My DF Felltower campaign features bonus XP for "most valuable player." It's voted on by the players. I don't get a vote but I have occasionally had input in the form of summarizing some important things each person has done in the session.
It's not a vote that's dependent on actual game content. It's been given for stellar in-game performances, failing rolls spectacularly, and even totally non-game related events like bringing good food the table.
It's been a lot of fun. The players often start to chant "MVP! MVP!" after good moves, foolish moves, lucky shots, amusing pratfalls, people announcing what snacks they brought, etc. It's amusing to see our youngest player routinely vote for himself because he wants the points.
The question has long be up in the air, though - is it the player, or the character?
I feel like we answered this definitively a few sessions back.
The most valuable character wasn't very clear. The most valuable player was very clear - the guy who usually runs Aldwyn baked a DF-themed apple pie. He got the point. But he was running Dryst - not his PC.
So who gets the point? Dryst? Or Aldwyn's player?
We went with the player, and he could give it to any of his current PCs. So, Aldwyn got it as that is his only current PC.
It feels weird to do so, but it also feels right to do so. I don't think I'd pass out Awesome Points to the player instead of the character, or bonus points for doing things . . . but this was clearly a player-centric award and thus the player should benefit . . . not the character he ran while the actual owner of the character was away.
But if the player is running their own character and earns the point, it goes to the character. You can't save it for another character. It only travels when it is a player-centric award to a player running someone else's character.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
How would multiple PCs per player work in DF Felltower?
One of the options in my "things I'd do differently" post was multiple PCs per player. Not just multiple 250-point guys on hand in case you guy dies or in case you want to play a higher or lower point guy. Another option I've considered is to rather have "main" and "secondary" characters you could run at the same time. Here are some thoughts on that approach.
I picture this working as follows:
- you'd have your high-end, "main" guy. This would be your primary character. You'd run this paper man most of the time. You could, of course, have a secondary 250-point guy.
- you'd also have an associated 125-point guy. You could run this one as your only PC for a session (and earn full XP for it) or run it as an ally - running two PCs - and get half for that character. The secondary character would need to be exposed to real risk, but could progress up while getting bootstrapped in a way by other players.
You could always take an Ally as well, and get the lockstep improvements of the Ally on top of having another, lower-point PC to run.
Another option, I think, would be to allow multiple 125-point characters to count as one, as suggested in DF15. That seems like it needs no additional detail than I listed there.
Encouraging Ally might be something else I could do - make it advantageous to find specific NPC hirelings and add them with Ally. Assured access, increases in value as you increase in ability (gain and spend points), and assured loyalty (instead of a secret Loyalty stat) would be some of the benefits. And for low-point guys, this would be fairly cheap. That might not grab everyone, but could allow some players to expand a pool of playable characters and make each of their characters potentially more powerful - you'd have your own crew to draw on if you needed to pad out an expedition.
I picture this working as follows:
- you'd have your high-end, "main" guy. This would be your primary character. You'd run this paper man most of the time. You could, of course, have a secondary 250-point guy.
- you'd also have an associated 125-point guy. You could run this one as your only PC for a session (and earn full XP for it) or run it as an ally - running two PCs - and get half for that character. The secondary character would need to be exposed to real risk, but could progress up while getting bootstrapped in a way by other players.
You could always take an Ally as well, and get the lockstep improvements of the Ally on top of having another, lower-point PC to run.
Another option, I think, would be to allow multiple 125-point characters to count as one, as suggested in DF15. That seems like it needs no additional detail than I listed there.
Encouraging Ally might be something else I could do - make it advantageous to find specific NPC hirelings and add them with Ally. Assured access, increases in value as you increase in ability (gain and spend points), and assured loyalty (instead of a secret Loyalty stat) would be some of the benefits. And for low-point guys, this would be fairly cheap. That might not grab everyone, but could allow some players to expand a pool of playable characters and make each of their characters potentially more powerful - you'd have your own crew to draw on if you needed to pad out an expedition.
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Dice in the Open vs. Concealed, by Game
This post by Talysman is pretty timely, as I've been reviewing how I run AD&D vs. how I run GURPS.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I run die rolls two different ways in my two different games:
GURPS
Pretty much everything except damage and player-facing effects rolls (or a roll to see who is affected) are secret. To hit, defenses, resistance, etc.
Sometimes I'll roll wandering monster rolls in front of everyone just to make a point about people spending a lot of in-game time in a dangerous place.
My players are too good at figuring out stats from data derived from successive combat actions and then making plans based on those odds. That's not something I want for my GURPS game.
AD&D
I roll almost everything out in the open. Only rolls specifically called out by modules as needing to be secret are rolled in secret. I announce AC, roll damage, roll initiative, saving throws, etc. all in the open. For me, it's part of the fun of taking an AD&D vacation is getting to relax and play it all in the open.
Back in the day I used a DM screen. These days it sits flat for use for tables only. It's all in the open.
Do you play different games with different approaches to die roll secrecy?
