...but not RPGs!
It's spring break here for my daughter, so lots of family time, the odd snatched hour or two of work to keep things ticking over, and little-to-no time for thinking or writing about RPGs.
Correction: little-to-no time spent thinking or writing about RPGs, as I've had time, I've just chosen to spend it playing games on my PS4. I got a game bundle last week and have played and completed two short games and messed about with a third. All have got me thinking parallel things about RPGs...
Hue is a side-scrolling puzzle game. The title character, Hue, is trying to find his mum, a scientist. They both live in a 2D black and white world, but his mum has figured out a way to "see" other colours. Hue gathers pieces of a magic ring that helps him shift his perception to see or not see other colours; when he chooses to not see, say, red, then red walls disappear, red spikes can't stab him and so on. The puzzles get tricky, the story is charming and there's a nice philosophical flavour running throughout. But it got me wondering about ideas like that in RPGs. Are there systems, rules, mechanics that just let someone veto effects? Maybe as super-ultra-powerful magic items, but what about just regular little artefacts... I wonder...
Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is a game I finished in one four hour sitting. A beautiful, haunting game, you play as someone (it's never revealed who you are) exploring an empty English country town. No one is around, but there's evidence that something very, very strange has happened. As you explore you find ghostly echoes of the people who lived there, and piece together the story that has lead to this strange situation. It's amazing, it's deeply emotional, it's incredibly gorgeous to look at and I've not been able to stop thinking about it since last Friday night. It's got me thinking about two player games, role-playing games of exploration, games with very few instructions, games to explore difficult topics (there's a lot to unpack in Rapture about life, death and legacy) and a lot more. If you get the chance, play this game.
The Flame in the Flood is hard. It's a rogue-like game set on a great flooded river. Scout and her dog are rafting downstream trying not to drown. When they find a camp site or an abandoned town they explore for food, supplies, clean water and things they might need. Everything wants to kill you. Water is mostly polluted, so has to be cleaned. Filters break after three uses so replacements have to be found or made. The nights get cold so you need to make clothes. Animals are all around but hard to catch. Walk by some thorns and you'll get scratches; don't treat them and you'll get infected and die. Can't cook the food you find? Food poisoning. Eat too many berries? Stomach ache. And so on. Flame is really hard, but there is a neat little game concept that could help a lot.
Whenever you start the game, you're shown Scout's dog dragging a backpack away from someone who has died. Scout takes the little backpack and puts it on the dog, and it becomes a kind of second inventory (the third is what goes on your raft). To begin with I thought this was just a kind of extra little item slot and nothing more, but then I realised: those six item slots persist between games. If you have a jar of water and a piece of jerky in the dog's pack and die, when you start a new game it's in the new pack.
So... The dead body that your dog finds at the start of the game is YOU, holding your last dog's little pack...
And... If you're about to die in the game and you can you should load the most useful items into the dog's backpack so the next Scout can use them.
Also... What games do interesting things between a dying character and a new one? Yes, people pick over a dead character body for treasure and items; the interesting thing in The Flame in the Flood I think is the weird metaphysical connection between the characters that the items creates. So what other kinds of things could we do in games? Persistence of memory? Persistence of consciousness somehow? Clones that pop up when your character dies? (played in a oneshot game that did that actually!) A chance to send a small portion of your inventory to the next character, who is somehow connected to you?
Friends, take my sword to my daughter, tell her to avenge me...
So not much writing and thinking about stuff that was in my head a few weeks ago (although more on Troika! as soon as I can get my thoughts in order) but lots of thoughts.
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
Monday, 11 March 2019
Illness In Games
On Saturday morning I woke up with a cold. By tea-time I was hunched over in bed, shivering and shaking as my temperature crept up close to 40 degrees (nearly 104 if you're Fahrenheit-inclined). When I woke up on Sunday morning my fever was completely gone, but since then I've continued to have aches, pains, cold symptoms and general body discomfort. Nothing major, not compared to people in real distress, but enough to make me go "Urgh!" at the thought of doing anything.
