Sigmata & Cryptomancer: Gauntlet Podcast Interview

SIGNAL-PLAYER GAME
Today on the Gauntlet Podcast I talk with Chad Walker, designer of Cryptomancer. He has a Kickstarter currently running for his game Sigmata: This Signal Kills Fascists. We talk about both games, ideas of security, and how politics fit into his rpgs. You can find the podcast link here. We’ve also posted the audio on YouTube and I've linked that below. 

I really dug this conversation. It gave me greater insight into Cryptomancer, a game that surprised me in play. It’s on my short list of rpgs to revisit for the Gauntlet Hangouts in 2018. Sherri always brings it up when we discuss future campaigns. After I ran my online sessions I wrote a post/review you can see here; that links to our actual play videos. 

We recorded this interview before Walker finalized his campaign's launch, so we missed a couple of things. In particular he hadn’t pulled together his stretch goal projects. Since then he's added several designers authors with new material. As of this writing he’s funded four of those: 

• "Black Snake Rebellion" by Ishki Ricard which delves into Native American issues and ideas. 
• "Cable Street" by G. Michael Truran offering an alternate version of 1936 Great Britain. 
• "The Complex" by Shae Roberts which combines the Manchurian Candidate with the Black Panthers. 
• "The Missing Women of India" by jim pinto gives an alternate setting of hyper-Patriarchy and India.

The campaign has several more cool ones in the pipeline, including Kira Magrann’s cyberpunk South Africa: "Chromewall." I’m glad to see the project bringing in more material dealing with representation and diversity. That’s made me even more eager for the final result. 

I'm cautiously optimistic about seeing more games tackle political issues, even at a tangent. There's certainly something in the air between Bully Pulpit's Winterhorn Robert Bohl's revision of Misspent Youth. 

I hope you'll check out the podcast; I think it's solid. 

Gareth Ryder Hanrahan: Interviewed!

NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING

Episode 119 of the Gauntlet Podcast is up for your listening pleasure! In this one I talk with Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan about Cthulhu City, his approach to writing, and his voluminous output. Gareth’s one of rpgdom’s most productive and interesting creators. I mean—seriously-- check out RPG Geek’s book summary. It includes sourcebooks, modules, adventure collections, and megadungeons. They list him at just shy of 200 releases and I’m certain that’s incomplete.

Gareth delivers evocative ideas and amazing set-ups. He works on the trad side, but his rich concepts and plots can easily adapt to indie and story games.

Podcast Link: http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-gauntlet-podcast/episode-119-gareth-ryder-hanrahan

More about Cthulhu City: http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/cthulhu-city/

His RPG Geek Listing: http://bit.ly/2hNOpDa

Below are a few things by Hanrahan I really love.

GUMSHOE ADVENTURES

GRH has written several really sharp adventure collections for GUMSHOE products. Elsewhere I’ve reviewed Dead Rock Seven for Ashen Stars. I love its variety. The Zalozhniy Quartet offers a series of linked adventures for Night’s Black Agents approachable in any order. They’re both great introductions to the core book’s world—providing great examples of the problems and situations you could play out. In both cases GRH built on adventure concepts from the core book author, providing the flesh and bone to that spirit.

One of my favorite collections he’s done is Brief Cases, one of two books for Mutant City Blues. Harahan has a mandate here: provide rich adventures doable in a session or two. They’re fast, but not thin. Each one leans into a different aspect of the setting. I’ve run “Blastback” for The Gauntlet Hangouts and I appreciated the way the game sets things up for the GM. (See my write-up here with links to the videos).

Some modules provide little GM guidance on how to actually approach reading or running the adventure. They expect the GM to decipher and discover the fun buried within. That works for broadly sketched resources, like Dungeon World starters. Adventures with more connections and detail require signposts. On the other hand, some modules itemize the process: X scene --> Y scene --> Z scene. They offer a track and show how to steer the players back on to it. There’s an expectation of control. Hanranhan’s adventures expect the players to shoot off in many directions. They discuss ways to approach that and how scenes & incidents can flow into one another. Most of all, they consider the practicalities of timing and how to handle changes.

13TH AGE

I’ve mentioned before my love for Rolemaster’s Creatures & Treasures series. They’re great, wild, and random. I’ve bought other item books—the d20 glut spit forth a ton of them-- but I’d never found any I’d really dug. Until I hit The Book of Loot. It’s a great collection, with amazing ideas smartly organized by the Icons. That means you can easily key an item or a player or a situation. My favorite kind of treasures has always been those with novel ability. This has that in spades. I don’t items fully mechanized, just a grab bag of bonuses. I need stuff that players can use in clever ways or that open new approaches to problems.

There’s also Eyes of the Stone Thief. In 13th Age’s Dragon Empire living dungeons bubble to the surface from somewhere down below. These lairs change and reshape over time. Some eat other dungeons. The Stone Thief is a megadungeon which has swallowed cities and castles. It adapts, learns, and changes. You can imagine the challenge in setting that up for the GM. The book’s at once a solid adventure and a toolbox. Since groups can head in many directions it has sections, set pieces, factions, flow charts—all easily divided and accessible. The smart organization struck me when I ran pieces from it. There’s also a dynamite section of dungeoneering at the start and a great index-glossary of key elements at the back.

