When I’m thinking about something, I’m the kind of guy who likes to get to the initial, true heart of a matter. I’ll spend hours peeling back layer after layer looking for the real core reason for something. For better or worse, first causes are important to me. So when, a couple days ago, Mediocre Tales posted about D&D being a state of mind, the post kicked off a small inkling about role playing games, and just games in general, in the back of my mind. That small seed of an idea has grown over the course of a few ponderings.

Seeds:
The inkling started with my thinking about role playing games and how gameplay within them is typically referenced. The choice of words we use to describe a game or a game situation are key. Here’s a few examples you might overhear someone say when talking about a RPG:

• We explored the tomb.
• I found a great magic item.
• I had a great opportunity to explore my character.
• We discovered the villain was only a sock puppet to the real BBE.
• We uncovered an ancient cult bent on returning the Old Ones to their former glory.

Patterns and signs:
See the pattern? Explored, Found, Discovered, Uncovered… It’s all making sense now. There’s a more basic, deeper reason we play games; and it’s been in our collective (sub) conscious long enough that we’ve been speaking words to its effect so often that they’ve lost their impact. I’m here to restore that reason to its proper place – namely at the position of first causes.

Everyone loves a Mystery:
Mysteries are fascinating things. We love them because they’re unknown to us. We love them because they contain the possibility to surprise. They may not actually surprise, but the mere fact that they might is powerful enough to keep us engaged. We love a good plot twist, an unexpected action, an ending we didn’t anticipate. That’s a powerful hook… somewhere deep in our makeup is a desire to be surprised. We’re entertained by surprise and devote lots of time and energy to weaving mystery into our entertainment activities.

Let’s play pretend:
I watch my son as he plays with the plastic figures he calls his toys and it’s fascinating to me that the he never begins playing make believe with a plan laid out on how the game will progress. Each moment the dinosaur could suddenly gain super powers, or maybe the smallest bug surprises all the other bugs by becoming invincible. His simple character development may be crude, but he’s exploring how his character interacts with the game environment no less than any gamer or actor. These ideas weren’t in his initial concept of play, they were added later; his game evolved. One might say he is exploring the gamespace he’s created where the ending is a mystery that unfolds before him as he plays… I’d be in that camp.

Roll!:
Why do we use random number generators in games? Ever wonder that? Why have dice or shuffle the cards face down or spin a spinner at all? Most players will tell you it’s because it makes the game more interesting. That’s a powerful statement and another clue to our first cause: It turns out that randomization leads to interest. But why?

At their core the dice (or other random factor generators) are agents of chaos. They can’t be trusted to perform at any moment. Until their result is discovered, their result is a mystery. You might say that the dice are what seperates a game from a book. Turn to the end of any book and the result is the same no matter how many times you read it. Even those Choose Your Path books end the same if you make the same choices. By adding the agents of chaos we find the ending to be different (either greatly or subtlely) every time. The ending is a discovery and the play is the exploration of the path to the end.

Why we play:
So in the end we play because we enjoy a mystery and every game is a mystery containing numerous small mysteries. Games are a process of exploration on our way to discovery. And that’s why we play the game. Because it’s all about exploring and discovery.

Mysteries are waiting; Go explore! Go discover! Go Play!

Tags: advice, Board Game, Card Game, computer game, game, Musings, rpg

So this evening as we prepared for bedtime… if you have kids I’ll hazard that you know the drill; brush your teeth, wash your face, get your ‘jammies on, etc. Usually followed by cries of, “I’m not tired.” and the ever-popular stall tactic, “I’m thirsty!”… my son informs me he’s made a new game and wants to test it out.

Now for the record, his games up to now have been little more than the beginnings of rpg’s, perhaps even more like the crude, proto-larp everyone knows “The Let’s Pretend Game” where we each take a roll and pretend we’re that. Usually one of us is a tiger or lion and the other (I’ll let you guess who) gets to be a dinosaur of some flavor. But tonight he really surprised me by taking a game he knows and twisting it into something just different enough to be at the least a unique variation and possibly a whole different game… and this time the game was both fun and surprising.

Take the game of Memory (or Concentration if you prefer) and add a single die. Any die will do. We used a standard 6-sided for our game. The rules of the game are not changed, just the number of cards a player is allowed to turn over on their turn. According to my son, the game is played thusly: You roll the die on your turn. You get to turn over that number of cards and if you get a match you get to roll again.