(so of course this coming week is busy than the last two combined when it comes to my day job...)
But all of this got me thinking about illness in games - or more specifically, the fact that I can't remember EVER playing in a game where any character, mine or another party PC, got sick. People got injured, sometimes badly, but they never stumbled around through a cave because they had earache, you know? They never sneezed inappropriately due to complications from dwarf pox.
Maybe it would be boring. I remember that, as we were coming to an end of a small campaign in a D&D game, my character got petrified. There was about half an hour left in the session, we didn't know if or when we would pick it up again and so I sat there listening, twiddling my thumbs and calculating my character's weight now that he was stone and not flesh. I understand why I didn't roll stats or become a random pregen, but it was a little boring.
Maybe pretending to sneeze or wheeze or groan would be dull too. Simply adding a penalty to some rolls doesn't feel like quite enough...
...but I can imagine a little fun in character and NPC interactions maybe. Nevermind charisma rolls, but how does the High Priestess look upon you when you have dragon boils? Or even just a simple cold, with red-rimmed eyes, streaming nose and slight clumsiness?
Maybe getting sick in a game is a sign that you need to rest your character. You could push on through the jungle, try to find a trail to the Hidden City of Somewhere, but you'll make things worse. Three days of rest at camp should see you right though (of course, someone else might get there first...).
I'm definitely not an expert on games, not by a long shot, I just can't think of any games that I've played in, run or read which have rules for the consequences of simple (or complicated) illness.
Can you? What would you do if characters got sick?
(so of course this coming week is busy than the last two combined when it comes to my day job...)
But all of this got me thinking about illness in games - or more specifically, the fact that I can't remember EVER playing in a game where any character, mine or another party PC, got sick. People got injured, sometimes badly, but they never stumbled around through a cave because they had earache, you know? They never sneezed inappropriately due to complications from dwarf pox.
Maybe it would be boring. I remember that, as we were coming to an end of a small campaign in a D&D game, my character got petrified. There was about half an hour left in the session, we didn't know if or when we would pick it up again and so I sat there listening, twiddling my thumbs and calculating my character's weight now that he was stone and not flesh. I understand why I didn't roll stats or become a random pregen, but it was a little boring.
Maybe pretending to sneeze or wheeze or groan would be dull too. Simply adding a penalty to some rolls doesn't feel like quite enough...
...but I can imagine a little fun in character and NPC interactions maybe. Nevermind charisma rolls, but how does the High Priestess look upon you when you have dragon boils? Or even just a simple cold, with red-rimmed eyes, streaming nose and slight clumsiness?
Maybe getting sick in a game is a sign that you need to rest your character. You could push on through the jungle, try to find a trail to the Hidden City of Somewhere, but you'll make things worse. Three days of rest at camp should see you right though (of course, someone else might get there first...).
I'm definitely not an expert on games, not by a long shot, I just can't think of any games that I've played in, run or read which have rules for the consequences of simple (or complicated) illness.
Can you? What would you do if characters got sick?
Friday, 22 July 2016
Odd Oracles
I'm working on two issues of A Random Encounter at the moment, and turning some ideas over in my head. I was transcribing my interview with Patrick Stuart for Issue 4, and we talked a bit about blogging and why he started, and it got me thinking about when I started blogging about games. This blog started on 21st March 2012, but on the same day I posted something on a Tumblr that I used to use, about the very first game that I GMed: In A Wicked Age.
I like In A Wicked Age: the Oracles that produce the inspiration and elements work really well, they produce a rich fantasy world at the table with no prep, and I think that playing it a few times gets you in the flow with the dice mechanics. There's a bit of AP in the post, and I was playing with Patrick and David, so it was a good game. There were also a couple of musings about the Oracle idea itself:
We hacked together an Oracle or two and played some Tales From Zero Point, which was an element of a bigger space setting that we created collaboratively. I loved that the Oracle could produce a great game with no preparation. We could turn up and really tune in to make a creative story; and at the same time, I still felt that it was a bit clunky with the mechanics, and as someone running the game I wanted something to help support making NPCs and places - even just little possible story threads for the players to explore (I'm not a railroad fan).
