Critical Hits

The Journal of Gamer Culture

The 5×5 Dungeon: The Temple of Elemental Evil

Posted by on January 31, 2011 · 16 Comments 

Filed under Critical Threats, Featured, Roleplaying Games

To finish off the paragon tier, the PCs in my game headed into one of the most classic dungeons out there: The Temple of Elemental Evil. I started with the original module (while not being slavish to it), then hacked away to adapt pieces to my game and involve major NPCs from earlier. The original module itself wasn’t hard to convert on the fly to 4e, especially with Monster Vault at my disposal.

However, I had a very specific style in mind that would feel like a big dungeon crawl. That posed a few problems:

  1. My group is pretty capable, and I wanted to challenge them in ways that reflect the dungeon crawl style- choosing when to rest, what resources to expend. where to explore, etc.
  2. I wanted to push the group forward in ways they weren’t used to in my episodic campaign.
  3. To really get the Temple of Elemental Evil feel, I wanted to give the PCs good reasons not to hack and slash through everything, even though they were more powerful than most of the enemies there.
  4. I wanted the Temple to really come alive and react, in ways discussed by Rob Schwalb and Chatty DM, whose articles would ultimately serve as the inspiration for what I wanted.

To try and achieve these ends, I came up with a 5×5 plan (based on my own 5×5 Method) for the Temple: one for each element, and one for the Temple itself (which also represented the imprisoned demoness at the bottom breaking free.) These I dubbed the Machination Meters: a list of goals that each temple element was pursuing for some ultimate agenda. Advancing a step on a track represented the passage of time and the goals advancing while the PCs adventure. [Read the rest of this article]

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Critical Bits for the week ending 2011-01-30

Posted by on January 30, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

Filed under Critical Bits

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Chatty’s Mailbag: Launching your own RPG

Posted by on January 28, 2011 · 25 Comments 

Filed under Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Freelance Writing, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games

Earlier this week I got an email question that made me ponder the realities of publishing one’s own RPG in this already flooded niche market. Here’s our friend’s question:

Hey Phil, I’m finishing up development of my first RPG system, and plan to publish it on RPGnow.com in a couple month’s time. I have been trying to generate excitement and exposure for what I feel is a unique system, but even through twitter, facebook, emails, and the lot, I don’t feel that the game will be played by many (if few).

(Snipping part about finances because I know nothing about that)
So, my question is, are there any ways you can recommend gaining exposure for my game? I want people to play it, and take it seriously, but I’m just afraid that it’ll slip by as another tactical combat RPG that no one cares about.

I’m really touched that people value my opinion enough to ask me such huge questions.  I’m no industry muggle, just a blogger turned freelance writer who made some friends on the RPG circuit.  I appreciate the trust, but take my advice with the proverbial grain of salt.

So for that reader and all those thinking about releasing their own RPG one day, here’s what I gathered from hanging out with and playing the games of some successful Indies.

I think that for a new game to burst out on the Indy scene requires very similar ingredients to those that Malcolm Gladwell attributes to highly successful people in his Outliers book.

It starts by the game requiring it to fill a specific set of RPG Needs that are currently in demand while being original enough not to fade out when compared to other games that cater to the same needs.  People who play it with you and in demos at conventions need to see what it’s about fast and get what it does better than the other games of its category.

They need to experience it, they don’t need to be TOLD about it.

Secondly, it needs a TON of luck in getting in the hands of the right people at the right time.  Luke Crane, (then a relative 20-something unknown designer) overcame his shyness and got his game (Burning Wheel) in the hands of Ken Hite at just the right time and got it named best RPG of the year.  You need to seek such lucky breaks through hard work and networking like crazy.

Third, you as a designer need to start to build yourself a fan base to help push your game/brand.  You need to get your face out there and shill your game in the best possible way: Get people to play it by demoing it many many many times…Crane, Vincent Baker, Jared Sorenson,  all spend countless hours each years at Cons doing nothing but playing demos and hawking their games while answering questions.  You need to do that too.

You also need to start mastering the realities of Web 2.0 and make online tools available for your fan base to grow and build itself up around you and your game (both are somewhat indistiguishable early in a successful designer’s career).

