Draconis is an annual Gaming Convention held in Montreal. Run by a group of dedicated gamers, the con attracts a little less than 100 people to play mostly RPGs, some board/card games and attend seminars. Montreal is a very Indie-friendly city and this year the con goers were served with some top notch guest such as:
- Vincent Baker: Creator of the games Dogs in the Vineyard, In a Wicked Age, and many others.
- Robert Bohl: Creator of the podcast The Independant Insurgency and of the game Misspent Youth.
- Luke Crane: creator of the games Burning Wheel, Burning Empires and Mouse Guard.
- Joshua A. C. Newman: Creator of the games Shock: Social Science-Fiction and Under the Bed.
- Sean Punch: Line editor for GURPS at Steve Jackson Games.
- Lucien Soulban: Freelance writer for White Wolf, Guardians of Order and Ubisoft.
(Yeah, I removed my name from that list, it would have been awkward).
All in all, I had a lot of fun. What I’d like to do is relate some highlights, anecdotes and lessons I’ve learned from it all. I have no idea of the format or the rate at which I’ll post all this. So here goes.
Swords & Wizardry (Quick-Start Rules, English), Friday Night
#1: As players sit down to play, a young tween/teenager sits to my left. Some of the players have a passing worried look before anglo-saxon stoicism takes over. The young player is fidgety and excited, which I didn’t mind (I was a high school teacher 10 years ago). During character generation (he wanted a halfling, so I created one with a bonus with slings and stealthy movement) he wrote ADHD Thief as his class…
Chatty: What did you just write there?
Kid (quickly picking an eraser): Huh, nothing!
Chatty: No, No, it’s cool that you did. Since you’ll always be looking everywhere getting distracted, I’m going to give you the possibility to spot shiny/hidden things before everyone else does.
Kid: Shiny!
20 minutes later his PC was dead.
#2: As the party was investigating the large Grinning Demon idol holding a bowl with a floating flame in it…
Dwarf Fighter (played by an old timer): Hey that’s familiar
ADHD Halfing: I get behind and look for shiny stuff
Chatty: You notice that something’s written at the base of the statue.
Halfing: What does it say?
Chatty: It says, “E.Otus”
Halfing: Huh?
Dwarf: Ha! I like Easter eggs.
#3 The death tool of this adventure was atrocious, 7 PCs died for 6 players and at a certain point some PCs had 2-3 Hirelings each. Surprisingly a 2 hp fighter managed to make it about 80% through with clever use of arrows and meat shields.
#4 I don’t care what the grognards are saying, I’m bothered by out of spell Magic Users. While it’s fun to explore a dungeon, I always remain lukewarm to low level Vancian casters. At least the Cleric can turn undead at will, but an out of spell level 1 MU has limited options in combat (yes they can do other stuff, but so can all other PCs and Hirelings).
#5 Putting a gridded Battlemap in front of new school players automatically make’s everyone’s mind conform to modern game assumptions, I had to fight this by telling players they could do a lot more than just ‘shift and attack’.
#6 The power of ‘saying Yes’ shines brightest in this game. Just acting on what the players asked both good and bad, lead to some incredible role playing and funny situations. Like a Stoner Priest statue willing to exchange a few gems and a bag of magic weed hidden in a secret compartment for some munchies.
Statue: Man, I’m like really hungry. Haven’t eaten in like 700 years ya know? You got some Iron Rations dude? Oh man, I used to love those!
#7: 10-foot Generation Gap…
Chatty: All the statues of this hall have glowing eyes.
ADHD Halfling #3: I wanna enter the hall and look for stuff!
Elf Fighter: Wait, take that (Throws a 10′ pole)
Halfling :” Shiny! I use it to stab a statue in the eyes!”
Rest of party : “You’re doing it wrong!!!!!”
All in all, a great first day.
I just added 2 new lessons/highlights from the Friday night game… they’re quite funny.
So speaking of the battlemat causing the game to become shift and swing, do you have any idea how to move away from that? I’ve been DMing for a long time, but the past 5 years I’ve been playing with people who are munchkins and tactical combat people who only want to shift and swing. I have been trying to get back into more imaginative play, but I’m floundering.
Do you have any suggestions or exercises that could help me break the habit?
