How Did They Get So Bad?

Warning: this one kind of gets away from me somewhere in the middle. In particular, I think the bit about Chekhov's Gun is getting at quite a good point, but doesn't necessarily make it very well. Plus, I think I've said much of this before...

After the game on Sunday, we spent some time discussing the adventure, and the weaknesses that it showed in actual play. Such as the PCs lacking in motivation to actually get involved, the 'blocks' put into the adventure where one bad roll can derail the whole thing, and so forth.

So, the question: how did published adventures get to be so bad? Was it always thus?

Personally, I'm inclined to identify the publication of "Ravenloft" as the key moment. It's not that it's a bad adventure; on the contrary, it is one of the best that has ever been published. However, what Ravenloft marked was a point where adventures shifted from providing locations in which to set adventures to providing stories in which PCs could have their adventures. Now, there's obviously nothing wrong with stories, and there's a fair amount that adventure design can learn from storytelling techniques.

But an RPG adventure is not a novel, and cannot be structured like one. And I think that's a key mistake that too many adventure writers make.

Adventures to be read, not run

I get the distinct impression that a lot of adventures are intended to be read, rather than to be run. Thus, they have a distinct story-like structure, with a clear beginning, middle and end; they support only a small number of PC paths through the story (sometimes as few as one); they presuppose key PC motivations, and sometimes actions; and so on.

Now, in fairness, it's important to note that any adventure's first test will always be in the reading - unless I can wade through the text, I'm never actually going to run it, so if it plays well but reads like a VCR manual, it's useless. And it doesn't really help that many (if not most) reviews are done on the basis of a read-through rather than a play-through - so an adventure that has some fun looking encounters and some good ideas, and has clear text, will score extremely highly even if actual play throws up major issues.

(It also doesn't help that a lot of reviews are also skewed by the names involved - an adventure is likely to review better if it has the name "Monte Cook" on the cover than one without, for example; while the 4e D&D adventures actually review pretty well despite being almost universally awful. But that's another rant.)

But one of the glorious things about RPGs, that sets them apart from reading novels, watching films, or even playing other types of games, is that you can't assume PC actions. Most likely, they'll go off in some direction you didn't expect, or spend a lot of time meandering about. Which plays merry hell with your lovely three-act structure, and can really mess with your pacing. Just as not every novel adapts well to film, so too do many adventures fail to play out the way they're written.

The Logical Leap

Probably the place where the difference between adventure-as-story and adventure-as-game becomes most apparent lies in the use of mysteries. The thing is, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can have Sherlock Holmes solve a complex and convoluted mystery based on the nuance of a half-heard conversation and a bit of fluff, because SACD has full control over making sure his character has access to all those clues, and also has perfect insight into what they mean.

The writer of an adventure module simply cannot assume that. Not only can't he assume that the players will even overhear that conversation at all, but he cannot be sure that the GM will present it exactly as written (so that the nuance is even present). Nor can he be sure that the players will pick up on the meaning of it all - in fact, most likely, they won't.

What this means (as discussed at great length previously, and elsewhere) is that the adventure designer really must insert loads of redundant clues into his mystery. So many, in fact, that on a read-through it will seem like a really lame mystery - if you've got three clues all pointing to "the Baron's a bad guy!" then that's hardly a revelation! And yet, that's pretty much what is required.

(In fact, I'd go further than that. In addition to putting lots of clues in place, the adventure designer should also tag every clue with the mystery to which it is attached, as a reminder to the GM, but also so that they can be sure they can recheck their working later. Which will make it read like an incredibly lame mystery.)

The Red Herring

Don't. Just don't.

Chekhov's Gun

I think this is a big one, and a big mistake for an adventure writer.

Anton Chekhov said, "Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

For a script-writer, this makes sense. Cutting superfluous detail just makes for a better story - it's tighter, it is more likely to hold the audience's attention, and it's probably much more effective at making its point.

But for the adventure writer, it is absolutely poisonous, at least if taken literally. See, it gives rise to the temptation to remove everything that doesn't fit your pre-determined narrative - that beginning-middle-end structure you have envisaged. So, you cut the number of clues for your mysteries down to the absolute minimum, because more is just redundant. You cut out all those extraneous encounters that sit on your non-prime paths through the adventure. And, once done you have the 'perfect' adventure... provided your players are four clones of yourself, and provided they follow the exact path from encounter A, through B, C, D, and E, and on to the final confrontation with your BBEG at encounter F. Huzzah!

