed. This is especially true if you've been planning this move for a while! Pre-calculation, like rules mastery, takes away from the game. Don't do it.
Coming sometime - Part II - How to be a Bad Player - Non-Combat Edition.
Am I kidding? What do you think, am I? Don't decide now, wait until it's your turn and then start to think about it. We'll wait.
Trying to be a good player is hard. So let's be bad players! It's way easier. Or is it? Here is some advice to get the job done really poorly.
Help everyone!
Nothing is harder for everyone else than running their characters. So, help out.
Remember to make sure to do the math for everyone else. Especially if they've done it for themselves. Re-calculate it. Check to make sure, with them and with the table in general, about what modifiers apply.
Tactically, they're probably a mess. Make sure you take time to give them advice on every aspect of their play - where to step, where to look, what weapons to use, everything. Oh, and don't neglect your guy - point out where they should go to help you do your thing. Not that you're not going to decide that later, anyway - but don't let them cut off your options.
Right after you give this advice, you want to make sure the person doesn't feel too pressured. A hearty, "nevermind, you go ahead, I was just going to say you could (fill in whatever Maneuver or action here), but you just do what you're going to do" is a good way to go. It's simple, clear, concise, and above all makes sure you put plenty of doubt in the person's head. That way, they're likely to listen to your help. Remember, it's their characters you need to mind.
Don't remember what you did last turn.
Or the one before, frankly. Stunned last turn? Forget it. Dropped your weapon? Swing with it anyway. Concentrate on the battlefield as a whole, and who should go where, and all the people you're helping out. The GM will probably remember for you. If not, how important could it be?
And don't bother looking up the effects of any spells on you, hostile or negative conditions, or debiliating effects of terrain you're on between when it happens and when you next go. Pleny of time to do that on your turn itself. Once the game can't proceed without your input, then find out what effects that all has on your paper man.
No need to know the rules.
"Rules mastery" is a new school concept for people who play wrong. Mastery of the rules shows you are a new-school noob who doesn't understand how it was done back in the day when Gygax and Arneson strode the earth, reffing dungeons from behind towering screens and rolling the dice for you. Or an old-school fool who doesn't get that you are Role-playing here, not Roll-playing. The GM will handle all of the rules. If you learn any of them, don't bother learning the ones that apply to your character and your situation.
Don't visualize your situation, either.
Also, only the rules matter. Unless they say X or Y specifically, then X or Y doesn't happen. The rules don't say you can't open a door with your shield hand while taking a Wait action with your sword ready while backing up to make space and stepping into the room if that's better . . . so clearly you can do it. Seeing the situation with your mind's eye and playing it out like a real person in that situation is very limiting. Don't limit yourself!
"Just make sure" of every single modifier.
For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost - remember that! For want of a -1 or a +1 on any given turn, an entire campaign can collapse. Better check on all of them. Check every time. Make sure if you have a conditional modifier to "just make sure" if it counts or not. Have a +1 versus demons? That orc has a pretty demonic-looking shield, so that's probably worth a +1. Is that a +1 to your skill and your roll against that skill? Probably. Better check. Have a +3 against poison? If you get poisoned, you better check and make sure it counts. It might or might not, so ask every time!
Alternatively, don't make sure of any of them, ever. You know your rolls. Just roll them. Circumstances may change, but negative modifiers probably even out in the wash. So just skip them all. You probably are missing some bonuses - make sure of them. Negative modifiers are the GM's job, anyway. The GM will tell you them, and if you've been told them before but not recently, like, on this turn, they're almost certainly gone. This is especially true of Disadvantages - they probably don't apply here, so don't fret them. The GM will let you know when they should apply. Playing out your disads in combat limits your choices . . . and that's the GM's job, not yours!
Don't plan ahead.
Figure out what to do on your turn. Knowing ahead of time is a sucker's game. Wait until you go, and then fully assess the circumstances. Make sure to get everyone's opinion on what you should do, and give yours on what they should do on their turn. Once they've established their plan, you can start on yours. After all, this turn's action has to be the most efficient, most tactically effective thing possible to do. Anything less is bad play, at best, and leads to a TPK just like all roads lead to Rome.