I know you haven’t quite gotten to it yet in your posts but wanted to say that it was very awesome of you to explain the pro’s and con’s of 4E to me and my group in your second panel on Saturday.
.-= Gordon´s last blog ..Draconis and Poll Summary =-.
@chatty & OrangeYngvi: I don’t use battlemats with S&W. I may use some scratch paper behind the screen if I need to keep track of positions, but players only get my descriptions and their own imaginations.
I think I’m with you on this one, but not sure what to do about it.
I wish I would’ve been there. The young fellow must’ve been a sight to remember. (Also, he’ll be blogging about this in 10 years, calling it super-oldschool and shedding a tear for teh good old pre-nuclear-apocalypse days)
Sounds like you had a good time. It’s bugging me that I didn’t get the in-joke without wikipedia. Guess it’s all experience.
To OrangeYngvi: Let enemies attack them creatively, using terrain and things the players haven’t thought of, force them to adapt. When they’ll outwit you with their creativity you’ll be sorry you tried! 🙂
Battlemats are for the weak anyway, in my day we only used graph paper and pencils, had to go get it from the only office-supply shop in town, barefoot, 5 miles up & down a hill and LIKED IT.
This is some great writing and hilarious psychological insight right here, Chatty: “As players sit down to play, a young tween/teenager sits to my left. Some of the players have a passing worried look before anglo-saxon stoicism takes over. ” Cracked me up.
I know I said like 8 times during the con, but watching that kid play in your game gave me so much joy. He was so friggin’ psyched! He was having such a good time I thought his head might explode. It truly warmed my heart to see a young geek really getting his game on like that.
.-= walkerp´s last blog ..episode 5.5 – special Draconis episode 1 – an interview with the organizers =-.
I’m curious as to what you expected out of your players with the battle map. I guess myself and my players haven’t moved much past move and slash. What are you expecting from the players?
.-= Tyson J. Hayes´s last blog ..Character Considerations: Naming Your Character =-.
Combat rounds last 1 minute in S&W and PCs can afford to move around the battle map, climb on things, retreat and such. They forget that they can hit stuff 10′ away from them (on a 5′ per square grid).
I houseruled that leaving combat only got you one attack from monsters, no more so PCs eventually started being more strategic rather than tactical..
In Hindsight, I shouldn’t have used a battlemap.
Couple of thoughts:
“#4 I don’t care what the grognards are saying, I’m bothered by out of spell Magic Users. While it’s fun to explore a dungeon, I always remain lukewarm to low level Vancian casters. At least the Cleric can turn undead at will, but an out of spell level 1 MU has limited options in combat (yes they can do other stuff, but so can all other PCs and Hirelings).”
It’s a very valid complaint. If you look around, you might find some good house rules on that. Personally, I maintain that 0-level spells were one of the best innovations D&D ever had, if only because they gave you a couple of magicky shenanigans to play with after that Sleep spell was gone.
A low-impact trick I’ve personally used (very successfully) to combat this is to give the wizard (either as gear they can buy, or in an early treasure haul) a wand of fairly weak fire bolts: A charged item where a single target saves or takes 1d3 damage. Make sure it is priced like and lasts at least as long as a shortbow and ammo – Call it 40 gp, and have it hold as many charges as a full quiver does arrows. It only does about half the damage of the bow but still has its own unique uses, because it beats any weapon against armored enemies and can set things on fire from a distance. (Plus, its not like 1st-level enemies have that many hit points anyway)
I tried that on a young cousin of mine in 3rd edition. The wand had 40 charges and shot 1d3-damage jets of green flames any time she said “Alakazam!” Her 1st-level sorceress actually preferred using the wand in combat because she hated “…wasting my good spells on stuff those guys can just fight.” (Her words!)
Another house rule I’ve heard of people using is to let wizards use swords, but still no shields or armor. I like this one because finally Gandalf makes sense as a PC, but I’ve yet to try it myself. I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work, though.
—
“#5 Putting a gridded Battlemap in front of new school players automatically make’s everyone’s mind conform to modern game assumptions, I had to fight this by telling players they could do a lot more than just ’shift and attack’.”
This is very true. If this bugs you, but you still want to use a battlemap, one thing that I’ve found helps is to use an ungridded map. In my experience, if you put a map in front of them, people will relate best to the things they can see. If the grid dominates the map – and because they span the whole thing, they usually do – they’ll relate to the grid. But without having the 5′ squares dominating their vision, players will instead cue more closely to any actual objects you draw on the map.