DRAMASYSTEM

Finally there’s “Heroes of the City.” It’s a short little thing, a DS pitch from Blood on the Snow. But it grabs my attention like no other concept. A band of Heroes and their gathered forces have finally defeated the Big Bad Warlock in his capitol. This is about what happens next. It’s a story about reconstruction, alliance crumbling, old feuds arising, and dark conspiracies lurking. While I never got it to the table with DramaSystem, I did run it as a session of Kingdom. I loved it and I’m probably going to run it again with Fate next year.

WISH LIST

3 Games I’d Love to See GRH Write For

1. Cryptomancer: I really dig this concept and I want to return to it again next year. I’ll love to see some adventure seeds for this “heroes underground” concept. The setting has so many cool ideas that I’d be interested in what he pull out as adventures.

2. Any Free League publication: Tales from the Loop, Coriolis, but especially Mutant: Year Zero. MYZ has a series of Zone Sectors. They’re adventure set ups, NPCs, challenges, and concepts. GRH could offer interesting twists on what happens at home and in the zone.

3. Base Raiders: GRH’s done dungeon-crawls and superheroes (via MCB). I’d be super excited to see what he’d do with those two in combination. What kind of villain base would he create? How would he draw out the cool from the setup?

And of course I’d also like to see a fuller version of “Heroes of the City,” with some mechanics to support that. Perhaps for Dungeon World or 13TH Age.

Anyway, check out the podcast and consider taking a look at Cthulhu City. I have my copy and I’m working through it. I’ll post a review when I’ve had a chance to play around with it more. 

Cyberpunk, Gauntlet 100, and JRPGs

CYBERPUNK ON TARGET

On Tuesday I forgot to mention the latest Play on Target podcast episode, this time covering cyberpunk. I should've paired it with my History of Cyberpunk RPGs. We recorded before I’d had a chance to play Shadowrun Anarchy, Kuro, or The Veil. Playing those and digging through the genre's history has given me new perspective and enthusiasm for it. It has even more potential than we conclude.

Play on Target’s been a little infrequent because of schedule changes. I’m happy with the recent episodes because we now have Sherri Stewart on board for additional commentary. She brings a different perspective to the table. If you haven’t had a chance, check out our most recent shows: GM Best Practices, Character Creation, and Endings.

100 GAUNTLETS

The other show I’m part of, The Gauntlet Podcast, just hit its 100th episode. I joined that a little over halfway along. The 100 number’s misleading since the Gauntlet had been operating as a gamers network for some time before that. Jason also mentioned some “lost” episodes exist. 

For this “anniversary” show we crowd-sourced a random table of questions ahead of time. We rolled to generate q's for our hosts, as well as members of the Gauntlet community. It’s a confessional episode that ends with a kobold. We also now co-release those shows on YouTube for those who prefer that for their playback.

GAMING JAPAN

A couple weeks before that I interviewed Andy Kitkowski for the Gauntlet. He’s worked on Heroine of Heiankyo, Tenra Bansho Zero, and the forthcoming Shinobigami. We talked about his translation work, the challenges of bringing a game over from Japan, and history of rpgs there. It’s a great conversation which touched on a ton of things I hadn’t known about. In particular it’s worth listening to the end to hear about Japansese “Replays” and their importance in that community. I’m only disappointed that we didn’t get to talk about Persona 5.

ABANDONED JAPANESE RPGS (TANGENT WARNING)

Finally on a related note, I’ve been thinking about JRPG video games since I’m almost done with Persona 5 (at least my first playthrough). In particular I’m focused on the cost/awesome ratio from these games. Sherri and I buy a lot of tabletop rpgs, many more than we’ll ever get to the table. Some we use as sourcebooks; others e just enjoyed reading. Taken that way, they don’t offer a great cost/awesome ratio.

Yet I’ve always thought of video games as a more expensive hobby. But I’m not sure about that. We have a lot of console games; many we haven’t finished and some we haven’t played. But we’ve still managed to invest a lot of time into many of those unfinished games. I started to sketch out a list of those: video games we’ve sunk at least 40 hours into but didn’t complete. It’s a longer list than I’d like, and many of these games sucked away significantly more than 40 hours of play.

Sherri had a good analysis of this. On the one hand, rpgs run directly at the table or used to inform play end up involving more players. That multiples their utility. On the other hand, while they’re both rpgs, video games offer abnegation, something you really can’t get from a tabletop game. Unless it’s a terrible game…

Anyway here’s my list of shame…

GAMES WE STOPPED BECAUSE OF DISTRACTION

Things happen. New shiny things appear. Then the gravity of the game’s overcome by the pull of other experiences. It’s hard to point to a concrete reason why, with some exceptions. Several of these we set-aside in mid-grind, thinking we’d just take a break. But of course, once you’ve done that you have to relearn the gameplay when you come back, Easier to just start over or give up.

