Ghoulish Mailbag: Handling PC Death
For the last 3 years, I’ve had the habit to write Halloween themed posts:
- 2009: in the wake of the H1N1 scare, I tackled a Zombie Apocalypse micro-setting for a Modern RPG.
- 2008: in the grip of rising depression symptoms, I concocted a creepy post about the Nightmare fuel trope.
- 2007: I started the tradition (so to speak) with a Trope post about mixing it up in your campaign by putting costumes on common mechanics to make new, strange monsters/treasures.
This year again, I’m sitting at my kitchen breakfast counter while the kids (now 8 and 7) are out terrorizing the surroundings for some sugar-cane based spoils of war. Once again, I’m the guardian of the dungeon, sitting over a chestful of delicious Coffee Crisps candy bars, bags of Trans-fat free 95 calories chips and fiendish sour gummy-zombies packets.
In the mean time, what better topic on All Hallow’s Eve than tackling a recent letter by a reader inquiring about dealing with the ever throny issue of character death.
Dear Grim Reaper…
My name is Tom. I’ve been reading your blog quite a bit over the last few days, and I’ve found it to be a really useful source of information and inspiration. You also seem like an approachable sort of guy, so I thought I’d, well, approach you with a question.
I’ve been running my first campaign for a few sessions now, and in this particular campaign, there’s no resurrection when a PC dies– something we all agreed to going in, as it seems to add a meaningful sense of risk.
This has made the few combat encounters– the focus of the campaign has really been more about exploration, puzzle-solving, and character interaction– pretty intense, with some characters coming close but narrowly escaping their demise. Which has also made it very exciting and a lot of fun for me and my players.
So far, none of the characters have actually died, and I’ve given the characters a magical item that can help save another character from their fate.
What I’m worried about is when, eventually and inevitably, someone’s character does die. It’s not that I’m worried about how they’ll handle it– they’re all a pretty mature bunch, so I don’t expect any tantrums. It’s, what if a PC dies half-way through an adventure, with two or three hours of dungeon or character negotiations or puzzles left?
I don’t want anyone to just sit there being bored while all the others are having a ball, nor do I want to abruptly halt the adventure. I’d like to keep the deceased character’s player entertained and engaged in some way. Do you have any suggestions?
Of Death, Drama and the value of one’s Free Time
Among the recurring themes of RPG forum and blog posts, setting the lethality level and handling the death of PCs is way up there. I’m willing to bet there was at least one article about that in the first few issues of Dragon magazine.
Now the range of answers to Tom’s inquiries are about as large as there are pundits and writers pondering this, here’s mine.
It all comes down to how much the free time of your players is worth to them and how much you value it when they sit at your table. Dear GMs, in the unlikely chance that you still haven’t learned that fundamental lesson, in this day and age of MMORPGs and Skype remote playing, players don’t have to be unilaterally grateful to have a spot at your table, it goes both ways. I wrote a post about that way back when that’s still very relevant today.
So while loosing one’s PC in the middle encounter of a long night of playing is a likely outcome of any RPG, having it occur in a game where making a new PC takes a long chunk of time (and possibly the DM’s attention if electronic tools aren’t available) can put a serious damper on everyone’s fun.
Of Death and other Inconveniences.
So Tom, my first suggestion is to ask your players what they expect in the likelihood that character death does occur mid-encounter, with plenty of time remaining to play out other encounters? Maybe they’ll tell you that they’d rather stop the game until their fallen comrade builds a new character, opting to play a quick card game like Dominion or Three-Dragon Ante.
Assuming Tom plays D&D 4e, I also suggest that he has the D&D character builder (or equivalent software tool if you play Pathfinder, Savage World or any other OGL-based RPG) installed on a nearby computer and hooked to a printer. Thus, that gives his down-on-her-luck player the best tools to come back as fast as possible.
I would also question the finality of death in your game. If you play 4e or Pathfinder, a game where character creation is a complex process, requiring the player to make a lot of choices and invest significant energies, you may want to rethink your initial decision. There are other ways to create that sense of risk that you are trying to simulate by making Death final.
For instance, I’d consider making the success or failure of certain ‘turning points” of your story hinge on key PCs not dying at all during the adventure. Maybe the cleric bears a divine mark (needed to complete a ritual in a dungeon) that will dissipate if she dies, regardless if the Shaman raises her after the fight. Maybe the Paladin needs a flawless reputation to gain the trust of the local lord and can’t afford to be slain by dishonorable Wererats (leading to a great RPing moment, should the fallen and raised LG paladin lie to achieve the party’s goal).
Follow the Other Light…
Alternatively, If death is so final in your game, you should explore or create story reasons for that. Is it possible that the realm of the Dead (e.g. 4e’s Shadowfell), where souls can be plucked for resurrection, is closed for some specific reason? Is it possible that the soul of a deceased character remains on the material plane but slowly dissolves over the next few minutes (like Terry Pratchett’s recently deceased characters)?
What if, during those next few minutes, a slain heroic soul could still help its comrades? What if it could play in some sort of combat-based skill challenge, with a ghost figurine on the board, that can interact with the challenge at hand? In fact, what if the Arcane, Religion and Nature-based PCs could perceive the ghostly PC and share action in a new etherial challenge?
