Beyond Labels: How Each RPG Serves and Rewards Specific Needs
The Uselessness of Labels
A few weeks ago, game designer and online buddy Robert Bohl messaged me on Gtalk asking me to translate what a French GM was saying about a mash-up of his game of teenage rebellion, Misspent Youth, and the setting of White Wolf’s Changeling. The GM’s experiment wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped but instead of analyzing how the experiment could be turned in a success, he threw some tired labels around (i.e. Ron Edward’s Narrativist, Gamist, and Simulationist) to explain why Rob’s game couldn’t mesh with his setting of choice.
I don’t like labels much. I know they make things easier to categorize. We like to categorize things in tidy boxes and geeks have the brainpower and handy obsessiveness to create lots of them. The thing is, when labels become obstacles in exploring a given game’s potential for fun, we’ve left the realm of theory and entered the world of geek-snobbery and pointless quibbling.
Now I’m as guilty as many, playing with labels that I happen to find convenient. For instance, I’ve covered Robin Laws’ player type and motivations extensively and team management concepts applied to RPG groups. I try not to let the use of such labels occlude or block frank analysis of a given game’s relative merits vis à vis my preferences, that of my gaming crew or those of my readers. [Read the rest of this article]
From Here to There: Finally Here!
I don’t know how many times I’ve blogged about it in the last 2 years. First I was excited about it, then got impatient and, I must say, I got a little disappointed. But now the wait is over and I’m excited again!
My first D&D 4th edition adventure has been published and is available in Goodman Game’s From Here to There anthology:
Why is “getting there” only half the fun? From Here to There presents nine all-new adventures focused on traveling from point A to point B. Sure, your players may be going from one dungeon to another – but why not spice up things in between? From aerial assaults to haunted bridges, From Here to There turns “getting there” into a lot more fun! Covering levels 2 to 13, this compilation has a place in every campaign.
The adventure contains 9 adventures designed to be dropped to “interrupt” the travels of characters. It’s a great idea when you want to surprise your player, when you need to add a side quest or when you want to add more toys in your sandbox.
The adventures are:
The Quick and the Dead (level 12), by Aeryn Rudel: While en route to their next adventure, the PCs pass through a thick copse of trees and are ambushed by a group of quickling muggers. The quicklings, however, do not attack to kill; instead, the little fey attempt to snatch a valuable item from each PC and and then race off into the forest!
The Deadly Blue Yonder (level 13), by Brandes Stoddard: A group of evil cultists discovered a nest of wyvern eggs, and when those eggs hatched the cultists trained the wyverns as mounts. They have used this remarkable advantage to establish a dominion over the local countryside. As the PCs pass through their territory, they must defend themselves against aerial attack!
The Toll Station (level 6), by Adrian Pommier: While passing through a toll station, the PCs are beset by nightmare creatures pulled from the imprisoned minds of the road wardens. To awaken the sleeping guardsmen and end the attacks, the PCs must smash a profane idol and defeat a demon of the Nightmare Goddess!
The Crossing (level 4), by Chris Dias: The PCs are traveling near a river or through mountainous terrain when they find themselves in a thick fog. As they venture further, they come to a bridge. With no sign of alternate routes, they must make their way across. The bridge is an illusion generated by a predatory monster called a chosis mimic – a psychic creature that feeds on the life spirit of those traveling near it. The illusionary bridge has no beginning and no end, and no matter how long the PCs travel, they never reach its end before they reach theirs – unless they destroy the chosis mimic!
The Hanging Tree (level 5), by Lee Hammock: The village of Tarrow has been using a local hanging tree to execute criminals for centuries, but now an innocent man has been added to its roster of the dead. The spirits of those previously killed on the tree have now risen up in a quest for vengeance, making travel through the area very difficult. After escaping from the undead raised by the hanging tree, the players reach Tarrow and discover why the spirits of the tree are restless by talking to the locals.
Flying High (level 2), by Colleen Simpson: The PCs are en route to their next adventure, traveling through a lightly wooded hilly area, when they are swooped upon by steelwing hippogriffs, which attempt to carry one or more PCs to their nest site. When the PCs arrive at the nest area, they observe kobolds attacking the steelwing hippogriff nests. The steelwing hippogriffs need the assistance of the heroes!
Mystery at the Wandering Wineskin Inn (level 5), by Ken McCutchen: The adventurers are resting comfortably at an inn. When the sun rises on a new day, the characters discover that one of the party members is missing! There are several items out of place in the room, and a search reveals several interesting clues. To locate the missing character, the party must gain knowledge about the missing companion, overcome misdirection from false allies, and defeat the brigands who are holding the missing character for ransom.
The Hunting Party (level 2), by Brandes Stoddard: In the wilds, the PCs encounter a large group of goblins. The normally aggressive creatures recognize that the PCs carry their weapons with experience and skill, and they are reluctant to engage a foe who could cost them many of their own hunters and foragers. They even go so far as to buy off the PCs with a side of boar meat or venison from a recent kill.
Oh wait, one’s missing from that list!
When Madness Seeps Through (level 5), by Philippe-Antoine “ChattyDM” Ménard: While traveling from a nearby town to their destination, the PCs spot a group of aberrant humanoids running across the road, each clutching struggling humans who call for help. Chasing the humanoids or following their trail deeper in the forest, the PCs find a forgotten temple occupied by the corrupted remnants of cultists.
I would GREATLY appreciate your support of this product by either getting the dead tree version (for 19,99$) at your FLGS (or directly from Goodman Games) or the PDF at a special price of 6$ at DrivethruRPG. Go now and come back, I have some “DVD extra” stuff in the next paragraphs.
Thanks for your support and let me know if you liked it!
Designer Notes
The question that drove the design of the adventure was:
What if heroes stumbled upon a Lovecraftian cult shortly AFTER they succeeded in their nefarious plans instead?
Helped by my good friend Dave, I wrote a short 3 encounters adventure that showcased the elements of 4e I was most interested in (and still am): out of the ordinary skill challenges and complex encounters that mix and match monsters, terrain features and traps.
At the time I wrote this, I had about 6 months of experience with the game system and 4 playing it actively. I also had no design credit other than the 3e stuff I posted on my blog. I got the gig after I forged a friendly relationship with Goodman Games’ Harley Stroh and had a very constructive exchange about one of his 4e adventures (get it, it’s still one of my all time 1st level favorite). I pitched him a few things and while he turned them down, he counter offered that I pitch for a “Here to There” adventure.
The result resides, hiding its dark tentacles of Madness in that anthology.
The adventure easily plays itself in one 4 hour session. It’s perfect for a one-off when you are missing players or as a 5th level campaign starter if you like to explore Lovecraftian themes.
The first scene is a chase/story-driven combat that I designed as a Skill Challenge. I wanted a way to simulate a forest chase where PCs could take down pairs of minions dragging human captives without resorting to combat rounds. Instead, I tried to focus on PCs rolling for skills/attacks and describing how and where they’d position themselves during the conflict. To this day I’m happy how it turned out.
