Steve Townshend on Adventure Design Podcast
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Steve Townshend, freelance WotC designer and trained actor, discuss the ins and outs of great adventure design in this most recent Critical Hits podcast. Listen in as Steve gives his three top tips for good adventure design, discusses how to draw players into the story, gives ideas on making your players love your NPCs, and discusses improvisation tips for being an active storyteller at your table.
Steve Townshend on Adventure Design (67 minutes, 69 MB)
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Steve’s work:
Interview: “Atomic Robo The Roleplaying Game”
Maybe you’re a fan of the many award-winning Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, powered by the FATE game engine. Maybe you’re a fan of robots punching Nazis. Maybe you are a fan of both, in which case, there’s going to be a new roleplaying game for you!
Announced two weeks ago, Evil Hat Productions is going to be producing the Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game, based on the hit comic series written by Brian Clevinger and illustrated by Scott Wegener. The game will be designed primarily by Mike Olson, and managed by Evil Hat Co-President Fred Hicks. We sent them a few questions about the announcement and the game.
CRITICAL HITS: How would you explain the world and adventures of Atomic Robo to the uninitiated?
BRIAN CLEVINGER: Take The Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Buckaroo Banzai, and The Rocketeer; cram them into a robot; give that robot some pants; bam, you’ve got Atomic Robo. He was invented by Nicola Tesla in 1923 and our comic book follows Robo’s adventure ever since. He fought a pyramid, the planet Mars, Stephen Hawking (metaphorically), Nazis, a super-intelligent time traveling dinosaur who may be none of those things, and run of the mill mad scientists.
But not at the same time.
CH: What kind of campaign models are you envisioning?
MIKE OLSON: First off, one that gets started quickly. You could say character creation is going to be more action and less science: It’ll be a true pick-up-and-play game without a lot of character creation on the front end. That’s been an important design goal from my earliest conversations with Fred about ARRPG. The actual stories Brian and Scott tell in Atomic Robo are definitely informing how we’re thinking the game will play — not just in the sense of what happens in a story, but how they’re structured. The default campaign expectation will be one that takes place in multiple eras during Robo’s long life, even if Robo himself isn’t present, with each of those eras having its own treatment and distinct feel. But if you want to play a story that involves Jack Tarot in the ‘30s or Sparrow in WWII, you can do that too. Regardless, you’ll have the tools to run the kick-ass Atomic Robo game you want.
FRED HICKS: I’m particularly excited about the multi-era play. Moreso than Spirit of the Century, I think the Atomic Robo RPG will be exactly the right kind of game to handle a play-group with variable attendance. “Oh, only two folks are showing up tonight? Well, let’s jump back to 1971 and play out a smaller piece of this story there. Who wants to play Carl Sagan?”
CH: For those that aren’t familiar with FATE, what makes it a good fit for an Atomic Robo-based game?
CLEVINGER: FATE gives a great deal of freedom to model every weird idea you can imagine. And to do it on the fly. And then to destroy it in a spectacular explosion that may or may not have been accidental. If that’s not every single Atomic Robo story, then I don’t know what is.
OLSON: This may be a tough one for me to answer objectively — FATE’s my go-to system, and I love hacking it for various genres. But what makes it so strong for a character-driven book like Atomic Robo is how easily it lets players define their character through mere words, via aspects. The particular iteration of FATE we’re planning is going to be tailored to what’s important to a Robo story, including a special emphasis on Science (and “Science!”) that gives all that witty techno-banter mechanical heft. Look at that invasion from the Vampire Dimension. Does Robo save the day by punching them? Does Jenkins, by visiting horrific off-screen ultra-violence upon them? Nope. It’s quick-thinking new-hire Bernard. Using Science. FATE’s great at that — that’s what FATE does.
CH: For those that are familiar with FATE, what kind of changes are going to be made to fit it, especially since it has a Spirit of the Century vibe already?