That leads me to a related point, you need to spend countless hours interacting with that community to playtest the SHIT out of your game.  It needs to be broken beyond belief and rebuilt from the pieces so that the game can stand shoulder to shoulder with the very high quality stuff resting on the shelves of game and PDF stores.

We are in a new age of game design and the bar is set very high.  Thus, scout your competition and always strive to tyweak your game to deliver the best experience it was designed to address.

Finally, as a designer, you need to project the mother of all in your face, fearless attitudes.  You need that to constantly shamelessly and obsessively hawk your game, be its strongest advocate and staying above the petty insults and recriminations that online trolls and the Indie community itself will fling.

You need to walk to people and put copies of the game in thier hands and tell them, straight to their face… “this game is the Shits, I made it and it fucking rocks, I know because I spent a gazzillion hours playing it and I still have fun playing it”

(Your actual language and millage may vary).

That, I think are the ingredients to making your game a success.  It goes beyond slipping PDFs to bloggers (they won’t read it) or hoping to get noticed in the sludge pile that are the online RPG stores.

Creating and tweaking the game, as hard as it was, is, I think, only half the work, countless gamers have done it. Pushing the game in the hands of the gamers it was designed for is where the real work starts.

Your turn now

That was my take on it… anyone wants to chime in?  The mic is open!

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DDXP 2011: New Product Seminar

Posted by on January 27, 2011 · 15 Comments 

Filed under Featured, News, Roleplaying Games

(Editor’s Note: While the weather had other ideas for me arriving at DDXP, our very own Vanir was front and center and taking notes from the New Product Seminar. Here’s a slightly edited version of his liveblog from the show, and I added some of the bigger highlights/lowlights at the end.)

1:00pm - Chris Perkins starts the festivities, introduces Mike Mearls, and starts the show!

1:02 – WotC wants to find ways to tie their print products into their organized play programs.

“March of the Phantom Brigade” Encounters season comes out in February, ties into the D&D Essentials products.

D&D Fortune Cards tie into organized play as well.

Heroes of Shadow sourcebook allows players more options for character building.

“Lost Crown of Neverwinter” is next season’s D&D Encounters setting. Fortune cards will be tied to this.

“Beyond the Crystal Cave” is an adventure in this story arc, based on old adventure from the UK. It’s special because the players didn’t have to kill everything to win. Adventure is based in the Feywild.

1:05 – Mike Mearls expresses their desire to make D&D encounter season adventures all share a common theme. Chris Perkins asks for thoughts from audience on D&D Encounters products.

Coming up this year:

  • Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow – April
  • The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond – May
  • Monster Vault – Threats to the Nentir Vale – June
  • Neverwinter Campaign Setting – August
  • Madness at Gardmore Abbey Boxed Set – September
  • Player’s Option: Heroes of he Feywild – November [Read the rest of this article]

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Chatty Plays: Freemarket Part 3, Ghost’N'Breakin’

Posted by on January 27, 2011 · 18 Comments 

Filed under Actual Play, Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre

This post chronicles the second half of our Freemarket game.  You can follow my post on character creation here and my recounting of the first half here.  Let’s conclude our David vs Goliath story of stolen sex toys designs, covetous enlightened blanks and subtle revenge.

Quick dramatis personae reminder:

  • Jack Knife (Yan): Jack of many trades and Body-Artist.
  • Paul Demetrios (PM): OCD Investigator, think “Monk”.
  • Coleco (Franky): Recycler and builder, “the old fashion way”.
  • Flint (Mike): Decked out Enlightened Interface Fetishist. Think Cyber-Jesus

Challenge 3: I’ll Know What I Want When I See It.

Mike: I want Flint  to infiltrate the Grindstone Cowboys compound, do some snooping around to find where stuff is, find the guy he doesn’t remember and get his Interface!

Chatty: Yeah, you’re familiar enough with the way the Station works that you suspect your memory was altered since yesterday. That’s a good challenge. After that you guys will do something about the stolen toy’s designs?

Franky: Exactly!

(Total Transparency: I’m taking significant artistic liberties with the actual dialogues.  I tell an accurate true story but I will fictionalize the details… because I can, he he he)

A note on team challenges and the task resolution system I alluded to in the last post.  In order to initiate a challenge, a character is better served by having the proper skill or one Geneline tags fit with what they wish to achieve. In our case, Flint had the Ghosting skill (Stealth + Thievery) while the others had Genelines tags that could help. For example,  Paul’s “Investigative” and Jack’s “Creative”.