The second scene is a classic invader (the PCs) vs Guardians. It remains in my mind the least interesting encounter of the bunch, although it can end up being more challenging than the last one if PCs are used to 4e, which they should be by now.
The last scene is where my feverish madness merges with that of the story, as it features a Boss fight combined with a complex set of evil traps. Think of Dr. Frakenstein’s resurrection apparatus turned into an evil contraption and you have an idea where I wanted to go with this. The fight features a flying soldier, a Controller and a few minions. In hindsight (and in playtest) when combined with the traps, things can get grindy if players aren’t creative or play in a disorganized way so be ready to hack HPs and dumb down your monsters if you feel the energy level of your players dip.
Is the adventure D&D Essentials compatible? By default yes although none of the monsters (I recall creating one and taking 4 others from the core 4e Monster Manual) are featured in the Monster Vault.
So lewt me know how you like it.
On a more personal note
This adventure has a special significance for me. I wrote this while I was plunging into depression back in late 2008 and, to a certain degree it shows. It features alienist cults who got a lot more than they expected, gruesome machines that suck the souls out of people, a corrupted forest temple and other dark trappings that aren’t part of my usual repertoire of ideas. Hell, if the players aren’t careful and if the DM wants to run with it, the whole campaign can take a darker, Far-Realms invasion theme.
That I saw it through is a feat I’m proud of. For that I wish to thank Harleh who supported my constant whishy-washiness and. Special thanks go to Dave who knew what was going on in my life then, urging me to fight my inner demons and push me to make my ideas and designs clearer on paper without discouraging me.
I also wish to thank my playtesters Mike (who lent us his house), Frankie, Yan, PM and Vince for playing through and providing feedback that made the adventure better.
So please ask your FLGS manager, order the paper version here or get the PDF for 6$ here!
Thanks again!
Fiasco Friday: Chatty’s Tale of Suburbia, Act 2 and Aftermath
This post describing a game session of Fiasco contains mature content.
See part 1 here.
Dramatis Personae Express
Deputy Rosco Dirk (Mike): Local cop dealing drugs on the side. Covered the DUI death caused by Dr. Persand.
Marcus Glassglow (Frankie): Male nurse at the A.M. Persand clinic. Steals drugs and provides them to Dirk .
Dr. Anne-Marie Persand (ChattyDM): Lush and only doctor in town. Heavily involved in the town’s swingers parties.
Fernanda Ramirez Gomez (Math): Sister of the man Dr. Persand killed, mistress to Dirk and AA mentor to Dr. Persand.
The Tilt
We were already on a roll when we hit the game’s midpoint and had (as per rules) to introduce 2 new catastrophic elements to spice things up even more. Based on the results of rolling the various dice we’d obtained during act 1 (see the review for details) 2 players were given the task of choosing them. After group discussions, we settled on
Paranoia: A stranger returns to exact revenge.
and
Mayhem: A dangerous animal (maybe metaphorical) gets loose.
I had a very strong visual about having Fernanda’s brother return to exact revenge on us, but that idea failed to pick up steam from the group so we decided to lay these choices on the table and see where they would take us…
Act 2: Chaos in the ‘Burbs
As luck would have it, Mike served us the 1st scene of Act 2 on a silver platter, letting us frame it for him. So we excitedly built the most heinous of scenes. His character Dirk was doing the nasty with Fernanda in the second floor bedroom when the door slams open downstairs and his Wife comes in, goes to the kitchen, grabs a huge knife and climbs the stairs.
As the wife is about to launch into her soap-opera soliloquy of treachery and…
Dirk: I get my pistol out and shoot her in the face.
All other players: WTF!?!
Dirk: Fernanda, I love you, I want to be with YOU, let’s get the fuck out of here and live our life like we should be, free of all this shit!
Fernanda (in shock): What? Are you insane? What the HELL?
Dirk (Waving his gun around then at Fernanda): I’m sick of all this, lets go!
Fernanda, too stunned to mount a rational protest, followed…
(end of scene)
The next scene saw Dirk barging in the clinic and rob Marcus of everything the place had of drugs and money. When Fernanda started mounting a protest, going as far as saying the dreaded “I don’t love you”, Dirk shot her in the knee to prevent her leaving, imploring his undying love for her and the bright future they had together.
This. Was. Intense. Shit.
The scene ended with Marcus making sure that all of Dirk’s action were clearly seen from the clinic’s security cameras.
I proposed to continue the last scene (an option available in Fiasco) with me coming in the clinic to find the chaos. Dirk ordered me to patch Fernanda up and promised that I’d never hear from him again if I got him out of this mess. Anne-Marie kissed him on the cheek, thanked him for everything, and used a strong tranquilizer on Fernanda, urging him to leave with her inert body before the cop showed up.
Fernanda (OOC): Hey, what the fuck man?
Of course, now that Fernanda was knocked cold, we were a bit flummoxed as to how we’d play it. We were also getting tired from all the emotional energies we were pouring into the game. Regardless, it turned out all right.
We fast forwarded to a scene where Fernanda had managed to free herself, handcuff Dirk to a motel bed and kick the shit out of him. Then she left him alone, with his cell phone barely out of reach.
Fernanda: I hope you’ve read Stephen King asshole!
And she left to hide in Mexico.
Dirk’s last scene was one where he finally reached the phone and called the feds to confess of his crimes.
Marcus’ was about packing everything up, going to his stash of cash and hoping to leave real fast as the police sirens sounded.
Anne-Marie’s last scene was her entering a dark shabby apartment with nothing but a raincoat and a small piece of luggage. She made her way to the bed room, slipped into bed and whispered to Fernanda “I’ve finally tracked you down, now we can be together”…
Fernanda’s last scene was her exiting a brothel with a wad of dirty American bills, wearing Anne-Marie’s raincoat. Her “friend” having found new employment in the Mexican skin trade.
Aftermath
The aftermath is where we find out what happens to all our characters, in a rapid montage. The ultimate faith of each character is based on just how good a score they get when they roll all the dice they have in front of them and reduce the total of one color from the sum of the other. The closer to Zero, the worse a character’s faith is.
In order of worse to best, here’s what happened.
Anne-Marie lived her life in relative bliss as a deluxe whore, but her life turned south when she was found battered and bleeding after the “celebrations” of the reelection of the Venezuelan president. From there her health (and clientele) plummeted and she died of a combination of all STIs several years later, her withered hand holding her one true friend’s: Fernanda.
Fernanda’s life was discreet and modest in Mexico, trying not to get noticed and hoping that the US Fererales would not come after her. As Anne-Marie slowly died in a Mexican hospital, she often visited her “friend”, stealing her medications to support her meager life.