• Ar Tonelico
• Dark Cloud 2
• Digimon Cyber Sleuth
• Disgaea
• Dragon Quest Heroes
• Dragon Quest VII
• Fantasy Life
• Infinite Space
• Kingdom Hearts
• La Pucelle Tactics
• Nomad Soul
• Persona
• Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (twice)
• Persona 2 Innocent Sin
• Persona Q
• Radiant Historia
• Shadow Hearts
• Shadow Hearts Covenant
• Skies of Arcadia
• SMT: Strange Journey
• Tales of Symphonia
• World of Final Fantasy

GAMES WE STOPPED BECAUSE OF BUGS

These really hurt. The first three all fell on Sherri’s watch. In the case of the first two, the bug occurred right at the end. You couldn’t patch PS2 games, making it a lost cause.

• Atelier Iris 2
• Atelier Iris 3
• Mana Khemia
• Suikoden Tactics (if being too hard is a bug)

GAMES WE STOPPED BECAUSE WE WENT “WHY-TF AM I PLAYING THIS?”

For each of these I can remember exactly where I went “nope.” In some cases, like the most recent Star Ocean, we kept playing, figuring there would be an interesting plot turn. The signs points to it, but alas no. Lost Odyssey stopped me from sheer combination of massively long badly written texts and gross character models. Chaos Wars made me stop and consider what I was doing with my life.

• Blue Dragon
• Chaos Wars
• Cross Edge
• Final Fantasy 9
• Lost Odyssey
• Star Ocean 3
• Star Ocean 5
• Wild Arms 4

GAMES WE STOPPED “THIS CLOSE’ TO THE END

Our most guilty secrets. Sherri and I enjoyed, even loved, all of these games. So why did we run all the way up to the finish line and stop? In some cases we saw we’d have to grind, in others that we still had sidequests to finish. But many of these represented no wanting to leave that world, as stupid as that sounds.

• Azure Dreams
• Bravely Default
• Digital Devil Saga 2
• Final Fantasy X-2
• Final Fantasy XII
• Grandia 2
• Mana Khemia
• Rune Factory Frontier
• Star Ocean 2
• Suikoden V
• Valkyrie Profile 2
• White Knight Chronicles 2
• Xenoblade Chronicles

Character Creation: The Great Roleplay Melting Pot

Some people roll up characters for fun. In fact, I’ve heard lots of gamers say they take serious joy from this. It’s never been my bag. I’ve always dug writing up lists & details of NPCs, but there’s something about creating PCs. Maybe it’s that I can’t bear the thought of creating a character and not actually running them? Maybe it’s that character creation has the highest rules density and I’m kind of a wimp? 

In any case, we recently talked about Character Creation on the Play on Target podcast: favorite systems, best practices, player exploits. It’s a solid discussion and Sherri once again joins us.  I’m way behind on cataloging those episodes. You’ll find the show link below and I’ve written up nine additional things that occurred to me.

Play on Target Ep. 65: Character Creation

NINE RAMBLINGS ON CHARACTER CREATION

The Greatest Random Generation: I appreciate elements of random character generation. Rolemaster was a fav because it had built in safety nets. First, you could drop any rolls into your Primary Profession stats and make those a 90s. Second, stats had “Potential,” meaning how high they could go over time. Each level players rolled for stat gain. It usually meant a poor stat could eventually become average. But RM had a problem that became clear over multiple levels. Since stats heavily influenced skill ratings and determined how many points you got to spend on skills, characters with good stats pulled away. The rich got richer. These days if I’m going to have random generation, I want it for secondary elements: like the drawing of mutations for Mutant: Year Zero.

Homeworkers: Group character creation sessions give solid benefits, but have a couple of potential problems. Make sure you have enough reference material: sheets, playbooks, rules, etc. Print out or copy relevant sections. You may also have to deal with players at different points in the process. Some players like to plan ahead; some come with a finished character. I try to dissuade people from that. On the one hand, it means they’re less likely to have a conversation with others players. They’re less flexible. On the other hand, it means that some players may already be done by the time others are rolling up stats or choosing a class. Be prepared for that.

R-E-S-P-E-C: In the episode we mention letting players change character details and abilities after a few sessions. 13TH Age has this baked it. Leveling up’s an opportunity to change things around, to find a configuration you enjoy. I like doing that. Sherri paraphrased to me something S. John Ross said about the problem of player-written “Jack of All Trades” abilities in Risus. He said to not worry about them; they reduce that pressure of creation. It avoids players tangling themselves up creating the perfect, useful skill to make their character what they want. The same with respecs. Plus letting players know they’ll have the opportunity to make changes potentially means they’ll experiment more.

Need to Know Basis: As a GM you should figure out what the players need to know before creating characters: set up and mechanics. Give them a sense of the setting, but don’t overwhelm. Can you reduce it to key points? You don’t have to consolidate everything, but give them a guide to the heavier material. I’ve tried to cut any backstory down to a list—longer if I know the players, shorter if I don’t. Especially online I don’t expect players to have read this stuff. Often they haven’t. But I can direct them back to it if they have questions. I also give them sample character sheets and a rules cheat sheet. The former helps them to see what the game’s like. The latter’s useful to me; it makes me go back and figure out the key rules. In play I can direct questions back to that sheet as well.