Pixel-bitching aside: Yes, that means that there’s going to be some sort of “tag” whoring going on at the table… at least, I expect some because it’s part of what I consider  part of the “entertaining your GM’ experience.

Chatty: So are you joining this challenge or not?

Player X: I don’t know… I don’t see anything relevant…

Chatty: Oh come on, you aren’t allowed to be boring, entertain  me! (/Aside)

Thus, Flint and Paul infiltrated the HQ (the game suggests to always handwave the “getting there/getting in” parts of ghosting challenges and focus on the actual jobs). The other PCs monitored things remotely, ready to jump in if things became violent.

It’s also worth mentioning that generating NPCs in this game is wonderful.  You either assign stats on the fly or follow a fast series of card draws from the GM’s deck to generate Genelines, Experience, Interface and Technology (always relevant to the challenge at hand).  You then assign a Flow score, name the character and you have a NPC to keep for the rest of the campaign.

Anyhoo, with a series of awesome hands (and a crappy one on my side) the players aced the challenge yet again…

Chatty: Okay you found the guy you were looking for and tailed him to a “blind” corner of the HQ, now tell me how Flint’s going to rip a piece of interface from him!

Mike: Hmmm, how ’bout it’s a brain chip with a very particular design?

Chatty: Cool, so you knock the guy senseless and rip it out of his skull!  Good job, next challenge!

Challenge 5: Buggy Forbidden Pleasures

Franky: We want to hack the Cowboy’s protected systems to corrupt the design of the sex toy they stole.

Chatty: That’s going to be a great finish to end the game, let me generate the security expert of the system.  He’ll represent the HQ’s overall security, the systems counter measures and the protective layers of software between you and the designs.

(i.e. mechanically that just means the NPC’s stats, the game makes no true difference between stats/tools/setting when representing opposition)

Once again, the players won by a large margin.  I drew badly again (there are times like this). Just so I don’t sound more like a broken record, here’ s an example of how narration and the mini card game interacted.

While Coleco was busy hacking the system, Flint was sneaking in the compound, looking for places where he could weaken security and cause diversions.At one point he met a burly guard and Mike (Flint’s player) drew point scoring cards, which usually translated in successful mini-scenes.  Looking over Mike’s character sheet I saw that his Geneline is “The One” and has a whole cult thing going, so…

Chatty (As the guard): It’s…. YOU!  I can’t believe it!

Mike: Huh?

Chatty: The guard shows you he wears a pendant of the cult of the New Order.

Mike: Awesome!  Can I ask his help?

Chatty: Fire away!

And thus Mike sent the guard to pull a general alarm, emptying the MRCZ’s huge compound while the rest of the party finished their job.  At the end of the challenge, Frank decided to change just one tag of his original design to make it slightly less interesting than his own revised one and not overly awaken suspicion.  This also gave them enough “victory points” left to spend on full Flow rebates, putting everyone well over 30 each and scoring them a piece of “data”, the game’s other currency (data can be analyzed, gifted, injected as memories, etc).

And so I give you:

The Toy: Ephemeral, Inconvenient, Pleasurable

Yeah, my players are still shy about the game’s possibility.  In a world where death is a minor inconvenience at best (often only making you miss your next appointment), I would have LOVED to see “explosive” or “infected” as a tag instead of “inconvenient”.

And thus was our game completed.  We managed to play 1 challenge per player which is an average session and the game lasted about 3-4 hours which factored in some book digging and general goofing around.

Are we to be Freemers?

I’ll let the players chime in if they feel like it, but based on the feedback I got, my players were willing (and some even eager) to keep playing next month.  I really would like to see how the game evolves over a few session.

More specific feedback:

PM thought the game played out a LOT better than his expectations.  While initially confused about the skills and actual “mission” of the game, the relative smoothness at which everything meshed together delivered a very satisfying experience for him.  He got to act out mini-scenes as an hyper-focused OCD character and we all enjoyed it.

