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The Kingdom of Corovia: Week 10 Recap

Leaving Leth behind them, the party ventured north at the tail end of the Merchant Prince's caravan.  Their destination: the port city of Argenborough, where they hope the library there may shed some light on the curse they faced in the Pyramid.

Jerome, meanwhile, found himself a captive of Elwer, leader of the Crimson Covenant and former "friend".  Surprisingly, Elwer was content to let bygones be bygones, taking for himself the Shield of Venkatesh and granting Jerome his freedom.  Stopping long enough to spend the last of his gold, Jerome found the message left for him at the Resting Jester, and followed the party north.  Within a couple of days, the allies were reunited, and the journey continued uneventfully until they reached the town of Stonehaven, just east of the Ebonlock Forest.  Findus Saddler, a local farmer, beseeched the party for aid in rooting out a witch.  Local children have been going missing, including FIndus' son, Jorey.  Instead of finding the children or the witch, the local Baron, Jorath Milderen, has closed the gates to the keep.  This was three days ago, and nothing has been heard from the keep since.  Inside there are a dozen or so families who sought refuge, but the locals who remain fear that they are dead.

The caravan has families, too, so the party left them at the Saddler farm with Findus and his wife, Helen Saddler, a quiet woman overcome with grief at the loss of her son.  Heading into town, the party went to see Father Demath Pardhew, a priest of St. Tristan.  He expanded on Findus’ story: most of the townsfolk have left town now, fearing what will happen to their children if they stay.  Those who remain have been quick to point fingers at those who they suspect of witchcraft: Gillian Harley, an old widow who acted as a teacher to some of the children, Gwyneth Brackon, a young woman who has lived alone here in town for less than a year, and Baroness Neres Milderen, childless and never truly at home here in the wilds.

Father Pardhew was quick to downplay such suspicions, pointing out that the local hero Klaus Whitehammer was so convinced of Gillian Harley’s innocence that he had taken up residence with her to ensure she was not harmed by a fearful mob.  The party decided to visit the keep in order to find out why the Baron had closed the gates.

Finding their way inside, the party found a grim scene - every last person in the keep, including the families and children taking refuge, had been quickly and violently killed by some sort of vine, apparently now dormant.  The vine had broken through the stone floor in several places and sought out all living creatures, impaling them and choking them.  The Baron and Baroness were found in their bedchamber, both dead.

Taking the badge of office from the armour of Captain Mac Pardhew, they returned to the Church and told Father Damath Pardhew of his brother’s death.  Mournful but stoic, the priest wordlessly took up his place at the altar and began to pray in silence.

This was a roleplay-heavy session, with only 4-5 player dice rolls in the entire session.  However it showed some good investigative skills from the party and as a GM it was great to sit back and listen to their ideas.  The hard part of being a GM is to write all this cool backstory and not be able to share it.  But when a party starts investigating like this, they uncover the story piece by piece, adding their own ideas into the mix that are often better than the ones I came up with myself.  I’ll endeavour to steal the best bits and lead them down false paths where it’s convenient for the narrative.  Now that they’ve left the Pyramid, I feel like the campaign has much more room to grow, so I’m looking forward to seeing them tackle this in the coming weeks.

If you want to watch the stream, you can find it on The Sound of Plunder Twitch channel.

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Conan by Modiphius Games

Ever since I first saw Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sword in all of his muscled glory, Conan the Barbarian has fascinated me.  It was one of those films that I learned to appreciate anew when I grew up and realized how much effort must have gone into making that film, and how awful it might have been, yet wasn’t.  If you want to know how bad it could have been, look no further than its sequel, Conan the Destroyer, which killed the franchise faster than a broadsword to the face.

Ok, it actually could have been worse - there are plenty of movies in the genre that were.

But Conan the Barbarian was superb, and while it may not have been completely faithful to the original stories of Conan by Robert E. Howard, I feel like the stories owe a lot to the film for introducing a generation of impressionable moviegoers to Howard’s work.

And while I was too young to have seen it at the cinema (I wasn’t actually born yet), I will one day look back and say that I’m old enough to remember when Modiphius Entertainment released the Conan roleplaying game using the 2D20 system.

I’ve let the cat out of the bag now - if you read no further, then at least know that I like this game.  A lot.  If you’re still reading, then let me explain why.

Also allow me to preface the rest of this review with the fact that I’ve only run the quick start adventures - one found on the publisher’s website, and one given away for Free RPG Day 2017.