For example, what if the deceased PC could yank the souls out of monsters by grabbing them or cutting them loose with an appropriate skill check or Weapon attack? Maybe if the Ghost PC fails 3 times… it dissipates. Thus, even though the PC’s dead, there’s still a stakes at play. The living PCs sensing the ghost could support it with minor action rolls of the appropriate skill.
The Road More Traveled
Otherwise, if that’s too far fetched for you, turn the table and give the control of the monsters to the players who just lost a PC, involve them in your story. Listen to their suggestions and try to work them in your campaign.
Or just give him the keys to your car to go and get the pizza, or allow him to leave the table to go play with the PS3 or flirt with your significant other… 
What about you guys, how do you handle death. Anyone has used clever tricks to make the experience less of a drag while still making it a significant stake in the game? Is it an issue in your game or did you address it up front? Let us know!
Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-10-31
- From the Archives:: Behind the Wave http://bit.ly/cSXIIm #charchive #
- DDXP 2011 Information: http://bit.ly/dB8RJd Plus check out the event section for something interesting… http://bit.ly/aAMumq #
- RT @fredhicks: #gammaworld as a gateway for finding Birthright or Supers ? My Deadly Fredly graphic post awaits: http://j.mp/b9520r #
- Thanks for including us with such great company! RT @Morrus: Interactive Map of the Online RPG Community http://bit.ly/caT6Kk #
- RT @Sernett: I've got a Beholder Collector's Set! #dnd http://yfrog.com/mh9rynj http://yfrog.com/n9ijgrgjhttp://yfrog.com/n9ijgrgj #
- RT @dresdenfiles: Don't forget, 10% off DFRPG stuff this week only at the Evil Hat store – http://bit.ly/9YwM7w #
- RT @theweem: Weem Does Gamma World… http://bit.ly/cpvKoG #
- Do you have questions about #dnd for @ChrisSSims? He's waiting to hear your questions about many topics: http://bit.ly/bcH6dZ #
- From the Archives:: A Journey Through Sci-Fi http://bit.ly/bLdwkf #charchive #
Review: Costume Quest
I have to admit, when I saw Costume Quest show up in the list of new releases for Xbox Live Arcade last week, I rolled my eyes. Then I came to work, and one of my friends was raving about the game, telling me how it was so funny and awesome and oh my God you have to try it just go home now and do it. So, later that evening, I downloaded the demo. I was surprised to see the logo for Double Fine Productions appear. It wasn’t so long ago that I channeled the awesome power of rock with their last title, Brütal Legend, and I had to take a moment to run a few tests to make sure this was real and not in a dream within a dream within someone’s else’s dream inside a llama’s dream inside of a dream. I’m still not sure in my life what, if anything, is real. What I am sure of is that if Costume Quest is part of a dream, I don’t want to wake up.
Costume Quest is based on a simple premise. You’re a kid who loves Halloween more than anything else, and you go trick or treating with your sister (or brother, if you play the girl). You’re wearing a cool robot costume, and they are dressed like a big piece of candy corn — a fact that would not normally matter except it becomes clear early in the game that the town has been overrun with candy-stealing monsters, and they think your sibling is a huge piece of candy fit for grand theft and proceed to kidnap them. Using the power of your imagination, you become a mighty warrior based on whatever halloween costume you are wearing, and you then proceed to stomp monster ass in the hopes of getting them back. You eventually wind up getting more costumes with different powers. There is an achievement for watching every single costume’s special power, and it is worth it to do this even if you don’t want the achievement because they are all awesome and special in their own way. Just like a snowflake! [Read the rest of this article]
When the Bad Guys Win: Chatty’s Gamma World One Shot
D-d-dance p-p-puny Humanoids!
One of the two pieces of Swag I got from being a volunteer DM at the New York Comic Con was a set of Wizards of the Coast’s new Gamma World adventure game. After reading through the (very familiar) rules, I decided that I wanted to try it out with my buddies as a one shot, among the growing list of different role playing games we’ve been trying out these last 2 months.
This post is a recap of our experience with the game rather than an actual play report. Since I used the PAX prime adventure written by Logan Bonner, you can follow the story in more details in Dave’s excellent DC Game Day game report.
Character Generation
Char Gen is a much simplified version of 4e’s process. People randomly determine 2 origins (each a class/race hybrid) and mush them together to create their PC concept. That part can be either the most boring or awesome part of the game. If you just accept that you have an Hyperconscious Android and move on to select your skills then you skipped on the awesome.
Case in point, my ever brilliant storyologist Franky rolled Telekinetic and “Swarm of Rats.” When I saw he was struggling with the concept, I shared the game’s core assumption: “You are expected to re-skin anything to suit your needs.”
Franky: So can the swarm be made of spiders?
Chatty: Absolutely!
Franky: And can I hold my body in humanoid form through my telekinesis and webs so I can blend in?
Chatty: Awesome, no one will notice!