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I run die rolls two different ways in my two different games:
GURPS
Pretty much everything except damage and player-facing effects rolls (or a roll to see who is affected) are secret. To hit, defenses, resistance, etc.
Sometimes I'll roll wandering monster rolls in front of everyone just to make a point about people spending a lot of in-game time in a dangerous place.
My players are too good at figuring out stats from data derived from successive combat actions and then making plans based on those odds. That's not something I want for my GURPS game.
AD&D
I roll almost everything out in the open. Only rolls specifically called out by modules as needing to be secret are rolled in secret. I announce AC, roll damage, roll initiative, saving throws, etc. all in the open. For me, it's part of the fun of taking an AD&D vacation is getting to relax and play it all in the open.
Back in the day I used a DM screen. These days it sits flat for use for tables only. It's all in the open.
Do you play different games with different approaches to die roll secrecy?
Monday, November 4, 2019
The value of misplaced anachronism
This is a short coda to the Modernisms series.
Misplaced assumptions can trip you up - you have to know to take the game world as it is, and find out how it is before errors kill your PC.
But that's not to say all anachronisms and modern assumptions are out of place.
What if the world deliberately brings in out-of-period elements and caters to assumptions of a modern world?
You can see this in my Felltower campaign with its assumptions on race and gender. It's easier and more fun, and feels better, to play a game where unfair treatment by gender and racial identity are both aberrations if they show up at all. This is something I've found players assume will be the case . . . so I cater to it.
Doing so makes the game easier and more fun.
Ones that don't really make the game more fun - say, massive modern-style conflicts with full-nation-power mobilization and total war - fall under areas that the players need to be aware of.
It's a fairly basic game approach. If it makes the game better, keep it or add it - or cater to it, if it's assumed. If it does not, or lack of it makes the game better, keep it out or remove it. That has to be for the GM and the players, because if one or the other are unhappy, the game will likely fail.
Misplaced assumptions can trip you up - you have to know to take the game world as it is, and find out how it is before errors kill your PC.
But that's not to say all anachronisms and modern assumptions are out of place.
What if the world deliberately brings in out-of-period elements and caters to assumptions of a modern world?
You can see this in my Felltower campaign with its assumptions on race and gender. It's easier and more fun, and feels better, to play a game where unfair treatment by gender and racial identity are both aberrations if they show up at all. This is something I've found players assume will be the case . . . so I cater to it.
Doing so makes the game easier and more fun.
Ones that don't really make the game more fun - say, massive modern-style conflicts with full-nation-power mobilization and total war - fall under areas that the players need to be aware of.
It's a fairly basic game approach. If it makes the game better, keep it or add it - or cater to it, if it's assumed. If it does not, or lack of it makes the game better, keep it out or remove it. That has to be for the GM and the players, because if one or the other are unhappy, the game will likely fail.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Modernisms in Felltower
My recent "Modernisms" series focused on the false assumptions that can trip you up.
But on a tangential topic, what actual modernisms and anachronisms are in my Felltower game?
Serious
Gender Equality is a thing. No one treats women less well because of their gender.
Racial Equality is generally a thing - so much so that you get a whack of points back if you aren't treated equally and few people earn those points.
Universal Currency - not an anachronism, just a modern concerpt transported backward. Oddly everyone except the people who coined that King Gorillicus coin make identical coinage, and even that one is the same size and weight as the others.
Atheists exist. Seriously. In a world were clerics are demonstrably gaining power from supernatural beings, doing things wizards cannot, some people (mostly Vryce) don't believe that the Good God is anything other than an excuse for rules worshipped by mages with an alternate spell-set.
Modern-style Locks are definitely more than TL Olden Times. But they exist, complete with pins, tumblers, weighted mechanisms, and other very modern lock elements. Because fantasy gaming has that stuff.
Silly
I'm not really vouching for the fact that these exist, only it sure seems like they do.
Wizard Court might really be a thing. The Barcas swear it is, and non-mages are automatically guilty.
Scout College also might be real. Credits, semesters, homework, hazing, dorms (aka tree stands and hunting blinds) . . . it's all there. Even student loans to go to Scout College have come up.
Instagram might not really exist, but there is a #Felltower hashtag and accounts dedicated to posting about it.
I'm almost certainly forgetting a bunch . . . maybe my players will chime in?
But on a tangential topic, what actual modernisms and anachronisms are in my Felltower game?
Serious
Gender Equality is a thing. No one treats women less well because of their gender.
Racial Equality is generally a thing - so much so that you get a whack of points back if you aren't treated equally and few people earn those points.
Universal Currency - not an anachronism, just a modern concerpt transported backward. Oddly everyone except the people who coined that King Gorillicus coin make identical coinage, and even that one is the same size and weight as the others.
Atheists exist. Seriously. In a world were clerics are demonstrably gaining power from supernatural beings, doing things wizards cannot, some people (mostly Vryce) don't believe that the Good God is anything other than an excuse for rules worshipped by mages with an alternate spell-set.
Modern-style Locks are definitely more than TL Olden Times. But they exist, complete with pins, tumblers, weighted mechanisms, and other very modern lock elements. Because fantasy gaming has that stuff.
