(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.
Really enjoyed your post! I had the opportunity to play with 4 “new” D&D players recently, I enjoyed their fresh take on the gaming experience. I can appreciate chatty’s “just say yes” approach, I think it’s liberating for the DM, regardless of version, and I think it makes for a better game experience for all. My new mantra with be “yes, and”…
Great Post PM! You bring up very valid points, and many of which are things a DM constantly struggles with to make a very interesting game!
.-= wrathofzombie´s last blog ..Play By Post Help =-.
Awesome post, as usual.
Interesting take on the price of failure in classic RPGs. In fact you have half the answer, you are right that failing in many tasks leads to combat. Just check your own example, you used that there with guards being attracted by the noise.
The other half of the answer is a staple of bad Adventure design where failure prevents you from going to the next part of the adventure.
Fortunately, the adventure we played had no such bottlenecks, all rooms were self contained events. While it was low on puzzle, it was a great introductory adventure for the system itself.
But, I really saw how the ‘Say Yes’ philosophy enriches the classic D&D experience.
I used a combat to illustrate how an short exploration scene need not to replace combat. Like I said, we must be fair to all player types. It could have resulted in the distant footsteps of an in estigating patrol that the party might prefer to avoid.
On a different note, Chatty warned me that there would hell to pay should any industry reader chose to comment on my guest post. (a little bit of guest/host rivalry going on here) I’m pretty curious as to what his little warning might lead to and he never said anything about cheating. 🙂
It’s really cool to see how you, as a new player, really grokked the zen of a rules-light system based on original editions. That’s awesome!
.-= Chgowiz´s last blog ..The Siege Perilous – Ultima RPG – playtest release =-.
@PM: There you go man, you got the author of the Quick-Start rule to chime in! 🙂 That he happens to be a friend is completely immaterial! 🙂 Apparently mu guest posters are great industry magnets! 🙂
Seriously though, your example was a perfect mix and match for an encounter targeted for multiple types of players. What’s beautiful about older games is that with only one line of text you can create a whole encounter.
And even more interestingly enough, you can do the same in 4e, once the DM starts trusting the rules on Page 42 of the Dungeon master guide and is willing to improv some skill challenges (Chases) and rapid combat (all monsters are minions).
I too am a large fan of exploration and “MacGuyvering” past obstacles. Definately one of my motivators in gaming.
.-= Zzarchov´s last blog ..Making battles epic: THE monster versus A monster =-.
@Chgowiz: Altough my experience is limited, I do have have the advantage of Chatty’s constant jabbering in my ear. That’s a life time of information. 🙂
I’m glad to see that I grokked the concepts put forward by the game. I will be looking forward to trying it again.
@Zzarchov: I’m sure I could use skills instead of items in a modern game… I do have an IQ slightly superior to the dog in my example…. I would still need the DM to present more scenes where those would be useful. I’ve been told that skills rarely have any real impact in a game like 4e. Plus, I’m a prop guy. 🙂
@Chgowiz: You see that love I get from my players! I’m telling you, I’m too soft. 🙂
PM, it seems to me like you’d be a huge fan of Burning Wheel where there’s always a solution, combat is awesome but “serious bid’ness,” characters are meant to be conduits for the player instead of “Oh, my character would do this but I sure as hell wouldn’t,” etc.
Anyhoo. You sound like a good candidate for small-press RPGs like Burning Wheel and Dogs In the Vineyard.
.-= Rafe´s last blog ..Abstract Wealth =-.
@Rafe: Our next RPG for the geekout, if we don’t play S&W again, is going to be Mouse Guard. Maybe that will end up being THE system he was looking for.
As I am wont to say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!”
This really hits the nail on the head. Old School play is all about searching the game, and not the rules, for solutions, and interesting consequences for failure (and sometimes success, too).
Congrats on being part of a great game. 🙂
.-= Brian´s last blog ..Yes They Could! =-.
Though I loved the “just say yes” policy when I was a foolish kid in college working in an improv group, I have my reservations to the rule when it comes to DMing. I revised the rule from “just say yes” to “you can try” and let things succeed or fail on the merits of their plans, or at least the dice. Letting the players succeed whenever they ask can be nice, and can even have strings attached as mentioned, but sometimes moments are most exciting, or defining in their failures, and in my game at least, that needs to be on the table.
I think that ‘say yes’ is not actually letting players steal the sun without work, but rather it’s a simpler (and more positive) way of saying ‘Stop saying you can’t do it!’
The spirit of classic D&D is to say yes to the question ‘Can my PC try to…’ and then require a dice roll if (and only if) failure can lead to a more interesting situation.
Actually, let me rephrase that, the spirit of ALL RPGs that I’d care to play should be compatible with ‘Say Yes’
That, along with the Rule of Cool, are my main guiding principles to GMing a RPG.