Fixing Grapple

There are two areas of the 3e rules that invariably cause people grief. One of these is attacks of opportunity, which are mostly fine apart from one thing: the table of actions that causes an AoO. The other, which causes grief in so many games, is Grappling.

Grappling is a real nuisance because it both comes up so rarely and because it requires a slew of special rules to deal with. There are two conditions (grappled and pinned), there's a special list of actions you can and can't take in each case, and then there's the rules for starting and ending grapples themselves.

I've just had something of an epiphany that I think might help, in a similar way to my previous fix for Turn Undead.

So, here goes:

Grapple check: Rather than having a special check, with a set of special rules and modifiers to consider (and probably not record until it's needed), turn this into a skill, called Grapple. The special size modifiers for grapple apply as normal (for now, though as for Hide these really should be eliminated). This is a class skill for any class with a good BAB - that is, the Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Barbarian; and also the Monk. (This would be rolled into Athletics in a 4e-like system.)

To initiatiate a Grapple: you must have at least one hand free. Make a melee touch attack (that provokes an AoO). If this succeeds, you begin the grapple. Grappling characters move into the same space, and lose their Dex bonuses to AC.

To "do something" in a Grapple (that is: end it, cause damage, disarm your opponent, move, cast a spell...), make an opposed Grapple check as a move action.

And that's basically it. The truth is that this doesn't actually change things all that much - all it really does is switch Grapple checks to a skill and narrows down the huge range of special cases down to a single clause. But that's probably a worthwhile goal in itself. Plus, this new rule is simple enough that it should be possible to remember all the details in one go, without having to consult the book in some detail on those rare occasions when it actually comes up.

It does, however, have the slightly nasty consequence that a character who was previously good at Grapple before (such as a Fighter) now has to spend skill points to get the same benefit. That may not be a good thing.

The NPC Summary

Some ages ago, I did a post on three DMing tricks, in which I repeated three tricks I had adopted: "Five Things You Know About...", the use of bullet points for setting a scene, and the Three-Clue Rule.

I was recently given cause to consider the 'best' way to present an NPC for an adventure. Which, somehow, led me back to the same place.

Now, I should note at the outset that I'm not talking about the mechanical representation of a character here, which will inevitably vary from game to game. Instead, I'm talking about those things that are non-mechanical in nature - the character's appearance, motivations, personality quirks, and so on.

So, what is the best way to present this information?

Well, I think the key consideration lies in how it is going to be used. Normally, the GM will read the adventure once to glean the key information, and then will run the adventure at the table. In an ideal world, he will have taken the time to transcribe all the key information into a more useful format, but this should not be assumed.

When the time comes to use the NPC in play, the GM is quite possibly juggling half a dozen different things at once - he really doesn't want to have to read through 500 words of purple prose just to learn that the NPC is left-handed!

So, really, what is needed is some sort of short and to the point summary of the key details. Something where key points are pulled out, and extraneous information is not included. And, of course, there should be a small and manageable number of such points. Five, perhaps.

Additionally, the more important something is, the sooner it should be listed; and the more obvious something is to the PCs, the sooner it should be introduced.

So, yeah, my suggestion for adventure writers, when presenting an NPC, is to first provide a "Five Things" list for the NPC. The points should probably be:

• The character's expected role in the adventure.
• What the character is doing, how he is trying to do it, and why he is doing it (that way).
• The character's appearance, in broad terms.
• Any quirks or mannerisms the character has, in terms of appearance, personality, verbal tics, or whatever. This may require several points.
• And, finally, an optional list of suitable adjectives.

After presenting the summary, and especially for 'key' NPCs, it may well be appropriate to provide a longer description of the character, split down into the key categories (background, appearance, personality, etc...). However, this should be in addition to the summary, not instead. This may seem redundant, since the information is then repeated, but what is lost in repetition is gained in utility, which is a net win.

(As an added bonus, the use of the summary should mean that NPCs can be transcribed onto index cards, with the character's name and picture, game stats, and the summary notes all right there on the card for easy reference. Which is probably useful.)

