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The Inner Half-Orc versus The Retro-Clone
(PM is a good friend of mine and while our interest in gaming and movies intersect, we have not roleplayed all that often together. Here’s one of his rare, and always very entertaining posts about his experience as a closet RPG geek -ChattyDM)
Where is it? I’m sure it was around here somewhere… I hear it rant from time to time… Ahhh! There he is; stuck between ‘Fix the fireplace’ and ‘Replace the fence’. My (very dusty) inner half-orc has spent the last few months in the procrastination part of my brain. It’s not the nicest place to be stuck in, but at least there’s plenty of space to walk around; that part of my brain is HUGE! In any case, a surprise game of S&W grants him an early release from his prison. Yay!
This article is part of a short series about my introduction to RPGs and my perspective on the interaction of the players.
As ChattyDM explained here, four of us were treated to a retro-clone type game and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. At one point, I even described it as my best RPG experience ever. (Where ‘ever’ corresponds to 5 or 6 game sessions). As I considered the potential faux-pas of saying this in front of my usual DM (Franky), I started to ponder how and why this game fitted better with my player personality.
Squirrel!
As I’m revisiting the evening, the first thing that pops into my mind is that creating my character didn’t throw me into the woes of planning paralysis. Whenever I’m presented with a quantifiable logical system, I attempt (and love) to find the best way to take advantage of it. But as a player in a role-playing game, I find it detracts from my goal.
Let me put it this way…
I’m sure you’ve all once seen a dog engaged in a deep battle of wits with a tennis ball only to be suddenly extracted from this epic war by the sight of a passing squirrel. Quantifiable logical systems are my squirrels. If the character system is simple, the distraction will be short and will not bother me. If it’s complex and meaty, and full of good stuff, I’m screwed. This also applies to combat of course, as they are also anchored deeply in the rules I’m oft… SQUIRREL!
My tennis ball…
My personal goal when I play a RPG is to find solutions to the different obstacles presented by the DM. I enjoy a good plot twist as much as the next guy, but that’s not why I’m here. To be thoroughly enjoyable, whatever solution I find must flow naturally with the game itself and I prefer if the solution comes from me, not from my character sheet. My solution can be supported by the character sheet, but it shouldn’t dictate it. (I guess that’s where I align with Chatty’s ‘Say yes’ new philosophy).
This game offered quite a few opportunities for such occasion. They were pretty simple and probably not vital to the adventure, but it was something I could sink my teeth into.
Ultimate consequences or lack thereof
This game of S&W was all about exploration, and keeping out of more trouble than we could handle. That last part was pretty important to my enjoyment as well. We had to be cautious or our chances of getting out alive would drop precipitously. I don’t know if it’s because we had no skills to use, or more equipment to ‘MacGiver’ into a solution, but I was glad to see that fights were dangerous and avoiding them was often a good thing. I guess I’m saying that the game didn’t over-promote fights at the expense of any other alternatives. Now I won’t pretend that S&W doesn’t use fights as a default ‘turn of event’, but at least there’s a very real threat, and it will take 15 minutes to resolve.
…maybe it was just this specific adventure; my sample isn’t large enough to make a distinction.
Of mice and fights…
As I’m writing this, I realize that my experience, whenever the party flubs a dice roll or chooses wrongly you end up with either an additional fight, or just an even bigger fight. To me it feels like the price for not reaching a goal is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. ‘You screwed up, here’s a 45 minutes fight to go through before you can continue.’ And as Chatty previously explained, a performing party will ultimately dispatch any aggressor without much danger. So not only does the default complication does not involve any real jeopardy, it will consume much of session’s preciously saved-up time allotment.
Recently, Chatty discussed briefly how Mouse Guard uses complications when a character is unable to perform a task or reach a goal and how he thought that was something worth trying. I was a little bit surprised at this since to me it’s clear that when such an event occurs, it’s only logical that there should be a complication. Then I realized that the statement was simply incomplete. When a character is unable to perform a task, there should be a complication that doesn’t necessarily involve combat. Something I have not encountered too often in my previous games. Skill challenges are okay but… SQUIRREL! Again.
Is this it? Retro-clones forever?
I don’t think I’m forever limited to this type of rule set. Like any other player, I just need to communicate my own likes and dislikes to my DM and work with him to make the sessions more enjoyable. I mustn’t forget that there are other members in my party and they probably enjoy different aspects of the game.
Here’s a simple wish.
Get me something to do other than talking or fighting. I discussed combat a lot more than I intended but skipped over role-playing altogether since there wasn’t really any to speak of this time around. But what’s left to do but these two you ask? Exploring! Opening doors to rooms empty of any enemies works for me. Let there be something to do in that room from time to time and I’ll be happy. It doesn’t need to be a puzzle straight out of Myst either.