Franky later chose weapons from the list of generic choices. He picked a bowling bowl embedded in his PC’s body, swinging it, web-flail style. He also chose to shoot actual web spurts (like Spiderman). His concept was rich and very vivid. Along with Yan’s Seismic Radioactive (a depleted Uranium shooter called Boulder Dash), Franky’s character stood out among the concepts I remember most.
From experience, I know that character creation can be a huge pain with only one rulebook and 4-6 players. So in order to bypass that, I used Alphastream’s very useful Gamma World add-ons that feature PDFs with description of each origins and various Gamma World cheat sheets.
Heck I cut these all up and had players pick two for their origin, so we had no overlaps, perfect for a demo game.
Seriously, even if you hate Wiz Book, hop on just to get the tools (and thank Alpha on the way), it will help you maintain momentum in your Char Gen session.
The Wonders of a Game’s Exploration Phase
Char Gen was fun for most of us (See below), I distributed weird/antique tech cards around (again from Alphastream) and we started playing the first scene where our soon to be heroes were lounging in the ruins of the Seattle Convention Centre and got attacked by a technophobic hippie hunter that turns nearby docile robots into robo-killas.
(Aside: I must give huge props to Logan Bonner who managed to not only write a good, 3 scenes adventure that showcases what Gamma World does, but also by adding several funny and clever remarks that made reading it all the more interesting… if you aren’t already doing it, go support his 4e Open Design Project!)
As players got into their powers and the slight rules changes of the game (no more Healing Surges, Minor Action+ 1/2 HP for Second Wind, etc) we experienced what I call “the exploratory phase” of a new game. We had lots of fun and the fight went rapidly.
When we reached the second scene, with the Warbot named “Dancebot 1986″ blocking the way to the Space Needle, some players reading this here site recognized the adventure. Yet, as much as I was looking forward to this part of the adventure, all players completely aced the challenge and danced, dodged, snuck and flipped around, over and under this fully armed Droid of Groove. So while it was cool from a success point, it felt a bit anti-climactic.
Stumbling Down the Hill
In the last encounter, the players squared off against another of those bow and arrow back-to-basics tree-huggers, a laser-gaze flying monkey-lion and some porcupine-dervish-bushes-from-Hell. The combat was longish, players started dropping left and right, Mutant powers some useless, some too powerful cycled through the hands of the players. Those bushes were LETHAL…
Yan: Math! Gimme that Plasma Gun of yours.
Math: But it leaks radioactivity man, I can’t survive shooting it.
Yan: I’m made of radioactivity, I can soak it in!
Chatty: Ohhhh dear…
Yan: Booya! Dead Lion-Monkey-thing and I got a nice greenish tan from it!
In the end, one character died, 1 or 2 others were dying and the Sentient chunk of Space Earth villain that had crashed in the Space Needle was able to make all technology permanently inoperable over what used to be the Greater Seattle area while the PCs tried to save their friends from dying.
Math: My iPod…
Mike: My turkey carver…
While we enjoyed ourselves, the evening ended in a some kind of a bummer. I believe that people tend to remember the last emotional imprint of an experience and apply it to the whole thing itself. Thus, our game of Gamma World felt more meh than awesome.
You really have no idea what it feels like to know EVERYTHING do you.... ahhhh don't bother.
Dr. Chatty and the Hypercounscious Paranoid Android
In classic Chatty DM fashion, I decided to explore the why of this and how this can be circumvented in the future (or in your very own groups).
Character Dying Mechanics
One of the killjoys of the evening was that some players spent a lot of time not knowing if their dying character would feed radioactive worms or not. While Gamma World, especially at level 1, is faster than D&D 4e, dying PCs still have to wait 10 to 15 minutes each round, just to roll a d20 to make sure they don’t die.
Since the PC might recover, or a friend might come over and help you out, the player and GMs don’t necessarily realize that the player should spend this time making a new PC.
Since I don’t believe that Gamma World was created to be a serious, deep story RPG, I’d suggest re-instating the oldest of Old school rules of them all: your PC dies at 0 HP… period. Then, just allow new adventurers to join as soon as the new PC is ready. Thus, players always do stuff at the table.
Alternatively, my buddy Dave suggests having the player work on a new PC while he rolls death saves and when the new PC is ready, make a call with the GM about the fate of the fallen one.
Reintroducing the Randomness Element
This may come as no surprise, but some of my players were completely turned off by the randomizing aspect of the game. While the selection of character origins was fine, Math started grumbling when he had to roll his tertiary stats.
Chatty: You know what Math, I just realized that since 1986, you AlWAYS hated rolling for stats, that why you jumped on Unearthed Arcana’s alternative methods.
Math: You’re damn right!
Chatty: And if memory serves well, you loved to roll 13s because they mysteriously turned into 18s over the next few sessions right?
Math: Is that the door? Pizza’s here!
Also, players motivated by tactical choices, planning and playing specialist roles can be turned off by the randomness. There were several moments where Yan grumbled that his Mutations and Omega tech were useless (and lets not talk about the antique crap) and I can see on the character sheets that some people were NOT inspired by their PC hybrids.
Math: Okay so I’m a Giant that’s real intelligent… woop de doo!