For an example of what I mean:

Kup - Grizzled Veteran

• Kup fills the 'mentor' role in the story - he sees it as his job to guide the hero to his ultimate destiny.
• Kup tries to guide the hero to his destiny, by keeping him safe from the worst consequences of his mistakes, by acting as a calming influence, and by trying to be a positive role model. He does this because he has seen one to many would-be hero kill himself in a blaze of stupidity.
• Kup is old, and he shows it. He has a slight stoop and his joints creak when pressed. All his equipment is likewise old, but it remains serviceable due to high quality and regular maintenance.
• Everything reminds Kup of something else. All his stories start, "I remember the time..."
• Suitable adjectives: Old, Crotchety, Curmudgeonly, Stern.

And there it is. The GM almost certainly doesn't need to know the exact details of Kup's adventures with the shrikebats of Dromedon, unless it is directly related to this adventure, so it's as well to leave that a blank. That's one key advantage that an RPG has over a novel - there's a GM on hand to fill in any gaps. And, indeed, it may be better if the GM is deliberately given room to leave his own stamp on the adventures or the characters - not least because he might prefer to replace Kup with Ironhide for the purposes of this story, a process that is made easier if the whole thing isn't impossibly tightly woven...

Games for Next Year

As the year draws to a close, and with the last 'regular' session of the year done, my thoughts inevitably turn to two things: the "Christmas Game" and the games for next year. This year's Christmas Game is, once again, a Serenity RPG one-shot titled "Bound by Law" - I'll no doubt post about that again before the end of the year, possibly before the event, and then once again as a wash-up/retrospective.

However, it is the games for next year that are my immediate topic.

As per usual, next year is likely to see me running one campaign and a number of one-shots. Due to the way the calendar falls, it's likely that I'll finish off my current campaign but will not start on a new venture (although I'm prepared for that eventuality also). I'm also hoping to play in a few games next year, as I've barely had a chance this year. However, that will depend both on there being suitable games to play, and also on my schedule being kind.

Naturally, the bulk of my gaming for next year will be in my ongoing campaign, barring a Total Party Kill or other collapse. And, as mentioned before, that campaign is "Star Wars: Imperial Fist". My impressions of the campaign so far have been somewhat mixed, as I think the group of PCs may be more suited to a different direction. So, I'm considering my options there. My plan, I think, is to see what happens with the player base in the next session or so - we may end up with five, four, or three regular players, in various combinations, and the exact configuration will probably dictate a particular direction. I'll be musing on this some more in the coming weeks.

I also have three one-shots provisionally scheduled for next year. (We had five scheduled for this year, but it's very likely we'll actually play three of those.)

The first of these is a third, and final, attempt to schedule the "Black Crusade: A Lament for Lustivan" game. This will be the second time I've run "Black Crusade", and will give me another opportunity to assess if I like it or not. I hope it goes well, both because it has been cancelled so many times now, and also because I'd really like "Black Crusade" to get a permanent spot on my roster of games. (Also, my next campaign is expected to be a run through of the "Hand of Corruption" adventure for that system, albeit in a heavily modified form.)

The second one-shot will be a second "World of Darkness" one-shot entitled "Ultraviolet: 2XS". The previous one-shot with this game was actually the single best game I have run for many years, partly due to a strong and interesting concept, partly because of the system, and largely because of an excellent mix of players. I'm hoping this second run will likewise be good.

Finally, there is the Christmas Game for next year, entitled "Firefly: Inglorious". As the name implies, this will be run using the "Firefly RPG" that is due out in February, which is effectively a second edition of the "Serenity RPG" that we've enjoyed so much. My big hope here is that the new game is as much fun as the old, but that the new system corrects my issues with "Serenity" - I would quite like to run a campaign in The 'Verse, but don't feel the existing system is really up to the task.

In all three cases, I think I've got fairly strong concepts for the game. And two of the three, at least, are amongst our most popular games - the "Warhammer" games and the "Serenity RPG" always manage to attract interest. The "Ultraviolet" game is a little more dicey, but as it is based on a well-remembered, albeit rather niche, TV show, it could do well. I guess we'll see!