If you're using an unusual attack or spell, use it first, then figure out what it does. Not right away - wait until you absoutely need to know. If the enemy defends, no point figuring out how much damage you do with a headbutt, or the defense penalty against your attack, or the default roll for your technique. Oh sure, you probably need to know the last before you roll to hit, but that's not critical. GMs know this stuff of the top of their head. Besides, if you decide ahead of time and figure it out, the modifiers might have changed. This is especially true if you've been planning this move for a while! Pre-calculation, like rules mastery, takes away from the game. Don't do it.
Coming sometime - Part II - How to be a Bad Player - Non-Combat Edition.
Am I kidding? What do you think, am I? Don't decide now, wait until it's your turn and then start to think about it. We'll wait.
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Random Links & Thoughts for Boxing Day 2020
- Not that boxing day is about boxing, but I'm reading "Royal Flash" (I finally decided to fill in the missing volumes in my collection and read them all.) In it you get not only a 19th century boxing match (of sorts . . . ) but a schlager duel. Both 19th century bare-knuckle boxing (p. 153) and Schlager (p. 160) are in GURPS Martial Arts.
- Ravens & Pennies - Being a Worthy Player
This isn't unique advice but it's never bad hearing this again. A lot less applies in a game like mine, where we pretty much recruit friends to play with, not gamers. A lot of the behavior we do automatically . . . and I can't think of anyone at the table who doesn't prioritize the group's fun over their own fun, honestly. Except maybe me, as demonstrated by the prevalance of exploding monsters in my DF game. Bwahahahahahaha. Maybe I need more of this?
- Thanks to the Sundaland RPG Setting blog for this post:
Shout Out: War Elephants
Which linked these three posts:
War Elephants, Part I: Battle Pachyderms
War Elephants, Part II: Elephants against Wolves
War Elephants, Part III: Elephant Memories
I learned a lot about war elephants. I already knew a fair amount, but not nearly as much about the logistics and handling of them as I do now. And that I'm not the only one who didn't like 300.
- This thing is pretty creepy. It put me in mind of the creepy-as-hell "Jolly Weeper" from Shadow Prowler. Speaking of which, I only have two of those books anymore. I wonder which of my players has the missing volume?
- I've been noodling about limitations for skills, defenses, feint, etc. for GURPS in general, but I have some ideas for Felltower in particular but overall more for DF as a line. I've got to figure out a good way to assemble my thoughts before I put it all down, but the posts I've made (and the comments on them) have really got me thinking.
- Ravens & Pennies - Being a Worthy Player
This isn't unique advice but it's never bad hearing this again. A lot less applies in a game like mine, where we pretty much recruit friends to play with, not gamers. A lot of the behavior we do automatically . . . and I can't think of anyone at the table who doesn't prioritize the group's fun over their own fun, honestly. Except maybe me, as demonstrated by the prevalance of exploding monsters in my DF game. Bwahahahahahaha. Maybe I need more of this?
- Thanks to the Sundaland RPG Setting blog for this post:
Shout Out: War Elephants
Which linked these three posts:
War Elephants, Part I: Battle Pachyderms
War Elephants, Part II: Elephants against Wolves
War Elephants, Part III: Elephant Memories
I learned a lot about war elephants. I already knew a fair amount, but not nearly as much about the logistics and handling of them as I do now. And that I'm not the only one who didn't like 300.
- This thing is pretty creepy. It put me in mind of the creepy-as-hell "Jolly Weeper" from Shadow Prowler. Speaking of which, I only have two of those books anymore. I wonder which of my players has the missing volume?
- I've been noodling about limitations for skills, defenses, feint, etc. for GURPS in general, but I have some ideas for Felltower in particular but overall more for DF as a line. I've got to figure out a good way to assemble my thoughts before I put it all down, but the posts I've made (and the comments on them) have really got me thinking.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Player administrative roles and player note keeping
We've experimented in my game with a "combat coordinator." That's a player (Vic) whose job it is to keep the other players (the not-Vics) organized for combat. He calls out the turn order, makes sure people are ready, etc.
It's worked out, kind of. Sort of. Well sometimes, not so well other times.
We've been debating a "caller" like position for someone to organize the group. We've been playing with 7-10 people, and a 10-player session plus 4-5 NPCs isn't easy for the GM even with people on their toes.