To Race The Thunder

I downloaded the quick start PDF, To Race The Thunder, from Modiphius’ website a couple of weeks ago, and in between my day job, preparing for two job interviews, running two Savage Worlds games and spending quality time with my wife and kids, I managed to read through the rules and get a feel for the game.  At that point, it still seemed complicated to me, and I thought perhaps I’d bitten off more than I could chew by agreeing to run it for Free RPG Day.

But I arranged for Thom, a good friend of mine, to come over on a Saturday night, and rather than watching England beat Argentina in the rugby, we pretended he was an adventurer in Hyboria while I threw Pictish barbarians his way.  The adventure was ideally designed for 4-6 players, so Thom taking on the Pictish horde on his own had some hilarious consequences.  For instance, I described how the enemies were swarming over a homestead, trapping the family inside, then checked how many there were exactly: 3 for each character.  Oh.  There are three.  They are swarming.  All three of them.

The other hilarious consequence (although I’m sure Thom will disagree) was that in 3 hours of gameplay, 4 characters met their grisly end.  Thom would then pick up a new pregen, who would wander down the road and find the body of the last poor sap to play at being a hero.  It’s a system that feels brutal, but very appropriate to the setting.  When I later played the Free RPG Day quick start - The Pit of Kutallu - there were 4 players, and one still died, kicked to death by pirates.  Players have to learn that things can go very bad, very quickly.

Momentum

I won’t go into detail on the game mechanics, since you can download the PDF and read for yourself.  But I will talk about what seems to be the universally most loved element of the system, Momentum, as well as its counterpart, Doom.

Many systems have some sort of mechanic for what to do when a player rolls above and beyond what they need to succeed.  For instance, in Savage Worlds, when you get a raise on your attack, you deal an extra 1d6 damage.  In Conan, you generate Momentum - tokens that you can use to make things go your way.  This includes rolling extra dice (to increase your chances of success), dealing extra damage, and almost anything you can think of.  If you generate Momentum and don’t use it, it goes into a shared pot that any player can draw from in a moment of need.

Conan is pretty rules light, which I love.  Rather than having a rule for every different thing the players might want to do, the game encourages you to use Momentum.  Want to disarm your opponent?  Use Momentum.  Want to swing on a rope and kick the pirate captain into the sea?  Use Momentum.

The GM has his own resource, too.  It’s called DOOM!  When you need Momentum but there is none in the shared pool, you can instead pay the GM Doom to achieve your goals.  This means it will come back to bite you later, but works surprisingly well at rewarding proactive players.  If your back is to the wall, paying the GM 3 Doom to roll an extra 3 dice on your attack usually pays off - the extra successes you are likely to generate end up as Momentum, so that the needle swings back in your favour.

And certainly the needle does swing,  Wildly.  In the two games I ran, the players would find themselves devoid of Momentum while I sat on a mound of Doom.  A few rounds later and our roles were reversed.  The key way of generating Doom during combat seemed to be reactions, which brings me to the other thing I love about this system.

Reactions

In most systems, defending yourself from harm is a pretty passive experience.  You load up on armour, toughness, parry, or whatever your system calls it, and hope that your opponent does not exceed that number.  While this often represents your character ducking and weaving or actively blocking blows, it becomes uninteresting for the player being hit.

Conan does away with that.  You can choose not to defend yourself, in which case your opponent only needs 1 success to hit you.  This is a good way to get killed quickly.  Alternatively, you can choose to gift 1 Doom to the GM and perform a defense reaction, in which you roll against your parry skill to try and cancel out your opponents successes.  This feels MUCH closer to how parrying should be, especially since parry is a separate skill from fighting, meaning that you can be good at landing blows, but not very good at defending yourself from harm.

And every time you want to defend yourself in the same round, it costs you 1 more Doom than last time.  As a result, most characters will get 1 free parry from carrying a sword or having the right ability, making it easy enough to defend yourself from a single opponent.  But as soon as you find yourself under attack from 3-4 opponents, it starts costing 6-10 Doom every turn just to counter your opponents attacks.  At this point you get the sense that it you don’t deal with them quickly, you are doomed (quite literally).  Even if you do get hit, certain items like shields allow you to actively try and soak the damage, rolling to cancel out damage that would be dealt to you.  Making the player roll dice when they are under attack increases the sense that they are in some measure of control, rather than waiting to be told how many hit points they lose.