Franky was blown away at the sheer madness of the adventure hooks and the fast pace of the game.  He NEVER expected that I would choose his “Sex Toy” memory to drive a session, much less have it generate hours of fun and mirth. He did have some trouble “getting” the mechanics of the game from how scoring worked to how each experience could be used.  His was a good example where what a player thinks a skill should do, and what the designers decided it would, can clash.

Yan liked the mechanics of the game.  He was intrigued by it and I saw his tactician’s brain engage into furious activity a few times, confirming that he grokked the game fine.  He did mention that he felt the setting was far too constrained for what the game’s engine could achieve.  In that he felt he could tweak the skill list and general assumptions a bit and make this into a full blown “British Sci Fi” game capable of emulating the stories of Vernor Vinge and Peter Hamilton.

(I think it would take more work as the game system is a lot more interconnected than what they experienced so far… but I consider it a good sign when Yan’s dormant designer genes wake up)

Mike didn’t offer direct feedback, but he’s become my “mine canary” to detect a game’s “frustration pocket”.  I saw his steam level rise when he played bad hands over several challenges.  That’s why I’m happy that the last 2 challenges that featured him on the front line turned out nice and that he got his spotlight time.  He does seem to have some trouble finding ideas and ways to create a narrative with the game’s mechanics… but I think that’s a challenge of story-driven game themselves and I know he’ll warm up to it…

Hell, he did blow us away during our Fiasco game.

And me? I love the game.  I’d totally play a 2-4 session mini-campaign like we did with Apocalypse World before moving on to either Burning Wheel, Leverage or possibly that new game I’m working on.

Props:

  • The game is one sweet piece of play tested integrated clockwork engine with a simple yet rock solid setting
  • The pace is perfect and answers my current needs as a time-pressed gamer.
  • The ways you can screw with players even when they “win” is sublime and I can’t wait to turn the “evil” dial a few notches.

(Slight) Cons:

  • The rule book’s landscape format and layout, took the “easier to learn, harder to reference” approach that makes for more page flipping hunting for Flow costs and the like (Index is very solid though, I need to tab the book with posts it)
  • I’m still unsure about a few things about running challenges (like using bugs, and what to do when running out of options when you have no bugs) but one or two sessions more and I feel I could run the game at cons without any problems.

I hope you enjoyed this little series.  Don’t hesitate to ask questions!  I’ll do what I can and I’m sure the designers aren’t too far. :)

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Unboxing: Wrath of Ashardalon D&D Board Game

Posted by on January 26, 2011 · 22 Comments 

Filed under Featured, Roleplaying Games

For those of us who have been playing and enjoying the game Castle Ravenloft, anticipation has been building for the quick release of the second D&D Adventure System board game Wrath of Ashardalon! We were fortunate enough to get an early preview copy and so what I’d like to provide for you today is a brief post about the box and its contents as well as a preview of what to expect from the game based on a preliminary look through the rules and components.

Wrath of Ashardalon is presented in a nearly identical manner to Castle Ravenloft; the box is the exact same size and the spread of components is the same as well. If you’re not familiar with Castle Ravenloft then you can check out the unboxing video that Dave and I did at GenCon 2010 to see what I’m talking about. The pieces that come with Wrath of Ashardalon are clearly designed with compatibility in mind and it feels like the aim was to provide a bunch of new rules, miniatures, tiles, and cards that can be interchanged between the two games with incredible ease. To see a larger version of any picture in this post, just click on it!

Whereas the first game focused on exploring the crypts of Ravenloft filled with vampires, wolves, and undead the Wrath of Ashardalon game is focused around the dungeons beneath Firestorm Peak and includes more aberrant and natural creatures to challenge the party.

Here’s what you’ll get inside of the box:

The game comes with 5 hero figures, 30 monster figures, and 7 villain figures that are all different from those we saw in Castle Ravenloft and include some great sculpts that I’m happy to see such as the Red Dragon, Otyugh, Cultists, and Gibbering Mouthers. It also includes 200 new cards including 50 new power cards, 53 encounter cards, 30 monster cards, 33 treasure cards, and 6 boon cards (all of which could easily be combined with those from Castle Ravenloft except the Boon cards which are new). [Read the rest of this article]

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A Cure For The Januarys

Posted by on January 25, 2011 · 4 Comments 

Filed under Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre

Herb the Frost Dragon discovers why it is bad to use his breath weapon with a sinus infection.