Know Your Limits: Flaws and Disads can be awesome for the GM—depending on what tradition your player comes from. More recent games use these primarily to flesh out characters or generate resources in play. Older games use flaws to give characters stuff at the start and then expect them to pay that back with harsh interest. The latter means you’ve got a sharp division between cost and reward. All of this can confuse players who move from one approach to the other. Or if they’ve played disad-based games, but their GM hasn’t done much with those (something I’ve seen and been guilty of). These days I echo Fate’s advice: it you take a problem, trouble, disad, complication or whatever, it should be something you actually want to play out at the table.

Spend to Buy Divinity: One of my favorite character creation devices is “Buying into the Setting.” I haven’t yet adapted it to other games but I want to. Weapons of the Gods provides all kinds of backstories—on factions, on religions, on legends, on sex, and so many other things. It usually includes a story/anecdote and then some game info. But most importantly, you can buy a connection to these elements during character creation. Want to be tied to the Heavenly Circular Fists Gang? Make a small spend to be affiliated, make a large spend to be the son of the Leader. Like that cool legend about that dragon? Spend points to have your destiny tied in with that. It’s a cool idea and lets the players engage with a relatively deep setting.

Elect Your Representative: 13th Age has related mechanics with the Icons, Backgrounds, and “One True Thing.” The Icons distill the major actors in the setting. Players know they’ll be connected to these, so they learn a little more about the world. The choices they make tell you what kinds of stories they want. Backgrounds and OTT let the players tell you more about the world and about how they see their place. They’re super-useful. Plus the looseness of the Backgrounds reduces anxiety, as I mentioned above.

Weight Training: That approach does have some pitfalls. If you leave too much open and undefined, you put most of the heavy-lifting on the players. They may become overwhelmed or lost. You need to give some structure or direction. For example in Before the Storm, players build their characters with only the loosest sense of the world. But the game provides structures for those choices. They have to spend cards to make certain picks. The cheat is that it’s pretty easy to get a card allowing you to take something not on the list, so players still have lots of freedom. Directed questions in playbooks serve the same role. My Crowsmantle game failed in part because I put so much of the work on the player’s shoulders- from character idea, to world, to kinds of moves.

Overwhelming: How many choices are necessary in character creation? How many can overwhelm I like class and playbook approaches because they offer an answer. They present players a tight set of choices. It does put weight on that initial pick, but players can tune that archetype to their wishes. Confronting players, especially new ones, with pages & pages of stunts, powers, and advantages can put them off. That’s even worse if they have veteran players making suggestions at the table. I dig games that open up over time. In Mutant Year Zero don’t really make contact with the secondary talents as an option until after character creation. Perhaps that’s a way to handle Fate? Archetype playbooks, with the ability to add stunts outside of it once we actually get to playing. Now that I think about it, that’s sort of how Dresden File Accelerated handles it… 

Play on Target Ep. 65: Character Creation

RPG Endings: Crossing the Finish Line

Endings. Not just campaign endings, but endings for scenes, for sessions, for arcs. When I see them coming and can steer into them- as a player or GM- a good ending crystallizes everything. But sometimes I over-correct and go off the road; sometimes I miss my turn and suddenly we're miles past my exit and the passengers have fallen asleep. 

This week Play on Target talks about RPG endings. Once more we're joined by Sherri Stewart in my not so subtle plan to get her on every episode. We talk about endings that have gone askew, techniques for making finishers satisfying, and advice for reading the road map of your campaign. As always, I have a few scattered thoughts I've added below. 

RPG Endings

Play on Target Episode Roundup

1. FILE AWAY ANOTHER CS: Barry ran many games for our group. Many, many games. But I don’t remember him ever actually finishing one. We played several Cyberpunk 2020 campaigns, a Night’s Edge CP game, a Mars-based CP game, Cybergeneration, Fading Suns, Champions in space, street-level Champions, Kult, a gnostic supers game, and probably more I've forgotten. We all knew it would happen, that the campaign would most likely die. But we’d press on to see just how far we could get. You could spot the death spiral: cancellations, absolute lack of prep, shutting down plots, talking about other games. Barry closed down based on player reactions. It all came from his own fragmented focus and artistic dissatisfaction. Still I love and miss him. I'd play in another incomplete campaign of his again any day. 

2. HYPOCRISY: I point fingers, I did the same thing for a long, long time; especially in high school/college/early twenties, I left many campaigns unfinished. But in my mid to late twenties I decided I didn’t want to do that anymore. I can't point to a catalyst. I made it a goal: finish each campaign. Bring some kind of resolution to the story. But even after deciding that I had plenty die on the vine. More often that came from player changes rather than my own dissatisfaction, but that’s no real comfort.

3. SALVAGE RITES: What can we do with that material? If you’re running online and changing groups, it can still be useful. Steal and reuse those concepts. If you have a steady f2f group (as I have) it’s harder. Mostly likely you’ll have someone who played in the original game. However there’s another factor. I’ve never really reused old, dead campaign material for two reasons. Campaigns come from players and often what I've done in one game won’t work with another. The tone, backdrop, goals, or a hundred other details interferes. More importantly once I’ve had a campaign die, I tend not to revisit. It hurts to see that material and the “might have been.” Instead I move on.