One Thing That Bugs Me

Much as I really like "Star Wars Saga Edition", there's one thing that really bugs me. In fairness to the game, it's something that was ported over directly from the "Revised Core Rulebook" (essentially, the 2nd edition of SW d20), and it's something that just about every game that features the particular element does.

Consider for a moment Red Squadron from Star Wars. We have:

• Red Leader, Garven Dreis, in an X-wing
• Red Two, Wedge Antillies, in an X-wing
• Red Three, Biggs Darklighter, in an X-wing
• Red Five, Luke Skywalker, in an X-wing
• Red Six, Jek Porkins, in an X-wing

and also Reds Four, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, all in X-wings. According to Wookieepedia they all have names, but since they're never named in the film I've not listed them here.

Now, if we consider one of those characters:

Luke Skywalker in an X-wing

Obviously, different games have different requirements, but in the context of a roleplaying game, and assuming Luke is the PC, which is more important: Luke, or the X-wing?

Personally, I'd argue that the answer to that is pretty clear: it's Luke. The X-wing is just a bit of equipment, no more important to the story than Lancelot's sword or Aragorn's belt.

But in Saga Edition, when Luke climbs into the X-wing, what happens is that he uses the fixed set of statistics for the X-wing, slightly modified by Luke's Pilot skill, his Base Attack Bonus, and a couple of other statistics. In the game, it is the X-wing that is by far the dominant element when determining the whole.

Crucially, Luke Skywalker in an X-wing has exactly the same number of hit points as Red Seven in his X-wing. And Red Seven is so low-level he doesn't even have a name! What this means is that the scene shown in the films just doesn't work in the game. In the film, most of the X-wings are horribly fragile - Porkins, Biggs, and all the unnamed Reds are killed with a single hit each, Red Leader and Wedge each survive a single hit (with Red Leader killed by the second), while Luke survives two hits and carries on to the target. (Presumably, Luke would have been killed by a third hit.)

In the game, the X-wings are all equally tough. Meaning that those unnamed Reds are equally likely to survive that first hit as Luke is, and Luke is actually extremely unlikely to survive two hits from the standard TIE fighter.

As far as I can see, a better approach to the problem would be to consider the X-wing to be a simple template that gets applied to a character when he steps inside - it gives a certain amount of damage reduction, a certain shield rating, various weapons, and a movement rate (and maneuverability class). That way, Red Seven, being a 1st level non-heroic character, has about 6 hit points, while Luke Skywalker, level 4 Jedi, has about 50 - it's no wonder he survives rather longer!

Unfortunately, there's rather a lot of work involved in rewriting "Starships of the Galaxy" in light of such a change, so I think I'll pass!

The Occasional Campaign

Several years ago, I ran my first "one-shot showcase" game, which I think was probably the Serenity RPG. The goal at that time was to give a bit of exposure to a game that people might like but that I wasn't sue would garner enough interest for a full campaign.

Over the years since then, I've run quite a few such games in various systems. I've learned quite a lot about the process of putting together a one-shot game, but I've also narrowed my list of potential candidates down quite sharply, with only four games now sitting on my 'one-shot' list.

I've also run each of these four at least once, and have my second run of both "Black Crusade" and "World of Darkness" planned for next year. That being the case, it's not really a "showcase" any more - I know the interest is there, people know at least a bit about the system; it's just a question of whether to proceed to a 'full' campaign or not.

And, actually, the answer to that is mostly "not". Obviously, I'm currently running a "Star Wars" campaign, but both "Serenity" and "Black Crusade" have some significant issues that prevent me taking the plunge, while "World of Darkness" is a much more niche concern, popularity wise (despite being the system used in the single best game I've run in recent years). It's unlikely that any of these will ever be 'promoted' to a full campaign (though it would be nice if the forthcoming "Firefly" RPG changed that).

Having said that, I do have a... notion tickling the back of my mind.

Some time ago, I did a short series of posts detailing the crew of "Betty" for the Serenity RPG. I used that crew for my "Firefly: Furiously Fast" one-shot, and am intending to reuse the same characters for this year's Christmas Game, "Serenity: Bound by Law". And I've also pencilled in next year's Christmas Game, "Firefly: Inglorious", which will use the same characters. In each case, the one-shot background makes some limited reference to the previous adventures, although the games themselves will not assume that prior knowledge.