Conclusion

This was a short review for a short experience of the game.  I haven’t tried magic, character creation, or any of the stuff that turns this into a campaign rather than a one off adventure.  But just looking at the one off adventure, I was very impressed by what I saw.  My players were equally enthused, talking about the Momentum swing after the game had finished and eager to try again.  That’s when you know you’re onto a winner.  For my players, they didn’t care so much that this was the world in which Conan "trod the jewelled thrones of the earth beneath his sandalled feet”.  They were raving about how fast and frenetic the game was.  What is best in life?  To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the GM!

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The Model Player Part 5: Don’t Metagame

There are mountains of resources out there that help you become a better GM, but I’m not convinced that there are enough telling you how to be a better player.  Some of this stuff I only learned once I started running my own games, so I’m passing it on in the hopes that someone else will benefit from my (debatable) wisdom.  Without further ado, here is part 5 of The Model Player.

Tip 5: Don’t Metagame

This one can be tough. There are many examples of metagaming, some easier to avoid than others.  But they usually center around using your real world knowledge to affect your in-character choices.

Monster Abilities

A classic example is monster weaknesses.  Let’s imagine that you’re playing a farm boy out on his first adventure.  This is your first jaunt beyond the town of Quaintsville, and you head out into a world of adventure.  Whilst delving into a tomb for treasure, you encounter an ooze blocking your path.  You take out your bow and fire a poison arrow at the ooze, but the ooze appears unaffected by the poison!

If you’re familiar with the creature types in Dungeons and Dragons, you’ll know that oozes are immune to poison.  As a player, it’s hard to ignore this knowledge, because to do so would mean wasting in game resources when you know they will not be useful.  It’s reasonable that your character might question whether the poison would affect the ooze, but how about mind controlling effects on a golem?  Or knowing that a treant is immune to critical hits?  Using your meta knowledge of the game assumes that your only goal is to win.  It can be especially frustrating in a group with mixed levels of experience.  Some of the joy of playing is to learn these things through action - the first time you cast lightning bolt at a demon only for it to laugh, unharmed by your pitiful attack, it makes a lasting impression.  You will probably remember that moment for a long time.

Where the more experienced players are constantly providing this knowledge to the newer players, they rob them of this experience.

All in all, though, knowing monster weaknesses is a relatively small problem.  You can’t just consciously forget what you know, so your actions will be influenced by that knowledge whatever you do.  This is really a problem for the GM to provide challenges that are suitably taxing on the party in terms of resource management.  For a very good counter-argument to this form of meta gaming, read the Angry GM’s blog post about it.

GM Tendencies

Certain GMs have certain preferences on how they run their game.  Maybe Bob the GM has just finished painting a new Mindflayer miniature.  It’s natural to suspect that Bob is going to use it in his game at some stage, but don’t spend the entirety of the next session cross-examining every NPC you meet for signs of mental domination.  Either you’re right (in which case you potentially spoiled the dramatic surprise later) or you’re wrong (in which case you wasted time). Either way, letting your knowledge of the GM can ruin the flow of the game for you, your fellow players, and the GM who has so painstakingly prepared the game for you.

Anarchy

Sometimes this one is unintentional, but I’ve known players do this deliberately.  Most often it happens at the start of the adventure.  Imagine your first session with a new group - you’ve all created your characters and the GM has given you the initial plot hook.  A band of goblins have kidnapped the blacksmith’s daughter.  They were last seen heading north out of the village towards the mountains.

The GM is probably telling you to go north.  Go find those goblins and rescue the blacksmith’s daughter.  There will be adventure, and there is probably more to this band of pesky goblins than meets the eye.

But some players don’t like to be railroaded.  Some players will do things to test the boundaries of this world.

“I go south,” says one player.

“I shoot the blacksmith,” says another.

“I stay at the inn and drink myself into a stupor,” says the third.

If you’ve ever played The Stanley Parable, you’ll recognise this behaviour.  In that game, a voice continuously narrates the players actions before they happen.  “Stanley came to two doorways, and walked through the left one.”  Everyone I know who has played this game then proceeds through the right hand door, because people don’t like being told what to do.

This is just as much a problem for the GM to solve as for the players - one of the most common tips GMs are given is “don’t over-prepare”.  But some GMs are better at it than others, and poking and prodding at the edges of the game to look for cracks is likely to make the poor GM want to throw in the towel and never run another game.

Significant / Insignificant

This one is tough.  Sometimes a GM will say something innocuous, like “there are a stack of papers on the desk”.  Immediately the party stops what they were doing and starts reading through the stack of papers.  They assume what the GM said had to be significant.  This is called Chekhov’s Gun - the idea that everything the GM mentions is there for a reason.  This leaves the GM with a dilemma on how to respond.  Consider two responses the GM could make:

“You look through the papers but find nothing significant.”