Usually, about this time of year, I get really depressed. There are specific reasons for this. First and foremost, I hate winter. And snow. And ice. And cold. And coats. And January. I hate January. Christmas is over, it’s colder than ever, and there’ no end in sight. But most of all, January sucks because Gen Con registration takes place eight months before the actual event, and the one-two punch of reminding me that my yearly pilgrimage to Indianapolis is so far away via a reminder in the form of having to pay for my badge is almost too much to bear. Call it “seasonal affective disorder”. Call it “the Spellplague”. I don’t care. I’m very unhappy. I take morale penalties to all my skill checks. Me are best writer this time year.

But wait! Not this year! At the end of this week, I’ll be attending DDXP, and doing the very thing I love the most at Gen Con: meeting up with friends and playing games until I run out of hit points. I’ve never been happy during a January before. I’m a little scared.

Gen Con has traditionally been for me what some folks refer to as a “mancation”, where I don’t have to be a husband or a dad or really do anything aside from have fun. Some people like sun and sand. I do too, but I like d20′s and harsh convention hall lighting more. I’m very much looking forward to that at DDXP as well, but to hear some of the regulars talk, this experience promises to be a bit different. Smaller. Friendlier. Full of more secrets. Baldman Games’ DDXP website implies there will be much up-close and personal contact with the people who design the games I love so much. The 15 year old side of me still wants to squeal and pass out when I read stuff like this, but my frosted side is a little more used to meeting industry professionals after a couple years in the ol’ blogging trenches. It got easier when I realized they’re usually very nice guys with interests very similar to mine except they have really cool jobs that I want. And don’t let Chris Sims scare you. He may look like a Viking.  He might even inflict unspeakable horrors on your party (who ends the name of their con adventure with “BITCHES”???). But rest assured, he is a very nice man provided you do not under any circumstances look him directly in the eyes.

I wish I could say I had a giant list of events I am Definitely Going To Attend, but I sort of… how do I put this…. completely forgot about the whole event pre-registration thing until it was too late. Woops. That’s OK. I’m told there will be more to do there than I can swing a dead catoblepas at. What I’m looking forward to the most, oddly, is finally getting to play Gamma World. Yes, that’s right. One of the fathers of the mighty Junkulator hasn’t played the game yet. To me, it’s just a big pile of random wonderful, but I’m told it can really spice up a good GW game and I would like to taste the radioactive fruits of our labors. I’ll be helping Dave The Game with the game he’s running throughout the con. Well, actually, I don’t know that “helping” is the right word. Let’s just say I hope he doesn’t kick me out of the hotel room after the first day. Regardless of my lodging situation, we’ll be introducing our junkulating friend to lots of people.

I’m really looking forward to playing a lot of D&D, especially the brand-spanking-new Ashes of Athas Dark Sun living campaign setting, co-authored by our own Chris Sims. There’s some Ravenloft games going on just in case I want to remember that it’s January again, and many boardgames in which I fully intend to roll many dice and move many little tokens about while grinning madly. I’d also like to get some Magic: The Gathering drafting done, and I’ll be bringing my World of Warcraft TCG decks in case anyone is brave enough to face my Elekk-Spark Shaman deck.

Whatever happens, I’m going to be on full alert for new games to try, knowledge to soak up, and new people to meet. I am excited. I think I might be more than excited. If time travel were real, some people would go back and kill Hitler. I would simply make it Thursday morning.

Hope everybody going to the con has a safe trip, and I’ll see you all there! IN THE FUTURE!

Photo credit. Poor Herb.

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Eulogy for D&D Miniatures

Posted by on January 24, 2011 · 36 Comments 

Filed under Editorial, Roleplaying Games

We are gathered here today to say goodbye to some old friends. For the last seven years they have entertained us with their crazy overly-large axes, completely inappropriate phallic clubs, and fiery jazz hands. They have fuelled our imaginations with naked bat-winged lady-folk and helped us avoid trying to describe just what the hell a Grell really looks like.

We are here today to say goodbye to the production of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures. But let us not forget what our future holds for us, a future of affordable and plentiful tokens included in the very adventures that call for them. It is a future where new dungeon masters won’t have to spend $150 to buy the right minis to run a $12 adventure. It might be a flatter future, but it will be a better one.