4. UNFAIR: Endings make or break a game. No pressure. I hate to say that. But this realization comes from the player side of things. I’ve had mediocre games become last-minute-awesome through a solid ending: spectacle, choice, a chance to wrap our characters. That stays with me and I mostly forget the other part. But I’ve also had games futz out. The last session just…ends. Or the GM undercuts my character at the last minute. Goodwill vanishes. Ironically games which die early don’t usually have this problem. I look back at those untold stories through rose-colored glasses. (There are exceptions, games where it’s a relief to have it finally die off.)

5. REPORTING LINE: Check in with your players. Take their temperature. Give them a sense of your expectations for length (set number of sessions, rw time frame, open-ended). I’ve been in games that dragged on past their expiration date. And it’s hard to ask the GM “when’s this going to end?” That sounds like a judgement rather than a query. You have to be politic about that. But this burden of information should rest on the GM’s side. You’re the project manager for the table. Keep your eyes and ears open.

6. LIKE TEARS IN THE SHOWER: Let’s put aside the question of RPGs as art. I believe they are a media. They’re an entertainment form like a symphony, TV show, video game, etc. They’re an experience. But because of their interactivity and play they’re incredibly ephemeral. That final session will never be  replicated. It has to live on in your players’ minds. It’s like an improv show, not to be repeated.

7. EXCEPTION: MODULES: Modules offer a script. You could compare those the performance of an opera or a theatrical production. Each night’s performance will have its own quality and difference. But even with modules the interpretations can be so wild and different. Your Death on the Reik may end with a pulp action showdown in the castle while others might make a slow slog through horror corruption. "That's what happened? Then you weren't really playing Masks of Nyarlathotep..."

8. MOTIVES: Why did I avoid player “epilogues” for so long? Many reasons, all of them BS. A sense that ending episodes capped things completely and perfectly. Not wanting the players to notice and point out unresolved threads. Keeping players from imposing on the future of setting and cutting off my options if I decided to run there again. The idea that players might use it as a wedge to keep playing things out. Fear that we’d have to resolve conflicts between different players’ visions of the future. Bottom line: mostly really about control and authorship for me. Dumb.

9. FAT LADDIE SINGS: In the episode we ask, how do you know when to end a game? We talk about some signs and tools, but sometimes you flail about. You try to find a good hook. I have a concrete example. I ran a series of three M&M 2e campaigns for my Wednesday online group. Each came in at about 15-16 sessions, with a beginning, middle, and an end. I’m running M&M 3e for the same group- a sequel campaign with new characters. We just did session eleven this week. And I’m not sure where we are in the campaign: still early days? somewhere in the middle? cresting toward the end? In this case I can point to at least one specific issue: the PCs. We have a weird mix of levels and emphasis: cosmic, global, mystical, supernatural street level, and just street level. I want to give each of them something to fit their interests and somehow manage to tie that together. Who knows how long that will take. 

What's your campaign ending story? What's worked for you? Have you tried something that really wrapped up the game with a bow?

RPG Endings

Play on Target Episode Roundup

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.

Legacy: GM Prep Notes

The Gauntlet's started a Patreon for their community. It's a great group and I've had an awesome time planning and running games via them. They also provide some of my favorite podcasts, +1 Forward and The Gauntlet Podcast. I can be accused of bias about the latter since I've guest hosted on it. In any case, one of the interesting things Jason Cordova has done is post his notes for his Wednesday Dungeon World series, "Whispers of Carcosa." I dig insight into the prep other GMs do for their games.

Since I ran a three session trial run of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, I thought I'd post my own GM notes for that. They're handwritten, a habit I haven't been able to break. I didn't prepare anything for session one since I figured that's be entirely taken up with character creation. So here are my notes prepared between session one and two. The last page contains my during-play scribbles from session two and just after. This material served me for both session two and three. The two other things I did as prep were to make the Google doc character sheets and put together an inspirational Pinterest board.

Anyway check that out if you think it might be useful and check out The Gauntlet's Patreon. 

GM Detective Work: What Players Want

In this episode of Play on Target we talk about strategies to get feedback and a sense what players hope for from a game. Communication’s the simple answer to that; ask them. But sometimes it’s not that easy and you may deal with unreliable narrators. We talk about those challenges and ways to agilely adjust to them. We offer some useful suggestions, stronger I think for guest host Sherri Stewart’s player-side perspective.

GM Detective: PLOT

Play on Target Episode Roundup

THE GAUNTLET

I’ve also had the privilege of guest hosting on The Gauntlet Podcast the last few weeks. I’ve covered several campaigns including Legacy, Middle earth, and OCI. On the most recent episode I talk about the Millennium Blades board game, leaving other people to actually discuss rpgs. So it’s good to see me abusing my opportunities.

The Gauntlet’s a great gaming community- with solid discussions, dozens of organized rpg sessions each month, a zine, and multiple podcasts. They’ve just begun a Patreon and it’s definitely worth backing. They get cool rpgs out there for people to play online, with little of the cancellation woes that plague many online gaming groups. I’m running several games as part of the Thank God It’s Thursday lineup: City of Mist, Worlds in Peril, and Coriolis.