OLSON: Spirit of the Century has been a hugely influential game for me and for a lot of other people, but I think it’s safe to say that FATE technology has come a long way since its publication.
HICKS: YES! Spirit was published in 2006. Six years! The whole landscape of FATE is just different these days.
OLSON: Right. And if the recent proliferation of FATE games has shown us anything, it’s that people love to tinker with it — and because it’s such a malleable system, tinkering’s both fun and easy. So even though we’re very early in the process here, I can say for sure that we’re going to take full advantage of everything the system has to offer.
For one thing, you won’t see any big lists of stunts. Like I said, character creation will be more action, less science. That’s not to say there won’t be stunt-like options for customizing your character, but just as in Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, the emphasis will be on coming up with your own based on some broad guidelines.
Likewise, the concept of Phases is great for Spirit of the Century and its meta-conceit that all of the characters are protagonists in pulp books who are Centurions in the Century Club. The default assumptions of ARRPG are much different, though. Sure, the PCs are likely to be Tesladyne Action Scientists, but their stories could take place anytime over a more than 80-year period. Instead of writing down past events in their characters’ lives, we want people to actually play them out, or discover them through play. The era-hopping thing is definitely part of that.
HICKS: Yep. And part of that whole multi-era thing, really, is that groups that embrace it will probably have people playing different characters in different timeframes — they can’t all be ageless heroes like Robo. So the whole phased character creation thing from Spirit and Dresden won’t really apply here — though there’s nothing stopping folks from importing the idea from other FATE games.
OLSON: One of the big things we have in store, as I alluded to before, is giving Science its due — making sure it matters more than mere “color.” But it’s hard to say much more at this point, simply because the real work has yet to begin — FATE Core is our starting point, and that’s still in development. But we’ll be previewing more throughout the coming months.
CH: Will there be any campaign tools in it that can be borrowed for other games, like City Creation was for Dresden Files?
OLSON: We’re talking about some random idea generators for missions, villains, and science-related catastrophes — I love that sort of thing — that would certainly be applicable for other games. The skill system we have in mind will be both unique to ARRPG and compatible with “mainline” FATE, and will in fact accentuate customization, so I’m sure that will find its way around. Most FATE gamers I know really dig hacking the system, so I’m sure that even stuff we don’t think of as being broadly applicable will get that hacker treatment.
HICKS: Yeah. I have a feeling that the gearheads out there like me are going to find Robo’s ideas highly portable. Really, if anyone looked at Mike’s work on “Strange Fate” for The Kerberos Club and wanted to see an iteration of it that was highly compatible with main-line, core FATE, they’re going to get that here.
CH: With villains like Edison’s Ghost or a brain in a jar with a robot body, will there be other examples of how to make your own villains in the Atomic Robo style?
CLEVINGER: I’m hoping for a whole array of play styles. There’s a century or so of history, so the game is a tremendous opportunity to play around with the parts of Robo’s world we don’t see in the comics. Want to play pulp adventurers from before Robo was created or from back when he was terrible at adventuring? How about a generational campaign with a character per player per era? Want to play as “bad guy” factions like Majestic 12? A team up of Robo’s worst arch-enemies? An alternate history where Robo was taken out mid-century? One where he and Tesladyne never came to be?
So, to finally answer your question, yes. We’ll have some guidelines on how to best cater villains and (their?) antagonistic organizations to best fit your needs!
OLSON: In general, my answer to any question that takes the form of “Will there be guidelines for doing X the Atomic Robo way?” is “Yes.” One of our most important design goals is making sure the mechanics support the kinds of stories we expect people to tell when they play ARRPG. That definitely includes Robo-propriate adversaries, from brain-in-jar science villains to time-travelling Dromaeosaurs and everything in between.
HICKS: Crystals!
Preview and Interview: “Guestbook” RPG
Taco Girl, one of the Guestbook characters. Art by Jenna Fowler.