But then we sit Andrew, Mark, Jill, and me down at the table, fail to equip us with the helm of reading Monte's mind, and expect it all to work out. But of course it doesn't, because after encounter A we wander around for an age, miss the clues in C and D, don't ever get to B... and end up just lost.

And Another Thing...

Protagonists in novels and films are forever getting themselves captured, or infected, or otherwise into scrapes. Naturally, adventure writers want to include much the same in their adventures. That's railroading, of course, but I'm not convinced it's the worst thing in the world. But...

The writer of an adventure needs to be very careful about including such events, for two reasons.

The first of these is that events like captures or infections are very hard to engineer if played 'fairly', and run a very significant risk of alienating players if they are made inescapable. The issue is one of control: the GM has absolute control over every single thing in the game, with only one exception. Conversely, the player has control over only one single thing in the entire game - his character. Enforcing a capture, or infection, or whatever, removes that control, which some players will find utterly and completely unacceptable - possibly to the point of walking out of the game over it.

Now, this is a place where a game like Serenity or Numenera has a distinct advantage - here, the game builds in various storytelling mechanisms, where the GM can basically say, "this is a plot point - just go with it." And, in return for doing so, for accepting the intrusion, the player is rewarded with XP or plot points, or whatever, which they can then trade in later for narrative control of their own. It's not a perfect solution, but it seems to work pretty well.

The second reason it's a problem, though, is that if you have a truly mandatory event in your adventure, whether a capture, infection, or actually anything else, you've created a bottleneck in your design - every path in the adventure must either lead up to that point or must lead away from that point. That's easy said, but not easily done - directing PCs is much like herding cats, and it's really hard to make sure every path leads through your bottleneck without it being obvious what you're doing.

So... How to Fix It?

Unfortunately, I don't think there's an answer for that. Published adventures are both low-margin and, actually, low-use things - even those of us who buy lots of adventures will read many more than we ever play. And there's no magic formula that will make for a good adventure, both to read and to play.

Ultimately, I fear it's going to come down to GMs doing a fairly large amount of leg-work - taking an adventure that may be good to read, and refitting it to be good to run. Which, ironically, begs the question of why you'd want to use a pre-gen adventure in the first place, since they're supposed to be labour-saving tools for the GM...

Oh well.

Numenera: Second Thoughts

We played Numenera for the second time yesterday. We had much the same group as before: Brindy in the chair, and Mark and Jill as fellow players. Jupiter was switched out for Andrew. Likewise, we had some, but not perfect, continuity of characters - Jill was using the same character as before, while I'd switched one "strong-willed Jack who wields two weapons at once" for another. The other two characters were new, and were both Glaives of one variety or another.

To a large extent, my decision to go with the same character again was motivated by a desire to see if the weakness I'd perceived in the previous game (where my schtick proved to make my character suck) was indeed inherent in the game, or if it was just bad luck.

So...

Well, the answer was a positive one: we'd made some key mistakes with our previous game, which had disproportionately hit my "two light weapons" character. And it was also notable that as soon as we met opponents who didn't have heavy armour on, the "two light weapons" approach became at least competitive (if not optimal... which is also a good thing).

One thing that still seemed very odd, though I'm sure it was right enough - the Jack is supposed to be the "skill monkey" type, but it did seem that both Nano and the Glaives had a much longer list of skills on their sheets than I did. Though that may be because a lot of stuff might be skills or might fit elsewhere on the sheet. Plus, of course, that "flex skill" that the Jack has makes a huge difference if the game lasts longer than one day.

And...

The setting is still excellent, with a lot of inventiveness on show. Actually, that may be the highlight of the game, beyond questions over the system - and potentially worth the price of entry in itself. (That said, from a player's perspective, that then serves as a reason not to buy and read the book!)

It was also remarked that a lot of the 'iconic' elements of the adjective/noun/verb descriptors actually become available at tier two. That suggests that, should we play the remaining chapters of the adventure, we should hit that stuff near the end. Which should be good.

All in all, this was a much more satisfactory session than the previous one. I still think some more familiarity with the ruleset would be beneficial... but that's both not really a surprise, and also something that bodes well for the remaining sessions.

But...