MORE STEAM

I mentioned last week that I helped out with the current Steam-Powered Bundle of Holding. Since I posted that, they’ve added two new items to the collection. Airship Pirates: Ruined Empires is an adventure offers a swashbuckling romp in this Neo-Victorian setting. The Widening Gyre is an original steampunk campaign setting designed for use with Savage Worlds. It offers, “a world of wonder, of horror, of adventure, of magic, of strange technology and unprecedented cultural revolution.” They’re both awesome additions. Don’t forget about the parallel Victoriana Bundle on offer.

NINE MORE THOUGHTS ON THE TOPIC

In relistening to the episode a few things occurred to me, as they always do…

1. A PARTY FULL OF FIGHTERS SAYS A LOT: Archetype-based indicators of player desires can be awesome, especially if you have clear roles. If you have a more opaque or unfamiliar system it may not help. That’s especially true where the GM doesn’t yet have mastery of the game. For example Legacy: Life Among the Ruins has a great section on what different playbook choices mean: what should you bring to the table for that PC. But the info didn’t click for me because I still wasn’t certain of the game’s shape. I didn’t yet know how Legacy felt at the table. So I couldn’t connect that advice to the play.

2. YOUR CLERIC MAY VARY: Convention games and one-shots offer the most challenge for these issues. Here archetype picks often offer the best indicator. Hopefully you know the character or playbook types well enough to gtol their hooks. That can be more complicated with abstract games like Urban Shadows. For example, a player may have a different perspective on a pick’s meaning. You have to be ready to brief them what those choices entail. Running Threadbare at Gen Con, I had to be super-cognizant of that. The more sessions I ran, the better I knew the opportunities to put on the table for different character types.

3. THAT’S IT? Playbooks often have questions and/or a collaborative process. That can be great, but it can also be a trap for one-shots. These may eat up a significant chuck of your time. They might set expectations which won’t be met if you’re running a structured adventure. It can also create a sense of building undercut by the fact they only have this world for a short time.

4. I DON’T CARE WHERE WE EAT: We mentioned players not actually wanting what they say they want. That at least assumes a response. For me the “Meh, whatever…” answer’s even worse. I’m not talking about uncertainty or leaving others to decide. I’m talking about players who strive to express absolute disinterest. They want to play, but they don’t want to commit any energy or engage. I had a player accept a campaign invite. Everyone had to pick a thematic world from a list of pitches. When I asked which one they liked (or did he have another one) I kept getting the “meh.” Even slimming the choices down to three didn’t get a commitment. I finally asked if they had any problem with the X option. Then I took their meh as affirmation.

5. REGULAR CHECK-UPS: Check in with the group as a whole from time to time to see if they’re on the same page about the campaign. Have them describe where they think they are. Use arc break moments to do this, allowing them to catch their breath. In mid-campaign you may not get kind of straight answers you will with a post-game session. Be prepared for that and instead watch for what gets mentioned repeatedly.

6. NO, BUT, NO: If a player explicitly asks for something, listen to them. Not necessarily when they beg for XP or a magic sword, but when they express concrete desires about what they want to see out of a game. Players often sail along with the game’s current. If they make the effort to rock the boat and make a request: seriously consider it. If the whole table asks for something, you really need to listen.

7. NO HOMEWORK: Don’t make feedback homework. Don’t make feedback homework. Don’t make feedback homework.

8. HOST OF OPTIONS: We’ve seen many different approaches to mechanical definition of player wants in PbtA games. Often these have a mechanical side to them (generating XP, Drama Points, or both)-- Bonds, Flags, Directives, Keys, Drive Books, and so on. I’m not sure what I like the most. Thoughts? Experiences? Reactions?

9. FIRE THE CANON: As a GM I want to get players’ head canon to the table. By head canon I mean those storylines/details a player imagines as important aspects/desires of their character but which they may see as tangential to the story. I want players to feel they can move to scenes illuminating odd corners of their character. At the very least they should feel welcome to express or dictate those things. And they know I won’t shut that down. A couple of weeks ago I played in Rich’s Tweaks game. In it you’re modern characters with dangerously untested cyberware and jacks. I ran a big brute. Rich asked me about that after session one since he wasn’t sure how to slot him in. I realized that while I’d hinted at things, I hadn’t made explicit the backstory I’d been telling myself. It wasn’t important to the story at hand. It didn’t matter that I’d been a Professor who had tried out experimental cyberware to make up for a neurodegenerative disease. And that it had effed up and messed with my head leaving me just a muscled thug. But Rich started the next session with a flashback scene to that: I got my head canon to the table and it made my character deeper for me (and I hope everyone else).

GM Detective: PLOT

Play on Target Episode Roundup

OK out of here until next Monday...