Dirk was caught by the feds and sentenced to many long years in prison. There he studied intensely and was released early for good behavior. Soon after he started a cult and he now lives comfortably on a spiritual ranch in the country.
Marcus was caught by the cops but scored a plea bargaining to help indict Dirk. He managed to skip unscathed, recover his stash and make way to South America where he bought a nice house and now lives in peace.
(Roll end credits)
Post Game Stats
On screen sex acts: A lot
Off Screen sex acts: Way more
Body Count: 2 (including Dr. Persand’s)
Jail Time: 6-7 years
Copies of the DVD movie made: 4
Post Game Analysis
The game was a smashing success if you define such as players having had fun and strong emotional reactions. Everyone got heavily engaged in the story/game at one point or another.
Of course the game’s structure, lack of clear “classic” goals (i.e. quests) and heavy use of roleplaying within bizarre parameters (the playset) was a source of discomfort for some players, namely Math who’s more of a classicist. Give him levels, monsters and loot and he’s quite content. Still, he and the others rose to the challenge but were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the 2h30 hour session. I’m sure that more experience with the game would alleviate this.
My more story-oriented player, Frankie, absolutely loved how easy it was to build such a screwed up, yet “believable” story. He kept being amazed at how all players shared story-building and that playing each scene brought new elements you could exploit later (or earlier in the case of flashbacks).
Of course, the believability of the story was put to test a few times when our own sense of logic and morals questioned our characters’. I had to remind Math that his character was NOT as smart as he was and that the harebrained plan of hers was not something that he should challenge from his point of view but rather embrace and play to the best of his ability.
However, the true surprise of my evening was Mike. You see, Mike’s usually reserved and doesn’t like to impose his ideas or his preference on others. Well, in our Fiasco game, Mike EXPLODED, he took the reins of his character and played him in a strong manner. He let us know what he wanted and how he wanted it. When he gave us control of his scenes, he relinquished it without a word, but jumped on the outcome (like shooting his character’s wife or Fernanda) when the time felt right.
It was beautiful to watch. Hats off to you, you crazy bastard, you made this game come alive!
As for me? I loved every minute of it. So much so that I invested more in the scenes themselves than my own character. I decided to make Anne-Marie more passive, if a bit crazy, to savor how the game would unfold. That’s not to say that I didn’t influence the game, but it wasn’t about the doctor so much as the plans hatched around her. And I think that’s what Fiasco is all about.
My final thoughts about the game? It should be in the bookshelf of all RPG gamers period. I could give you reasons like having a game for when there’s too many players missing for the usual game, or if you wished you were better at role playing and storytelling. But it’s immaterial.Fiasco makes gaming history by providing a high quality, low crunch, high intensity role playing experience that can be delivered in 2h30 hours or less, explanations and setup included!
Expect to see more game reports from me when I play it again!
Fiasco Friday: Chatty’s Tale of Suburbia, Act 1
Short Warning: This post deals with mature subject matter.
In my quest to play as many different RPGs as I could before settling on new campaigns after the holidays, I finally got to play Fiasco last Friday. Here be the game report, part 1!
I’m not going to focus on the mechanics much, for the curious, I refer you to Linnaeus’ excellent and comprehensive review of the game. Instead, I’m going to do my usual thing of mixing my experiences both from inside and outside of the game’s fiction.
Of Suburban Blackmail and Revenge
We had 4 players. The rules states that the one coming from the smallest town starts setup, so Mike was first. The others were seated so that Mike’s brother Frankie was next, then myself and finally Math.
Note that this game has no game master, everyone plays and shares how scenes are built and resolved. While going through the game’s available playsets (i.e. the settings of the game), Math expressed interest for “Tales of Suburbia” while everyone else weren’t too sure what to pick.
In the absence of clear directions, go with the most audible grunt says I.
We picked the playset, a bunch of numbered charts, and rolled a handful of 6-sided dice (4 per players) and we used their results to build our game’s starting point. We took turns creating relationships between each of our yet-to-be-defined characters and adding details (location, objects or needs) to each relationship.
So Mike and Frankie’s relationship was one of drug manufacturer/dealer. Frankie and mine was that of a Professional Supervisor and his employee. Mine and Math’s was that of a drunken driver killer and the victim’s next of kin (Drama!) and Math and Mike’s was of current lovers.
As we kept adding details, a pattern of PCs appeared to us. Mike would deal drugs stolen from the place where Frankie worked under my PC. We created a clinic location between Mike and Frankie, making it the place of work of Frankie’s PC and mine. We then added a Need between Frankie’s PC and mine:
Must get laid by random party people because, why not?
We didn’t know what that would be about, but it was preferable to leave it to be defined during play.
The rules mention that sometimes the creation of PCs (who have no stats whatsoever by the way) becomes self evident somewhere in the middle of setup. For us, the whole thing crystallized when Math picked a “Need” and placed it between his PC and mine: “Get even with a local Community Police Officer”.
Brilliant! Mike’s character naturally became a corrupted cop who saved my PC’s butt when she killed someone’s parent/sibling while driving drunk. After that it all tumbled into place…
The last element added to the already explosive mix was a DVD home movie attached to Math and Mike’s relationship.
We were ready!
Dramatis Personae:
Deputy Rosco Dirk (Mike): Local cop with a porn star name dealing drugs on the side. Covered the DUI death caused by Dr. Persand.
Marcus Glassglow (Frankie): Male nurse at the A.M. Persand clinic. Steals drugs and provides them to Dirk for a cut of the profits.
Dr. Anne-Marie Persand: Alcoholic general practitioner and only doctor in town. Racked with guilt for killing a young man a year ago. Heavily involved in the town’s swingers parties.
Fernanda Ramirez Gomez: Sister of the man Dr. Persand killed, mistress to Dirk and scheming some dark plot to take both down.
Act 1
As all new game experiences are wont to go, we were a bit confused as how play should go. What helped a lot was this choice each player had on their turn: You either set the scene (like a GM would do, with a location, characters and a situation) and let the other players decide how the scene would eventually be resolved or the opposite, letting others set the scene but you get to control how it would end.
Thus, somewhat awkwardly at first, we had a few scenes where we explored the PC’s relationships. We often found opurselves describing the elements of the scene, and likely elements that would come up without really knowing how we should shift from 3rd person to 1st person. (Hint: You don’t have to do that switch). Funnily enough, we would often be discussing what would happen and we’d slip, without realizing it, into 1st person and play the scenes as set.
For instance, at first, we discovered that the DVD Home movie was that of a swinger’s party where many of the city’s influential members had been very active participants. Anne-Marie was also there, playing the Dominatrix.
In Frankie’s first scene, he had Nurse Marcus try to get his hands on that disc, to force my character’s hand into cranking up his pay a little (the little prat, he was already robbing me blind). Deputy Dirk reluctantly agreed to provide a copy of the next upcoming party. Dirk kinda liked the good doctor and didn’t want to see those movies distributed around (i.e., he liked enjoying them for himself, hint hint).