Pre-generated characters are common in RPGs for one-shots, convention scenarios, and for playing main characters from movies, TV, and books. Generally, if you’re playing for any longer amount of time than that in an RPG, you’re making your own character.
Then there are tabletop games where you bring your own character to the table to play, which is designed in such a way to attempt to be balanced again other characters in the game. Some of my favorites in this genre include Brawl, Button Men, and even games like Descent where purchasing a new character means you bring him to the table to play.
Combining some of these ideas is the upcoming Guestbook RPG by Machine Age Productions. You bring your own pre-made character, and link up with someone else with a different character. There, the two of you generate flash fiction (i.e. very quick, created in about 5 minute) stories for the characters you both are playing based on how the two character sheets (more like brochures) interact, some direction provided by the character having the story, and the results of some Rock-Paper-Scissors. In the end, you’ll come out with a story starring the character. Then switch roles with the other person so that each character gets a story. Finally, the two of your switch ownership of the characters, so you’re off to play with someone else with a new character in hand.
Guestbook RPG sounds like one of those “so simple I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it” ideas that game designers get immediately jealous of. Combine that with another classic game design challenge- make something playable while waiting in a line- and toss in some great Twitter use for the game (and not just as a marketing afterthought), and you have the recipe for a very intriguing game.
Thus, I reached out to the game’s designers David A. Hill Jr. and Filamena Young to ask them a few more questions about the game, how it will work, and if it’s unique as it all sounds. In addition to the answers, I’ve gotten a great preview from them of one of the first Guestbook RPG characters: Taco Girl. [Read the rest of this article]
Interview with PAX East Champion Dungeon Master, Matt Brenner
Photo by Chris Tulach
In early March of 2011, at the PAX East gaming conference, Wizards of the Coast sponsored the second annual PAX East Dungeon Master’s Challenge. Three weeks earlier, those who signed up received their instructions for the competition. Each of them would be required to bring a unique level 8 adventure with a dragon as the main antagonist along with all of the tools, props, and pre-generated characters needed to run the game. Dave Chalker (who won last year), Tracy Hurley, and I all joined in a group of perhaps fifteen dungeon masters for the competition.
The players of each adventure scored the competition based on the following criteria:
- Presentation
- Story
- Challenges
- Characters
- Fun Factor
In the end Matt Brenner took away the prize and title as Champion Dungeon Master.
When I found out that I hadn’t even been in the top three winning dungeon masters, I was, of course, filled with a seething hatred and burning rage capable of sucking the entire convention center into the great black hole now left in my heart. Knowing, however, that I was in the very good company of Dave and Tracy, however, made it a little easier.
I could have held on to that seething rage but such rage benefits no one. Instead of exploding like a Peter Petrelli atom bomb, I decided to follow Sylar’s route. I would find this dungeon master, slice open his skull, and draw his champion DM powers out for myself.
OK, that’s not exactly true. Instead I would find this champion DM and interview him for all of us to learn from his background and his experience. What I found was a dungeon master who truly went over the top to build his award winning game.
Now let’s sit back and learn what Matt Brenner has to say about his gaming background and what he did to build his champion adventure. [Read the rest of this article]
RPGs and Fiction: An Interview with Alana Abbott
I have spent the better part of the last three years with my head buried deep in the Forgotten Realms, a game world that lives and breathes at least as deeply through its fiction as through its game products. My background and education are tied to fiction-writing, first and foremost. As I become more familiar with the craft of designing games and adventures, the contrast and the synergy between the stuff of games and the stuff of fiction always leaves me pondering: What game design skills carry over from fiction-writing skills, and vice versa? Can fiction capture the essence of a game system or a game setting, while still working as good fiction?