I will miss my thrice-yearly campaigns of convincing my wife that $200 for a box of miniatures is reasonable considering the price of my friends’ adamantium golf clubs, but I will get over it. I must just remember, the game is better for it.

A Longer Pontification

If you’re any sort of true D&D nerd, you recently learned that Wizards of the Coast ceased production of the random assortment of D&D miniatures, favoring the special editions they ran like the Beholder set and my beloved Gargantuan Orcus. They’ll henceforth focus on the PC and monster tokens included with the Dungeon Master’s Kit and the Monster Vault.

I’ve been a collector of D&D Miniatures for almost eight years. At last count, I have over a thousand of them. I have a six foot book shelf  lined with plastic shoeboxes full of the things with an arcane taxonomy based on the number of miniatures within each category including “Orcs and Gnolls”, “Reptiles” and “Bad Humanoids”.

I love my minis. I have a hell of a collection and, as one player put it, I seem to have a Mary Poppins carpet bag where I might just pull out the right mini for any potential monster or NPC. It hasn’t been easy or cheap to have such a collection, but it is the result of my dysfunctional drive. I feel a constant urge to have the right miniature for the monsters my players will face. That single desire fueled a seven year obsession. When I bought a new D&D module, I’d spend eight times the cost getting the minis to fight the module.

There were also few other alternatives. It was either use minis or use Starbursts. I might use one mini to represent another but putting down one articulate painted figure that in no way represents the monster they are actually fighting actually makes it harder for the player to imagine it correctly.

The Business Model Rift

The biggest problem was that the way Wizards sold them never fit with the way I wanted to buy them. I don’t want random minis. I want specific minis for good prices. Luckily for me, the secondary market gave me exactly what I wanted. Out of nearly 1400 miniatures, I bet I purchased less than 50 from actual random packs. Nearly all of them came from Ebay or Troll and Toad or Cool Stuff Inc or Auggies. The prices fit a good curve of supply and demand. You can get lots and lots of little guys for as low as a quarter or a few nice big guys for a few bucks each. It worked well. But it also worked against WotC’s business model. I’m betting the delta between what we wanted to buy and what they wanted to sell was a core problem for their business.

While Wizards likely had one price per miniature in mind as they sold them, we ended up having another price in mind that was likely lower. The secondary market ended up lowering the cost per mini to make it much more palatable to me but less so to Wizards.

There were other production problems as well. From what I understand, it took nearly a year from initial design until we could get them in our hands. This meant it was nearly impossible for Wizards to release a set of miniatures that fit into the adventures they published. I remember getting a Skalmad miniature three months after my group finished the adventure in which he starred. I just could never get Wizards’s products to synch up at my table.

Long Live Tokens!

Times have changed. Where before we had a mix of disparate products that never worked that well together: adventures, dungeon tiles, and miniatures. Now we buy a single box that contains everything we need to run a game. The Dungeon Master’s Kit has adventures, tokens, and maps, all in a single box. Sure, the tokens don’t work as well or look as nice as pre-painted miniatures, but they represent monsters well and they are far more cost effective. New DMs stand a much better chance at running a good game with all the materials they need in a single box.

For the Rest, the Secondary Market

While we aren’t going to see any new random minis coming out of Wizards, the market itself is far from dead. With 1,300 different minis in production over the past seven years, there are a lot of minis out there in the world and a lot of ways to buy them. You can still pick up individual minis from a variety of gaming stores on the web or, if all else fails, on Ebay. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone stepping away from the hobby and ready to unload garbage bags full of the stuff.

A Better Day for New Dungeon Masters

I’m glad I have the minis I have. I expect to stay in this hobby a long time and regardless of how the game changes, these minis will serve me well for many years. That said, it was painful and expensive getting to where I am. I wouldn’t wish it on any new DM. I’m glad Wizards finally figured out how to put everything one needs to run a great D&D game into a single box. I’m glad future DMs will have a better chance to run a seamless game than I did. I’m sad to see miniatures go, but I’m glad to see the hobby move in the right direction.

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Chatty Play’s: Freemarket Part 2, The Steam Stallion

Posted by on January 24, 2011 · 13 Comments 

Filed under Actual Play, Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre

We finally got to play the Freemarket characters that we made a few weeks ago. The game was supposed to be a 1 session demo as we have been doing during our Pilgrimage of new games these last few months.