Legacy: Life Among the Ruins: Play, Talk, Thoughts

THROUGH THE AGES

For the last several weeks I’ve run sessions of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins as part of The Gauntlet Hangouts. Legacy’s a post-apocalyptic PbtA game, but with a vastly different focus than Apocalypse World. First, your world’s explicitly fantastic. Perhaps genetically-engineered super fauna grew intelligent and took over before dying out. Or dimensional gate technology went wild changing the landscape and crashing civilization. You need that weirdness, akin to Numenera’s, in your apocalypse. The Fall leaves behind strange and wondrous relics and locations you uncover in play. You could craft a more grounded game, but that would make it harder for the game to do its job.

Second, you’re intended to operate on a different level than AW. Each player chooses both a Family Playbook and a Character Playbook. You do the same kind of character creation process for the former: setting stats, picking moves, developing backstory, making connections. Your choice of family shapes your “Big Picture” goals for your character. In play you choose what your family does, meaning you may have to roll moves for them. Your character’s influential by default (though you could run them as independent or even opposed). Families have surpluses & needs, make treaties, and have basic moves. Overall that’s one of Legacy’s best innovations. Third, the game’s intended to be generational. You work through the threats and problems for an era, roll for your family’s changes in the Turning of the Ages, and then make up new PCs for the next age. With only three sessions, one for character creation and two for play, we didn’t get to this. You might play for many sessions before ever deciding to skip forward. It isn’t a threat hanging over the game, but rather an escape valve allowing you to refresh the setting.

THROUGH THE GAUNTLET

The Gauntlet crew graciously had me on for this week’s episode and we talked about what we thought of the Legacy. It’s a good discussion and one worth listening to. I’ve also posted videos of our two sessions of actual play (Session One and Session Two). Unfortunately technical errors meant I didn’t record the creation session. That’s too bad because everyone dug it and their creativity amazed me. There’s a real pleasure in building the family, the locale, and then the individual characters. You’re able to drill down through the details.

In any case, you can hear my overall impressions in the podcast. The short version: Legacy offers an ambitious take on PbtA and on post-apocalyptic gaming. It has some great ideas and elements worth looking at. I’m glad I bought and ran it. If the concept interests you at all, consider picking it up. I should mention that Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and a host of other PbtA games are on sale right now at Drivethru.

But I’m not sure I figured out or ran the game that Legacy has on offer. You can hear that in the podcast- it’s the first topic we cover. I’ll eventually come back and do a full formal review. I found Legacy inspiring and interesting, but lacking in guidance about to actually structure play. I switched things up between the two sessions I recorded, trying to move to a more meta-level. I’m not sure that entirely worked. Much as with Crowsmantle, I think starting off on the wrong foot hurt me. A completely different approach might have worked. I’m not sure and I may come back to that later. In next week’s Gauntlet episode we talk about Legacy again and offer some final thoughts. I’ll post that when the show drops.

In the meantime, below you’ll find our summary of the characters and world we built in that first session. We also drew a map, always a good thing. This illustrates the kinds of ideas you can generate with Legacy.

CHARACTER CREATION MATERIALS

The Shepherds (Gilded Company) Company of Merchants

Dispersed. Travel around on the Lobster horses. These are genetically modified beasts. They vary in size and color, from riding horse size to massive monstrosities. They’re also genetically engineered to be delicious. The Shepherds have scattered due to recent incidents. Hence their needs: Justice & Leadership.

PC: Santo Shepherd: An envoy who, like many of his family, dresses in wild and striking fashion. He’s in his thirties, but looks younger. He has a magnificent Tayshin riding beast and a pragmatic servant/ stablemaster who cares for it.

Enclave of Bygone Lore

Vat-Grown duplicates. They’re identical in appearance. When they come of age, each obtains an encounter suit as a rite of passage. They decorate these uniquely to express their identity. The family lives in starship wreckage. Others live in the settlement with them as well. The Enclave possess some wonders, but the primary of these is a massive turret weapon affixed to the starship ruins. It is recharged via mystical sacrifice. They’re less driven than other families, with more leisure time. Some consider them lazy.

PC: The One Who Strides into the Wastes (…foolishly): A hunter who has an elaborate encounter suit marking his identity. He’s a powerful stalker who knows how to handle monsters with his absurdly large sniper rifle. He has a small floating drone named Ioun who gives him insight and advice.

The Twice-Born (Tyrant Kings)

A barbaric group: leather and sharp points. They control their area tightly, with a group of slaves as servants. When they reach a certain age, the family throws children into a massive pit called The Womb. It’s honeycombed with tunnels and has all manner of dangerous creatures. Throwing new beasts down in is a common activity. When a child manages to climb up the side of the pit, family members stand nearby watching to see if they make it. If they do then there’s a great celebration.

The Twice-Born need medicine, culture, contacts. They believe in a rebirth of the entire world. Their current leader senses a need for her family to develop connections with the others. This is a dangerous idea and likely will put her at odds with other members of her tribe. Her name is Xorelle, and she is the leader by virtue of being the oldest female in the family. They’re suspicious and afraid of the mysterious black obelisks.

PC: Xorelle the Midwife: The Elder and leader of her family.  The eldest surviving woman among the family, once a dangerous warrior, age has slowed her somewhat. She has the skills to handle political change and hopes to shift her family more towards the larger homeland. She has a soft spot for beautiful things. Xorelle owns a stash of ancient porno mags which she regards as the height of beauty and culture.