Another published adventure, and another... questionable effort. From the player's side, this seemed to be rather better than the previous one, in they we didn't seem to hit any points where we had to succeed on a given roll or go home. However, after the session, Brindy noted that he'd had to change the setup to build in some sort of actual motivation for the PCs to get involved, he'd skipped a big section of pointless and random wandering around, and that he'd cunningly avoided one of those "succeed or go home" challenges. None of which sounds too good.

Parting Thoughts

The second session was vastly more satisfactory than the first, and the lingering problems seemed to be confined to the design of the adventure itself. Given that this is probably the area where it least matters (since the GM can, one presumes, elect not to use prepublished adventures), and given that it seems to be pretty much a feature of published adventures in general, that's not too bad.

All in all, I'm glad we had that second session, am much more happy about playing in a third, and probably misjudged Numenera at least somewhat in my earlier post.

Retraction

In a recent discussion, it was pointed out to me that this post is actually in error. It turns out that the 3.0e PHB does have a table showing the capacities of the various containers (p.110). This table was indeed dropped with 3.5e, and doesn't appear in Pathfinder either (at least, in the Core Rulebook). Plus, rather amusingly, the table in the 3.0e PHB gives only the volume of the various containers, not the weight that they can support - and, of course, absolutely no other item gives its volume! So, it's still quite silly.

Fortunately, for at least one definition of that word, some bright spark took the volumes given, and converted this into a likely weight allowance, as follows:

• Backpack - 60lb. - 1 cubic ft.
• Barrel - 650lb. - 10 cubic ft.
• Basket - 20lb. - 2 cubic ft.
• Bucket - 65lb. - 1 cubic ft.
• Chest - 200lb. - 2 cubic ft.
• Pouch, belt - 10lb. (500 coins) - 1/10 cubic ft.
• Sack - 60lb. - 1 cubic ft.
• Saddlebags - 250lb. - 5 cubic ft.
• Spell Component Pouch - 2 lb. - 1/8 cubic ft.

A couple of thoughts about this:

1. All of the weight allowances are considerably more generous than the 2nd Edition equivalents. Further, I suspect that, in almost all cases, the 2nd Ed version is probably much closer to 'right' - those were likely taken from the 1st Ed values unchanged, and 1st Ed was actually pretty good about researching things like that.
2. The weight allowance of the belt pouch, both then and now, is pretty much insane. The D&D gold piece weighs almost exactly the same as a UK pound coin (I know, I checked!). So, can you imagine walking around with £500 in coins strapped to your leg? I'm inclined to drop that down to 2 pounds (100 coins).
3. The spell component pouch probably shouldn't be on the list - it's not really a container for general equipment as such, rather than a tax on spellcasters.
4. Honestly, I think the only items of any relevance are the backpack, the belt pouch, and the sack (maybe saddlebags as well). How many PCs really wander around carrying their equipment in a basket?

In conclusion... well, nothing really. It's just (slightly) interesting when new information comes to light.

Lessons from TV: No-one here is exactly what he appears

"Let me pass on to you the one thing I've learned about this place. No one here is exactly what he appears. Not Mollari, not Delenn, not Sinclair... and not me." - G'Kar, "Babylon 5"

There are a great many lessons a DM can learn from "Babylon 5". It also has quite a few lessons not to learn - while it may seem like a really cool idea to seed something in session 2 of your campaign, only for it to pay off five years later... and while it in fact is extremely cool when you pull that off... what you don't realise until you've done it is that doing so requires a huge amount of work, no small amount of railroading, and quite possibly leaves you with a campaign that's limping badly towards the end. By the end of "Rivers of Time", I don't think anyone was really enjoying it, but we had a story to tell, so...

(For "The Eberron Code", I adopted a far more Buffy-esque structure, where each year had was something of a mini-campaign in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end. The three together fit together to form a single whole, but it very definitely was "Volume One", "Volume Two", and "Volume Three". That seemed to be a much better structure, and a much more satisfying campaign as a result.)

Anyway, I digress.

For all that they claim to be a storytelling medium, and for all that they are role-playing games, RPGs tend not to do terribly well with nuanced characters. NPCs in published adventures tend to be awfully one-dimensional. The knight in shining armour turns out, almost without exception, to be a goody two-shoes knight in shining armour. The black-hearted villain is, sure enough, a black-hearted villain. (And as for the PCs, well...)