For a little while now I've been turning over mashing an Oracle-setting-generator-thing with the Into The Odd resolution mechanics: a strip-downed game that could get people up and running quickly with no prep. Draw some cards to get character and setting inspiration from an Oracle, and while PCs roll dice to flesh out their characters, the GM can roll some dice or draw cards to flesh out the setting in an organic way. I think it's possible to do this in a reasonably small game, that provides a lot of prompts and support for the GM and the players to come up with the backdrop for a great one-shot every time they play, or which could organically create a sandbox-y story - each session being either an "episode" or just the next steps.
And now that this idea is back in my head again... I guess I have one more thing to add to the to do list... :)
I like In A Wicked Age: the Oracles that produce the inspiration and elements work really well, they produce a rich fantasy world at the table with no prep, and I think that playing it a few times gets you in the flow with the dice mechanics. There's a bit of AP in the post, and I was playing with Patrick and David, so it was a good game. There were also a couple of musings about the Oracle idea itself:
[Patrick] mentioned that there were “Oracle hacks” of the game, and I can understand why this would be quite cool to do. Because the set-up is so fast, straightforward and fun, it’s quite a freeing game to play. ... In my head I’m already imagining urban fantasy possibilities, superhero settings and even - dare I say it - zombie game settings…
We hacked together an Oracle or two and played some Tales From Zero Point, which was an element of a bigger space setting that we created collaboratively. I loved that the Oracle could produce a great game with no preparation. We could turn up and really tune in to make a creative story; and at the same time, I still felt that it was a bit clunky with the mechanics, and as someone running the game I wanted something to help support making NPCs and places - even just little possible story threads for the players to explore (I'm not a railroad fan).
For a little while now I've been turning over mashing an Oracle-setting-generator-thing with the Into The Odd resolution mechanics: a strip-downed game that could get people up and running quickly with no prep. Draw some cards to get character and setting inspiration from an Oracle, and while PCs roll dice to flesh out their characters, the GM can roll some dice or draw cards to flesh out the setting in an organic way. I think it's possible to do this in a reasonably small game, that provides a lot of prompts and support for the GM and the players to come up with the backdrop for a great one-shot every time they play, or which could organically create a sandbox-y story - each session being either an "episode" or just the next steps.
And now that this idea is back in my head again... I guess I have one more thing to add to the to do list... :)
Friday, 24 April 2015
Into The Oort: Ships
Chargen in Into The Odd is one of the fastest things I've seen for a game. 3d6, 3d6, 3d6 and a d6 and then mechanically it's done. Sure, you might want to make up some details of what your person looks like or talk about how they know the other players' characters, but after a brief flurry of rolling you're done.
I want the same thing for chargen in Into The Oort, but also for shipgen as well; a starting group of players has their own ship, which has three stats that are related to different mechanical aspects of the ship. Roll 3d6 for HULL, 3d6 for DRIVE and 3d6 for SCAN, along with a d6 for shield points. Shields are always on, as a kind of energy shield to deflect dust and particles. In a pinch they absorb and redistribute weapons fire; once they're overloaded damage is taken by ship systems, but it only takes a short break from combat before the shields are back online.
Some combination of highest/lowest stat and the d6 for shield points will index a table that gives some details on what else the ship has - type of weapons, armour, special systems, and so on. I'm looking at ways to make other aspects of shipgen as simple. I think that there are possibly three other aspects which could be done quickly, and I've tried something for them recently at my second playtest game.
I had a short table of six entries for each of three aspects: TYPE, CREW, CARGO. Players roll three d6 as a group, and then use each result to pick out what they want. 6s are generally better than 1s. So at the playtest I think they got 6, 6 and 1. They assigned the 6s to TYPE and CARGO and the 1 to CREW. For the purposes of the playtest this meant that they had a decommissioned warship, two valuable cargoes but a small cargo hold, and they only had a skeleton crew of two others.
