RPGaDay 2024: Day Fourteen: RPG with compelling characters

Day 14: RPG with Compelling Characters

Hmm, another tricky one, but I like interpreting these questions in different ways.

What do we mean by Compelling Characters?  Presumably, interesting characters that players are drawn to and want to run. 

How much of this is down to the system and how much to a combination of GM and player?

When we started playing D&D in the seventies, character generation was simple.  Roll 3D6 six times and use the scores for abilities.  We later assigned the die rolls where we wanted, but originally, it was play as rolled.  This is why my first long term character was a fighter with DEX 18 and STR 12.  

The longest time taken was usually equipping the character.  Little or no thought was given to what sort of person they were, why they were adventuring, or what they'd done beforehand.

But were our characters all one dimensional fighting machines? Some, maybe, but as we played, our characters developed. 

My fighter, Eric Harminon, who started out the angry second son of a disreputable knight, but grew to accept this and eventually expunged his father's deeds and brought redemption to his family.

The wizard and cleric couple, who's relationship grew along with their players (still married). 

The rogue who's curiosity often got him (and his companions) into scrapes.

The cleric who founded a temple and forgave the person who betrayed his father.

None of these personalities were rolled at creation or determined with charts and tables, they grew organically through play. 

Even up to fourth edition background was provided by the player (or foisted on them by the GM). There was very much an understanding that this stuff was important for roleplay, but it wasn't baked into the system as a rule mechanic.  It was up to each player to engage with it as much or as little as they wished.  [A handy GM tip I learned was when a player states that their character knows or can do something, ask what happened in their past that led to this.  This encourages even the most back story averse player to think a bit more about it].

My, how things have changed.

Now most of the RPGs I read require background to be created at the generation stage, indeed, character abilities are often tied to backstory. I understand that the new edition of D&D even has the ability score increases tied to background rather than race species.

While there's nothing wrong with this, and in some cases, it could provide helpful guidelines, there's something in me that balks at this. I want the freedom to gradually explore my character as I play. Indeed, I've seen many players feel trapped by character background created in session zero that no longer worked for them.

In short (not that I ever are), I think it's down to individual players, with the GMs encouragement, to develop compelling characters.

That said, some games make it easier, and this seems to be a trend especially in newer games. Do I agree with this? That depends on the game.

One game that had the potential to produce compelling characters was Golden Heroes. A UK based superhero RPG, the heart of character generation was randomly rolling on the powers table and then coming up with a rationale for them.

When we played, most of the group were pretty happy with their rolls, though I think we all ignored one or two of them. The best bit was tying in backstory and powers to create a superhero, but personally I found the random scattergun approach a little off putting, I'd much rather have chosen, but I had little experience of the Superhero genre; perhaps the random rolls helped?  Once created, the characters went on to have a series of amazing adventures, and the system was a good one for what it portrayed.

But there was something special about just grabbing a piece of paper, rolling eighteen dice, plus hit points, and getting straight into the game.

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RPGaDay 2024: Day Thirteen: RPG with Evocative Environments

Day Thirteen: RPG with Evocative Environments 

A tricky one, as I believe in most cases environments, evocative or not, are down to the GM firstly to imagine, then describe to the players, rather than an intrinsic property of the RPG itself.

I suppose it's easier in a well defined game world, where a lot of the environment is the product of the writers.  I'm sure the Forgotten Realms has evocative environments (I did like the Panopticon in the film), but I know relatively little about the Realms, so can't really comment.

I much prefer to make a game world my own. I have used published worlds, notably Mystara, but they are often very open to interpretation. The more space there is for my own material, the more I like it.

I really enjoyed creating my own world (Teramarr), and I like to think there are some evocative environments there (minotaur tomb complex built into a cliff face, jungle ruins, islands surrounded by near impenetrable storms or flying islands anyone?).  I must get back to Teramarr.

If I have to nominate something I'll suggest Mystara. Although I said it's pretty open, there are some stunning places. The staircase up to the monastery in X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, ships flying over Alphatia, or the first sight of the Hollow World. All memorable, stunning and very, very fantastic.

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RPGaDay 2024: Day 12: RPG with Well Supported Campaigns

Day Twelve: RPG with well supported campaigns

I'm assuming here that we're talking about games where the publisher also produces good quality campaign material to support the role playing game.

I'd like to say Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. After all, every year WotC bring out a hefty hardback campaign. These have provided additional details for the default world of The Forgotten Realms and have often provided additional rules and systems to cover specific environments or styles of play. Examples include Rime of the Frostmaiden (sandbox), Storm King's Thunder (point crawl) and Tomb of Annihilation (jungle set hexcrawl).