One of my players (J~) has taken on the role of record-keeper of loot and purchased items, and what items were found and lost in the dungeon (useful, because my players don't often update me on what their fallen, lost compatriots carried when they fell.)
We've debated a rotating leader position, with that person getting final say and getting to set the scope of the session's delve.
This guy has taken all of that to a very, very detailed level of analysis.
Barker's Rolodex: Record Keeping for a Long Campaign
I'm impressed, and it very neatly explains how and why to do those things we've been doing or debating doing. Since it agrees with my ideas, by the Law of Confirmation Bias, I hereby declare his post to be helpful, accurate, true, and well worth reading. Check it out . . . I think we might be able to use some of the suggestions to fill out our ideas.
It's worked out, kind of. Sort of. Well sometimes, not so well other times.
We've been debating a "caller" like position for someone to organize the group. We've been playing with 7-10 people, and a 10-player session plus 4-5 NPCs isn't easy for the GM even with people on their toes.
One of my players (J~) has taken on the role of record-keeper of loot and purchased items, and what items were found and lost in the dungeon (useful, because my players don't often update me on what their fallen, lost compatriots carried when they fell.)
We've debated a rotating leader position, with that person getting final say and getting to set the scope of the session's delve.
This guy has taken all of that to a very, very detailed level of analysis.
Barker's Rolodex: Record Keeping for a Long Campaign
I'm impressed, and it very neatly explains how and why to do those things we've been doing or debating doing. Since it agrees with my ideas, by the Law of Confirmation Bias, I hereby declare his post to be helpful, accurate, true, and well worth reading. Check it out . . . I think we might be able to use some of the suggestions to fill out our ideas.
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
How to be good at being evil
Yesterday, I made the point that evil isn't so great, really.
So let's say you and your fellow players in my game decide, yeah, let's be evil. Let's have a whole party of evil and not-evil-but-amoral types.
Some of this advice is generic, but it's largely predicated on being for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy in DF Felltower.
How to do it?
Out-of-Game
Let's handle some out of game issues that affect an evil party differently.
Trustworthy Evil
The first issue is, will you be loyal to one another despite evil being evil? Will it still be a cooperative game of magic items going to the one who can best use it or most needs it, loot divided by need, people buying each other potions and whatnot?
Or not?
It's a big decision, and it's one you need to make right way. This is first-principles evil campaign stuff. If you don't all agree on "all for one, one for all" then it's every man for himself. Know that when you throw your buddy the idol, he's not going to throw you the whip.
If it's all for one and one for all, dispense with the big issue of evil being untrustworthy by being loyal to each other with disadvantages. We're evil, yeah, but we're a tight fraternity/sorority/family/knitting circle/company of evil. You can take Sense of Duty and Code of Honor and all of that. Or lack them, but generally act as if you have them.
Squick Factor
The second issue, know other people's squick factor and trigger issues. Maybe someone doesn't have an issue with saying, "We torture the prisoner for a +6 to the roll" but really does have an issue articulating it. Maybe they'll play the bad guys well but really don't want to get into the issue of what selling kids into slavery really means for them. Stuff like that. Know these and respect these. It's a lot less of an issue with good parties. People might want to choke you when your holy warrior gives his +1 sword to the church when he finds a better one and doesn't give it someone else in the party, but they won't feel uncomfortable at the table.
In-Game
What are in the in-game issues of being evil?
Heal Thyself
One big issue with an evil party is healing. Simply put, you don't get any in town from the Church. You don't get any in the dungeon from your Evil Cleric. Your neutral types may be able to get healing in town - and in DF Felltower, that's really iffy. Known association with evil types is quickly going to end with a reputation, and probably eventually Social Stigma (Excommunicated).
Evil Cleric: Get PI4 and take Steal Vitality pronto. Use it to drain foes and heal your injuries.
Unholy Warrior: You'll want Blood Healing immediately. Wild Talent will let you cast Steal Vitality once a session, or let you access any evil cleric spells as needed . . . once per session.
Everyone: Rapid Healing, high HP, and potions of healing are your friends. Learn First Aid, and make sure you have a good score in it.