I liked this, but it also seemed slightly at odds with the other mechanical setup. That may or may not be a bad thing. I liked the aspects of choice rather than totally random gen. The discussion at the table - "We want an ex-warship, but do we need a good crew? Would it better to have no cargo?" - was great, and didn't take long. I can see that it might take a different group more time deciding what ship they want. I'm not 100% sure about it yet, so it might change.
What do you think? Any questions? Maybe in the next post I'll say something about how the different main ship stats work, mechanically, in the game.
I want the same thing for chargen in Into The Oort, but also for shipgen as well; a starting group of players has their own ship, which has three stats that are related to different mechanical aspects of the ship. Roll 3d6 for HULL, 3d6 for DRIVE and 3d6 for SCAN, along with a d6 for shield points. Shields are always on, as a kind of energy shield to deflect dust and particles. In a pinch they absorb and redistribute weapons fire; once they're overloaded damage is taken by ship systems, but it only takes a short break from combat before the shields are back online.
Some combination of highest/lowest stat and the d6 for shield points will index a table that gives some details on what else the ship has - type of weapons, armour, special systems, and so on. I'm looking at ways to make other aspects of shipgen as simple. I think that there are possibly three other aspects which could be done quickly, and I've tried something for them recently at my second playtest game.
I had a short table of six entries for each of three aspects: TYPE, CREW, CARGO. Players roll three d6 as a group, and then use each result to pick out what they want. 6s are generally better than 1s. So at the playtest I think they got 6, 6 and 1. They assigned the 6s to TYPE and CARGO and the 1 to CREW. For the purposes of the playtest this meant that they had a decommissioned warship, two valuable cargoes but a small cargo hold, and they only had a skeleton crew of two others.
I liked this, but it also seemed slightly at odds with the other mechanical setup. That may or may not be a bad thing. I liked the aspects of choice rather than totally random gen. The discussion at the table - "We want an ex-warship, but do we need a good crew? Would it better to have no cargo?" - was great, and didn't take long. I can see that it might take a different group more time deciding what ship they want. I'm not 100% sure about it yet, so it might change.
What do you think? Any questions? Maybe in the next post I'll say something about how the different main ship stats work, mechanically, in the game.
Tuesday, 22 April 2014
A Gaming Podcast About Nothing
Dave, aka noisms, and I are doing a podcast. We've been talking about doing it for ages, and finally found the time. It was so much fun to record that we're going to make time to record more regularly (although not on an official schedule just yet).
A Gaming Podcast About Nothing is here! And we talk about lots of things related to role-playing games, our lives and nothing really. Listen to it, and tell us what you think.
A Gaming Podcast About Nothing is here! And we talk about lots of things related to role-playing games, our lives and nothing really. Listen to it, and tell us what you think.
Monday, 11 February 2013
Future Spending Spree
Some day soon, the stars will align. On that day I won't have to think about saving for house-moving, or be immediately wondering about how to fund some crazy work idea. On that day I will be free to go wild and buy games! And when I do, these are the ones at the top of my list...
Hot War (link)
This looks interesting. An alternate 1960s, the cold war has gone nuclear - and then things went bad... I love the vibe of the description, and the illustration and design in the preview. Something sinister in 1960s London gives me a hundred ideas all at once for setting and plot hooks.
3:16 (link)
The reviews at DriveThruRPG say it all really. After playing Diaspora a little, I would love to play a sci-fi game, and 3:16 looks like it would comfortably fit the bill. David W, one of the players in our group, has mentioned running something sci-fi, possibly Traveller. Maybe once we reach a suitable pause point with Somewhere North we will head for the stars...
Weird New World (link)
I've only read the description, but from that it sounds like this might give me some neat ideas for what lies beyond the mountains in Somewhere North. The hidden valley of the halflings is not simply going to be ten miles past the mountains. There are Drazils to be sure, but what else is there? Maybe Weird New World can help to fill in some of the blanks.