Well, the session turned out a LOT better than most of us expected given how alien some aspect of the game appeared to us before playing it.  Chances are this may become a short campaign instead of a one-shot.

Let’s dive in.

Dramatis Persona:

Jack Knife (Yan): Multi-Talented Body-Artist.  Experienced creative printer, ephemerist and interface designer (hard/software Implants) who’s been around the station a few times.

Paul Demetrios (PM): OCD Investigator.  Hacker and Thin-slicer that NEVER lets something go unsolved (unless made to forget it, an apparently common occurrence).

Coleco (Franky): An Old-World Tools Replicator.  A cultivation and recycling expert, can create tech pieces of unparallel beauty with discarded scrap.

Flint (Mike): An Enlightened Interface Fetishist. Illuminated by the sayings of the Prophet of the New Order, he seeks perfection through Interface!

Welcome Home Bros!

The game strongly encourages the GM to introduce the setting by describing the PCs new digs.  As a Tier 1 MRCZ (an archaic acronym from the Station’s construction era, pronounced “Mercy”), the characters get an upgrade from capsule pods and communal areas. They get to share living and working areas with another Tier one MRCZ in a wagon-sized cargo container.

The game also urges the GM to create tension right off the bat by making the other MRCZ into something completely different (and possibly at cross-purposes) from the players’ own.  That why I made the neighbours into a small Krishna revivalist cult using their songs and millennial manipulation techniques to create a second coming of whatever they thought  Krishnas were supposed to be about.

I didn’t have to do anything else… Jack Knife was already sick and tired of the endless droning chant and dove for the matter printer on their half of the pod.

Challenge 1: What’s that Smell?

Chatty: So what’s your goal here?

Yan: Jack wants to create a soundproof partition.

Chatty (Thinking aloud) : Hmmm, is it enough of a stake to make it into a challenge?  Hells yeah! You’re all broke Flow wise (the Station’s influence-based commodity) and I want to drive you nuts with this shtick! Let’s do this.

Freemarket’s task resolution system is called a Challenge.  You only do them when players (or key NPCs) want to bring about change to anything on the Station and there’s someone at the table opposed to that change.

In our case, all the players chipped in some Flow to create a bitchin’ flexible soundproof partition out of the dog-sized matter printer.  This was a team challenge, with all players playing against me.  I represented the flaws in the badly maintained printer and some hidden viruses left by playfully malicious ex-occupants of the cargo pod.

Challenges are performed by having players play a narrative-splashed card-scoring mini-game using the decks packed with the game (explaining, in part, its 60$ price tag).  Going into the details of this mechanic would derail the whole post away from its purpose, but suffice it to say that once we grokked it, everything became a fast-paced, engrossing risks-vs-benefits scoring race against the opposing team.

In our case, I brought the printing challenge to an end  by conceding a Minor success to the PCs.  After describing how everyone got the printer to work semi-correctly, I explained to Yan that their margin of victory was so slim that all they could do was impose one of three tags to the freshly printed partition… I’d get to set the other two.

I also indicated that nobody’s Flow would be reimbursed, sending some players into negatives and putting them in danger of being voted off the Station.

(You read that right, Freemarket has some Reality TV elements. The actions of all MRCZ are, usually, public and subjected to going viral, becoming trends or subject of intense scrutiny.)

Chatty: So what tag are you…

Yan: SOUNDPROOF!

Chatty: So, that leaves two… lets make them…. Smelly (all players groaned) and… Inflammable!

Aside two: I made a mistake here.  I forgot that all pieces of technology built in the game must have one tag corresponding to one of the 14 “skills”… I’ll fix it here.  The partition stats are thus:

NullNoise MRCZ pod partition, Tags: Ghosting (that’s Stealth), Soundproof, Smelly.

Interlude 1: Family Memories Pileup!

While hilarious, that last challenge didn’t really create a lot of hooks to start the adventure, so I dug in my Memory Mashup notes (the process I described at the end of my last post) to pull a few hooks to get things started.

Chatty: Franky, Coleco’s brother Miro, who you thought was somewhere else in the Solar System just pinged your PC. He needs your help with some piece of old tech he ‘found”.