When questioned on what happens if you roll a one, he informed me that you only get to turn over one card. I challenged him on that since it meant that you cannot make a match but can possibly study a single card. He agreed and informed me that was the way it should be. An interesting change from his usual fare since the question didn’t create a new rule or create a change of all the rules.

That’s it, a simple new variation on a classic favorite which can turn into a surprising game.

Surprising how, you ask? Like this: At the end of the game, only 2 cards (and therefore one match) were left on the table. It was my turn and based on the situation it was obvious I would win should I roll any number (or nearly any number.) Yep, you guessed it. I rolled a one and had to pass the die to my son. He gloated for a moment, grinned in anticipation of his impending success and promptly rolled a one. Laughing about his luck, he passed the die to his sister and she promptly cleared the cards from the table. We laughed about how it all turned out… in my opinion a perfect ending to any game.

Congratulations to my son for taking something he knew and twisting it just a touch into something else that’s both fun and surprising. He’s asleep now but I’ll have to ask him tomorrow what he calls his game. And for the record, kudos to my son for completing the development of a game before me. Looks like the bar has been raised. I better get my act together.

Tags: Card Game, Concentration, game, Game Design, larp, Memory, rules

The title pretty much sums up a little something I tried to do in the March Convergence supers game we played with the KORE rules. The basic premise is this: When the players all start to get that glazed, clueless look and start shrugging their shoulders, throw some bad guys at them and reintegrate them into the game.

In point of fact, I did this a number of times during the game; most notably at the very beginning. 

The game started with the characters heading to the Museum of Antiquities to investigate a robbery of sorts and getting sidetracked by a bank heist. Instant involvement, just add dice and foes. – KO

And it worked rather effectively. Any time the players started to loose their way, I simply tossed in some baddies and let the heroes trounce some nefarious foes. Once the dust and rubble was cleared, new avenues of investigation seemed to bubble up from the adrenaline.

I think the tactic would work well in quite a few genres. So the next time your investigators / superheroes / gumshoes / super spys / etc. get that glazed ham look in their eyes and begin to fidgit at the table, just toss some thugs their way and let them roll the dice. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Tags: advice, Convergence, game, KORE rpg, Musings, rpg, Superhero, technique

While not exactly what I anticipated, and a bit surprising to boot, the March get-together was a fantastic success in my book. Four games were played, of which I ran 2, we traded some secrets to theme and pacing, everyone seemed to have a good time, we covered the gambit of genres, and we all talked about doing it again next year.

Game #1 consisted of an old-school Boot Hill game run by Mark in which we were aboard a Kansas train that got robbed. Awesome fun combined with deadly Boot Hill mechanics. I’ll scan in and post my character “Three Finger Jim” soon.

Game #2 was the suspenseful and deadly, “You’re All Going to Die” run by me. Characters were assigned by random selection of Pinochle cards. The players took on the roles of B-movie victims in a no-win situation. I can’t say enough how much fun it was to run this scenario. So much so that I’m going to do this again next year… I mean who can’t come up with a slasher setting to put high school students into?

Game #3 was a 3rd Edition D&D game run by Luke. Let me tell you, we were seriously outmatched. And yet it was still a blast to try to pit our collective wits against his dragons and that dracolich… that’s right, dracolich. Luke always did have a nack for bringing out the big guns. And these guns were beyond compare.

Game #4 was a KORE quick and dirty mash-up Superhero game. Lots of fun until the end when I couldn’t find any way of ending the thing nicely after being outwitted by the 3 players. Someone inform me how to make a good ending of a summoning that has the summoner sent into low Earth orbit, the sacrifice snatched away and sent to the hospital, and the summoning locale buried under a metric ton of steel and iron… The best parts of the game were in using a technique of throwing a fight at the players every time they got stumped.

All in all a great success. I learned a lot and am looking forward to next year’s Convergence.