“You look through the papers and find shipping manifests for various goods coming to the inn.  They date back a few months.  Each one is signed by the innkeep.”

The first response is essentially the GM stating that these papers are unimportant.  This breaks the immersion just a little, because players do not feel there are an infinite number of choices available to them.  These papers are unimportant.  There is nothing to be had from them.

Equally, the latter now makes the players assume the papers MUST be important, because otherwise the GM wouldn’t have described them in such detail.  The party looks through the manifests for the rest of the session, eventually stowing them in a bag and carrying them for the rest of the adventure.

How about the opposite problem - if a GM doesn’t describe something, it mustn’t be important.  Let’s say the group are investigating a disappearance.  They look through the victim’s office, and the GM describes the most obvious features: a desk, a chair, a window, a bookshelf and a patterned rug.  What he does NOT describe are the spots of blood on the rug, because they are difficult to see, hidden as they are by the pattern.  The players should be looking for clues, which hopefully should lead them to the blood spots providing one player says the magic words “I examine the rug more closely”.  But nobody does.  Later the players learn that they missed that clue and someone complains loudly: “you never said there was blood on the rug!”

See the problem?  Really it’s a problem for the GM again, because there should not be only one clue vital to the progression of the story.  If the players miss the clue you left, have it crop up elsewhere.  Maybe they investigate the bookcase.  Have the blood spots there instead and adjust the story accordingly.

But while it may be a problem for GMs, players can help by just immersing themselves into the character.  Does your character walk into the room and just stand there?  No.  They hunt for clues.  And don’t just say.  “I hunt for clues.”  You should be able to describe your actions, not just your intentions.  You sit down at the desk and open the drawers, examining the contents.  You look on the underside of the desk for hidden compartments.  You examine the window frame for damage.  You examine the rug for blood . . . by gods, there’s blood on the rug!

In Summary

Play as your character.  Think about what your character would do.  What would they know?  Act on the information they have.  If your character can see something in game, ask the GM for more information.  Imagine that an audience is watching you and they don’t have access to the same information you have.  Play along with the make-believe.

That’s All Folks

You’re not finished yet, sonny Jim!  Keep your eyes peeled for more player tips.  If you missed it, you can read part 4 here.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

The Model Player Part 4: Don’t Play Other Players’ Characters For Them

There are mountains of resources out there that help you become a better GM, but I’m not convinced that there are enough telling you how to be a better player.  Some of this stuff I only learned once I started running my own games, so I’m passing it on in the hopes that someone else will benefit from my (debatable) wisdom.  Without further ado, here is part 4 of The Model Player.

Tip 4: Don’t Play Other Players’ Characters For Them

In the last post I talked about respecting other players.  This touches on the same point.  Don’t be one of those players that offers unsought advice at every turn.  If a player asks “what do you think I should do?” then feel free to make suggestions.  But don’t start telling the wizard what spells to cast unless you are doing so in character or unless you’re willing to let it go when they say no.  Some GMs don’t mind this sort of thing, but I know a few players who resent being told how to play their character all the time

Take this exchange, for example:

Geoff: I cast Turn Undead. Bob: You should save it for later.  We can totally kill these guys without it. Geoff: We don’t know if we’ll encounter more undead later. Bob: If we do and you’ve used your last Turn Undead then we’ll be screwed.  You’d be better off healing me instead. Geoff: Okay, I cast Cure Light Wounds on Ragnar.

Geoff had a plan in mind.  Regardless of whether or not Bob is right, it is Geoff’s turn and he should be able to make a decision without having it undermined.  This exchange in character may have been more like this:

Geoff: I cast Turn Undead. (As Torvos) “Begone foul creatures!” Torvos casts Turn Undead and the skeletons die Bob: (as Ragnar) “What did you do that for?  I had it under control.”

Notice how much shorter it is?  Because in this instance, Bob knows that Ragnar has no way to stop Torvos casting Turn Undead.  And there isn’t enough time in one round of combat to discuss the pros and cons of a course of action.

There is an exception, which is when your character could logically predict an action and attempt to interrupt it.  In the example above, Ragnar has no way to know Torvos is going to cast Turn Undead, as it only takes a moment to cast.  It happens without warning (unless the player explicitly gives you warning).  But some actions are easier to predict, like when the elven ranger walks up to the closed door, hand outstretched:

Claire: I open the door. Geoff: As she reaches for the handle I put a hand on her shoulder.  (as Torvos) “Wait, it may be trapped.”