The best way to avoid a need for healing is a good offense.
The Best Defense is a Good Offense
The evil templates in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy do offense well.
Unholy Warrior: Evil characters should be liberally using poisons - and Unholy Warriors have access to the Venomous Tongue perk, which is a great way to save cash for healing potions by getting free poison. Blood Harming is useful but will cost HP to do. Striking ST for surprise attacks are good - remember, killing by stealth and treachery is easier than killing in a straight-up fight.
Evil Clerics: Unlike good clerics, you have a lot more offensive magical power. Death Vision, Deathtouch, Wither Limb, Frostbite, Madness, and Terror are all useful ways to deal with foes. Zombie and Mass Zombie will make them your friends after you steal their FP and HP and kill them. Summon Demon is a good top-end spell to get, too, to get demonic aid. You get what you pay for - like elemental summoning, if you do bare bones and minimum you won't get a fight-winner. But you might be able to get something serious to aid you if you put some real effort and energy into it. Don't try to be a good cleric, only evil . . . comb the spell list for ways to be offensively-minded and end fights quickly and unfairly and use them.
Others: Basically any template can be evil, of course, not just the two above. Adding a lens for either Unholy Warrior or Evil Cleric can help make you more so, and access their own abilities to add to your offense and allow you to "heal" by theft of life. A special shout-out goes to the Assassin (DF12) as a template that fits thematically better with evil parties (and which does well with kill-by-treachery). And to wizards, who are actually harder to make good than to make not-good.
My Kind of Scum!
One last benefit to being evil - the evil creatures in the dungeon are potential allies. You can do all sorts of things to curry favor with them, too - bring them sapient beings to eat or enslave or sacrifice, bribe them, give them tools that harm civilization, whatever. You can take part in their dark rituals - and maybe teach them a thing or two about darkness that they don't know. And, of course, kill them when it benefits you. It's easier to side with whatever horrible creatures you find, or use the unholy and unspeakable knowledge you uncover, if you're evil, horrible, unholy, and unspeakable yourself. "We should destroy that, not use it or sell it as is" is not an issue . . . unless you find something Holy.
Closing Thoughts: This just a quick scratch at the surface of what evil characters could do in DF Felltower. I'm not saying it's a good idea, or that these are the only ways to go, or anything like that. But for all that evil is, ultimately, weaker than good, it's not helpless or hopeless. It has some tempations and some power that good does not have. The above might make you give it a second look beyond scanning the templates for healing spells and then moving on. They aren't Good + Cool = Better than Good, but they aren't Good - Utility = Worse than Good, either.
So let's say you and your fellow players in my game decide, yeah, let's be evil. Let's have a whole party of evil and not-evil-but-amoral types.
Some of this advice is generic, but it's largely predicated on being for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy in DF Felltower.
How to do it?
Out-of-Game
Let's handle some out of game issues that affect an evil party differently.
Trustworthy Evil
The first issue is, will you be loyal to one another despite evil being evil? Will it still be a cooperative game of magic items going to the one who can best use it or most needs it, loot divided by need, people buying each other potions and whatnot?
Or not?
It's a big decision, and it's one you need to make right way. This is first-principles evil campaign stuff. If you don't all agree on "all for one, one for all" then it's every man for himself. Know that when you throw your buddy the idol, he's not going to throw you the whip.
If it's all for one and one for all, dispense with the big issue of evil being untrustworthy by being loyal to each other with disadvantages. We're evil, yeah, but we're a tight fraternity/sorority/family/knitting circle/company of evil. You can take Sense of Duty and Code of Honor and all of that. Or lack them, but generally act as if you have them.
Squick Factor
The second issue, know other people's squick factor and trigger issues. Maybe someone doesn't have an issue with saying, "We torture the prisoner for a +6 to the roll" but really does have an issue articulating it. Maybe they'll play the bad guys well but really don't want to get into the issue of what selling kids into slavery really means for them. Stuff like that. Know these and respect these. It's a lot less of an issue with good parties. People might want to choke you when your holy warrior gives his +1 sword to the church when he finds a better one and doesn't give it someone else in the party, but they won't feel uncomfortable at the table.
In-Game
What are in the in-game issues of being evil?