I have enlisted someone to help me look into those questions. I first met Alana Abbott while writing adventures for the Living Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign, where she was the campaign’s director. Even then, before I knew her well, I was impressed with her chops as a writer. When I heard that she’d written a novel as a tie-in for an RPG game and setting, I was intrigued. I read that first novel called Into the Reach, and I was taken with how much the characters and the story drew me into that world. Despite my love of fantasy RPGs, I was never much a fan of fantasy fiction. The field is no doubt full of talented authors, but the redundancy of the tropes within the genre just didn’t do it for me.
At the time, I was also teaching fiction writing at the college level, so my brain was engaged in a sort of “read and feedback” loop that led me to contact Alana, offer my admiration for the work, as well as providing some (hopefully) constructive criticism. I was surprised and flattered when Alana suggested to her publisher that I take over as editor for the second novel in the trilogy. It was a pleasure to do so.
Alana’s talents have been noticed by many others, and her resume speaks for itself. As long as it is diverse, her list of credits includes the Origins Award-winning supplement Serenity Adventures for the Serenity RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. She was also the writer for the comic Cowboys and Aliens II. (A film version of the original Cowboys and Aliens hits theaters soon, starring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.)
The first two novels in “The Redemption Trilogy” — Into the Reach and Departure — are available now available as e-books at DriveThruRPG, and they are well worth the read for fans of well-written fantasy literature. Alana’s vision of the setting, game, and characters is expertly rendered on the page, and I hold the novels up as an example of what can happen when a very talented writer finds a way to turn an RPG into excellent fiction.
I recently got the chance to ask Alana about the intersection of RPGs and fiction, as well as a number of other topics of interest to gamers, fantasy fans, and would-be writers. I hope you find the results enlightening: [Read the rest of this article]
Interview with Rich Marflak, Winner of the First RPGA Open Tournament in 1981
I joined the RPGA in the mid-1980s, while I was in high school. I joined in order to get access to Polyhedron magazine, and I never was able to attend any conventions or play any of the RPGA adventures back then. My first experience with an RPGA convention came in the fall of 2001, when some friends and I decided to give the RPGA’s Living Greyhawk campaign a try. We had never been to an RPGA convention or played in a Living campaign before, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect.
In a nutshell, we were blown away. The convention was well run, the DMs were so much fun, the games were interesting, and even the other players were great. Of course, since then I have come to learn that conventions are only as good as the people running them. That convention, and so many awesome conventions since then, was run by Rich Marflak. You couldn’t ask for a better and more dedicated organizer, DM, player, and adventure writer. In the years since that convention, I have come to know Rich very well. We have worked on countless projects and conventions together.
On a trip to some convention or another—not sure it if was GenCon, Origins, DDXP, Winter Fantasy, or some other smaller convention—Rich told a story about one of the first RPGA-sponsored events that he played in. I had always dreamed as a kid of being able to go to GenCon or other large convention and play in one of those RPGA tournaments, where the best roleplayer at the table advanced to the next round. I wasn’t so much focused on the competition as much as just wanting to take part in a shared experience of gaming with a bunch of players as passionate about the game as I was. So I was entranced to hear Rich talk about the experience of not just playing in, but winning, one of the first RPGA Open tournaments!
Shawn Merwin: Rich, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. First of all, tell me a little about your introduction to roleplaying games.
Rich Marflak: From childhood I found games that demanded strategy and tactics the most enjoyable. Whenever I could find someone to sit and play Monopoly, Risk, Stratego, Broadside, Blitzkrieg or in particular Chess, my day was made! Second to playing these types of games for entertainment, I loved books and movies about or based upon mythology and heroic fantasy. Music became a very important part of my life in seventh grade, as it does for many of us at that age. But the music I became fascinated with was a little out of sync with most. It was the wonderful heroic images the works of composers like Beethoven and Wagner that was capturing my imagination. Special movie effects, being what they were at the time, came nowhere near my imaginings of monstrous beasts and the performance of heroic deeds while reading books, and plugging in my own heroes, villains and plots while listening to late classical and romantic period music was the ultimate creative experience—far surpassing watching movies or reading books. However, having this total control over all of the elements of my imagined stories lacked a key component – the element of surprise. [Read the rest of this article]
Of Dice And Men
A couple weeks ago, I got an email from a guy named Cameron McNary. At first glance, I thought it was spam. It was an advertisement of some sort and one line of text at the top that said, “I thought you might find this of interest.” I’m glad I didn’t delete his email, because as it turned out, Cameron McNary has an amazing gift when it comes to understatement.