This is the kind of action that you could interrupt in real life.  Some GMs would make you roll to see if you stopped Claire’s character in time.

Tactics

One other exception is when you are discussing tactics before an encounter begins. This is called planning, and is different than undermining players' decisions.  If the party would logically be discussing how best to ambush the skeleton patrol, then feel free to hash out ideas in character.  But you shouldn’t be encouraging another player to revise a declared action in light of your opinion.

God-Moding

Definitely DON’T start telling them what their character actually does - this is called god-moding, and is a big no-no.

Bob: Torvos goes into shock from blood loss. Geoff: No he doesn’t. Bob: He got stabbed through the hand, of course he does. Geoff: Torvos is a seasoned veteran.  This is make believe.  He is fine.

Something like this happened to me in a recent game.  The other player was completely serious.  I didn’t feel it was fitting with my character and disagreed, and there was this awkward moment where they insisted that their interpretation was correct.  Your character is sacred, and so is everyone else’s.  The only person who can really make a call about your character other than you is the GM, and usually only with good reason.  That said, sometimes this happens:

Bob: Ragnar jumps off the roof in pursuit of the necromancer. GM: It’s fifty feet up. Bob: Yup. GM: He's already injured and it’s a rocky landing.  It will almost certainly kill him.  Are you really sure? Bob: Yeah.  Ragnar jumps. GM: Ok, Ragnar plummets to the ground. *rolls dice*  The landing breaks both legs and shatters his spine in several places.  Ragnar is dead. Bob: No. GM: What do you mean no? Bob: Ragnar is fine.  He could totally survive that fall. GM: He can’t fly.  He’s definitely dead. Bob: Ok I don’t jump then. GM: Too late.  Ragnar is dead. Bob: No he’s not.

Don’t think this kind of thing happens?  It does.  Don’t god-mode your own characters either.  Accept defeat.

Until Next Time

You’re not finished yet, sonny Jim!  Keep your eyes peeled for more player tips.  If you missed it, you can read part 3 here.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

The Model Player Part 3: Respect the Other Players

There are mountains of resources out there that help you become a better GM, but I’m not convinced that there are enough telling you how to be a better player.  Some of this stuff I only learned once I started running my own games, so I’m passing it on in the hopes that someone else will benefit from my (debatable) wisdom.  Without further ado, here is part 3 of The Model Player.

Tip 3: Respect the Other Players

Some things are obvious - abusive or intolerant behaviour should not be welcomed at any gaming table.  But when I say respect the other players, what I mean is this:  wait your turn.  A lot of players, especially younger players or newer players, want to be in the limelight all the time.  I’ve had to deal with this both as a player and a GM.  A good GM will handle this by making sure that every player is given an opportunity to do something, and that the offending player doesn’t just turn this into a one man show.

But it’s easier said than done - it’s tempting as a GM to focus your attention on the players who are engaging with your story, and often the players guilty of this behaviour are the ones who are engaging the most.  But it’s the other players who need the GM’s help - those shrinking violets who would engage given the chance.  If you as a player continually describe your character’s actions or ask questions of the GM, you are pushing other players aside, many of whom might not be assertive enough to take the reins.

Sometimes you need to force yourself to sit back and let other people control the narrative.  Next time you play, take a look around the table and ask yourself honestly if that player has as much time centre stage as you do.  If the answer is no, make a point to pipe down when they talk.  Give them a chance to make decisions and don’t offer suggestions unless they ask or are clearly at a loss.

Sometimes the story ends up that way, though, especially if the party splits up.  Whenever I find myself as that guy, I usually make a point to apologise to the other players: “sorry guys, I’m hogging the limelight a little here”.  Most players don’t mind, especially if you apologise, but doing so makes it clear that you’re aware of the issue.

Until Next Time

You’re not finished yet, sonny Jim!  Keep your eyes peeled for more player tips.  If you missed it, you can read part 2 here.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

The Model Player Part 2: Consume What Is Offered

There are mountains of resources out there that help you become a better GM, but I’m not convinced that there are enough telling you how to be a better player.  Some of this stuff I only learned once I started running my own games, so I’m passing it on in the hopes that someone else will benefit from my (debatable) wisdom.  Without further ado, here is part 2 of The Model Player.

Tip 2: Consume What Is Offered

No I don’t mean snacks (although they are important).  I mean that if the GM spent a lot of time writing up backstory on the campaign or providing notes between sessions, take the time to read it and absorb it.  The material is put there to enhance your immersion in the game or to provide you with important points to remember whilst playing.  It can be disheartening for a new GM to spend so much time weaving a story and find that players can’t even remember the name of the villain.

