Revisiting the Open Tabletop

At various points I've mused on the possibility of setting up an "Open Tabletop" - a game where there is no expectation that any given player will come to any given session but where it can go ahead regardless, provided there's a quorum of players. It strikes me that I've actually taken some steps towards this with my current "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" series, although with the caveats that I mentioned in my previous post - that it would be better for people to use their own custom characters rather than the crew of Serenity. (The crew of Betty works as an interim step, but even that's not quite ideal.)

Firefly is actually an ideal game for this concept, since the game doesn't have too many fixed roles (so you don't run into problems if no Cleric shows up), and since each session constitutes an "episode", thus allowing for some shuffling of the pack between times.

But I did have one problem with the construction: if you want an Open Tabletop, ideally you want it set up so that any member of the group can drop in or out as they wish. And with there being sixty members of the group, how do you square that with a Firefly being able to transport maybe a dozen in even cramped quarters? Not to mention that there are only half a dozen or so crew positions?

After some thought, I now think I have the solution. What you need is some mechanism that allows for characters to come and go from the ship regularly and without further explanation. My first thought was that they should be passengers, but that stretches credulity quite quickly, as passengers are usually going from one fixed destination to another - they're less likely to keep hopping on and off.

But a better solution, I think, has the remaining characters be agents of "Mister Wolfe" - a semi-legitimate 'businessman' and fixer who employs lots of agents for lots of work, some of it legitimate. For various reasons, his agents would have wide latitude in how they carry out his instructions - they have a job to do, but it's not all-consuming to the exclusion of everything else.

And so the PCs would be split into two groups: some would be formal members of the crew with a specific designated role (excluding the Captain - see below), and some would be agents of Mister Wolfe.

The boat itself would be half owned by Mister Wolfe, with whichever of his agents are present speaking on his behalf, and half owned by the crew (again, excluding the captain). This will give all players present an equal say in what the boat does, where it goes, and if they deviate from their stated agenda.

The Captain is an exception to all of this. That role would be reserved as an NPC, and would have no ownership of the boat either in his own right or on behalf of Mister Wolfe. This has three effects: it means that the tenor of the game doesn't dramatically shift between those occasions when the captain's player is present versus those when he is not; it allows those players who are present to determine the actions of the captain by virtue of their authority over him; and it eliminates any perceived heirarchy amongst the PCs.

And that would seem to be that. The only remaining questions become: when to kick this off, and whether to keep back some of the pre-generated episodes for use with this campaign rather than using them all for "Firefly: the Lost Episodes"?

Firefly: Wedding Planners

So, last night was the first of what will hopefully be several Firefly one-shot games. The Crew were hired by Baron Optimus Fairchild to transport his daughter Lilianna to her wedding on the luxury liner Rim's Dream. Naturally, things didn't go smooth when it emerged that the young lady didn't actually want to marry her intended, and the Crew was thus involved in all manner of antics, involving pirates and bodyguards, true loves, and of course the pursuit of cold, hard cash.

It was a fun game, with four players plus myself. The players took on the roles of Mal, Inara, Wash, and the man they call Jayne. Some reflections:

Pacing

I messed up a little on the pacing, in that acts one and two of the adventure were a little drawn out, meaning that acts three and four were correspondingly rushed. This all worked out okay in the end, but it wasn't exactly ideal. For future episodes of the series I'll need to look at that; surely it's possible to fit the equivalent of a 45-minute TV episode into three hours?

(Of course, it's possible that part of the issue was unfamiliarity with the system. In theory, we won't have to revisit the rules at the start of future sessions, and the whole will run just that little more smoothly.)

Characters

Surprisingly, I felt that the crew of Serenity actually made for poor PCs. The main issue was the juxtaposition between playing the established characters versus the players wanting to make them their own. For the most part this was fine, but it didn't sit quite right. Oddly enough, the crew of Betty just don't have that issue, probably because they are sufficiently obscure to negate any concerns about playing them 'right' - people can just get on with playing them as they see fit.

There was one other issue, and it was the same problem I've been having with Sabra: some of the characters are very specialised and don't easily fit too many plots. Specifically, in the case of last night's game, Wash seemed to spend an awful lot of time in the cockpit of Serenity and not doing a whole lot.

My suspicion here is that Wash is best used in concert with Zoe, so that the two characters can bounce off one another. Likewise Kaylee, who is another very specialised character, probably works best if Simon is also involved. And Simon really needs either Kaylee or River to tie him to the group. River is probably best used as an NPC in most cases.

(The other characters all seem to be pretty good at standing alone: be it the cynical captain, the amoral mercenary, the badass warrior-woman, the mysterious shepherd, or the sharp-tongued companion, they all seem to have agency by themselves for driving the plot forward.)