Then we kinda caught on the whole thing, alternating 3rd person descriptions and 1st person dialogues more comfortably and really got into the spirit of the game.
Math and I explored our relationship and I set a recent flashback scene where I was calling Fernanda, my AA mentor (!!!)
Anne-Marie: I can’t do it anymore Fernanda, I’m so overwhelmed, things are crashing down on me and all I can think about is… (and she looks at her desk’s drawers)
Fernanda (Walking to the desk, grabbing the bottle of Jim Beam and breaking it against the wall): Girl, what you need is to transfer your need for booze into something completely harmless and liberating!
Anne-Marie (Sobbing): Like what?
Fernanda: Sex! Lots and lots of meaningless sex!
(End of scene)
We later had another flashback scene with all four of our characters. Fernanda acted as a silent witness. We played out the minutes that followed the accident that killed Fernanda’s brother. We decided that Fernanda had been ejected from the wrecked car and fell into a nearby ditch, relatively unharmed but stuck. She wasn’t found, but she was conscious and heard what we said:
Anne-Marie (Slurring heavily): Deputy, please, you HAVE to help me. I can’t go through this again. I promise I’ll do ANYTHING, just… make it go away…
Paramedic Marcus (Doing CPR on Fernanda’s brother): We’re losing him… we lost him. Yo deputy, we got a stiff here.
Deputy Dirk (taking charge): All right Dr. Persand, I’ll make sure that everything turns out fine for you. Just get in my car and we’ll work something out.
When the wrecked cars were removed and the scene cleaned, Fernanda slowly got up, painfully climbed out of the ditch and hobbled home, tears of rage trickling down her mud encrusted face.
(end of scene)
Another key Act 1 flashback scene was this one…
Marcus (Entering the Clinic): Dr. Persand?
Anne-Marie (from her office, sounds of glass and drawers closing rapidly): Coming! What can I do for you sir?
Marcus: I’m here for the nurse job.
Anne-Marie: I’m sorry, I don’t need a nurse
Marcus: I’m a very good paramedic and you might recall that we met about 6 months ago out by the road. I showed you my skills by patching you up.
Anne-Marie (Blanching): When can you start?
(End of Scene)
That more or less completed Act 1 for us. We all realized how powerful flashback scenes could be to anchor our character’s relationships and set up all the shit that what was to come in act 2.
Up next: The Tilt, Act 2 and the Aftermath.
Savage West, Session 1: The Riverboat Poker Heist, Rio Grande Burning
This is part 3 of my Savage Worlds play report for the first session my friend Yan ran for us. Don’t miss part 1 and part 2.
Scene 3: The Rule of C4 to the rescue
So here was Jimmie Joe the Miracle Worker, stuck in jail shortly before the Riverboat and its 100 000$ stash moored off. Fortunately, his friends came to his rescue.
Judge Gloom and Jayne entered the Sheriff’s small office, one of those one room houses with a single jail cell you see in Lucky Luke albums.
Judge Gloom: I’m here to judge this man for the crime’s he’s been accused of.
Jayne: Yeah! He’s like a real judge and everything!
Sheriff: Hmmm, haven’t I seen you before?
(Group: Oh shit!)
Yan: PM’ roll to see if the info about your disbarment made it to this office.
The roll was missed.
Aside: While PM didn’t mention it here. He later commented about how his character’s performance and impact on the game world fell very much shorter than his expectation. He wanted to be a walking, breathing fear machine but each of the scenes he tried to make it come forward, it fell flat.
His “fear” wasn’t backed by anything more than his background story and we all had trouble finding a meaningful way of working that fear in the story. His 2 “edges” were fighting-related and I sense that “The Fear” felt too encompassing as a feat to Yan to be resolved with social skills vs established authority figures.
They since worked out an acceptable compromise.
Wouldn’t it be cool if that game’s GM told us a bit more about that in the comments? Hint Hint…
Sheriff: Judge Gloom… Judge Gloom, I recall seeing a letter from the…
PM: I open my bible and mention “And so He said “Let there be Light everlasting for” and I mumble something in badly mangled Mandarin and I take out my Derringer hidden in it.
Phil: What the Fu…
Maze: I draw my gun too!
Phil: Guys!!! I move to grab the cell’s blanket, it’s the only “weapon” I have!
Alex: Dynamite Chang heard the Judge’s signal and whistles the “Get the Chang out of There” code…
Phil: Ahhhh! Jimmie Joe moves at the opposite side of the Cell!
So much for an orderly rescue.
Chang blew off one of the Jail’s walls with dynamite, Gloom got shot in the face by the quick-drawing Sheriff, Jayne effectively killed the sheriff with one shot. One of the two deputy missed his shot at Jayne and then got blown up by a dynamite stick thrown by Chang. The other deputy surrendered when I pressed the cold steel of Chang’s Shotgun on the back of his neck.
The fight was done in two rounds. Fast and Furious indeed.
Jimmie Joe spent the next hour trying to save Judge Gloom from death, blowing a few Bennies in the effort (and letting the Sheriff die), lightly berating his friends from needlessly killing people (and spending such precious Dynamite).
The party got on board just in time.
Yan: Wait a minute, what do you do with all your stuff. Horses, cart?
Phil: Hmmm… Ah yes, we leave them with Jessica.
Yan: Jessica…?
Phil (Fast talking his GM): Awww man, it’s too long a story… Let’s just say that we used to have something her and I, now we don’t…. Things are… complicated. It’s probably going to be hell getting our stuff back… And I might have forgotten to mention it to my friends but trust me on this.
Yan (Very amused at all those free story hooks): Okay, Sure.
Aside: Yan called this a “Circles check without any stats” making a reference to Burning Wheel mechanic allowing players to create NPCs on the fly. He said it was one of the highlights of the game for him, like being handed a paid in advance NPC in exchange for saying Yes to a low stakes question.
I just love doing things like this. 
Scene 4: Fire in the Hole!
Once on board the ship, we each took our position. Jayne started playing… and the ultimate irony is that he started winning (Maze’s PC actually has a decent Gambling skill, second only to Chang’s). Judge was keeping an eye on the ballroom where the tournament was held. I scouted the ship for the possible location of the stash. I found a cabin on the boat’s 2nd floor guarded by 2 thugs.
Jimmie Joe: Bingo! I’m going to inform Chang.
Chang: I start a fire in the engine room furthest from the room.
Judge: I try to accuse a player of cheating to create a commotion.
Jayne: Hey you guys, I’m totally winning this thing! Great plan!
(He was… but I wasn’t going to let 100 000$ go to chance huh?)
Jimmie Joe (Running back to the 2 thugs): Quick guys, you have to help us, the engine room just exploded! We’re going to burn and sink unless we get all the strong guys to pitch in to contain the blaze! (Clatter, Clatter… success).
Yan: Okay, they follow you.