That isn’t to say you should have a ton of homework before every game.  If your GM is giving you an encyclopedia-sized tome before the start of the campaign, then maybe ask for the bullet point list.  Often I find that the best way to achieve the level of engagement I want from my players is to do character creation with them individually before the campaign begins.  This usually involves a short 1 on 1 backstory session where we roleplay their introduction to the campaign.  If your GM is willing to do this, it’s a great way as a player to learn exactly the information that your character should know.  Be sure to MAKE NOTES!

The Flip Side: Be a Concise GM

Conversely, if you are a GM, spend your time wisely.  Don’t spend 6 hours writing a thousand year history of your game unless there is a strong chance that the characters would actually learn about it in game or even care.  Try to think about the game from one character’s perspective - they are probably more concerned with day to day existence than in epic battles that were fought hundreds of years ago.

Start with bullet points about what is happening in the game world today.  Then elaborate on the most important points until you have a sketch of what the average inhabitant of your world would know.  Stop here and give it to the players!  Chances are that you will have better ideas during the course of the campaign, and you want to delay giving unnecessary notes to the players now because it will make it harder to change them later.

This is probably more than enough, but if you really want to go to town, just ensure that you have enough notes so that you can confidently relay information to players when appropriate.  Again, use bullet points!  Not only do they save you time, but if you have a better idea later, you haven’t wasted as much time on something you will have to rewrite.

Until Next Time

You’re not finished yet, sonny Jim!  Keep your eyes peeled for more player tips.  If you missed it, you can read part 1 here.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

The Model Player Part 1: Pay Attention

There are certain things I’ve learned over the years about good player etiquette, and I sometimes forget that not everyone is aware of these unwritten rules.  Some of it is intuitive, and some of it I learned by running my own game and observing players from the other side of the GM’s screen.  The rest of it I learned through advice received from other players, usually through the magical medium of the interwebs.

Here I intend to share some of my tips on how to be a “good player”, so that someone else may benefit in the same way I did.  So without further ado, this is my first (and arguably most important) tip to become the kind of player GMs clamour for.

Tip 1: Pay Attention

This one is super important, because it’s not always obvious to players, especially newer ones.  Chances are that your GM has spent an incredible amount of time crafting an adventure that you and your fellow players can enjoy.  I don’t know any GMs that are paid for their time, so they are doing all of this homework for free.

The least you can do as a player is listen to what’s happening.  If the GM asks you what you would like to do on your turn and your response is “so what are we fighting?” then you probably weren’t paying enough attention.  Sometimes you have other distractions, of course.  I play a lot of my games at home and if the kids wake up then my wife may leave the table to put them back to bed.  That sort of distraction is perfectly acceptable.  The distractions I’m talking about are things like this:

Unrelated chatter - This one is probably the most common one. When friends gather round a table, it’s natural for there to be a certain amount of catching up and talking about what is going on in your life.  Try to restrict it to breaks from gameplay, or arrive early to catch up before the game starts.  If you spend time in game talking about other things, you are unintentionally ruining the immersion and killing the pace.

Reading the rulebook - Wait what?  Surely this is a good thing.  Well, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve.  Looking up the spell you want to cast is fine.  But I played a game recently where another player was flipping through one of the GM’s sourcebooks looking at all the cool adventure ideas.  Not only does this potentially prevent the GM from using those adventures with that group, it shows a lack of respect to the rest of the table - you’re saying that reading about the game is more interesting than playing it.

Playing with your phone - If someone calls, sure, take the call but keep it short and call them back later.  Put your phone on silent so you aren’t tempted to respond to messages while the game is in progress.  Definitely don’t sit browsing Facebook or playing Minecraft while the GM is trying to run the game (the Minecraft thing actually happened in a game my wife ran).

Even if you don’t read the rest of the player tips (coming soon!) then remember this one.  It could save your character’s life!

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

Savage Worlds as a D&D Surrogate

It occurs to me that many people who have tried Savage Worlds probably started their RPG experiences elsewhere.  Most likely playing some form of Dungeons and Dragons, since that game is synonymous with the whole tabletop roleplaying genre.

And for anyone who came to Savage Worlds expecting a derivative of D&D, it probably came as a shock to learn that in spite of its flexibility, Savage Worlds does not really have an equivalent campaign setting to the likes of Eberron, Faerun, Golarion etc.  That isn’t to say that you couldn’t utilise one of those campaign settings in your game - Savage Worlds is, after all, designed to be highly adaptable.  But even the Fantasy Companion falls woefully short of recreating the same feel that players get when they play Dungeons and Dragons.