That last, of course, is worth bearing in mind should I ever run a 'proper' campaign using the game engine. Although it makes a certain amount of sense for the pilot/mechanic/doctor to be a fairly specialised character and very good at what he/she does, it's actually really important that he/she has some 'hook' beyond just being that specialist, so as to be well placed to contribute to a wide range of adventures.

The Game Overall

It strikes me that this is a game where it should be very easy to run a full-blown campaign. In both "Firefly: Inglorious" and "Wedding Planners", we've ended the session with some loose ends that could very easily be followed up on: a Complication that went unresolved, or a new passel of enemies for the crew, or similar. Part of the cause of this is that the game tends not to have the PCs kill their foes (which is, of course, unusual in an RPG), which means they're liable to crop up again.

So as far as I can see, what is needed is a number of early hooks for the game (some of which the players should provide), several early jobs for the crew to pursue (or not), a cast of several Patrons, Fences, and Pimps to arrange further jobs, and some mechanisms for generating further content as needed.

Beyond that, it's mostly just a case of keeping the wheels spinning - as the PCs complete episodes they'll naturally throw up material for further adventures that can then populate further episodes.

All in all, a satisfying experience. I'm looking forward to the next session!

New D&D Setting: Life Under the Wheel

At the post-Christmas drinks gathering, I was encouraged to consider running another D&D campaign - one of our new players really enjoys fantasy but doesn't have the same interest in Firefly. And, I should say, I have had some thoughts along those lines in my thoughts of late.

However, if I were to run another campaign I think I would want to do so in a homebrew setting - largely because I'd almost certainly want to run the game using 5e, because Eberron is not currently supported under 5e (at least, not properly), and because I'm not a fan of the Forgotten Realms.

Which, rather conveniently, gives me something to write about here. For want of a better name, the campaign setting is titled "Life Under the Wheel", where "The Wheel" refers to a dominant landmark in the setting.

Basic Premises

So, to start the setting, here are a few of the basics. I've actually mentioned a couple of these before, but it's probably just as well to repeat them here.

Points of Light

This will be a "points of light" setting, as defined during the development of 4e: the world will be largely unexplored and dangerous, with only a few pockets of civilisation in amongst the wilds - the so called points of light.

The World Malevolent

By contrast, those parts of the world that are wilderness (or dungeon) will not merely be untamed and wild, they will be actively hostile to life. Adventurers in the wild must be careful, because the environs they explore and ancient and angry; they will harm you if they can.

Human-centric

Although all PCs races will be available, the main adventuring areas will be distinctly human in character and population. Strangers are treated with suspicion, and non-humans more so (because they're just that bit stranger still). Not outright hostility, I should say - just suspicion.

No gods, but...

D&D settings have typically struggled with the juxtaposition of a semi-Classical polytheistic setting and drawing heavily from history and from horror films that are both strongly flavoured by Christianity. This makes for some real oddities where things just don't quite 'fit' in a lot of cases. The one major D&D setting that deviates from this, Dark Sun, simply has no gods at all, with a knock-on effect that there aren't really any established religions.

The "Under the Wheel" setting takes a different view again, in that there are no named gods, and yet there is a single dominant religion, called simply "The Tradition". This is actually a patchwork of local rituals and practices with significant variation and little actual authority (and no real commandments), but which virtually everyone pays at least lip service to - if for no other reason that it's so loose you can't meaningfully rebel against it.

The setting will also have Clerics but these are not associated with The Tradition at all. Instead, Clerics are initiates in one of several mystery cults - groups that purport to some greater knowledge and understanding. Their power comes simply from their training in the mysteries of their cult.

I haven't decided about Paladins as yet.

And that's enough to get started with, I think...

Hoard of the Dragon Queen

It's hard to decide what to make of the first published "storyline" (Adventure Path) from Wizards of the Coast for 5e. On the one hand, the buzz I'd heard was that it is fairly terrible, and that's just not the case. On the other hand, it's not a 'good' adventure by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, it does do a number of things that I feel should be recognised as being extremely positive steps.

The adventure is a 96-page hardcover, and is intended to take characters from 1st to 8th level (they should hit 8th level right at the end of the final part). Very surprisingly, the book does not include the stat-blocks of the creatures encountered in the text - instead, the creature names are in bold and refer the DM to either the Appendix or to the Monster Manual (or a free download of monster stats). This is an odd choice, and would have been great if they'd been hyperlinks, but as it is I'm not hugely impressed - the net effect is to turn the adventure into a "wall of text". That means it's very dense (as much adventure as three Pathfinder volumes), but it's also harder to read as a result.

The adventure is split into eight parts, with player characters having to pass through the parts in order. There is very limited support for DMs should the players leave the path. That's not unexpected, and perhaps not even a bad thing - this is an Adventure Path after all.