Franky: What the hell? He’s on the station? Let him come…I guess.

Turns out Miro had a piece of ancient motherboard that he wanted the players to hack and extract data in it.  When the players realized how much Flow it would cost them to do that, they all balked! They all had low balances, some only barely above zero by having friended (yes, like in Facebook) most of the MRCZ’s members.

Seeing that they would likely have to postpone this task, I dug back into my pile of Mashed Memories (I had 3 more) and pulled the next one.  It ended up being a boring dead end (It was too vague and had no fun leads) so I picked the next one.

Miro: Yeah so, I don’t know if it’s any help, but have you guys heard about the Grindstone Cowboys MRCZ yet?  They apparently got their hands on a new “Sex Toy” design and have started mass producing them. They’re going to gift them all to a 2nd Gen dude named Korg who makes wild experiments with Blanks (i.e. Printed, artificial humans).

Mike: Hey, Korg is Flint’s creator!

Franky: WTF!?! I made that toy yesterday and it was supposed to be discretely delivered to a member of the Ambassador MRCZ.  I wanna ping her!

Chatty: She says she never got it and she’s about to “frown” you for reneging on a contract.

Franky: What’s frowning?

Chatty: Oh, a frownie is a formal token of disapproval…it’s worth  -3 Flow.

Franky: Crap no, I’m at 1!

See that? That was all done with the players long/short term memories. It took me about 10 minutes before the game to come up with these hooks.  So awesome.

So what the players decided to do was to handcraft the Ambassador a new, better toy.  In order to generate the needed flow to undertake this endeavour, Coleco gave his Retro-Phasor gun to his brother (everyone knew he was a no good, two timer… but hey). Thus Coleco gained an instant 10 Flow.

Yup, you gain Flow in Freemarket by friending people, gifting them stuff, filling contractual obligations and winning team challenges by a large margin (the central computer, in its programmed socially-driven benevolence, rewards cooperation). Flow is then used to start all challenges (or survive challenges against you) and to petition the Central Computer for a MRCZ tier upgrade.

The other players exchanged more friendship requests among themselves and braced for the challenge.

Challenge 2: Are Those Brass Keys or Are You Just  Happy to See Me?

Chatty: Okay, what’s your goal?

Franky: We want to create a better, sleeker sex toy for the Ambassador.  Something made of Clockworks and Brass!

Others: Yeah!

Chatty: A Steampunk Dildo huh?

After we recovered from generalized hilarity, we agreed it was a good challenge. By then, everyone had huge stupid grins.  The game’s mission was accomplished, Freemarket had been adopted.

The challenge pitted everyone in the party, helping Franky hand craft his “masterpiece” by merging together (i.e. Recycling) two different pieces of tech, namely pieces of the busted matter printer and knick-knacks of dumb material strewn here and there in the pod.

My side of the challenge represented the material’s low grade, distraction caused by the partition’s smell and the challenge of achieving Franky’s vision with so few good parts.  They won the challenge by a landslide, each scoring a lot of Flow.

Chatty: Well done gang, you now get to give it three tags, one of which must be one of the 14 skills. I’d saw that a sex toy is definitively “ephemera”.

(Sniggers)

And I give you:

The Steam Stallion Mk I, Tags: Ephemera, Filling, Orgasmic.

Yes, we’re a bunch of 13 year olds… sigh. :)

Interlude 2: Plowing and Plotting

Coleco gifted the toy to the soon to be very happy Ambassador. Bolstered by all that Flow, the group set out to plan their next move on those thieving Grindstone Cowboys.

At that point, I had noticed that Mike had had a very unlucky card streak so far and had been, more or less, the only player yet to have some spotlight time.  So I nudged the group so he got involved in the next scene’s planning.  Oddly enough, according to his recent memories, he had a very good reason to visit the Grindstone Cowboys… He wanted to obtain someone’s interface. Except he couldn’t quite exactly remember which one… and on whom.

Did I tell you I really like this game?

Up next, Ghosting and Breaking challenges within the Grand HQ of the Tier 6 Grindstone Cowboys MRCZ!

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Critical Bits for the week ending 2011-01-23

Posted by on January 23, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

Filed under Critical Bits

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