Tags: Boot Hill, Characters, Convergence, D&D, game, KORE rpg, rpg, Setting, Superhero, technique

So I had this idea of how to quickly assign generic teenager roles to players by using a Pinochle deck. Basically have the players each draw a single card from the deck with results determined as follows:

Spades – Fighters and physical peeps
9 – Freshman squad member
10 – Sophmore squad member
J – Junior squad member
Q – Senior Head Cheerleader
K – Senior Squad Quarterback
A – Perform any Physical feat once perfectly

Diamonds – Money peeps
9 – Freshman
10 – Sophmore
J – Junior
Q – Miss Money
K – Mr. Perfect
A – Perform any item/cash related feat once perfectly

Clubs – Partiers
9 – Freshman
10 – Sophmore
J – Junior
Q – Queen of Raves
K – Party Animal
A – Perform any stamina related feat once perfectly

Hearts – Influence peeps
9 – Freshman
10 – Sophmore
J – Junior
Q – Senior Class Homecoming Queen
K – Senior Class President
A – Perform any influence feat perfectly once

Note that if a player draws an Ace, that player draws again while still keeping an “Ace up his/her sleeve” to perform a single action from that suit perfectly. Also note that the frosh, soph, and junior roles are left open-ended for the player to define.

Well, that’s my idea.

Tags: Characters, Chargen, Convergence, game, mechanics, rpg, rules, system

In light of my desire to try this: You’re all going to die.

I’ve decided that for the March trip, I’ll be bringing each player a small flashlight. When we play “those meddling kids” I’ll turn off the lights and require that everyone play by flashlight. If your character dies, you must turn off your light.

Has anyone done anything like this? Does anyone have any advice? It’s kind of Survivor-esque, which (thought a cheesy show) is the “pick ‘em off one by one” feel I want to capture. I’m hoping to tone the game very Call of Cthulhu-esque without making the spiral to madness and oblivion so pervasive.

Tags: advice, Call of Cthulhu, Convergence, game, horror, rpg, Setting

You know how everyone always talks about getting together with the old gang and just spending a weekend gaming?

You know how everyone thinks that’s a GREAT idea!

You know how everyone would jump at the chance to be a part of it?

You know how nobody ever takes the initiative to just set it up?

You know how much that really sucks?

Well, I got tired of it and just set it up. Surprisingly it wasn’t hard at all. Two phone calls and I had two players confirmed. After one player made another call, the players were set at three.

So in March I’ll be playing again face-to-face over a table for a whole weekend. No distractions, no excuses. It’ll either work out better than expected, or fail miserably. Either way, I’m glad I set it up.

I plan to turn the players loose on playtesting the ruleset and see what works and what breaks. It ought to be quite the experience.

So in light of the forthcoming gaming, I’m going to use this blog to codify my setting ideas, final rule tweaks, and even consider offering the alpha rules as a free download. Stay tuned for a flury of posts.

I’ve come to call our get-togethers Convergence… check out related posts in that category for all the grisly details. –KO

Tags: Annoyances, Convergence, game, KORE rpg, playtesting, rpg, rules, Setting

In going over the improvement mechanics of the game, I found myself not really liking the proposed changes to the improvement mechanics. Specifically, I really didn’t like how more and more dice would be thrown just to limit hyper-inflation of skills. So in the rewrite, I went back to my initial imrovement mechanics. Simple to follow, and less dice to throw.

Namely:

Flash of Brilliance Improvement Mechanic
Intital Score: FOB Chance x Chance to beat current score = Chance to improve

1: 10% x 90% = 9%
2: 10% x 80% = 8%
3: 10% x 70% = 7%
4: 10% x 60% = 6%
5: 10% x 50% = 5%
6: 10% x 40% = 4%
7: 10% x 30% = 3%
8: 10% x 20% = 2%
9: 10% x 10% = 1%
10: 10% x 0% = 0%

And:

Trial and Error Improvement Mechanic
Score: Success Chance x Chance to beat current score = Chance to improve
1: 10% x 90% = 9%
2: 20% x 80% = 16%
3: 30% x 70% = 21%
4: 40% x 60% = 24%
5: 50% x 50% = 25%
6: 60% x 40% = 24%
7: 70% x 30% = 21%
8: 80% x 20% = 16%
9: 90% x 10% = 9%
10: 100% x 0% = 0%

That’s the way is should be – at least in my mind.

Tags: Flash of Brilliance, game, improvement, KORE rpg, Learning, mechanics, reward, rpg, rules, Skills, system, Trial and Error