Tower of the Stargazer (link)
Several things attract me to this pdf; first there is the price, you can't go wrong for a couple of euros. Second is that it is more LotFP goodness, and I'm quite hooked on that at the moment. More importantly, there is the inclusion of the following phrase in the description: "Tower of the Stargazer is a specially designed introductory module with material specifically for beginning Referees, with notes detailing not only what is included in the adventure, but why." I'm really enjoying writing stuff at the moment for the campaign I'm running, but am also wondering if the stuff that I am writing is only usable by me (because I know my own shorthand, I know what I might do with a prompt - would someone else? etc). Seeing some discussion on that might be helpful - especially if I decide to do something with these materials later.
Death Frost Doom (link)
I've read lots of bits and pieces about this, and everything I've read about it leads me to think that it's near a small village, about fifty miles from the city of Zelman in Somewhere North, on the road between the Bridge and the city. I think that on the long road between the Bridge and the city the players might find cause to stop there and to wonder whether they have what it takes to go near the church in search of treasure...
Hot War (link)
This looks interesting. An alternate 1960s, the cold war has gone nuclear - and then things went bad... I love the vibe of the description, and the illustration and design in the preview. Something sinister in 1960s London gives me a hundred ideas all at once for setting and plot hooks.
3:16 (link)
The reviews at DriveThruRPG say it all really. After playing Diaspora a little, I would love to play a sci-fi game, and 3:16 looks like it would comfortably fit the bill. David W, one of the players in our group, has mentioned running something sci-fi, possibly Traveller. Maybe once we reach a suitable pause point with Somewhere North we will head for the stars...
Weird New World (link)
I've only read the description, but from that it sounds like this might give me some neat ideas for what lies beyond the mountains in Somewhere North. The hidden valley of the halflings is not simply going to be ten miles past the mountains. There are Drazils to be sure, but what else is there? Maybe Weird New World can help to fill in some of the blanks.
Tower of the Stargazer (link)
Several things attract me to this pdf; first there is the price, you can't go wrong for a couple of euros. Second is that it is more LotFP goodness, and I'm quite hooked on that at the moment. More importantly, there is the inclusion of the following phrase in the description: "Tower of the Stargazer is a specially designed introductory module with material specifically for beginning Referees, with notes detailing not only what is included in the adventure, but why." I'm really enjoying writing stuff at the moment for the campaign I'm running, but am also wondering if the stuff that I am writing is only usable by me (because I know my own shorthand, I know what I might do with a prompt - would someone else? etc). Seeing some discussion on that might be helpful - especially if I decide to do something with these materials later.
Death Frost Doom (link)
I've read lots of bits and pieces about this, and everything I've read about it leads me to think that it's near a small village, about fifty miles from the city of Zelman in Somewhere North, on the road between the Bridge and the city. I think that on the long road between the Bridge and the city the players might find cause to stop there and to wonder whether they have what it takes to go near the church in search of treasure...
Monday, 7 January 2013
Good Folk, Bad Guys
So far my approach with Somewhere North has been to plan for some possibilities (dungeon exploration, different towns that people might visit), but not really to focus on other people. I'm not talking about the incidentals, like shop owners and so on - in fact, some great NPCs so far have come about purely through table interactions.
But I realised that one of the big differences between how I had run Dogs in the Vineyard and how I was running LotFP, is that in the former everything was built on thinking about the people in the towns first, whereas in the latter I was thinking about the world and what was in it. Is one or the other "better"? I'll leave that for another time - or perhaps your comments.
Four sessions in, and with everything that the players have been doing - stealing money from mean village leaders, cursing an entire village to indefinite silence, heading out of town with intentions to delve into an ancient Dwarven tomb - these are actions that get you noticed. There is only so long that you can stay under the radar. If you curse an entire village to silence, then pour scorn on that (fairly wealthy) place, aren't they going to send people after you? If you insult a bookshop owner who offers to buy something from you (while being probably evil and up to no good), isn't he going to try and get that book from you somehow?
And these things are not about the world but the people in it. Who gets sent after someone? What kind of groups are out there looking? What is in it for them? Could they be persuaded to do otherwise? What would help them to do that? What haven't people seen in the world yet?