Silly
I'm not really vouching for the fact that these exist, only it sure seems like they do.
Wizard Court might really be a thing. The Barcas swear it is, and non-mages are automatically guilty.
Scout College also might be real. Credits, semesters, homework, hazing, dorms (aka tree stands and hunting blinds) . . . it's all there. Even student loans to go to Scout College have come up.
Instagram might not really exist, but there is a #Felltower hashtag and accounts dedicated to posting about it.
I'm almost certainly forgetting a bunch . . . maybe my players will chime in?
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Modernisms in Fantasy Gaming IV: Universal Money
Here is the last (for now) in my short series on Modernisms in Fantasy Gaming.
These are modern assumptions that players may bring into play, despite the fact that they post-date the rough time period being portrayed or require social organization and technology that is beyond that in the game. As such, they can trip up the players when they hit the different reality of games.
Universal, Freely Exchanged Currency
GURPS DF has copper pieces ($1), silver pieces ($4) and gold pieces ($80). DF Felltower has its own devalued set. AD&D has copper, silver, electrum, gold, platinum, Rolemaster has coins from bronze to gold going by tens, and Dragonlance even has steel pieces (Hah*).
Generally, though, those coins are the same everywhere. It's rare for places to have extra coins. It's exceedingly rare outside of a few old school modules to have places that have their own currency and laws about passing foreign coins.
And yet historically, coinage varied wildly from place to place. Coins were often debased and devalued and nicked and trimmed. Even a handful of the same coins may not really be worth the same amount as each other, never mind another handful of the same type of coins. A gold piece might not be worth 1 gp. Moneychangers would convert foreign coins to local coins, taking a cut in return for engaging in such trade. And for sufficiently odd currency, it's possible that it wouldn't be accepted at all due to the difficulty of exchanging it (such as Yap stones, shell coins, paper currency prior to its local adoption.)
This is one games have largely bowed to - the idea that your coins are good everywhere. But if a GM uses local coins and rules about local usage - and required coins changed at moneychangers - it can cause a lot of difficulty. I've run a few games were the players needed to convert all foreign coins to local coinage. The result has ranged from campaign-ending violent refusal by the PCs to merely committing large-scale fraud by not converting to arguing a lot about getting ripped off.
And to be fair, the modern world has exchangeable currency but no really universal one - I keep yen handy despite the reach of the dollar, and converted to Euros last time I was in Europe. Yet in games, everyone expect a "gold piece" to be worth a uniform amount and be universally accepted.
* Hahahaha.**
** Hahahahahahahahahah. Okay, sorry. They make no sense.
These are modern assumptions that players may bring into play, despite the fact that they post-date the rough time period being portrayed or require social organization and technology that is beyond that in the game. As such, they can trip up the players when they hit the different reality of games.
Universal, Freely Exchanged Currency
GURPS DF has copper pieces ($1), silver pieces ($4) and gold pieces ($80). DF Felltower has its own devalued set. AD&D has copper, silver, electrum, gold, platinum, Rolemaster has coins from bronze to gold going by tens, and Dragonlance even has steel pieces (Hah*).
Generally, though, those coins are the same everywhere. It's rare for places to have extra coins. It's exceedingly rare outside of a few old school modules to have places that have their own currency and laws about passing foreign coins.
And yet historically, coinage varied wildly from place to place. Coins were often debased and devalued and nicked and trimmed. Even a handful of the same coins may not really be worth the same amount as each other, never mind another handful of the same type of coins. A gold piece might not be worth 1 gp. Moneychangers would convert foreign coins to local coins, taking a cut in return for engaging in such trade. And for sufficiently odd currency, it's possible that it wouldn't be accepted at all due to the difficulty of exchanging it (such as Yap stones, shell coins, paper currency prior to its local adoption.)
This is one games have largely bowed to - the idea that your coins are good everywhere. But if a GM uses local coins and rules about local usage - and required coins changed at moneychangers - it can cause a lot of difficulty. I've run a few games were the players needed to convert all foreign coins to local coinage. The result has ranged from campaign-ending violent refusal by the PCs to merely committing large-scale fraud by not converting to arguing a lot about getting ripped off.
And to be fair, the modern world has exchangeable currency but no really universal one - I keep yen handy despite the reach of the dollar, and converted to Euros last time I was in Europe. Yet in games, everyone expect a "gold piece" to be worth a uniform amount and be universally accepted.
* Hahahaha.**
** Hahahahahahahahahah. Okay, sorry. They make no sense.
Friday, November 1, 2019
Bones V last 24 hours
About 24 hours are left in Bones V:
I think I'm staying in this one. The core set is expanding nicely, sufficiently to justify the value for me. I'm probably not getting any extras but that Pirate Ship is very cool. More than I'll ever need, but very cool.
I think I'm staying in this one. The core set is expanding nicely, sufficiently to justify the value for me. I'm probably not getting any extras but that Pirate Ship is very cool. More than I'll ever need, but very cool.
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