Chatty: But man, you could be this huge Brain in a Jar, floating around and bashing people with mechanical tendrils.
Math: Have you forgotten to take your meds again Phil?
This makes me think that Gamma World is especially well-suited for casual butt kickers, making it a GREAT one-shot/short campaign adventure game.
If you want to play this game and you have Yans and Maths in your group, consider letting players choose their origins (or at least one) and, if you don’t play with the “Players make their own deck of cards”, look at the PC and have the PCs pick their first piece of Omega tech from a selection of useful cards you picked for them.
Underneath It All, It’s Still 4e
That’s more of a personal thought here. As many know, I feel like I need a break from D&D in its various incarnations and I was reminded of that as I was running the 3rd encounter. I felt the weight of the numbers, the mind-numbingly slow (to my distorted perception) rules-exception based process. As the wonders of exploration wore off, I started seeing the Matrix again, the wire-frames of monster stats and combat mechanics underneath the otherwise awesome fluff…
The main reason why I’m currently tired of the WotC engine is because I can’t stop seeing the Matrix, and ironically enough, I no longer find this to be my main motivation for RPGs.
That’s why I need to stop DMing it and start playing it!
Dave, Enrique, Logan, Chris, Tracy and all you reader/bloggers/DMs/designers, I wanna play in your games when next we meet, I’m done DMing it for the time being but I loved playing it at Gen Con, and maybe I’ll stop seeing the wires and start seeing the rubber suits covering them again.
And that’s how Chatty sees it.
Are You the Most Interesting Roleplayer in the World?
Photo by Steve Townshend
Regardless of what people say about tabletop RPGs, there is no denying that it is a social game. Whether you are trying to play a fun and interesting character, do the most damage or get the highest defenses, or create the most engaging story as a group, none of those pursuits are possible in a vacuum.
The 4e Dungeon Master’s Guide, in my opinion one of the best books on RPGs in general and D&D in particular, does a great job of breaking down the various types of gamers and examining what people are looking to get out of playing RPGs. While the information that James Wyatt presents is crucial for DMs to create content and run games that appeal to their players, it also equally important that players understand these differences in play styles and preferences. Players cognizant of the needs of others, while also itching their own scratches, can facilitate the best game possible.
One of the lowlights of my time involved in the RPG world is the time I have spent forced to read RPG message boards and forums. Having been an administrator in various shared-world, organized-play campaigns, this time tolerating the trolls and know-it-alls is penance for all the fun and challenging work that goes into such campaigns. But undoubtedly the worst of the Interwebz troglodytes are the ones who insist that other people are playing the game wrong, or failing to realize that games can be played in different ways or for different reasons. [Read the rest of this article]
Apocalypse Short: The Siege of Shanty Town (Part 5)
(I’m knee deep in seminar season again, and I’m several game reports behind. To catch up, I decided to write a series of short 500-ish words posts about the highlights of each).
A few weeks ago, we concluded our Apocalypse World mini-campaign. See this post to catch up on the story.
Dramatis Persona (reminder)
Thunder: Male Chopper (Cycle gang leader, played by Eric)
Raven: Female Faceless (Masked semi-mystical Brute played by Franky)
Smith (Absent) : Male Brainer (Psychic Mindfucker played by Mike)
Eternity: Female Battlebabe (Waif-fu Kill-Bill-esque badass, played by Math)
Game Summary
Colonel Allison and “Sarge” Thunder were planning to defend Shanty Town which was surrounded by several dozen Hummer-like vehicles and a pair of Armored Personal Carriers. Just as Thunder returned from his aborted raid on Fortress city, two of his lieutenants (including the treacherous Phil) and 2 of Allison’s tried to capture him to deliver him to Sun, the leader of the invasion. Being the total Badass that he is, he reminded everyone who was the Alpha Wolf of the pack and got the traitors groveling (at best) or dead. He then focused on more important stuff… like saving his little corner of Hell he calls home.
Allison and Thunder mobilized their gangs and grabbed initiative to take hold of Ambush Hill before the invaders from Fortress-City could. They succeeded admirably but when they tried to push their advantage and capture the command-centre APC, they found themselves at the business end of a Rocket Propelled Grenade. When the smoke cleared, there was one APC less and a lot of gang member body parts strewn all over the place.
Then the shelling of the city by Fortress-City’s grounded battleship began…
In Thunder-City, right after Smith collapsed into a strange Coma, Raven used her mystical powers to seek out Eternity. As Raven tapped into the Psychic Maelstorm, she felt Smith’s glee and exaltation at being one with the Storm. It remained unclear if Smith’s influence helped or hindered the 2 women that he had been interested in. Even plugged in the ether, Smith managed to mindscrew his colleagues.
Raven made it to the ship by crashing through everything that stood in her path (Oh Yeah!) and teamed up with the Battlebabe to start serious trouble on the ship, taking out the gun batteries for good right before it hit Shanty Town’s Factory. They eventually confronted Sun, the leader of Fortress-City and massacred his honour guard… when Eternity went aggro on Sun for him to stand down, the gold-painted psycho leader forced the Battlebabe’s hand and found, to his post-mortem dismay, his brains painting the bulkheads of his former ship.