Chang went to the room under the one with the money and placed seven sticks of dynamite to collapse the ceiling.
BOOM! Ceiling falls, no one dies. A safe now rested in the debris…
Yan: How many sticks of dynamite do you have left?
Alex: Hmmm, none…
Phil: Arghhhh! Of course! I go and grab the Tournament’s organizer in the ballroom’s chaos and subtly push him, at gun point, toward the room with the safe.
Jayne: Wait, I’m winning! What’s happening?
Jimmie Joe: Okay boss, give us the combination to this safe and you live!
Boss: But I don’t have it, the captain does!
Phil: Seriously Yan? Are you trying to get killed here? I don’t believe the guy! He needs a good intimidate!
Turns out he was screwing with us. The Boss opened the safe and we stuffed as much money as we could in bags and put jewels in our pockets. When we all realized we didn’t know how to swim (as envisioned when we started the game), we commandeered a lifeboat at gunpoint (but let a pregnant women on board with us) and made it just as the boat was sinking.
PM: Phil, isin’t Jimmie Joe concerned about all those people who will die on the boa?
Phil: Nah, we have our money now, and they can always swin to the shore.
And thus, with money bills flying everywhere, we rowed to the shore with about 60 000$.
Jayne: Oh man, I was about to win, I had made it to the finals guys.
Jimmie Joe: We know you could Jayne, we know you could. It didn’t turn out like that though…
Savage West, Session 1: The Riverboat Poker Heist, Of Marks and Busts
This is a play report of my first Savage Worlds game in which I played a character. Yan was our GM. See part 1 here. I write them from my perspective, so expect the story to be a told mostly from my player/PC’s point of view.
Dramatis Personae Redux
Judge Gloom: Scary as hell roaming judge running from disbarment , played by PM
Dynamite Chang: Chinese miner-turned-demolition-expert. Prefers to mine safes now, played by Alex
Jayne: Ex hitman/enforcer of a bounty hunting outfit. Not as gifted in the brains department as he thinks, played by Maze
Jimmie Joe: Con Man with a knack for chemistry, fast talking and easy marks. Played by yours truly.
Scene 1: Ready, Set, Mark!
Our first order of business was to locate a poker player who was good enough to have already registered for the tournament, but obscure enough that we could take his place once we “borrowed” his entry fee. So we made our way to the town where the players would board the Riverboat for the tournament.
Yan had us roll Streetwise checks to find a likely skilled player who had the money but wasn’t too known to cause alarm should he fail to show up. Savage Worlds doesn’t seem to have a “helping out” mechanic so all trained PCs played their skills, with success. We tracked one such player staying in a nearby Saloon, trying to finish building up his 1000$ buy-in.
Game design aside: I realized in that scene that I now more or less expect games to have “helping out” mechanics. D&D has had one since 3e and Burning Wheel more or less runs on that. Now I know that Savage Worlds has a relatively low success target, meaning that helping is not that needed, but it still lends itself to the oft-played “lets all throw dice and one of us will succeed” approach to skill rolls. I might have missed something about adding margins of successes but I’m not sure.
We then explained to Yan that we wanted to discredit the player before we made the “Two-Stage Winston Job” on him.
Yan: WTF is that?
Phil: Trust me, it’s flawless…
First we tried to spread the rumour that the our Mark was a cheater. Yan made us roll persuasion rolls at a penalty (I have an Edge called Charisma that cancelled it). We succeeded. Once we established that our mark was in his room, Judge Gloom entered the Saloon where he was staying.
PM: I walk up to the bar, order a double Whiskey and say real loud “I hearsay that this house of sin hides a lowly cheat and thief that’s been trying to evade justice! (Slowly pans the whole room) Well justice has finally arrived.”
Phil: I run upstairs real fast and start banging on our Mark’s door.
Yan: Whaaaaat?
Phil: Yeah, and I whisper through the door: “Quick man, Judge Gloom is here for you, you gotta run!”
Mark: “Who the hell are you!”
Jimmie Joe: I’m your biggest fan man! I know you’ll win this tournament! In fact, I bet my whole house on it! You’ll make me rich… but you need to get the hell out, follow me I can help you!
(General laughter)
I aced with a good margin of success. In hindsight, I think that I should have gotten a Bennie (action point) for it (Edit: See Yan’s comment below).
The sucker followed me, hid in my wagon under a tarp and got beaten senseless by my more physical acolytes. Bang, we were 900$ richer!
Good start!
Scene 2: Busted!
With some scratch from the other party members (cuz, you know, I was tapped out), we made the full thousand. We then went to register to the tournament a few days later. Our plan was dead simple. Dynamite Chang, through some bribing of a distant nephews, arranged to get on the ship as a replacement coal shoveller, ready to start a diversion on command.
As for our main Poker player…
Jayne: I’ll go… I got this RISK-PROOF method for playing poker! I had to pay this guy a fortune for him to teach it to me.
(Groan)
Jimmie Joe: Is that right?
Jayne: Yeah! Remember when we played and I told you that 2 identical Kings was the best hand? Well, I’ve tons of foolproof tricks like that! So can I play?
Jimmie Joe: Sure you can! You’ll be the perfect foil while we go for the prize.
Jayne: By that you mean that I’ll win it for you guys right? Cuz I totally can!
Jimmie Joe: Sure Jayne, sure Jayne.
Aside: I must say that Maze played his dumb-as-a-5-day-old-tuna-fish-sandwich guy to perfection. Once we adjusted to his way of playing his PC, we all embraced it and he fit seamlessly in the story we were building.
Jimmie Joe: All right so Jayne will be the player, Gloom and I are going to be his entourage. Chang will be in the boiler room or whatever they’re called on those boats. We locate the Prize money and…
Others: Yes?
Jimmie Joe: We’ll see once we get there…
So a few hours before we boarded, we got to the boat’s pier to register for the tournament. As we were waiting in line…
“He’s that’s the guy that stole my money!”
Yan: You see your mark, along with a sheriff and a few deputies. They want to interrogate you at the Sheriff’s office.
Phil: (Facepalm) Yan, you are a rat bastard.
Yan (Jubilant): Why thank you!
I tried talking my way out of it but the odds were stacked against me and I failed my roll. (I didn’t want to spend my bennies quite yet).
Jimmie Joe (sotto vocce): You guys register without me, then go for plan “Jack’s Inbox” !
Yan: You do know that you have the money on you, right Phil?
Phil: Damn! Can Jimmie Joe pass it along unnoticed to Jayne with a sleigh of hand roll?
Yan: Sure… roll for it. (I made it)
Aside: I may have already said it, but Yan’s the quintessential good GM. While heavy prep is not his forte, he’s very very good with improv and he is the embodiment of “Say Yes or Roll”
Yan: Oh, BTW, the boat leaves in less than 4 hours. Since the Sheriff failed to find the stolen money on you (much to your ex-mark’s chagrin), he decided to let you “rest” in the jail cell while he tried to figure this mess out.