Which is why instead of drawing rooms with grid squares in mind, it helps to envision the layout and furnishings like a movie set, and draw them on the map (badly, if need be). Fill that empty space with some chairs, altars, barrels, crates, bushes, pillars, stairs, or whatever. Your PCs will use those as landmarks instead of gridlines, and almost always start trying to figure out how to use them. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn a cliff or a balcony on a map without *somebody* trying a Death From Above shenanigan.
Gotta say, too, I really like that one-parting-shot-limit rule. I might have to try it sometime.
“ADHD Halfling #3”
Did I read that right? He died (at least) twice and kept recycling the same character. There must be a whole clan of ADHD halflings camped outside the dungeon 😀
Glad to hear everyone had fun.
.-= Colmarr´s last blog ..Character Concept: Elf fighter =-.
@Rob: great tricks… you’ll see I did something similar in the second S&W game I GMed. And thanks for the kudos on the parting shot rule… I owe it to Chgowiz who did something similar when I played in his game.
@Colemar: Yeah, he played 3 PCs and all died… (or ended up asleep at the bottom of a pit). Heck, the Dwarf fighter even swung #1 as a weapon after he dropped at 0 HP.
I had all new PCs arrive as new adventurers coming from somewhere else in the dungeon.
@OrangeYngvi – Something that worked for my groups was to use a tape measure or ruler to measure distance (on the old 25mm/inch = 1 square metric) of any floorplan. Suddenly players were taking tactical risks, judged ranged combat by eye and moved diagonally without slowing to half speed. Don’t think it’ll work for 4E as it’s heavily based on square-based stuff but other editions benefit and it makes aerial combat much more interesting.
As for getting your munchkins into more imaginative stuff; I agree with with Trabant and Rob’s ideas on set dressing. Having an NPC demonstrate the rewards of doing so and giving PCs the same opportunities can coax people out of their rut… video game combination moves provide all kinds of inspiration – just make sure you avoid accidental TPKs when having a fight in a storeroom with lamp oil barrels in it!
Using the occasional riddle or simple puzzle encounter can also work wonders as well as using combat powers in non-combat ways. One of my personal faves was having a locked door made of bones that summons 2-5 skeletons to attack anyone trying to pick the lock but that can be turned or rebuked by a cleric to open.
.-= satyre´s last blog ..play vs. story =-.
“Don’t think it’ll work for 4E as it’s heavily based on square-based stuff”
Actually, I think it would work perfectly for 4e if you agree on what distance equals “1 square”. 1 inch is the obvious answer for those on the imperial. 2cm might be easier for the metric gamer (although most people into tabletop wargames are used to inches anyway).
An Area 1 Burst within 10 because a 1″ radius circle within 10″ of the caster.
A close burst 2 power attacks all targets within 2″ of the caster.
The only real complications that I foresee are:
(1) close blasts, but they can be pretty accurately modelled by preparing a 90 degree segment of a circle of the appropriate radius; and
(2) OAs, but there’s pretty simple too once you realise that melee range is 1″ and reach 2 is 2″ etc…
.-= Colmarr´s last blog ..The H Bomb =-.
Hah! Colmarr, if memory serves, a couple of older editions handled Burning Hands and Cone of Cold exactly like your solution to (1). The whole 1″ thing has a long and storied tradition in wargaming.
Chatty, I just responded via IM, but wanted to put this here – the answer to 1 shot MUs are scrolls and potions. I am going to have NPC mages offer to “tutor” low level PC mages – make scrolls available for side quests and costs, but it widens the field of available items, similar to the wand. It won’t be free, but it will work. Of course, this will entail PCs having the opportunity to do something similar when they are high enough level.
I had a very similar experience with a young man – he was all over the place! It was a bit harder with him, as the rest of the group ended up being more annoyed than amused, so I had to gently teach this young man some social group mechanics.
My answer to battle mats? I don’t use ’em. I have minis as marching order and I use the tiles/mats only when players request them or it’s an intense sort of combat, or a set piece that I want to highlight.
.-= Chgowiz´s last blog ..The Land of Two Rivers – General Concepts =-.