And, where the adventure pleasantly surprised me, within many of the parts there is significant openness as to what the PCs could attempt - in addition to the standard Fight! option, the book several times discusses the options to Deceive or Seduce (negotiate) their way through the encounter - and even in a few occasions for them to Evade the encounter totally. This is very unusual in published adventures, and is very much appreciated. Parts 2, 6, 7, and (to a lesser extent) 8 are particularly strong here.

On the other hand, the adventure has some significant story problems, especially with the first part. It opens with the PCs arriving at the town of Greenest to find it under attack by a dragon. This appears to be set up for the "cool opening scene", perhaps with one eye on the video game or the movie. Nothing wrong with that, except...

The adventure then mostly assumes that the PCs will make their way into the town to get some missions from the local governor, and proceeds from there. Now, it's worth noting that this actually isn't a railroad, as the adventure specifically addresses the likely possibility that they might instead choose to sit it out. Which is fine, but it does mean missing part one almost completely. It would probably have been better to start the campaign with the PCs in town and then have it come under attack, rather than expect them to run into the danger.

(There's also an issue with a "challenge of champions" scene in the adventure. I'm really not a fan of that one, but it is only one encounter, and it can be fixed. So that's less of a problem.)

All that said, I have one BIG problem with HotDQ: an Adventure Path, especially such a tightly-scripted one, lives or dies based on the quality of the storyline. And I found the story presented here deadly dull. There's surprisingly little tension in the dragon attack in Part One, and then most of the rest has the PCs chasing after some ill-defined cultists who have stolen some ill-defined treasure for no obvious reason. Eventually, they either figure out what's going on, or they just get told, but that's not terribly well handled.

My over-riding impression of this one, though, is that it's like "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part one" of "Hunger Games: Mockingjay, part one" - it's half of a story, with all of the "good bits" reserved for the second part. Which bodes well for "Rise of Tiamat", but leaves HotDQ underwhelming.

Ultimately, I can't recommend this adventure. I'm extremely happy to see the attention that the adventure gives to the Fight!, Evade, Deceive, Seduce options for dealing with encounters, and I like that there are often multiple factions that can be played against one another (or not). But it's not enough. So, no recommendation here... but I'd certainly be happy to look at other offerings from the same provider (Kobold Press - WotC outsourced this one).

The Christmas Game 2014

The Christmas Game for last (!) year took place on Monday. I'd been looking forward to it for quite some time for several reasons: 2014 had been a poor year for gaming generally, this was to be the first chance to play the new Firefly RPG, and the Christmas Game has become something of a highlight of the gaming year and is always something I look forward to.

Perhaps due to these factors, or perhaps simply because Firefly makes it quite easy, I was actually very well-prepared for this game. I'd been able to apply my recent revelation regarding the four-act structure to the game, and I'd made sure in all applicable cases to at least consider my four possible solutions (Fight!, Evade, Seduce, Deceive). So not only was I feeling good about the amount of preparation I'd done, but I was also quite happy with the type of preparation I'd done. And I was feeling vindicated that the lessons I thought I'd been learning were indeed the right ones. Huzzah!

In the event, the game suffered two late call-offs. One of these was due to illness, while the second was due to a mistake about the times. So we were down to three players, each of whom took on two characters. But that was fine - at least it meant nobody was stuck with a 'bad' character! (Though it turned out that there were no 'bad' characters, so that turned out to be an invalid fear anyway.)

The game itself all went extremely well. The four acts actually proceeded in the order expected, with little bleeding between them, and although I didn't predict everything that happened, or even close to it, there was no point when I felt I wasn't prepared for what was happening.

The was one story-telling weakness in the plot as it unfolded, which was that the PCs fled the scene immediately before the bad guy got his much-deserved comeuppance, which meant that that happened "off camera". Though I'm not entirely sure that's a truly terrible thing.

So, all in all I was really happy with the game. I was actually also quite happy with the way Sabra worked out in this game - as I've posted before, she's the character that doesn't quite 'fit'. However, the Firefly game is actually constructed such that no character is ever truly useless - even when doing something they're 'bad' at, the character should have something to contribute, which is good.

(Also, as part of my research for this game, I revisited "Alien: Resurrection", and noticed something I hadn't seen before: in the middle section of the film, the crew lay claim to a number of guns of various sorts. And although she's in the background much of the time, Sabra is depicted as being quite comfortable with weapons. So maybe her third Distinction should actually be "Veteran of the Unification War", thus making her a bit more of a warrior-type, and hopefully making her a bit more fun to play without requiring a rewrite for every game. Maybe.)

As a result of this game, I'm going to press ahead with my notion of running "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" at various times this year. And I'm currently working on some ideas for the next "Christmas Game" - "Memoirs of a Companion".