And thus, shanty Town was saved, but there would be consequences now that open war had been declared between both towns.
Game Highlights
After 4 sessions of Apocalypse World, I realized I had grown quite used to the whole “the players make the moves and roll dice / the GM answers and prompts them for more” method of play. I had an easier time calling the moves to respond to player input and I felt the game flow more naturally.
I also experienced with dishing out damage to the PCs more (which is done in response to players dishing it or failed dice rolls/soft successes). I even went too far and crushed Franky’s Faceless PC underneath an I-Beam toward the end of the session.
When all said and done, the element of Apocalypse World I prefer is the Front structure which I discussed here. It’s an awesome framework to build adventures and campaign on without resorting to scripting scenes and events. By giving clear, step by step objectives to NPCs, groups and places, the GM gets to truly create a dynamic world that reacts to the player’s significant choice.
When my players told me they’d play again, with different characters to try something different, probably more Mad Max like, I knew the experiment was a great success.
Oh and mad props to Vincent Baker for naming a Faceless power after a Kool Aid ad. That’s made of win.
Up next, our last Mouse Guard game. Then, Gamma World.
P.S. Let me know if that format works for you or if you prefer the 1.5k word format (I prefer the longer one BTW).
More Mailbag
This week I’m resting up. I’ll be old and crotchety by Saturday, so I’m taking it easy to build up my strength. (Okay, I’m playing a lot of Mass Effect 2. I like to keep Renegade nearly as high as Paragon, so don’t push me.) I’ve been working up a few ideas. Kyle Ferrin’s fine image for my Mailbag feature needs some showing off, too. It makes sense, with this confluence of events, to post some requests to you. I’ll do these articles without any help, but I figured it makes sense to do something more personal. Check out the possibilities.
Monsters
I plan on doing one or more pieces on monster design. I’ll share what I know, along with some tips based on issues I sometimes see. The plan was to snag some monsters from popular video games, which I’ll still do, as examples with visual counterparts. You can help by suggesting monsters you’d like to see from any medium that I and other readers might have easy access to. If you’re up to it, you could even submit an idea with a description or your own design for my development. To submit a request, idea, or creature, email me with the subject Monster Mash 1.
Characters
A while back we had a “discussion” on Twitter about character concepts and roles. I use quotes around that word because this is a subject with a lot of room for interpretation. Numerous disagreements I saw seemed to revolve more around semantics than actual ideological differences. Twitter’s character limit is not your friend when trying to move past semantics. Besides, Quinn Murphy called all us tweeters out to put our blogs where our mouth was at the time. I’m in. Send me character concepts if you will, and I’ll see if I can make them using the 4e D&D game rules. Feel free to restrict me, even though I might ignore the restrictions. I also reserve the right to critique the concept, as well as to solve the problem the way I’d do it as DM for my home game. If you’re ready to put your concept where my blog is, send me an email with the subject Role Me 1.
Thunderdome
I have a lot of great possibilities for playing in the Seattle area, and I have an idea for making it semiregular. Now I just have to schedule it all when my calendar has some holes in it. We’ll see what happens. If you’ve already sent me an email, I’ve got you on my docket. Still, feel fee to ping me—you will not bother me. If you haven’t sent me an email, I still have room. My first goal is to set up a local group based on those who want to play. I also intend to guest star in some established local groups when I can. The email subject for a possible play date is Thunderdome.
Freemail
Other subjects I’m working on are magic items, rituals, adventure design, looting ideas, and reading player cues. If you have any questions or hints that fit into those categories, feel free to let me know. You can also (or instead) drop me a line regarding just about anything you care to. People do it all the time. I do my best to be accommodating, just ask all the people here at Critical-Hits.
In any case, I thank you in advance for caring enough to correspond with me. I’ll do my best too do right by what you give me, and I’ll be sure to give credit where it’s due. My email address is in the bio below. I hope to hear from you.
Review: L5R “Enemies of the Empire”
The new edition of Legend of the Five Rings (4th Edition, no relation to D&D) published by Alderac Entertainment Group has been out for a few months now and though I’ve been working pretty hard on planning a series of one-shot adventures to run I still haven’t gotten a chance to play it.
As much as I enjoy D&D, one of the niche settings that it doesn’t cover that well for me is the oriental/samurai/ninja setting that, if you know me at all, is something I absolutely love to play in. Despite having not played the game yet, I wanted to take a look at Enemies of the Empire, the first supplement book for the new edition that nearly doubles the amount of content you can use in your adventures. While the core book introduces the main samurai clans and a handful of enemies your samurai might encounter including goblins, oni, and white-masked zombies, Enemies of the Empire is nearly 300 pages full of cultists, monsters, spirits, ancient races, and ronin that your samurai can face off against or even in some cases play as one of those ancient races.