Phil: Sure man, I’m not worried. I trust the combined resources of my fellow players to sort this out.
Jimmie Joe (Muttering nervously): Nope, not worried at all, everything’s fine.
Stay Tuned…
Savage West, Session 1: The Riverboat Poker Heist, The Plan
I bought 3 copies of the pocket-sized Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition at Gen Con last summer. It was a game I was told I might like given the limited time I could spend playing on Friday nights. I asked Yan if he’d like to GM a demo to our once-a-month Sunday geekout crew (PM, Maze, Ubisoft Alex and I) and he agreed.
Savage Hybrid
The best way to describe Savage Worlds I heard was to say that it’s what would happen if D&D and GURPS created an offspring. It’s purported to be fast and furious. This is mostly achieved by a dead simple task resolution mechanic: all attributes (Strength, Agility, Vigor, etc) and skills are ranked in terms of polyhedral dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12). When you attempt a task (or try to hit a target), you pick the appropriate polyhedral and you try to roll a 4 or more. All dice are open ended (i.e. you keep rolling maximum results and add them together). As a PC, you also get a bonus D6 wild die for all rolls and you get to choose which of your normal or wild die rolls you keep for the task at hand.
Combat is done on battlemaps (squares or hexes, GM’s choice) and is indeed fast and swingy. There’s no Hit Points to worry about, just combat conditions likes “dazed” and “incapacitated” plus various wound levels that make your character progressively less effective. Mook NPC are even easier to deal with, going down after one solid hit or 2 minor ones.
Action and general character badassery are helped by the expenditure of Bennies. They are Savage Worlds Action Point and allow PCs to do things like re-roll failed checks, soak up damage or cancel a critical failure. Each player gets a few every sessions and can win more through play.
Finally, character generation is simple yet covers a very wide range of possibilities through the existence of setting specific Edges (advantages) and Hindrances (disadvantages). Each character buys attributes, skills and gears. Then, they pick two edges and one major (or two minor) hindrances and they are ready to go.
Thus after a bit of brainstorming, Yan offered to run a Far West game and we made PCs accordingly. [Read the rest of this article]
Chatty Plays, Part 3: Burning Wheel, Monstrous Power Play
Don’t miss parts 1 and 2 of this story of my first foray as a Burning Wheel RPG Game Master.
Quick review of who plays who:
Brechtanz dwarven adventurer (Franky)
Fidhean elven bard (Eric)
Robard, human thief (Math)
Ssisz Roden cultist (Mike)
Mah Dhusah, Ophidian Hunter (Yan)
Ganked!
When Yan’s PC came out of the shadows, hissing at the PCs about to deface the walls of the ruined temple, all players, Yan included, gleefully got ready to test Burning Wheel’s simplified combat system called “bloody versus”. I had read enough of the combat rules to apply it and even go a little bit further. I’ll spare the details, but this simplified system is a bit like if you resolved a D&D fight with an opposed weapons check, modified by armour.
Just so Yan’s PC didn’t get assassinated, I ruled that the fight would focus on one main opponent for the Ophidian, helped by the others, at least for the first exchange of blows. As it happened, the dwarf attacked with his shoddy sword while the Ophidian closed in with claws, fangs and snake head. The elf grabbed the ophidian’s tail and the thief moved in to backstab her, dividing her attention. The Roden stayed out of it, biding its time…
A few heartbeats later, the Ophidian reeled from a light scalp wound and ran away screaming, having lost a Steel check (Burning Wheel’s morale/will mechanic). The fight was already over…
I did bristle a few players expectations here. Yan was surprised to discover how easy it had been to hurt his PC. Also, the other players expected the fight to go on as I’d described the elf holding on to her tail and the thief was getting ready to stab her… we smoothed things out pretty rapidly and moved on.
The piece of valuable art was successfully removed from the wall and thus was the Roden PC paid.
Score 1 for Ssisz!
Twist!
As the remaining started discussing what to do with the Sword, the Ophidian stealthily approached the Roden and whispered a proposition, which was rapidly agreed too (the roden had a belief to seek out new allies for the cult). Instead of leading the group back to the surface, the Rat Man cultist would lead the group deeper in the structure, right into a trap.
(All right! Trouble!)
Of course, when the other players heard us discussing that, they became all suspicious of the Roden…
Eric: Hey, why didn’t you help us during the fight?
Math: Yeah, are you a traitor?
Mike: Pfff, like you needed my help…
Chatty: Come on guys, it’s too late to become suspicious, you’ll need to detect the Roden’s subterfuge with a perception check vs his inconspicuous skill to detect his leading you somewhere you never went.
Burning Wheel has a lot of that: Roll X skill/ability vs Y skill/ability. You roll a ton of dice and you roll them all the time. It does add a lot of excitement, something I’m not used to with skill checks, probably because the results of such checks are so much more important than how I used to do it with Gurps and D&D.
The Roden led the group right into a trapped landing between 2 flights of stairs which, after a failed check, sent the Dwarf (and the Sword) plummeting head first into faintly glowing muck, breaking a few ribs on the way down. As the Elf and the Rat cultist were arguing about it, Yan’s Ophidian approached Math’s Thief and whispered a very generous offer for the Sword. While Math considered it, it was eventually rejected (i.e. he refused to go into a Duel of Wits) because he interpreted Robbard’s belief about Snake people (they enslaved his father) as too hateful to consider discussing anything with “them snake varmint”.
At this point, while I had abandoned the idea that we would have one Duel of Wits in this scenario, I still wanted to drive home one final point.
Chatty: You know Math, your “enslaved father” belief is vague enough that you could use that in a Duel of Wits to convince the Ophidian to free him in exchange for the sword (or at least get his whereabouts). Nothing says that your father is dead unless we agree that it makes for a more powerful story
Aside: even there, nothing is stopping me as a GM from disregarding this “death” if it better serves the fiction later in a potential campaign.
Math: Okay, I get what you mean, but I’ll stick to my guns.
Chatty: Way cool.
Franky: Poor Phil, we keep screwing with your plans eh?
Chatty: Don’t sweat it, I can take it…
Act 3: Snake Eyes!
After the thief’s last refusal, Yan considered that he had one last objective: his PC had a belief that the elf’s father had killed an Ophidian ambassador to include her scales in the Sword, so if she could not get the sword, she would get the elf. The Ophidian and Roden ran away together, leaving the 3 adventurers to fend for themselves, lost in the depths of the dungeon.
Chatty: So your lost guys…
Eric: Hey! I have this magical song that tells me all about elven history… can’t just sing back the last stances I’ve been composing to go back to the surface?
Chatty: Roll for it (he got it!)
And thus, as the dwarf was extricated from the pit trap, the elven bard used his song and retraced their steps…
Eric (in a pretty decent, folksy reel): And then we climbed the stairs and walked for 100 paces and turned at the crevice shaped like a giant’s trideeeeeeent!