I love questions.
I spent part of my weekend thinking about NPCs and bad guys in particular, or at the least, if not bad guys then people we might loosely term "rivals". If an NPC needs a job doing in a role-playing game, they turn to the players to ask. But if that job involves stopping/killing/apprehending the players, who do you call?
That's the question I answered this weekend.
(insert mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha and moustache-twiddling here)
But I realised that one of the big differences between how I had run Dogs in the Vineyard and how I was running LotFP, is that in the former everything was built on thinking about the people in the towns first, whereas in the latter I was thinking about the world and what was in it. Is one or the other "better"? I'll leave that for another time - or perhaps your comments.
Four sessions in, and with everything that the players have been doing - stealing money from mean village leaders, cursing an entire village to indefinite silence, heading out of town with intentions to delve into an ancient Dwarven tomb - these are actions that get you noticed. There is only so long that you can stay under the radar. If you curse an entire village to silence, then pour scorn on that (fairly wealthy) place, aren't they going to send people after you? If you insult a bookshop owner who offers to buy something from you (while being probably evil and up to no good), isn't he going to try and get that book from you somehow?
And these things are not about the world but the people in it. Who gets sent after someone? What kind of groups are out there looking? What is in it for them? Could they be persuaded to do otherwise? What would help them to do that? What haven't people seen in the world yet?
I love questions.
I spent part of my weekend thinking about NPCs and bad guys in particular, or at the least, if not bad guys then people we might loosely term "rivals". If an NPC needs a job doing in a role-playing game, they turn to the players to ask. But if that job involves stopping/killing/apprehending the players, who do you call?
That's the question I answered this weekend.
(insert mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha and moustache-twiddling here)
Monday, 5 November 2012
Games Day: Risus
noisms has already blogged about our game on Saturday, but I thought I would chip in a few thoughts. The three of us (including Patrick) met up having already decided to give Risus a go. We had also decided that TNG-era Star Trek was the way to go. As noisms has described we ran things pretty fast and loose, although the ability to take on or force GM-ship worked very well for a comedy game. I'm sure that we didn't follow the Risus mechanics exactly, but it lead to a fun bit of storytelling.
We decided on rank by rolling a d6 and working from there. I rolled high so we decided on Lieutenant Commander; Patrick got a 1 and noisms got 2, so they were a cadet and ensign respectively. I have no idea how someone who was born on the Neutral Planet got to high rank; we had a bit of a discussion about whether or not a Neutralien was more or less able to follow the Prime Directive. I think we came down on the side of more able...
The game ended with my character poisoning and killing a crystal alien with a heart of pure dilithium, then escaping back to the Enterprise while being pursued by intelligent radioactive feldspar. Patrick's character had a bizarre stress-related life-cycle, and so stormed on to the bridge - swatting Worf out of the way. My Neutralien needed a life-saving hypospray, and was cured from deadly radiation poisoning in two seconds flat. noisms related every role to his character being born on a prison planet. Typical TNG really.
We followed Risus with Settlers of Catan; it was my first time playing the game, and I really enjoyed it. There were a couple of rules that we missed right at the start (only building settlements at the end of roads etc) but we had a good time, and I'm hoping that Santa got my Amazon wishlist in time to pick it up for me...
A fun Saturday afternoon.
We decided on rank by rolling a d6 and working from there. I rolled high so we decided on Lieutenant Commander; Patrick got a 1 and noisms got 2, so they were a cadet and ensign respectively. I have no idea how someone who was born on the Neutral Planet got to high rank; we had a bit of a discussion about whether or not a Neutralien was more or less able to follow the Prime Directive. I think we came down on the side of more able...
The game ended with my character poisoning and killing a crystal alien with a heart of pure dilithium, then escaping back to the Enterprise while being pursued by intelligent radioactive feldspar. Patrick's character had a bizarre stress-related life-cycle, and so stormed on to the bridge - swatting Worf out of the way. My Neutralien needed a life-saving hypospray, and was cured from deadly radiation poisoning in two seconds flat. noisms related every role to his character being born on a prison planet. Typical TNG really.