Overview
The 4th Edition books for Legend of the Five Rings display the highest level of production, design, and presentation that RPG books of today should be compared to. I had this opinion of the core book and it has been continued with Enemies of the Empire. Though you might expect it from the book’s title and description, it does not come off as a “Monster Manual” but instead it feels more like an encyclopedia detailing a collection of different races rather than monsters. Some of those detailed include a bestiary of ordinary animals (horses, elephants, etc), a cult called the Bloodspeakers, a secretive conspiracy group called the Kolat, serpent warriors known as Naga, the Nezumi rat-people, shadowspawn and spirits known simply as The Nothing, Oni, Kenku, Ronin, a slew of new Shadowlands Beasts, Spirits, and Undead.
The book contains 282 beautifully colored and designed pages that while you read through them practically teleport you to the world of Rokugan. The only downside I can see to either of the new L5R books is the price, with this supplement’s retail price being $39.99 it costs the same or more than most core books for other RPGs, however with the absolute quality of these books I’m not surprised and I have to say if you are a fan of Rokugan or of roleplaying as samurai you absolutely must check out these books.
The Nitty-Gritty
For me this book has just the right amount of fluff, the opening chapter starts with an engaging in-character story and there are tons of quotes from people of Rokugan throughout each chapter that add unique perspectives to each topic. More interesting than that is that almost every word in Enemies of the Empire is written in such a way that you can easily see it from the perspective of a GM reading about the game world but much of it feels like something written by someone within the game world describing the world that they see. To me this book is an essential piece for planning, running, and playing in Rokugan, while the core book laid a solid foundation of the world Enemies of the Empire takes that world and populates it with a much wider variety of interesting creatures and characters that really makes the world eat, sleep, and breath the themes that permeate L5R.
The first chapter is the Bestiary and introduces nearly every type of natural animal that you’ll need for your game. A very nice addition is for players to be able to gain the advantage to have a trained falcon, which is cool enough for any RPG character but just think about it – a Samurai with a trained falcon! Badass. The animals described in this chapter range from Ape, Badger, Bat, and Bear to Octopus, Shark, Snake, Stag, and Tiger. The next chapter introduces the cult known as the Bloodspeakers, who not surprisingly focus on the use of blood in their magic. There is a lot of history presented for the cult including two of the biggest battles of good vs. evil known to Rokugan, a sample cult cell for use in your game (or to modify as you see fit), a new technique for casting spells in the Bloodspeaker style, and several pages of new spells usable with that technique. Though this is presented mainly for the GM, it is given in a fashion that I can easily see it being used by a PC if they really wanted to dabble in the more sinister style of spell casting. The end of the chapter gives us a handful of monster stat blocks to represent the cult, which is the typical format for this book.
The next chapter gives us the Kolat, a mysterious and very secretive conspiracy/syndicate that most of the populace is either unaware of or refuses to believe that it exists. The group is split into numerous sects (Jade, Lotus, Silk, Tiger, etc) that each have a main focus and describes what to expect of the typical agent of that sect. This is a very interesting concept presented in Rokugan because it is a group of people who favor power over honor, which goes against many of the main assumptions that come with the society of Rokugan. This is not a section of the book that presents strictly monstrous or evil adversaries, but rather a group of people whose goals simply come at odds with those of a group of PC samurai every now and then. The book mentions that using the Kolat can easily give your game an X-Files feel and add some conspiracy into the mix. The chapter ends with not only several stat blocks for Kolat agents but also new mechanics and spells for spies, asssasins, and other agents of the Kolat.
The Lost are something that I can only describe as infected demon-ghost samurai, but even that doesn’t do them real justice. You’ll have to pick up the book to find out exactly what they are, but I’ll summarize it as they are a very easy way to add a very strong horror element into your games in the land of Rokugan. The Naga chapter of the book is the first that introduces an entirely new race; these are half-human half-snake naga that have lived for centuries and put a strong emphasis on martial prowess. The chapter provides excellent background for the race and then describes how they can work as adversaries in your game, but it also presents a large section on campaign and PC options for if you have a player or an entire party that wants to play as a naga themselves. I absolutely love this part, because I’m so used to D&D where races are an inherent part of the game and presented in the Player’s Handbook but in L5R the base game is that everyone plays a human. As a result, when the option to play something other than a human is presented it feels extremely special. This leads me perfectly into the next chapter, introducing the Nezumi.
I’m not going to lie, one of the reasons I’m so excited about this book is because rules for playing Nezumi fit perfectly into my L5R-Dark Sun-Mouse Guard mash up campaign idea. That said, this chapter follows the same structure as the Naga chapter and does an excellent job of providing plenty of background for the race as well as detailing both how they can be used as adversaries in your game and as a potential PC race. The next chapter introduces shadowspawn creatures that are known simply as The Nothing. These creatures are the perfect other-worldly ninjas or stalking shadows that when combined with The Lost mentioned above allows you to very easily create a Cthluhu-style campaign of Legend of the 5 Rings.
Everything that I’ve described above is roughly HALF of this book. The following chapters expand upon and introduce a wide range of new Oni and introduce the Five Ancient Races including the Kenku (bird-people), the Ningyo (mermaid-ish creatures), the Trolls, the Kitsu/Tsuno (shapeshifters cursed into demon-like forms), and the Zokujin (goblin/kobold-like creatures). After those there is a full chapter each for Ronin, Shadowlands Beasts (including goblins, ogres, and demons), Spirits, and Undead. These last chapters seem to include more stat blocks for a wider variety of creatures than the early chapters, which I find creates a perfect balance to the book between providing interesting campaign ideas and a slew of new opponents for your samurai to face off against.