… and made their way to the exit.
The Ophidian offered one last deal to the Roden, gave it a piece of ancient jewelry (worth a LOT!) and both agreed to set up one last ambush to kill the elf. As the adventurers made their way to the exit, the Snake sister drew a bead on the elf and the last exchange of dice rolls was made.
I had the elf and the Ophidian roll Perception vs Stealth. If the elf failed to spot the Ophidian, he’d get an arrow in the face with no chance of diving for cover. Of course, Math spent all his Artha (Action points) and won, spotting the Ophidian hunter.
Aside: One of the “mistakes” I did was not giving Yan’s PC any Artha (Burning Wheel’s action points), which he should have had. In that sense, his PC was underpowered vs the others. I fixed that with the last die-roll, but knowing Yan, he would have spent the Artha with the Stealth check to increase his number of successes and shoot the elf with no cover.
Chatty: You spot the Ophidian trying to shoot you, what do you do? Dive for cover?
Eric: Hell no! I run as fast as I can out the dungeon’s door!
Mike: I try to trip him…
Chatty: Okay, Mike’s trip will help Yan’s…
I had the Elf roll a Speed check vs the Ophidian’s Shooting skill. The elf won with a good margin.
Chatty: Okay Yan, Math’s PC runs like hell and weaves in the corridor, you keeping a bead on him from your gallery over the exit isin’t easy, you need to beat an Ob 4 to hit him (Math’s success made Yan’s obstacle higher).
Yan eventually hit the elf by spending his point of Artha I finally granted him…
…but the elf’s armour made the barbed arrow bounce.
Both the Roden and the Ophidian slinked away. The Roden having been paid way more than it expected for little risk, the Ophidian planning to strike for the sword at a better time.
The Elf, Dwarf and Thief still hadn’t decided what to do with the sword, or the Thief’s price on its head… but that was for another day right?
Conclusion:
We never got around to do a Duel of Wits, but it’s partly because none of the issues of the adventure appeared critical enough to the PCs to risk losing the Duel over it. Franky came close to do one early in the game but backed out when all the other PCs started siding against his. Yan tried later but Math invoked his PC’s right not to engage in one, and that’s all right too.
Truth be told, I’m glad we stuck with the basic rules of opposed checks and focused on creating a dynamic dungeon adventure. We managed to fill a whole evening where a lot of things happened and we experienced part of what a complex new system can do without getting too bogged down with rules.
Hell, that 45 min scenario turned into a fun 2h30 dungeon crawl! What more could I ask for.
The greatest sign that the game was a success was that I got a strong sense from my players that they all were ready to start burning characters (i.e. make new PCs) and start a new campaign. Hell, Yan has read the rules and has already made his PC.
So expect to hear more about this soon!
Thanks for reading!
Chatty Plays, Part 2: Burning Wheel, Compromising Canucks
You can see part 1 here.
Dramatis Personae (distributed randomly, except the monster):
Brechtanz the destitute dwarven adventurer, played by Franky
Fidhean the exiled elven bard, played by Eric
Robard, the gambling debts-ridden human thief, played by Math
Ssisz, The roden (rat man) cultist, played by Mike
Mah Dhusa, Ophidian sister of the 2nd Scale, played by Yan
Settling into the Game
Following the advice given in the adventure, I gave a short explanation of the game, making a conscious effort to stick to the game’s fundamental rule: the beliefs and instincts and the test and the abilities/skills they are based on. I read the adventure’s sole descriptive text:
You’ve journeyed long through this crumbling, ancient citadel, down through ruined chambers into muck-filled tubes. You arrive, at last, in the wreckage of this collapsed temple. Laying on the shattered altar, in the chamber before you, is that which you seek: The sword!
I had the Roden character roll perception (i.e. an untrained skill) vs the hidden Ophidian’s Stealth skill, the guide never saw the Snake women, who chose to stay hidden for the time being.
Mike (In a low voice): I brought you here, anyone intends to pay me now?
Canadians & Compromises, 1st edition
I’m not quite sure what happened right after that but all the other players either ignored Mike or failed to hear him. Instead, Franky and Eric, 2 players who were at odds about the Sword’s final destination, started cooperating to take the sword back to the surface…
Franky: All right so we don’t see anything? Fine, I pack the sword into my bedroll…
Eric: Here take mine!
Chatty: Wait Eric, are you really cool with the Dwarf taking the sword
Eric (Shrugs): We’ll work it out once outside.
Chatty (pauses): ooookay, and what about paying the roden?
Franky (dismissively): We’ll find a solution outside…
Math: Yeah, we’ll sell it as soon as we exit the dungeon, I need the money fast.
Mike: Me too!
Franky: Of course not, it belongs to my people…
Chatty (Mental air pump): Finally…
As players realized that they had beliefs that were at odds about the sword, they asked me if they could find facts from the sword that backed their claims. I introduced “wise” checks, based on specific, applicable knowledge skills PCs had. The elf had “ancient artifact” and the dwarf had “Stuff-wise”, both perfectly acceptable skills to establish facts about a rare item (I was generous and didn’t call for ” obscure facts”, making the checks impossible for them)
Chatty: Great work! However, these facts reinforce your personal belief that the sword is yours to take, but has no binding impact on others…
Franky: Wha?
Chatty: We have social mechanics for that type now…
But my attempt to get them arguing with dice was to be foiled and thus true, high quality roleplaying began.
As tensions rose, I was waiting for that fine point to be reached for me to ask if someone was willing to throw down the gauntlet. I wanted to wait for that point where arguments started being repeated, but some of the stuff the players were saying was powerful, I didn’t want them to go to “waste” mechanically by being used outside of the game’s “duel of wits”, a form of social combat where PCs can argue and force a binding outcome.
Chatty: Okay guys, I can see that things are heating up, so do you care enough about who get the sword to formally argue for it here and now?
Sensing that the conflict could get serious and messy, my players decided to compromise there and there. The elf and the dwarf would bring back the sword to the elf’s father who forged it and then would be brought to the dwarves. Payment would be figured later.
Sigh
If they won’t act, introduce more incentives…
The adventure had a section about overly compromising players. One saying that you could come out and ask for more conflict, given the scenario’s nature. At that point however, the players were immersed in their PCs and the situation. They were having a good time. The energy level was quite high and we laughed a lot. Eric ad-libbed songs for his bard and Math played the thief like his life depended on getting a piece of that sword.
That short 30 minutes spent with the game had already outlined just how good roleplayers my players were when engaged. I couldn’t break imerssion by requesting a meta-game driven shift in play. So I went the other way
Chatty (Talking to the Roden and Thief): Hey guys, you do realize that these two are too poor to pay you anytime soon and that there’s no way to know for sure that the elves or dwarves will pay you for the return of the sword. Oh and Mike, the Roden is the only one who knows the way back out for sure. Just thought you should know that.