Let’s take your basic plot hook ‘Find the sorcerer’s globe of badassdom’.
After we kill the sorcerer’s in a fight (if we must have one) let me explore the room and find the thingee on the top shelf of the library.
‘The sorcerer falls to the ground dead…’
“We search the body for the globe…’
‘You don’t find it on him.’
‘I check the room.’
‘After a quick inspection, you notice a faint glow from the top shelf. The shelf is too high for you to reach’
‘Is there a ladder somewhere?’
‘Nope’
‘I climb to the top using the lower shelves’
‘Ok roll your dexterity’
FAIL
‘Midway up the shelves, you hear the whole structure crack as it rips from the wall. As you fall you try to hold on to the remaining shelves under you but they break off as well. The shock loosens something on the top shelve and you see the globe slowly roll toward the edge… aaaaand.. It falls….’
‘I dive to grab it’
(Just say yes)
‘You catch it just in time, but all the noise attracted two guards who were patrolling nearby’
Ensues a 10 minutes fight where we might be in danger for real… of dying, being imprisoned, or losing the globe to a quick thinking guard.
Sounds a little bit goofy right? Not too heroic either I guess but I love that kind of stuff. And this whole exploration mini-scene couldn’t have lasted more than 10 minutes. Sure, the DM needs to be pretty good at improvising the situation, but not every room needs to be like this either.
PWW: Challenging the Inner Half-Orc
Hurrah! It’s time for another PM post!
Do you know what happens when you leave your inner half-orc in a closet for too long? First, you start talking about him using the 3rd person. Second, he builds up an immense amount of RPG inertia and should he ever gain momentum, he could do something very dangerous… like trying to run his own adventure.
This is a follow-up post to my last entry where I first suggested this new course of events. I already identified my first weakness and suggested a solution. Now I want to tackle another one. (There are many, I’m sure)
Not happy with the already challenging quest of running ANY adventure with my diminutive experience, I want to run a CUSTOM scenario. Take that mister Kennedy! How does that one compare to your greatest challenge on which man has ever embarked!
[...crickets...cough...more crickets...]
Okay, well they won’t build any monuments to my image, but you gotta admit, it’s pretty daring nonetheless.
This was initially a completely subjective decision, but creative processes are rarely otherwise so there’s no surprise there. For lack of a better explanation, a scenario spontaneously emerged from the eternal turmoil that is my mind and I started building around it, using extra pieces of new knowledge I gathered talking with experienced players and DMs.
With that scenario off to R&D, I started to look at my newfound ambition in a less emotional way and revised the different feedback I received in the intervening days. The majority strongly suggested running a published story first to get the hang of how things work. Only then, and if, I reached a comfort zone should I try to experiment with a custom adventure. I couldn’t find much fault with that reasoning so I asked ChattyDM to supply me with some material so I could see what it meant to run somebody else’s creation.
It’s not easy to explain, but the way the information is presented in those adventures is completely alien to me and I have a real hard time imagining running this without constantly referring to the material. It’s as if I couldn’t process and memorize what I read. And I’m not talking about the crunch either, I may not be able to manipulate it as others do, but I can memorize that easily.
I’m talking about NPC knowledge and personality, story-arcs and world lore… I don’t feel I can ever absorb the information in such a way that I could then “perform it” to anyone’s entertainment. (A year long running gag of PM’s Shakesperian delivery of the wrong dialog does not count. ) By running my own custom scenario, I feel I’m better prepared to deal with the players’ action. If need be, I can substitute a plot device for something else or keep one in reserve should an opportunity arise.
Am I the only who feels this way?
It would be foolish to think I can seriously hope to succeed without at least a basic structure to guide my way. Most DMs create their structure through experience but I have no time for rational solutions. Lucky for me, my gaming roots are set firmly in 80s and 90s PC adventures. like Space/King/Police/LeisureSuitLarry Quest, the Gabriel Knight series, etc. and as a result, my storytelling style is a child to these influences. (This might explain big “Do Not Press” buttons here and there and a fascination for space brooms.)
Seriously, it means that my mini-story arc will divided in a multitude of clues, some minor some major that allow the players to reach the next scene. I don’t have much field data yet, but I think I will rely heavily on Fluff and improvisation; which makes sense considering I am a method actor player.
I think of it as a sandbox, but that’s not quite true because there’s a benevolent presence who nudges clues in front the player’s eyes. I think I can avoid my players not doing anything with my clues (through lack of direction or not recognizing the clue for what it is) by using my experience in the aforementioned games. (Nothing enraged me more than scanning every pixel in each location to find that darn interactive item that I previously overlooked…)
Between 1 and 10, how would rank my inevitable crash and cremation?