Enemies of the Empire is a book that cannot easily be categorized into the typical RPG supplement archetypes because it provides a wide variety of fluff and crunch for numerous different races, organizations, and locations that you will encounter around Rokugan as well as several new mechanics and spells that players will want to use to survive against those threats. Perhaps the best way to summarize it is that when combined with the Legend of the 5 Rings core book, Enemies of the Empire provides you with enough information to run interesting and exciting campaigns for as long as your characters care to stay in the world of Rokugan.
Afraid Of The Dark
As an adult, I frequently enjoy the strange and colorful fruits of my imagination. As a child, these fruits would come crashing down at high velocity upon my head at night, and they tasted terrible. My parents used to call it a blessing and a curse. By day I’d write stories and draw comics. At night, they would often find me standing in the middle of my bed screaming. Sometimes, I would calm down and not know what terrified me so. Usually, though, it was very fresh in my mind, and all too real until somebody calmed me down.
The number one thing I used to have nightmares about is tornadoes. I blame this on my older brother, who delighted in making things up to terrify his little brother, who was fantastically gullible. One time, he convinced me that there was a new kind of killer bee that looked just like dandelion seeds. Convincing me that tornadoes were sentient and out to get me personally was not difficult by comparison.
Upon thinking about it, though, there really isn’t a clear #2 night terror on my list. Sure, I had my share of monsters and killers and the occasional Sith lord, but that was not what found me screaming for Mom and Dad. Usually, it would be something vague and sinister. I’m in the dark, and I know something is hunting me, and I can’t outrun it. Something evil has replaced my parents. I’m paralyzed, I can barely breathe, and I can hear something awful coming for me.
There’s a common thread in these nightmares: even in the realm of my own subconscious, not knowing everything is a hell of a lot scarier. You can’t plan. You can’t prepare. You can’t even fill in the blanks for what is after you or how it will get you (but you know it will).
Fortunately for me, my imagination and I get along a lot better these days and my dreams are typically more weird than terrifying. Every now and then, it’ll still drop some fruit on my head, but it’s as the old saying goes: when life gives you nightmares, make nightmare-ade. Scary things make for good stories and interesting thinking. Besides, scaring the crap out of yourself can be fun, as long as the light switch is easily within reach. Even so, to this day, movies that use this concept well mess with my head. Not during, mind you. It’s in the middle of the night when I get up to use the bathroom and the thought creeps into my head that maybe, just maybe, something is behind the shower curtain. Or that I’ll look in the mirror and suddenly someone’s behind me. I’ll never forget the first time I watched the original Halloween. I was in college, and I lived in an apartment that had a closet within a closet, and for two weeks straight I could swear I could faintly make out a William Shatner mask in every darkened doorway. Many times it’s just the idea behind a scary movie far more than the movie itself that does the trick. Freddy Krueger, despite numerous campy sequels, is one of the most terrifying concepts I’ve ever seen. How would you fight something like that? Why would it choose you? And let me tell you from experience, when Freddy shows up in one of your dreams, you’re very grateful to see the sunrise despite his being fictional.
Games that can exploit this are worse because the level of interactivity makes it that much easier for my imagination to insert me into these nightmare scenarios. Curse those damnable little scissor-babies from Silent Hill. CURSE THEM!!! Best of all is a good Call of Cthulhu game with a nice, evil GM that knows how to get under his players’ collective skin, and evil right out of one of my nightmares: nobody knows what is out there, or how it will get them – but it will. Try it in your game sometime. Since I tend not to DM much, I look for ways to enrich my roleplaying experience. It adds to the experience for me when I don’t really know what the hell that thing is that’s trying to kill me – which I why I tend not to read the Monster Manuals. I don’t want my internal Bardic Knowledge to kick in when the DM describes a creature, especially if it might arm me with critical information on how to defeat a monster. It’s hard for me to force myself not to make strategies using this information. Besides, minmaxing and metagaming aren’t usually conducive to good roleplaying to begin with. I mean, really. Do you want to watch Paranormal Activity with the idea in your head that “oh, that’s just an invisible stalker. If she just had a +1 weapon or greater, that thing would be toast”? Okay, I do too. But you get my point.
Turn out the lights, put all your ill-gotten knowledge down, suspend your disbelief somewhere and put those accursed child-lock doorknobs on the entrance so it’s hard to get back. I do my own laundry. If anything bad happens to my undergarments as a result of my superior roleplaying, the consequences are mine to bear. Happy Halloween, everyone!
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Gamma Wild: “Gamma World” Game Day Report
At some point in my life, I came across a phrase like this: “In every group, there’s at least one jerk, and if you can’t find the jerk in your group, then it’s you.” This worries me, as I participated in the Gamma World Game Day on October 23, and every single person at that table was excellent, marvelous, intelligent, hilarious, brilliant, and wonderful. Maybe this was the group exception that proves the rule. Yeah, I’ll just keep telling myself that.