This email was about a play he had written called “Of Dice and Men”, a story about a group of D&D players and what happens to them when one of them gets deployed to Iraq. It sounded interesting, but then I hit one quote from Cameron that stopped me dead in my tracks: “I always thought I played games for the games themselves but when he enlisted I realized I actually play them for the people – for the connections you make and the friendships that are formed when you play.” I thought of all the good times I’ve had with my friends over the years around the gaming table, how much I miss the ones I don’t play with anymore, and how at home I feel when it’s finally game night – and I knew deep in my soul he was right.
I’ve got to see this thing.
Sadly (for me, anyway), it’s being premiered at PAX PRIME. In Seattle, WA. Where I am NOT. It’s apparently the first time a “serious” play has ever been performed at a gaming convention (no, the costume contest doesn’t count), much less premiered. That’s pretty rad.
For those of you who ARE in Seattle, WA on September 3, get thee to the “Unicorn Room” of the Washington State Convention Center at 7:30 pm. You will do what I cannot, and support these fine people. Or I will SMASH.
Of course, as effective a sales tactic as physical violence is, I can’t sell this thing nearly as well as Cameron himself:
Cameron was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:
CH: What is “Of Dice and Men”, and why is it important to gamers?
CM: “Of Dice and Men” is a full-length play, written by Cameron McNary, that will be receiving its world premiere at PAX Prime, Friday, September 3rd 2010. It’s about a group of 30-something D&D players, and what happens when one of them enlists to go to Iraq. It has been called “The most brilliant piece of non-Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons related material since the Dead Alewives.”
It’s important to gamers because it portrays gamers as the kind of people you want to be around, and the kind you want to be. It’s a hip, very funny, deeply touching play that challenges the stereotypes about gamers and gaming. It is geek art without the self-loathing. If you’ve ever wanted to take your mom or your girlfriend or your grandad to something and say, “Look: THIS is why I play,” and have them *get* it, now you can.
Also, unlike the images of what “a play about D&D” might normally conjure up, it is very, very good.
CH: Are there any plans to make this experience available for those of us who can’t see the event live, like DVD or downloadable video?
CM: Eventually, yes, in some form.
CH: Any other plans in the works from Critical Threat Theatre?
CM: We plan to take the exposure and fundraising that comes from this premiere and bring this play to regional theatres across the country, and eventually, to Off-Broadway. We are also taking open submissions for scripts that match our mission of “Great Plays. About Geeks.”
CH: How can our readers get involved in this project?
CM: They can donate money. We’re currently running a capital campaign on www.indiegogo.com (http://www.indiegogo.com/ODaM) where you can become a Critical Threat Rot Grub for just $5. In addition to the various perks you can get (you should see what we’re offering our Frost Giant Jarls), when this show comes to your town, you can point to it and say you were part of making it happen.
If you know of a script we should produce, please send it to us. If you or someone you know is in a position to produce this play professionally in your town, we’ll be happy to forward you the script. You can contact us at info@criticalthreattheare.com.
CH: You guys are clearly gamers. Tell us about how you got started gaming, and how it’s affected your lives over the years.
CM: Many of the people involved in this project are gamers, but a lot of them are just theatre professionals who have become fans of the play. My wife — our Managing Director — won’t touch twelve-siders with a ten-foot pole. Many of our Seattle actors have no gaming experience whatsoever. Our commitment to making quality theatre is just as strong as our commitment to making theatre about geeks.