Heal Thyself
One big issue with an evil party is healing. Simply put, you don't get any in town from the Church. You don't get any in the dungeon from your Evil Cleric. Your neutral types may be able to get healing in town - and in DF Felltower, that's really iffy. Known association with evil types is quickly going to end with a reputation, and probably eventually Social Stigma (Excommunicated).
Evil Cleric: Get PI4 and take Steal Vitality pronto. Use it to drain foes and heal your injuries.
Unholy Warrior: You'll want Blood Healing immediately. Wild Talent will let you cast Steal Vitality once a session, or let you access any evil cleric spells as needed . . . once per session.
Everyone: Rapid Healing, high HP, and potions of healing are your friends. Learn First Aid, and make sure you have a good score in it.
The best way to avoid a need for healing is a good offense.
The Best Defense is a Good Offense
The evil templates in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy do offense well.
Unholy Warrior: Evil characters should be liberally using poisons - and Unholy Warriors have access to the Venomous Tongue perk, which is a great way to save cash for healing potions by getting free poison. Blood Harming is useful but will cost HP to do. Striking ST for surprise attacks are good - remember, killing by stealth and treachery is easier than killing in a straight-up fight.
Evil Clerics: Unlike good clerics, you have a lot more offensive magical power. Death Vision, Deathtouch, Wither Limb, Frostbite, Madness, and Terror are all useful ways to deal with foes. Zombie and Mass Zombie will make them your friends after you steal their FP and HP and kill them. Summon Demon is a good top-end spell to get, too, to get demonic aid. You get what you pay for - like elemental summoning, if you do bare bones and minimum you won't get a fight-winner. But you might be able to get something serious to aid you if you put some real effort and energy into it. Don't try to be a good cleric, only evil . . . comb the spell list for ways to be offensively-minded and end fights quickly and unfairly and use them.
Others: Basically any template can be evil, of course, not just the two above. Adding a lens for either Unholy Warrior or Evil Cleric can help make you more so, and access their own abilities to add to your offense and allow you to "heal" by theft of life. A special shout-out goes to the Assassin (DF12) as a template that fits thematically better with evil parties (and which does well with kill-by-treachery). And to wizards, who are actually harder to make good than to make not-good.
My Kind of Scum!
One last benefit to being evil - the evil creatures in the dungeon are potential allies. You can do all sorts of things to curry favor with them, too - bring them sapient beings to eat or enslave or sacrifice, bribe them, give them tools that harm civilization, whatever. You can take part in their dark rituals - and maybe teach them a thing or two about darkness that they don't know. And, of course, kill them when it benefits you. It's easier to side with whatever horrible creatures you find, or use the unholy and unspeakable knowledge you uncover, if you're evil, horrible, unholy, and unspeakable yourself. "We should destroy that, not use it or sell it as is" is not an issue . . . unless you find something Holy.
Closing Thoughts: This just a quick scratch at the surface of what evil characters could do in DF Felltower. I'm not saying it's a good idea, or that these are the only ways to go, or anything like that. But for all that evil is, ultimately, weaker than good, it's not helpless or hopeless. It has some tempations and some power that good does not have. The above might make you give it a second look beyond scanning the templates for healing spells and then moving on. They aren't Good + Cool = Better than Good, but they aren't Good - Utility = Worse than Good, either.
Monday, October 19, 2020
Can I run an Evil character? And the myths of Evil
In DF Felltower, PCs can be evil.
With the exception of one wizard, no one has really been evil - and he was evil to people outside of the PCs, only, which is generally a good call in a cooperative game.
I've been asked by some of my players about running evil characters. A few of them would really like to play evil characters, without the rest of the group running non-evil characters who basically stop them from acting as they'd like.
In most campaigns, I just say flat-out no. You can be good, or you can be neutral, but not evil. In a shades-of-grey world, you can be ruthless and harsh but you can't be a genuinely evil person.
I have my own thoughts on evil, too.
But if you do want to run an evil character with me as the GM . . .
DF Felltower is that game.
But in general, they haven't taken me up on the offer.