We followed Risus with Settlers of Catan; it was my first time playing the game, and I really enjoyed it. There were a couple of rules that we missed right at the start (only building settlements at the end of roads etc) but we had a good time, and I'm hoping that Santa got my Amazon wishlist in time to pick it up for me...
A fun Saturday afternoon.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Dogs and Dice and Decisions
It's Games Night! And tonight I start GMing a game of Dogs In The Vineyard, something which I'm really excited about. It's the first time I've played DitV and also the first time (assuming all goes well) that I'll be GMing something which isn't a oneshot. And we have at least one new player joining our merry band.
I think I have my head wrapped around the dice mechanics and the general principles of "Say yes or roll dice" and "Escalate, escalate, escalate!" Other than that, I'm just interested in playing something a bit different. DitV feels like a breath of fresh air. I thought that setting prep would be difficult, but so far it has been really straightforward. Why? Because they focus on people, what they need, what they want and how far they might go if others (or demons!) push them. And it is so much easier to focus on those fundamentals, the inclinations and breaking points. I have a little map (which I have to redraw to get rid of my notes) and I have notes of circumstances for a few towns and their inhabitants, as well as a paragraph each for those I've not fleshed out yet - I want to see what direction my players take things...
I'll be writing a lot about this over the next few weeks. If I ever finish writing about other dice mechanics I've been interested by I might even get around to thinking about the simple but complex dice of DitV. I can't wait to see it in play.
I think I have my head wrapped around the dice mechanics and the general principles of "Say yes or roll dice" and "Escalate, escalate, escalate!" Other than that, I'm just interested in playing something a bit different. DitV feels like a breath of fresh air. I thought that setting prep would be difficult, but so far it has been really straightforward. Why? Because they focus on people, what they need, what they want and how far they might go if others (or demons!) push them. And it is so much easier to focus on those fundamentals, the inclinations and breaking points. I have a little map (which I have to redraw to get rid of my notes) and I have notes of circumstances for a few towns and their inhabitants, as well as a paragraph each for those I've not fleshed out yet - I want to see what direction my players take things...
I'll be writing a lot about this over the next few weeks. If I ever finish writing about other dice mechanics I've been interested by I might even get around to thinking about the simple but complex dice of DitV. I can't wait to see it in play.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Games Night: LotFP/Isle of the Unknown
I've missed talking about our regular Lamentations of the Flame Princess game for a couple of weeks. Last time on the Isle of the Unknown, Patrick was DMing us through a dungeon underneath an old keep. We had killed some Cthulu-worshippers, some giant bats and avoided some traps along the way. All was well with the world, and I was enjoying playing my new cleric, Priam, servant of the powerful god Venn. Charley/Henry Shortbread, the specialist, had disappeared into the undergrowth, and Priam had just happened to walk along and find the party as they were on their way to the keep.
Patrick has a nice house rule when it comes to magic; as with many D&D type games, you have your spell slots, but you can also try to cast any spell appropriate to your level, so long as you roll for success. Success is determined according to the Apocalypse World success rules: 2d6 plus or minus any modifier, a 10+ gives you what you want (the successful spell), a 7-9 gives you success plus a roll on a "something bad happens" table and a 6 or less just gives you the roll on the "something bad happens" table.
The Bless cleric spell/prayer in LotFP, as understood by me, means that you get d6+level points to spend/declare for future rolls. So having points like that means I can spend points to attack, to evade, for WIS checks - or even, to try and get future spells using Patrick's magic house rule. So if I get a good Bless result early on, then I have points in reserve for the night. I just needed to make that first AW-style roll.
It worked last week. It didn't last night.
I roll a 9, so get my blessing, but immediately have to spend the points to get favour from Venn again in order to cast cure light wounds on myself. Why? Displeased with my constant requests, Venn placed a small dog in my abdomenal cavity. Yes, that's right: A SMALL DOG. Not warts or boils on my face, or a limp, or blindness. A SMALL DOG. Luckily I was able to perform a caesarean on myself and have enough HP to then invoke cure light wounds (using many of the bless points that I just got).