As for myself, I’ve been playing D&D since my cousin Seamus ran me through Against the Giants and the Lost Tomb of Martek when I was eight. Since then, my tastes have expanded to include just about anything you can play — every tabletop RPG ever, CCGs, videogames, boardgames. Like a lot of gamers, gaming has been the source of some of the best friendships I’ve ever had, and sometimes the only friendships I’ve had. Whatever town I was in, whatever shape my life was in, I knew if I could find a gaming store, I had a home. There have been times in my life when that was incredibly important.
Thanks to Cameron for tipping us off about this event. I’m incredibly jealous of those of you who can make it.
Once again, here’s where to be:
PAX PRIME
7:30 pm
September 3rd 2010
“Unicorn Room” of the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington.
Please, please, please go and support them. Or donate, which you can do here. Or both. Yes, that one. Just help them out. They rock.
Photo credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carleeaross/2060369281/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rym/2067782076/
Critical Hits Podcast #20: Interview with Rich Baker and Mike Mearls
The Friday of Gen Con 2010, Bartoneus and myself sat down with Rich Baker and Mike Mearls of Wizards of the Coast (in the gaming penthouse above their booth) to talk about Dark Sun, Essentials, and beyond. Some of our questions were a bit invalidated by the seminar the next day, but it’s all included for the sake of posterity.
Interview with Rich Baker and Mike Mearls (18 minutes, 9 MB)
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Interview: Steve Townshend, D&D Freelancer and Co-Author of “Demonomicon”
Steve Townshend is a freelance writer (both for D&D and his own fiction) and actor living in Chicago. We recently had the chance to interview Steve over email about the release of the new D&D Demonomicon book, of which his name shares the cover with Mike Mearls and Brian R. James. We also asked him about story in D&D games, a subject with which he has a lot to say.
How did you first get into D&D or RPGs in general?
I started playing D&D around 1982. I was about seven years old and we were living in Michigan, taking a trip to our grandparents’ house. When we arrived, my cousins David and Anne were jumping up and down, saying, “Steven! Steven! Aunt Kim has this great new game called Dungeons and Dragons. You wanna play?”
They dragged me down to the basement where my aunt had set up her game (the blue box basic set). We rolled up our characters. I was a fighter named (who else?) Luke Skywalker. A spell was cast over all of us that day as we listened to the rumors surrounding the Keep on the Borderlands, chilling rumors like “Beware the eater of man.” We drew our weapons and went down into the Caves of Chaos.
As we fought our way through the dungeon, our aunt illustrated how the ability scores worked in the game. She’d say, “Well we can’t give the key to David because he’s too clumsy and he’d drop it. We can’t give the key to Steven because he’s too dumb and he’d give it to the monsters, so we’ll have to give the key to Annie.” I was thrilled to play a game where you could theoretically do anything you wanted. It was heaven. [Read the rest of this article]
Monster Manual 3 Interview with Greg Bilsland
The Monster Manual 3 is due for release in just a few short days. We had the opportunity to ask Greg Bilsland, Wizards of the Coast’s designer and lead editor for the Monster Manual 3, five questions related to the release of the MM3.
Let’s dive right into the questions.
Critical Hits: With the Monster Manual 2 we saw changes to the design of Solos and Minions. What sort of design changes were behind the MM3?
Greg Bilsland: Monster Manual 3 has some significant changes to monster accuracy and damage. We decided during the development process to look at whether monsters were threatening PCs. We concluded that PCs were, in many cases, killing monsters so fast that the monsters were not challenging the characters. To that effect, we increased monster damage output by about 30-40%.
We also took a look at monster accuracy. We reexamined the various roles and ended up adjusting brute accuracy back to baseline. We felt that this change would enable DMs to use brutes below the PCs’ level more effectively. Artillery, controller, and soldier accuracy also got a slight adjustment. [Read the rest of this article]