There was quite a lot to be nervous about with this game. It was a soul-squishing experience of playing with semi- to total strangers, and knowing some of them through reputation, writing, or internet interaction only heightened my anxiety, since I really didn’t want to come across as a colossal doofus.
Also, it was hosted at a non-neutral setting, a game store, which meant some degree of audience, whose walk-by interest could range from casual to avid. It was located in a strange and distant land, so I had to find it, park, and get in, all without dropping all my dice or throwing up on myself.
Finally, this was a game I’d never played before, Gamma World, and I don’t mean I hadn’t played it since way back in the days of Members Only jackets. No, I’ve never played this game before. You could argue, “Well, you’ve played 4e Dungeons & Dragons, and it’s just like that,” and it is, except for being completely different. Sure, some of the bits are the same, like actions being icosahedron-based, and you’ll have a thousand powers and only use about two throughout the adventure, and the only way to really impress the other players at the table is to come up with a character name that is both silly and stupid. Unfortunately, there was enough of a difference that I was never entirely confident on my turns. Can I take an action point? How much does my second wind get me? Hold on, this overcharging, does that go on my credit card?
As it happened, I did have a really good time, and became convinced that I needed to buy this Gamma World game immediately and inflict it on all my family and friends, assuming I have any family or friends. There is a kind of brash funness about it, an in-your-face good time, sort of like a game of Strip Twister, only with dice and hit points and without the awkward apologies afterwards. The loopy joy is built right into the rules of the game, which I can describe it with one simple word I just made up: randomosity.
I’ve played a lot of roleplaying games in my life (maybe eight, which may not seem like a lot but shut up), and all of them incorporate some amount of randomness, but always with a nod and a wink, saying, “These parts you can choose, these parts you must roll, and if your rolls are really bad, why don’t you start again?” In most games, I don’t know that I’d have much fun if my class/role/background/identity was given to me, or several of my ability scores were microscopically terrible, or I couldn’t even pick my gear.
Forrest Phyre
In Gamma World, this is exactly what happened, and I loved it. I rolled my two origins, which are really a combination of race and class, and wound up with a pyrokinetic plant. I don’t know that I would have chosen that, as they seem to be descriptions that are at odds with each other, but some dusty part of my brain kicked on, and I suddenly saw that Ent at the beginning of Return of the King whose crown of branches were ablaze. I knew the character instantly, and quickly wrote down, “Forrest Phyre.” I thought this was a pretty clever name until I heard the name from someone else who had played a pyrotechnic plant: ”Burning Bush.” Now that’s genius.
After origins, it was time for scores, and I loved this part too. Your first origin determines your primary ability score, and BAM! You get an 18. No, don’t fuss around with point buys and arrays, just write an 18 and move on. Your second origin determines your secondary ability score, and that one gets a 16. It’s just that simple! Now you’re going to have four other ability scores, and here’s where it gets really fun: three 6-sided dice, roll, add, score. My first roll was a 17. Can you believe it? Ha ha! I was jubilant. Until my next roll was a 5. And then an 11. And then a 3. On three 6-sided dice, I actually managed to roll three 1s.
Here’s the thing about Gamma World and ability scores: this is the first RPG that I have ever played where I wanted to keep my terrible rolls. And why? Because I thought they were hysterical. My great tree-man who was constantly on fire had a Dexterity of 5 and a Charisma of 3. I thought that was excellent.
After determining scores, I selected weapons and armor, which seemed curious considering how much else is randomized. Personally, I think it would be just as funny to roll up my battle equipment too. That aside, I definitely prefer how the weapons and armor are abstracted into simple lists of light melee, heavy melee, light ranged, heavy ranged, and so on, which means you don’t have to wade through page after page of a hundred different types of swords, spears, plate mail, and shields.
Now you do get to roll on additional, non-combat gear, and I wound up with a canoe and a tent. Maybe these would have proven useful in an extended adventure, but they seemed to me to be so much “what did you get” Halloween candy. Maybe this gear is the equivalent of rituals, funny little trinkets that you’ll never use.
The game itself was pure bliss. I got a little tangled up in the rules, made a habit of hitting the ground during our battles, and even completely died in the last combat (failing three consecutive death saves), but still came out of the experience all sorts of happy and pleased. I loved the game. I had a pile of fun. And what was amazing is I was able to love it and have fun in a game with micro-scores and a terminal ending. That says something about the game dynamic, doesn’t it?
Consider this if you want to risk a blown mind and popped eyeballs: In exactly four hours, the DM oversaw 6 players with little to no experience as they created characters from scratch, wallowed through introductions, found the adventure, and drove through four encounters (three combat and one non-combat). That’s a pretty lithe game.
I’ve read that Gamma World is a game built for one-shots, and if you’re taking a break from your ongoing Greybberlancesun campaign (now in its 11th year), it’d be good for a night of giggling. Having now played it, I find myself leaning the other way. I want to play it again longer term, I want to play it as a multi-session adventure to really get a handle on my character, to experience more that the setting has to offer and actually climb up through the levels. Of course, Gamma World is spectacularly lethal (three of our six characters died), so maybe it doesn’t really lend itself to that sort of experience.
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