The group has mostly gone a different route - not necessarily good, but definitely religious. Players wanting to run Assassins, Unholy Warriors, and Evil Clerics are just out of luck with the rest of the group. People can still make them, but they'd really need a wholly seperate group of delvers to hang out with. There are a few characters who might travel with either group, but it'll be hard to explain why the Cleric of the Good God is totally fine with your amoral character borrowing the MacGuffin to bring along on a delve with an Unholy Warrior and an Evil Cleric to try to solve solve some condundrum in the dungeon.
Despite all of that, you can run an evil character in my game . . . and get the rest of the players to join in . . . and it hasn't really happened yet.
Why not?
I think it's a combination of factors:
Evil ≠ (Good + Cool)
I think the idea that Evil is Good plus Cool is a pervasive myth.* My games do not support that idea. In fact, my games categorically treat this as a false assumption.
A number of players have asked to be Unholy Warriors and Evil Clerics. They're on the allowed list. I'd let them go through with it.
They always drop it when they find out that Evil Clerics don't get healing spells, and Unholy Warriors can't expect to get bonuses to fight demons or get Resurrection in town. It's a symptom of this myth - that evil gets everything good does, plus cool stuff. It's the idea that good is restrictive, evil is freedom. Good limits your options, evil allows all options. Good has to be constructive only, but Evil can be constructive or destructive, depending on what works for evil at the moment.
Regardless of how you feel about the realism of this . . . the game doesn't support this idea. There is a tradeoff if you chose the powers of evil over the power of good. You lose out on the ability to be truly constructive and helpful for the improved ability to inflict harm.
Good wants something for you, Evil wants something from you.
Evil is essentially selfish. The "freedom" that evil gives you is the freedom to act in your interest even when it's not in the interest of society or your fellows. You might do that anyway, if you perceive it to be more beneficial. It's not from a moral compass or a sense of right or justice but of benefit.
If evil is helping you, it's because evil benefits.
Nothing evil does is "no strings attached." Why would it be? Attaching strings benefits the giver. Evil looks for self-benefits. Evil might help help you, but it's only because helping you is perceived to be the best way to help the evil person giving you the help.
Evil isn't trustworthy
Evil doesn't have friends, evil has co-conspirators. Good guys don't betray their allies. Bad guys do it all the time - you can't easily betray your enemies. You can't rat out your enemies unless they're also your co-conspirators . . . and those are likely other evil guys.
You and your fellow PCs may choose a Sense of Duty to each other, despite also being demon-worshipping evil types in the service of sin. But absolutely none of the "Truly Evil" powers on "your side" took it. They don't know the meaning of feeling that way, although they may recognize it and use it against you. Bad guys don't take your Dependents hostage because they value theirs, they do it because they know a weakness when they see it.
Evil types will, eventually, betray you. They'll choose their benefit over you somewhere between "sometimes" and "always." As soon as it's the good move, they'll take it.
(The answer is at the bottom**)
It is better to be feared, than loved.
The of-quoted maxim of Machiavelli fits evil to a "T." While it's best to be loved and feared, it's hard to pull that off. Evil goes right for fear. You're less likely to cross, betray, or otherwise work against someone you flat-out fear.
All of that makes it hard to have an "evil" party without there being a hierarchy of fear . . . where you stay loyal to those above you because it's been made clear you will pay for betrayal in spades. Don't expect this to be reciprocal - your fearsome leaders will spend you like bullets if it benefits them. And you'd do it, too, if you were where they are.
Squick, Squick, Squick
A personal squick factor helps keep people from running truly evil PCs, too. Most players who want to be "evil" just want to be scary badasses. They want to not take prisoners and shoot first and otherwise be dangerous, and be free from social repercussions for acting that way. But they don't want to act out really unpleasant things - torture, say, or abuse of children, or things like that. I'm discouraging of such actions anyway. True evil isn't going to shy away from those torture/abuse/mass murder/etc. actions if it's of benefit - especially the demon-and-devil worshipping kind in fantasy games.
* To a degree, Star Wars is guilty of perpetuating this - although it's otherwise a great example of how Good works together and Evil depends on fear to keep order. You see the Sith lords (cool name, right? Do good Jedi get a cool title? No) dressed in snappy outfits, using force lightning, force choking people, hurling items at their foes to knock them over, halting bolts of energy in flight. Good Jedi . . . mind tricks, mostly, and some jumping and leaping and parrying blaster fire. They win in the end but just don't look as cool doing it.