To be clear - I’m not saying that it has to.  And I’m not trying to argue the merits of trying to turn Savage Worlds into D&D.  I can almost hear the cry of “if you want to play D&D then go play D&D!” from the Savage Worlds faithful.  What I’m pointing out is that for players who have known nothing else, this can be a jarring change.  One of the things I loved most as a player (not as a GM, mind you) was the wealth of choice when it came to magic items and spells.  Even though Savage Worlds presents a versatile system to create your own flavour for any existing powers, the cynic in me says that this is akin to handing someone a pencil and paper and saying “now you can make your own spells!”  What I hoped the fantasy companion would provide was a host of configurations of the base rules suited to a fantasy setting.  So rather than saying “here’s bolt, now add on whatever trapping you want”, I want something like “Melf’s Acid Arrow” or “Magic Missile”.  These things just sound cooler.

Maybe I’m just being lazy.  After all, trappings ARE the solution.  One of my players decided she wanted to cast lightning bolts, despite the fact that this lowered the damage by one die type.  It later allowed her to fry four enemies at once when they were stood in a pool of water.  It was easy to make that happen, but a lot of players don’t bother with trappings.

Thankfully someone on Reddit recently pointed me towards Zadmar’s Savage Spellbook.  I’ve come across Zadmar’s work before, but for some reason the Savage Spellbook had slipped under my radar.  But it does exactly what I was looking for, in that it bundles up a bunch of different spells and trappings, giving them cooler sounding names than “Acid Bolt”.  There are a bunch of useful resources in that respect at the bottom of Zadmar’s Savage Worlds page.

The other issue is equipment, although I think the Fantasy Companion does a better job in this respect by adding more armour and weapon options.  In fairness, these are just numbers, but I like the idea that reinforced leather is +3 toughness, unless you are hit with a raise, in which case it’s only +2 (as if the extra D6 damage wasn’t enough).  In terms of magical items, there are a good few to choose from, but what I tend to do as a GM is write a bunch of cool magical items down on flash cards and then hand them out randomly whenever the party loot something big.  This usually avoids the boring “+1 damage” kind of items and forces me to think of interesting mechanics that inventive players will use to break my game at a later date.

Anyway, that’s the end of this train of thought for now.  It’s really just an excuse to link to Zadmar’s Savage Worlds page, since it’s been a valuable tool to me in the past.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

Story vs Kicking Ass

Following on from yesterday’s post about what I enjoy about Savage Worlds as a GM, it got me thinking about what players enjoy and what GMs enjoy.

GMs and players, of course, come in many flavours, but I generally pigeonhole them into one of two categories - dice rollers and story tellers.

So what do people want out of the game?

Dice Roller

As a player - to kick down the door, kill the monster and get the loot. To be a badass.

As a GM - To provide complex tactical challenges for their players and reward them with magic items.

Storyteller

As a player - To be immersed in a world and to interact with its inhabitants. To make an impact in a meaningful way.

As a GM - To create a rich, believable world for the players to interact with. To make the players care about the world and its inhabitants.

As a GM I prefer to be a storyteller, largely because I enjoy the creative side, and I suck at the technical side. But as a player I enjoy both approaches. Maybe I even enjoy dice rolling a little more because it comes with less pressure.

The kind of game I run should largely depend on what kind of players I have in my game.  A good GM should be able to adapt the game to suit the players so that they have a good time.  But as I said, I suck at the technical side, so I tend to favour storytelling regardless.  Usually this meant I would get stressed out when running combat, but recently I found a solution.

Quick Combat

In Savage Worlds, I recently started using the quick combat rules after running a one shot game at a convention. If you're not familiar with these rules, it essentially boils most combats down to a single dice roll for each person. You describe what you want to do in combat and make a roll, while the GM rolls for the monsters.  Whoever got the most combined successes wins, and you describe the outcome together.

It worked really well in some respects - the game kept a good pace throughout, which allowed the players to experience more content.  Because quick combat boils down to a single roll, it can become a bit samey, and combat edges suddenly become less useful.  I hate the thought that I made a choice as a GM that robs my players of whatever cool thing made their character a badass in combat.  Ideally I wanted to do a regular combat encounter (what I call tactical combat) as the game's finale, but time ran out on me and we did it with the quick combat rules instead.

Now in this case, I felt bad, because I had provided the characters for the convention, and due to using quick combat, some of them had cool abilities that just never got used.  The quick combat rules are deliberately simple, so often the players just pick fighting, shooting or spell casting, then roll.