Mike: Right! Right!
Franky: You are a bastard Phil!
Chatty: I get that a lot, just don’t say that when my mom is around.
The Roden looked around the room and found a few snake scales. Hinting at the presence of Yan. I couldn’t oust Yan’s PC because of a rule called “let it Ride” which says that the result of a prior check can’t be reversed unless a situation clearly calls for it. Yan’s earlier Stealth check held even though the Roden performed a search of the premises.
Yet, instead of plunging into a duel of wits, Eric dropped a game-defining bomb:
Eric: We’re in some sort of temple right? Could we look around to see if we find some sort of valuable piece of the past that we could remove and use to pay the Roden with?
Chatty: … yeshh? Roll for it, Obscure knowledge for sure.
Others helped and they succeeded. Then inspiration struck.
Chatty (making this up on the fly): The walls of the temple have been damaged by centuries of water trickling through the walls of the cavern-temple. You do find one relatively intact piece of finely-detailed ceramic mosaic. It represents a pagan ceremony by the snake people of the Old Empire. You need to roll excavation Obstacle 2 to get it out the wall without breaking it. It’s worth enough to pay the Roden.
Yan (sotto vocce): Well played asshole!
Franky: I dislodge it, with the help of others
Yan (Hissing): Sacrilege!
Party: WTF?
Chatty: Out of the darkness comes an armoured Snake women, armed with bow and barbed arrows, sporting a head-full of serpents! Yan, is your bow notched?
Yan: Yes, I’m aiming at the Dwarf.
Party: Woot! We attack!
Chatty: (Facepalm)
Up next: The conclusion to this first contact with Burning Wheel.
Chatty Plays, Part 1: Burning Wheel, Getting into the Game
The Background
The Burning Wheel is a fantasy roleplaying game that was published about 10 years ago by then unknown author/designer Luke Crane. In 2003, with a bit of guts, luck and the help of others, he got his scrappy little game in the hands of one Kenneth Hite and ended up getting Burning Wheel named ’best game of 2003′ .
Fast forward to 2008, I heard of lots of buzz for a game called Mouse Guard generated by fellow bloggers and I got curious. I knew it was based on another game called the Burning Wheel, a game I’d heard of but had, until then, dismissed as “one of those story games with no substance” (yes, I was a pretentious idiot then… I’m less of an idiot now).
I purchased Mouse Guard at Gen Con 2009 and was immediately swept by the stellar writing, conversational tone and the sheer genius of the intricate yet elegant mechanics that made up the game. However, as much as I liked reading it, I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around how to actually play the game.
Then, during the fall of 2009, I was invited to a local Montreal gaming con, sharing guest status with some East Coast Indie designers. That’s where I more of less gracefully introduced myself to Luke, a story I immortalized here.
As I mastered that game about heroic mice, I became curious about Burning Wheel. It seemed to offer a complex yet highly emotional thrill ride for all players involved with a game session. I had to try it and evaluate if my players would be likely candidates for it.
Hook, Line and sinker
I met Luke again at Pax East 2010 and he was generous enough to offer my friends and I a very dynamic demo of ‘The Sword”, the quintessential one-shot Burning Wheel demo adventure. I loved every second of it, so did my friends. The game made its way on my ‘must play again” list.
My invitation at Burning Con a few weeks back and the 2 excellent scenarios I got to play in managed to sell me body and soul to the game system. I bought several copies of the core books and one set of everything else named “Burner” .
I had but one hurdle…
…could I convince my Friday-Night-tired friends to adopt the game? Like D&D’s last 2 incarnations, Burning Wheel resides on a handful of simple, core rules. They are however supplemented by a vast array of options that make the game much richer, yet more complex to play.
So what is Burning Wheel?
The Burning Wheel is a fantasy RPG that enables play in worlds that are equivalent (both technologically and socially) to 13th Century Western Europe/Middle East and 12th Century China. While there is no set world or gazetteer-like descriptions of kingdoms and city-states, there is an implied setting in the form of the races available for play, the various lifepaths you choose while “burning” (i.e. creating) your characters and the available gear you must choose from.
The game is driven by dice pool task resolutions where you roll a bunch of D6 (based on skills/abilities and helped by dice lent by others) to achieve a certain number of successes per roll. For example, To lift a portcullis, you may need to roll 6d and have at least 4 of them come up with a result of 4+ to succeed.
Combat can be very detailed and entails a complex combination of opposed rolls for positioning, a series of ‘rock-paper-scissors’-like exchanges to simulate blows, pushes, charges, dodges, feints, etc. Then any landed blow needs to land on a specific body area, possibly warded off by armour and the gravity of any wounds inflicted is then figured out.
Three elements make the game completely different from others I’ve seen before (Mouse Guard excepted, of course):
- The game has a mechanic to play out Duel of Wits (arguments) with binding results (you lose an argument, the whole party goes with the winner’s point of view or compromise)
- Each PCs have sets of player-chosen belief and instincts that guide how they act and react in the story
- Players get rewards in the form of 3 types of action points for playing in line with their beliefs and instincts
I could write a lot more about it, and I plan to write an actual review of it soon (although the game is 10 years old, you can Google a ton of them I’m sure). I just wanted to give a rapid overview. Needless to say, a lot of dice are thrown, emotions run high, and things often go in unexpected places.
The Sword, Chatty DM Style:
So as I was preparing for last Friday’s game, my 3rd as a player and 1st as a GM, I decided upon running The Sword, the simplest adventure to run. You can find it here. Its premise is dead simple: Four adventurers explore a dungeon and the only treasure they find is this one Magic Sword. The situation is “who gets the sword” and the complication is that all the PCs have conflicting beliefs and instincts about said sword.
While reading the scenario over, I had a few challenges. First I had 5 players where the scenario called for 4. Secondly I had my friend Yan who had played the adventure before at Pax East. While the Sword is endlessly re-playable, I know Yan prefers new experiences whenever he invests his free time in something .
To resolve this, I used one suggestion from the scenario and I offered Yan the possibility of playing a guardian monster, he accepted. Asking around on the Burning Wheel forums (whose users were very helpful), I was informed of the likely pitfalls (ex: 4 on one ganking up on the monster) and was given tips on how to pull it off.
Using the game’s Monster book (The Monster Burner), I made Yan an Ophidian Hunter (A snake woman, like a Lamia Noble in D&D) and rearranged all the PC’s beliefs to fit her presence in the dungeon and heavily favoured a likely 3 vs 2 split between PCs. Her main beliefs were that the sword belonged to the Ophidians because it had been made with scales from a Brood-mother, murdered at the hands of the sword-maker (another PC’s father). She also needed to lie in wait until she thwarted an attamept at taking the sword before taking it for herself (explaining her guardian role).
And thus was Mah Dusah, Sister of the Second Scale created.
I was ready to introduce my players to the scenario…
Up next: My players go all Canadians on the scenario…
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