** "One chop with the sword should do it for the halfling; gnomes, however, are a little tougher and usually require an axe."
With the exception of one wizard, no one has really been evil - and he was evil to people outside of the PCs, only, which is generally a good call in a cooperative game.
I've been asked by some of my players about running evil characters. A few of them would really like to play evil characters, without the rest of the group running non-evil characters who basically stop them from acting as they'd like.
In most campaigns, I just say flat-out no. You can be good, or you can be neutral, but not evil. In a shades-of-grey world, you can be ruthless and harsh but you can't be a genuinely evil person.
I have my own thoughts on evil, too.
But if you do want to run an evil character with me as the GM . . .
DF Felltower is that game.
But in general, they haven't taken me up on the offer.
The group has mostly gone a different route - not necessarily good, but definitely religious. Players wanting to run Assassins, Unholy Warriors, and Evil Clerics are just out of luck with the rest of the group. People can still make them, but they'd really need a wholly seperate group of delvers to hang out with. There are a few characters who might travel with either group, but it'll be hard to explain why the Cleric of the Good God is totally fine with your amoral character borrowing the MacGuffin to bring along on a delve with an Unholy Warrior and an Evil Cleric to try to solve solve some condundrum in the dungeon.
Despite all of that, you can run an evil character in my game . . . and get the rest of the players to join in . . . and it hasn't really happened yet.
Why not?
I think it's a combination of factors:
Evil ≠ (Good + Cool)
I think the idea that Evil is Good plus Cool is a pervasive myth.* My games do not support that idea. In fact, my games categorically treat this as a false assumption.
A number of players have asked to be Unholy Warriors and Evil Clerics. They're on the allowed list. I'd let them go through with it.
They always drop it when they find out that Evil Clerics don't get healing spells, and Unholy Warriors can't expect to get bonuses to fight demons or get Resurrection in town. It's a symptom of this myth - that evil gets everything good does, plus cool stuff. It's the idea that good is restrictive, evil is freedom. Good limits your options, evil allows all options. Good has to be constructive only, but Evil can be constructive or destructive, depending on what works for evil at the moment.
Regardless of how you feel about the realism of this . . . the game doesn't support this idea. There is a tradeoff if you chose the powers of evil over the power of good. You lose out on the ability to be truly constructive and helpful for the improved ability to inflict harm.
Good wants something for you, Evil wants something from you.
Evil is essentially selfish. The "freedom" that evil gives you is the freedom to act in your interest even when it's not in the interest of society or your fellows. You might do that anyway, if you perceive it to be more beneficial. It's not from a moral compass or a sense of right or justice but of benefit.
If evil is helping you, it's because evil benefits.
Nothing evil does is "no strings attached." Why would it be? Attaching strings benefits the giver. Evil looks for self-benefits. Evil might help help you, but it's only because helping you is perceived to be the best way to help the evil person giving you the help.
Evil isn't trustworthy
Evil doesn't have friends, evil has co-conspirators. Good guys don't betray their allies. Bad guys do it all the time - you can't easily betray your enemies. You can't rat out your enemies unless they're also your co-conspirators . . . and those are likely other evil guys.
You and your fellow PCs may choose a Sense of Duty to each other, despite also being demon-worshipping evil types in the service of sin. But absolutely none of the "Truly Evil" powers on "your side" took it. They don't know the meaning of feeling that way, although they may recognize it and use it against you. Bad guys don't take your Dependents hostage because they value theirs, they do it because they know a weakness when they see it.
Evil types will, eventually, betray you. They'll choose their benefit over you somewhere between "sometimes" and "always." As soon as it's the good move, they'll take it.
(The answer is at the bottom**)
It is better to be feared, than loved.
The of-quoted maxim of Machiavelli fits evil to a "T." While it's best to be loved and feared, it's hard to pull that off. Evil goes right for fear. You're less likely to cross, betray, or otherwise work against someone you flat-out fear.