Now, to a large extent this is entirely understandable. Over the course of "Babylon 5", G'Kar has a large amount of screen-time, measured somewhere in hours. In "Game of Thrones", Tyrion Lannister, probably the most complex character, has more screen time than just about anyone else. In D&D, the typical villain lasts four rounds, which is about 24 seconds of game-time. It's not exactly easy to put forward a nuanced portrayal in that time, nor is it really worthwhile to do so.

The solution to this is obvious, of course - give the villain more screen-time. Sure, if he's only around for four rounds, then there's little point in detailing a personality. But if the villain is around for months of game time, then suddenly matters change.

Now, of course, not every campaign will warrant this, and not every villain within a campaign will deserve it. Sometimes, they should just be the bad guys, and make a very satisfying thump when they hit the deck. But sometimes...

That said, if the PCs are the good guys, and they're keen to resolve the plot, just how do you give your villains screentime without them promptly dying? Well...

• Introduce your villains in situations when violence isn't an option. The Bond films do this all the time - he's forever meeting the villain in public locations, or where there are sufficient bystanders around that he can't resort to violence, or where his actions would be misinterpreted. If the PCs are invited to a third party's well, party, they should feel beholden to not make a scene... and that allows the DM to make a scene where the villain shows up.
• Have the villain appear in disguise. If the villain can shapeshift, or possess others as hosts, or whatever, this allows him to interact with the PCs without things necessarily becoming violent. Of course, they need to know, or find out, that they've been dealing with the villain.
• Make the villain ambiguous. Sure, that Inquisitor's methods are questionable, but is he really Evil? Even if he is, does that necessitate his removal, or is he a bulwark against a greater evil? This is especially effective if the PCs first hear about minor actions first, perhaps even things they can agree with, and gradually escalating to horror.
• Make the villain useful. As noted, that Inquisitor might be a bulwark against a worse evil, so the PCs may feel they need to keep him around until they can deal with the other threat first. Or, perhaps early on in the campaign they really need help, and the only person who can offer it is the BBEG - and then they owe him. Or similar.
• If all else fails, always have an escape plan or two. But be prepared to lose your villain if those plans fail - few things annoy players more than the DM using fiat to let his bad guy escape a rightfully-earned death.

Having established means to give the villains screen-time without them dying, that's half the job done. But, of course, there's no point in giving your villain screen-time if you don't do anything with it. If your villain is Profion in full Jeremy Irons scenery-chewing mode, there's not much point in giving him screen-time - there's no real nuance to show.

The big danger, though, is that the DM decides to build a character who is too complex. After all, Tyrion Lannister is a wonderfully detailed and complex character - let's have one just as involved! The problem is that it's really hard to bring out such detail when the PCs get to interact with the villain just a handful of times, and when most of their efforts will necessarily be dedicated to bringing him down.

So, my recommendations here:

• Don't make the character too complex. Most NPCs should have only a single trait. Even major NPCs should only have three or four traits - enough to establish who they are, without swamping the DM with too much work, or confusing the players with too much information. Paint in big, bold strokes!
• Give the villain at least two 'negative' characteristics, and at least one 'positive' one. That gives good reason to oppose the character... and also reason to admire him. (Equally, most 'good' characters should likewise have several noble characteristics and at least one negative trait. Nobody is perfect after all!)
• Make sure the players get to know about these traits! Remember, anything the players don't learn about is just wasted effort - pics, or it didn't happen.
• Members of organisations should always be more than just a member of that organisation. After all, how many of us are just our jobs, and nothing more? If nothing else, there should be an indication of how fully the character believes in the ideals of the organisation - are they a true believer, are they just in it for the money, or do they secretly want out?

And that, I think, is that. There's obviously a whole lot more that could be said about NPC design, but this post is more than long enough as it is.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten...

For my new "Star Wars: Saga Edition" campaign, I made a quick note in my document of house rules that "encumbrance will be used normally". Indeed, I'd made this almost trivially easy to handle, via the use of a very clever PDF form that automatically calculates most of the required values. Huzzah!

Unfortunately, what I had neglected to consider is that, in SWSE, the encumbrance rules are generous to the point of being pointless. Of my three characters, the one with the lowest carrying capacity still has a capacity of 63kg, while the character with the heaviest load is carrying 16.5kg. And neither of these is particularly untypical values - characters just don't tend to carry a lot of gear in Star Wars.