Yes, I'd like to say D&D 5E, but sadly, the recent campaigns just don't measure up*.

They all contain great moments, but are often padded out with fairly ordinary stuff. They can also suffer from awful railroading; not a good lesson for the GM looking for guidance on designing their own campaign.

You'd have to go back to the original Dragonlance series to find a reasonable example of a published D&D campaign, and that never quite worked for me (its me, not Dragonlance, but I found it too 'soap-opera-ish for my liking, and it also suffers from railroading).

So instead I'm going for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu (again).  Particularly the classic Masks of Nyarlathotep.  

This campaign has been around since 1984.  I remember owning it when it was a box with seperate booklets for each chapter.  I've still got the 1996 version, but not the recent mega version, nor, sadly, the props package that comes with it.

It's considered the exemplar of a roleplaying campaign (though Eternal Lies, apparently, comes close) because it offers a huge degree of freedom in which order the chapters are handled beyond the first.  There is a reasonable amount of redundancy in the clues (almost the Three Clue Rule at work) and it is truly world-spanning.  

If you want to know more, check out the Wikipedia page.  

If you are a Call of Cthulhu player and you've never played in it, (and you've got many months of game time available), badger your Keeper to run it for you, or better still, take up the revered mantle of Keeper of Arcane Knowledge yourself and run it for a bunch of victims mates.

I will warn you though, that, written in the 80s, some of the attitudes seem outdated now (rather like some of HPLs).  

Good Keepers should be able to overcome that though, and it's well worth the effort.

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*Honourable mention though to the BECMI Wrath of the Immortals campaign.  Written as a swan song for the BECMI version of Mystara before everything went second edition, this was more a series of set pieces that were the framework of a far ranging campaign.  There are some great moments in it, and I tangentially used some of them in my 4E campaign, but there are too many gaps that require many levels of adventuring to fill in to properly class as a full campaign.

RPGaDAY: Day 11: RPG with well supported one-shots

Day Eleven: RPG with well supported one-shots 

For me, this has to be Call of Cthulhu. 

Chaosium have produced many one shots over the years, as have other third parties (check out the Miskatonic University Monographs) and they are all of a high standard. Some, such as Machine Tractor Station Kharkov - 37 or The Derelict are rightly considered classics. 

While such one-shots can be used as the start of a campaign, the personalities of the pre-generated characters is usually such as to preclude this. There's also a built in lethality that isn't necessarily present in other investigations.

Nevertheless, I've heard of two separate campaigns set in Soviet era Russia that began with Machine Tractor Station Kharkov - 37 (quite how, given the extreme deadliness of the main nasty, baffles me, like when I hear players describe their investigators going on to finish Masks of Nyarlathotep after completing Shadows in Yog-Sothoth).

It's partly the nature of horror roleplaying games that character longevity is a shaky concept. One-shots don't have to consider life beyond the scenario, which in turn allows for more interesting, and possibly self destructive, personalities. Well thought out pre-generated characters will spark off each other and provide lots of opportunities for entertaining roleplay*.

One-shots are a great way to introduce new players to RPGs. I've ended up running several campaigns that began with one-shots, though I've deliberately designed them with the possibility of following scenarios. rather than finishing them all with a bang.

Honourable mention goes to Savage Worlds. PEG have produced Quick start packs for every edition in many different worlds. Indeed, a good half of my Savage Worlds gaming has been with these.

If you've dismissed one-shots as too light weight, or lacking long term engagement, give them a go. Quick start rules packages are often a great way to find them, and give you a chance to try a new system as well.

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*A quick caution. Sometimes the personalities can be a bit too much.

My most unpleasant RPG experience was running a one-shot. One player took some of their characters' personality notes as an excuse to verbally abuse other players. Yes, they'd gone well beyond character.

This was definitely not the fault of the one-shot, and the player was ejected from the group in short order. I was running the game for all comers at a FLGS, nevertheless, I was aware of this particular player, and I should have given them a different character at the least.

RPGaDAY: Day Ten: RPG you'd like to see on TV

Day Ten: RPG you'd like to see on TV

Well, this could have several different meanings.  RPG portrayed on TV, RPG played via TV or TV drama based on the world of an RPG.

RPGs Portrayed on TV

I understand that the series Stranger Things featured D&D being played by the characters. WotC have done a starter set based around the adventure played (and also a Rick and Morty set). ET did the same on film decades earlier.  

Undoubtedly this brings people in to the hobby, but there is a history of portraying it in a negative light.