The Errant Justice (Lawgivers of the Wasteland)

They operate a dispersed family of Gunslingers. These act as a network of justice. Each gunslinger has their own territory staked out, usually set up by one of the black monoliths. They make good time around the region as everyone gets out of their way. They’re well respected, but low in number. They need recruits.

Each gunslinger as a unique gun, their Iron. They also are supposed to have an apprentice who carries their own gun, the Pewter. The family protects the wronged, those with grievances. In particular they act to bring justice to the misers and hoarders. In pursuit of that justice, they’ll do many things but won’t stoop to extortion.

PC: Jack Cartwright: A Survivor. He’s among the small number of remaining lawmen. He’s seen many of his friends die. He has two Irons and two Pewters in his possession, having picked them up from fallen friends and apprentices. He searches for another recruit he can mentor. Cartwright’s a solid guide in the region.

WORLD:

• Grand sweeping wastes surrounding distant pockets of humanity. There’s a Wild West theme.
• The majority of loose native lifeforms have a strangely aquatic echo to their form: scales, crustaceans. Some, like the riding beasts, show genetic tailoring. Others seem to have resulted from accidents.
• Moon has lights on it. There’s some debate as to whether those lights have changed over time.
• Vestigial technology wanders in from the wastes: advertising robots, autonomous construction machines, strange simulacra. Some are dangerous, other benign.
• There’s a large crater out in the wastes, not far away from the PC homeland. It seems to be the crashed wreckage of another space ship. Heavily irradiated.
• Scattered across the land are huge, towering black obelisks. Some are massive, some smaller. They have markings, perhaps astrological points. These glow on certain days. Some of these monoliths are irradiated. Other serve as gathering points.

How did this come to be? Upper echelons and elite of society believed a disaster loomed in the future. They departed in spaceships, with at least some of them going to the moon. While no massive cataclysm struck the world, the infrastructure collapsed creating an ecological disaster as well as the detonation of massive machines. The systems regulating the land, weather, and agriculture broke down or went haywire. This created the wastes.

• The wastes are great, barren areas, barely mapped. They’re more known in legend, though occasional adventures travel out to explore them. People and things arrive in the PCs homeland from time to time. There may be other homelands within desperate travelling distance.
• Even within the homeland are strange pockets of radiation. Most are known and marked.
• Things fall from the sky constantly. Usually once a week something lands in the PCs’ homeland. They’re called Skyfalls. Junk, satellites, machines, ancient supply drops. Locals approach these drops cautiously. While they may hold bounties, just as often they’re extremely dangerous. The most recent drop revealed an escape pod filled with sixty corpses.
• One of the persistent dangers facing the homeland are the Petz. Genetically engineered domesticated hyper-animals. Cats, dogs, snakes, hamsters, and the like. They’re dangerous, smart, and look steroid enhanced. Some of them are huge.
• The Hollow Mountain is a massive artificial feature of the PC homeland. A hundred feet tall and miles long, it may have once been a huge shopping and entertainment complex. Much of that has fallen apart, forming massive caverns survivors can travel through. Rogue automatons live in the upper reaches of the Mountain. From time to time, solar energy recharges some of them and they manage self-repairs. They then descend and become a significant threat to anyone in the mountain.
• There are structures which seem to form a sundial, towering spikes made of a material similar to the obelisks. While it still functions, it has pieces fallen and missing.
• The Fountain: A huge artificial lake. There’s a whirlpool vortex in the center of it. No one knows where it leads. Anyone who has been sucked in never returns.

SETTLEMENTS

The Nursery: Twice-Born homeland. It lies on the shore of the Fountain. It gives them access to and control of a fresh water source. They celebrate periodically when a survivor child emerges from the Womb pit. They keep slaves: it is taboo for a slave to look a member of the family in the eyes. That’s a challenge and an affront.

Scavageton: Like an oil field town, the populace go out into the Hollow Mountain to excavate and scavenge tech. It’s extremely risky and the survivors party hard, particularly after a successful run. They don’t travel out during the day- that’s the time when the dangerous mechanicals within the mountain are most active.

New Oasin: “The Big City.” The largest and most populous settlement in the region (150 people!). They live under the shelter of an enormous dome. New Oasins believe themselves to be the “first city” and carry a sense of cultural superiority. The monogamous and those who don’t contribute to procreation are treated with disdain.

Enclave of Enlightenment: Home settlement of the Enclave, a crashed spaceship. Others live there besides Enclave family members. Those of the Enclave avoid addressing people by name directly. Instead they use alternate names and titles to reference them. This habit rubs off on non-Enclave persons living there. There’s also a general ethos in the settlement that sex is icky and unpleasant. People do not discuss such things.

Banarjee: A cliff-dwelling settlement built within a chasm. There’s a great junk and wreckage pile at the bottom. The people of Banarjee produce a large amount of food, primarily mushroom or fungus-based. They avoid eating animal flesh and prohibit others from doing so within their walls. When Banarjee youths reach adulthood, groups of them will make a long trek out into the waste as a rite of passage.