In fact, it might be worth noting that the character with the lowest carrying capacity that you can reasonably create in the system is a Small character with a Strength score of 6. Such a character would be able to carry 13.5kg without penalty. The equivalent Medium character could carry 18kg, while a Small character with Strength 8 could carry 24kg - both would thus be able to handle the biggest load amongst my three PCs.

So... um, yeah. I think it's still worth keeping track of things like the number of grenades they're carrying, and of course any special gear they make or acquire during the campaign. But when it comes to mundane gear, I think I'll just not bother!

Raw Material

One thing I try to do when putting together is to have a dedicated "character creation" session, where all the players are brought together and where they create their characters (as the name implies). This serves two purposes:

1. By creating the characters together, the players hopefully create a group, not just a bunch of characters.
2. Having a dedicated session before the first 'real' session gives me time to adjust the campaign to suit.

It is that second point that is of most interest here. See, RPGs are inevitably rather broad and sprawling, with a huge range of directions in which they can go. And while players will generally sign up for something because the premise sounds interesting, they haven't signed up to be read a story - they inevitably, and rightly, want to have significant input into how the game goes.

What the character creation session allows, then, is for the players to give some indication of where their interests lie. After all, if they create a bunch of scheming nobles, that's probably an indication that they want a campaign filled with intrigue and backstabbing, while if they create a bunch of straightforward paladins then they probably want something different!

With that in mind, then, what has the "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" character creation session given me?

Well, firstly, and unfortunately, we had one player drop out shortly before the session and (more annoyingly) we had one no-show. That meant that we've dropped from the 'ideal' five characters to three. That's still a quorum... but only just. Hopefully, we'll be able to pick up one or two more players for the next session.

Brindy has created a Jawa Scout character, skilled in mechanics and perception, and very skilled in stealth. That suggests to me an interest in messing around with technology (especially junked tech), and in sneaking around and learning things best left undiscovered. That shouldn't be a problem - there's plenty of Separatist tech left over from the Clone Wars, after all, and the Empire does love its secrets...

Smug has created a Rodian Scoundrel, with a view towards the Gunslinger prestige class. This is almost an iconic "Imperial Fist" character, and should be near-trivial to drop into the campaign. That said, there's possibly some scope for shaking things up there... what if these two characters only start as part of the "Imperial Fist" project? Hmm...

(Actually, that bears a bit more thought. If he was drafted in to "Imperial Fist" having been captured running contraband, that suggests a disgruntled former employer out there somewhere. And that means... something. But not a Hutt; that's just too cliché.)

Finally, Polgare has created a Human Soldier who she describes as "just a grunt". On the face of it, that suggests that she's perhaps just interested in following on and seeing where the campaign goes, happily being blown where the wind takes her.

And yet... the character has a surprisingly detailed background for all that. The daughter of a doctor and a biochemist, who drifted into the Imperial Navy when it became apparent that she couldn't follow in her parents' footsteps, was overlooked for promotion due to her sex, and then was recruited by Daala for the same reason.

I think with that one, I'm inclined to run with the "doctor and biochemist" angle there. If nothing else, that dovetails nicely with the abandoned research station on Varn from the one-shot - they never did investigate what was being researched. And it's very "Star Wars" to have children somehow unexpectedly come face to face with their parents' work...

But where does that leave my original concept?

Well, actually, it should still work - the "Imperial Fist" teams are intended to hunt down and eliminate Jedi malefactors and other rogue elements, and incidentally to deal with any Imperial corruption or other rogue elements they uncover. That can still fit. And I'm starting to see the outlines of a big "rogue element"... It does appear, however, that I may need either a different Big Bad or perhaps a second(ary) Big Bad. Not that that's particularly a problem.

And in the meantime... there are problems on Fere. Agents of Seinar systems, keen to open a new shipyard on the old world, and so trade on its former reputation, have requested assistance from Governor Tarkin and his agents. Someone has been sabotaging their efforts. And so, the Chimera's Escape is dispatched...

Start of a New Campaign

Tonight marks the start of a new adventure: I'm starting up a "Star Wars: Saga Edition" campaign. Titled "Imperial Fist", this one follows the exploits of a team of Imperial special agents - a mix of special forces troops, Force adepts, bounty hunters, and the like. The PCs are charged with tracking down and eliminating the remaining Jedi and their sympathisers.

My initial intention is to play this one straight - the PCs are Imperial agents, they believe (mostly) in the Imperial cause, and they're not particularly evil. Of course, whether that intention actually survives contact with the players is quite another matter!