All of that makes it hard to have an "evil" party without there being a hierarchy of fear . . . where you stay loyal to those above you because it's been made clear you will pay for betrayal in spades. Don't expect this to be reciprocal - your fearsome leaders will spend you like bullets if it benefits them. And you'd do it, too, if you were where they are.
Squick, Squick, Squick
A personal squick factor helps keep people from running truly evil PCs, too. Most players who want to be "evil" just want to be scary badasses. They want to not take prisoners and shoot first and otherwise be dangerous, and be free from social repercussions for acting that way. But they don't want to act out really unpleasant things - torture, say, or abuse of children, or things like that. I'm discouraging of such actions anyway. True evil isn't going to shy away from those torture/abuse/mass murder/etc. actions if it's of benefit - especially the demon-and-devil worshipping kind in fantasy games.
* To a degree, Star Wars is guilty of perpetuating this - although it's otherwise a great example of how Good works together and Evil depends on fear to keep order. You see the Sith lords (cool name, right? Do good Jedi get a cool title? No) dressed in snappy outfits, using force lightning, force choking people, hurling items at their foes to knock them over, halting bolts of energy in flight. Good Jedi . . . mind tricks, mostly, and some jumping and leaping and parrying blaster fire. They win in the end but just don't look as cool doing it.
** "One chop with the sword should do it for the halfling; gnomes, however, are a little tougher and usually require an axe."
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Sometimes, you just have to go through the puzzle room.
I was talking to one of my gamers today while socially distantly trading things we had for each other. We talked a bit about the second session of A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade.
At some point he said, essentially, "Sometimes you just have to go through the puzzle."
There isn't another way around.
We had this come up in White Plume Mountain, when the PCs encountered lethal or puzzling encounters on the only way to (and from!) an area containing one of the weapons. They'd reason that this can't possibly be the only way through, because then the monsters/guards/owners/etc. would have to go through this puzzle.
Logical? Yes.
Accurate? No.
The dungeon designer may not have provided for this. Even if the dungeon designer did, that doesn't mean the way in is the way you're headed. Or that you have the resources to go around. Or that you'll be able to find the secret door they use to bypass it. Or that you have the ability to unlock said door if you find it.
You might just have to go through it.
In tournament-style (A1-4 or C2, for example) or funhouse-style adventures (S2 or EX1 and EX2, for example), you might just have to jump through the hoop. You can't assume that there must be another way . . . the obvious channel for intruders is trapped and therefore the smart move is to go another way.
Logical? Yes.
Accurate? No.
It might help to tackle those situations with a little of the video game mentality in you - Skyrim is notorious for the exit from the boss fight right out to the entrance area . . . but you can't reach it/access it/open it from the entrance area. All you can do is jump down and then leave. You can't avoid all the minions on the way.
DF Felltower mostly rewards finding the other way around. It doesn't always exist, but often does. Still, there are puzzles you must go through, or simply turn back and forgo the rewards on the other end.
At some point he said, essentially, "Sometimes you just have to go through the puzzle."
There isn't another way around.
We had this come up in White Plume Mountain, when the PCs encountered lethal or puzzling encounters on the only way to (and from!) an area containing one of the weapons. They'd reason that this can't possibly be the only way through, because then the monsters/guards/owners/etc. would have to go through this puzzle.
Logical? Yes.
Accurate? No.
The dungeon designer may not have provided for this. Even if the dungeon designer did, that doesn't mean the way in is the way you're headed. Or that you have the resources to go around. Or that you'll be able to find the secret door they use to bypass it. Or that you have the ability to unlock said door if you find it.
You might just have to go through it.
In tournament-style (A1-4 or C2, for example) or funhouse-style adventures (S2 or EX1 and EX2, for example), you might just have to jump through the hoop. You can't assume that there must be another way . . . the obvious channel for intruders is trapped and therefore the smart move is to go another way.
Logical? Yes.
Accurate? No.
It might help to tackle those situations with a little of the video game mentality in you - Skyrim is notorious for the exit from the boss fight right out to the entrance area . . . but you can't reach it/access it/open it from the entrance area. All you can do is jump down and then leave. You can't avoid all the minions on the way.
DF Felltower mostly rewards finding the other way around. It doesn't always exist, but often does. Still, there are puzzles you must go through, or simply turn back and forgo the rewards on the other end.
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