Phew. I was up on the deal I guess. The dog was out, I had more HP than I had had before, I had some bless points left, and a dog that (rolls for loyalty)... hates me.
Lesson learned: don't try to game your deity.
Despite having the highest wisdom in the group I failed four rolls in a row - which is improbable enough - but then for the first three rolls I rolled a 16 each time. A one in eight thousand chance.
The small dog, Priestly, was eaten by a giant moth, we had our first big toe-to-toe battle with some giant Amber Scarabs (was touch and go), escaped from a crazy trap, got suspicious about the Bandit/Cleric who put us up to the job in the first place and the younglings were shouting at each other so much at one point that I passed Patrick the encounter die and said "You may as well just roll."
I can't make it for a couple of weeks, so have asked Patrick if my character can try to slip out of the dungeon (so that he isn't killed in the background when the others do something incredibly reckless). We'll see what happens. I'm enjoying playing a cleric much more than playing a specialist, so am hoping that I'll be able to get him back into play at some point soon.
Patrick has a nice house rule when it comes to magic; as with many D&D type games, you have your spell slots, but you can also try to cast any spell appropriate to your level, so long as you roll for success. Success is determined according to the Apocalypse World success rules: 2d6 plus or minus any modifier, a 10+ gives you what you want (the successful spell), a 7-9 gives you success plus a roll on a "something bad happens" table and a 6 or less just gives you the roll on the "something bad happens" table.
The Bless cleric spell/prayer in LotFP, as understood by me, means that you get d6+level points to spend/declare for future rolls. So having points like that means I can spend points to attack, to evade, for WIS checks - or even, to try and get future spells using Patrick's magic house rule. So if I get a good Bless result early on, then I have points in reserve for the night. I just needed to make that first AW-style roll.
It worked last week. It didn't last night.
I roll a 9, so get my blessing, but immediately have to spend the points to get favour from Venn again in order to cast cure light wounds on myself. Why? Displeased with my constant requests, Venn placed a small dog in my abdomenal cavity. Yes, that's right: A SMALL DOG. Not warts or boils on my face, or a limp, or blindness. A SMALL DOG. Luckily I was able to perform a caesarean on myself and have enough HP to then invoke cure light wounds (using many of the bless points that I just got).
Phew. I was up on the deal I guess. The dog was out, I had more HP than I had had before, I had some bless points left, and a dog that (rolls for loyalty)... hates me.
Lesson learned: don't try to game your deity.
Despite having the highest wisdom in the group I failed four rolls in a row - which is improbable enough - but then for the first three rolls I rolled a 16 each time. A one in eight thousand chance.
The small dog, Priestly, was eaten by a giant moth, we had our first big toe-to-toe battle with some giant Amber Scarabs (was touch and go), escaped from a crazy trap, got suspicious about the Bandit/Cleric who put us up to the job in the first place and the younglings were shouting at each other so much at one point that I passed Patrick the encounter die and said "You may as well just roll."
I can't make it for a couple of weeks, so have asked Patrick if my character can try to slip out of the dungeon (so that he isn't killed in the background when the others do something incredibly reckless). We'll see what happens. I'm enjoying playing a cleric much more than playing a specialist, so am hoping that I'll be able to get him back into play at some point soon.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Tabletop (the web show)
A very short and simple post today; I just wanted to share the third installment of Tabletop, a new fortnightly series of videos with Wil Wheaton and friends playing geeky and nerdy games. I've not played any of them so far, although I've heard of a few. After the second episode I really want to now play Settlers of Catan, and some of the short games featured in this video look great too.
Now all I have to do is get them and find someone to play them with... I think I'm going to get Carcassonne for Android so that I can play against AI.
Now all I have to do is get them and find someone to play them with... I think I'm going to get Carcassonne for Android so that I can play against AI.
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