Drama set in an RPG World 

I recently watched Hono(u)r Among Thieves, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. It told a reasonable story, and it was fun spotting Easter Eggs. But was it an RPG? If it had been a TV drama, we would simply say it was a drama set in the Forgotten Realms. There were no points at which the audience were able to control the action, the roles were all pre-determined. 

There are several D&D films (unfortunately, if you've seen some of the earlier ones), but I'm not aware of any RPG background used in a TV drama.

I'd say that this category is fine, but simply borrows background from an RPG.  

As with the first category, it works to bring people in to the hobby, indeed, my current online campaign has one player who joined after seeing the film.

RPG played via TV

I've also seen a few roleplay livestreams and play sessions. Though I do find I can't watch them long term.  Here, at least, the players get to make meaningful decisions, but I can't see these ever really taking off enough to be mainstream viewing. That said, perhaps they also serve to bring new players into the hobby?

Digression

UK TV has featured at least three programmes based around the idea of contestants taking part in something close to an RPG.  Most readers will have heard of The Adventure Game and The Crystal Maze, both featuring mental and physical puzzles, but have you heard of Knightmare?

Knightmare was a kid's show where one of a team of four wore a helm that blocked vision. The rest of the team watched the 'bold adventurer' and guided them through puzzles and traps and interacted with NPCs. If you want to know more, check out the Wikipedia page.

But I digress; my vote would go to more TV dramas presenting roleplaying as a normal leisure activity.  It doesn't even have to be particularly relevant to the plot (as it was in Stranger Things), simply having it seen as a background activity is fine.

Too often in the past it's been an easy target for mockery. I'm not bothered which game, though a well known one would be most likely (let's face it - D&D), but as RPGs are becoming mainstream, it's time to represent this in the media.

**EDIT** just to be clear, I'm not advocating for TV broadcasts of live play RPGs, but the inclusion of RPGs in mainstream TV dramas where they are presented as normal activities that ordinary people play as part of their lives.

Let's ditch the common, lazy default of RPGs being a fringe activity indulged in by weird geeky social misfits.

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RPGaDAY: Day Nine: Accessory you'd like to see

Day Nine: An Accessory you'd like to see

Hmm, tricky.

But as a GM I appreciate anything that makes my job easier. This could be good NPC templates, micro systems that actually help rather than just adding extra complexity - The Angry GM's Dice Pool system is a great idea that I use regularly).  But one real issue is actually hauling all the books, minis, mats, terrain, pencils, dice, spare pencils, spare dice and everything else required to the venue.

So I'd like a storage and transport system that is exactly tailored to what I need for a session. Everything all in one container, preferable lightweight. 

If it also acts as storage at home, that would be even better.

If Time Lords play RPGs (I'm sure they do) I'll have whatever they use (or failing that, a TARDIS).  

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RPGaDAY Eight: An Accessory you Appreciate

Day Eight: An Accessory you Appreciate

Simple, this has to be Justin Alexander's ENNIE award winning "So You Want To Be A Game's Master".

I've long been a fan of The Alexandrian blog (also ENNIE award winning), and this book, which expands on many of his blog articles and presents them in a sensible progression, rather like a series of tutorials, is excellent.

It certainly does a better job of explaining how to be a GM than anything else I've read, rule books included.

Given the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons, it's not surprising that the first section uses that game to show the procedures a GM needs to use, and introduces systems and exemplars to help, and the advice is suitably generic to apply to nearly any RPG.

A lot of this used to be covered in rule books, but, taking D&D again, there's very little in any of the main books now to help new GMs. Perhaps there's an assumption that people already know the basics. Perhaps there's a reliance on players and GMs watching streamed play sessions. 

What I've read in other RPGs suggests that this is common to most rule systems.

But it's when he moves on to other topics that the book really proved it's worth to me. Topics like urban adventures, hex and point crawls, NPCs and, especially, the Three Clue Rule, have really helped my GMing (and I'm old/stubborn enough to believe that I know it all and can't be taught anything new).

If you want some idea of his style, check out his blog, specially the Gamesmastery 101 series. 

He even has a YouTube channel now.

Honourable mention goes to an old AD&D accessory, The Official Dungeon Master Decks: Deck of Encounters, Set Two. 

This is a box of cards, each one containing the seed for an encounter. Symbols indicate details such as terrain, climate and danger level and the back of the card roughs out the encounter.

There's enough detail to run it, and it's kept generic enough to fit most worlds. There are even some multipart quests.

I regularly draw a card to give me inspiration, and although I don't think I've ever run one exactly as written, they have inspired many memorable moments.

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