It was a guns heavy setting and I tried to make each character have a theme - something they excelled at.  One guy specialised in hand to hand combat.  But it rarely came up - he made a couple of fighting rolls but had a few cool edges that never got used.  I had unintentionally excluded that player from the game in some small way by making a character that could not be utilised fully in my game.

Lead By Example

Maybe this wouldn’t happen in a regular game.  I know one GM in particular who is a dice roller, and nobody bothers with high charisma or lots of backstory.  Who cares about Knowledge (Architecture) when you’re fighting dragons and stealing treasure?

And for my regular games, this makes quick combat a blessing.  As a storyteller GM, I sometimes struggle to engage my dice rolling players (again, a good GM would adapt the game to suit the players, but I’m stubborn like that).  Quick combat means you spend less time fighting monsters and more time investigating mysteries.  This encourages investment into non-combat skills.  If I provide an environment that emphasises storytelling, my players will hopefully follow suit.  This means I have to talk in character as often as possible, describe the environment in detail and talk in terms of story rather than mechanics.

It does mean, however, that if I only ever provide quick combat, then nobody will ever invest in combat skills.  I don’t like that much better, so the compromise (and I think this is the point of quick combat) is to only use it when you don’t need to fight through the encounter blow by blow.

Get to the Point...

It comes down to this: if your players are storytellers, use quick combat to breeze through combat they shouldn't care about; combat that is a foregone conclusion.  But when it comes to the boss fight, relish the chance to do something cool and take your time with combat.  Don't remove tactical combat altogether, because then a whole host of edges and powers become pointless. But by de-emphasising tactical combat, you may find that your players engage with the story more and you get more time at the table to tell it rather than just rolling dice.

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

Savage Worlds vs D20

Ok, so this post is not supposed to be as confrontational as the title implies.  It occurred to me this morning that what I love about Savage Worlds as a GM might not be the same as what my players love about it.

To explain, the current Kingdom of Corovia campaign actually spawned out of a Pathfinder campaign I ran in late 2015 on Roll20.  At that time, I’d run more games than played them, but was not really experienced enough playing Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 to be a really good GM.  I wasn’t terrible, but I spent far too much time looking up rules, partly because my players were fairly savvy on the mechanics of the game and I didn’t want to make any mistakes.  Maybe I should have just used the golden rule and made a quick ruling, but hindsight, as they say is 20/20 (or 50/50 in my case).

I digress.  I also spent a lot of time prepping each session.  And I mean a LOT of time.  One of the great things about Roll20 is that you don’t need a huge table and lots of expensive scenery to create a sense of immersion.  Instead you can buy a Heroic Maps PDF for the price of a sandwich and use some of the free player/monster tokens available on Roll20.  I did precisely that, and then spend a long time putting together dungeons with modular map tiles, populating them with monsters and NPCs (and treasure), adding stats to all of those critters in Roll20, tweaking macros, and so on and so forth.

Then one of two things would happen - either the group would skip past a lot of the content I had so painstakingly prepared, or they would get bogged down in it.  Now this isn’t a system specific problem - you can over-prep in just about any system.  But the amount of prep required for Pathfinder is fairly high for a novice GM.

So I decided to switch to Savage Worlds, where I could spend less time prepping - most of the time I don’t even write up stats for the bad guys.  I just pick the die type I feel like rolling when the encounter starts.  This means I worry less about the players skipping past content, because I didn’t invest so much time in it.  And the players don’t get so bogged down because combat in Savage Worlds is not a war of attrition like it is in Pathfinder/D&D.

It does still mean I have to prep a lot of content, though, because the players are going to breeze through it faster.  But I tend to spend more time prepping story elements than working out the exact hit modifier for a skeleton captain with a +2 longsword and bracers of giant’s strength.

So one of the things I really love about Savage Worlds is that I don’t have to spend so much time prepping it.  But what do the players care?  I’ve never actually played Savage Worlds, only run it (which highlights how easy it is to run), so most of my best experiences as a player have been using Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder.  And I love getting loot, levelling up or casting a cool spell.  I wonder sometimes whether my players get the same kick out of Savage Worlds.  It seems like there are less feats/edges, less magic items, and less spells (which lack any real flavour as described - you have to add trappings for that).  There are no real character classes either.  Does this make playing Savage Worlds less fun than playing Pathfinder?

I realise this is very subjective and dependent on the experience you have in either game.  Ultimately I feel the game is about the story you tell as a group, and I feel like faster combat = more story time.  But sometimes people just love to roll dice.