Likewise, for my "Heresy of Angels" one-shot for "Black Crusade", I put together a set of characters that I intend to reuse for "A Lament for Lustivan" (if it ever happens), and will probably reuse after that. Again, the adventure backgrounds will feature some common elements, but the adventures won't make any assumption of prior knowledge.

And, finally, I think I've hit on a format for my "World of Darkness" one-shots, which will be modelled heavily on the old "Ultraviolet" TV series. Like the "Black Crusade" one-shots, this will use a common set of characters, with missions being assigned by an NPC as required (thus getting the PCs up to speed and involved quickly).

This has the big advantage of cutting down on the amount of unique preparation work I have to do to put together a one-shot game. It also has the advantage of building a scene quickly for returning players - they know what happened last time, and so can slot back into place with a minimum of fuss (albeit with the oddity that they may not have the same character!).

All of which is good so far. But it has another hidden advantage. Both the "Black Crusade" and "World of Darkness" setups are explicitly mission-based, with characters being assigned their tasks by either Lord Maleceros or Michael Colefield. Meanwhile Firefly/Serenity, by its nature, is inherently episodic - and has no great difficulty in simply telling the players where they are at the start of the 'episode'.

What this means is that there's no great need to stick rigidly to the old one-shot formula (with sessions booked months in advance, games being pretty detailed, and everything tightly wrapped up in 5-6 hours of solid play). Instead, if I find myself between campaigns but looking to host a game, I could quickly put something together, put out the call, and run a short mini-series (say 3 sessions across 5 weeks) in one of the games. And, with three different options to choose from, there's no risk of "continuity glitches" if I happen to have a mini-series occurring at the same time as a one-shot.

It at least opens up some interesting possibilities.

Now, I just need to do two things. I need to put together a team of four for the "World of Darkness" series (one cop, one spec-ops/merc, one doctor, and one priest). And I need to build up a bank of easy-to-populate adventure outlines...

Closing the Door

The "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" campaign I started a couple of months ago has had an open spot since it began a couple of months ago. After tonight, the campaign will be going on a brief hiatus over Christmas, and resuming on the 21st of January. Everything going as planned, that session will also mark the start of the second 'adventure' in the campaign, and so represents an ideal jumping-on point for a new player.

I've been giving the matter some thought, and I've decided that that first session in January will be the last opportunity for someone new to join the campaign. After that point, we'll switch to a 'closed' table for the remainder of the campaign. It's just easier for me to plan if I know the group of players (and characters) that I am working with.

On another topic, it looks like the Christmas Game this year may be busy - one player has already signed up, and the further three have expressed a strong interest in the game. Which is all to the good, the ideal would be to have a 'full' crew of 6 players, though that actually can't happen - we don't have enough seats! (Which is itself a nice problem to have.)

Adventure Wherever They Go

One thing I noted when reading through the Conan, Elric, and Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories was that the lead characters would quite often appear to wander quite aimlessly around their world, and wherever they went they would just happen to find adventure. Now, of course, a lot of that's inevitable - nobody wants to read "Fafhrd goes to the marketplace; he buys groceries; nothing much really happens."

But then, in an RPG, one can assume that the players likewise would much rather play "Bazaar of the Bizarre" than "Fafhrd goes shopping"! So, it's not completely irrelevant. And, in terms of campaign design at least, there's a name for that sort of thing: the sandbox. The GM provides a map, populates it will all manner of adventures, and the PCs get to wander around having their adventures.

However, I'm also inclined to think it has some relevance to adventure design as well, especially when dealing with one-shots, an especially with town- or wilderness-based adventures (rather than dungeon crawls). The thing is, it's not really practical for the GM to expect to specify the entirety of a small town for an adventure, or a research installation, or even a WH40k starship - they're just too big, especially for only a few hours of game time.

But what the GM can reasonably do is, when laying out his adventure location, highlight the key locations in a place, and prepare some event related to the adventure that occurs at each one. Other areas should be sketched in in broad terms ("the noble quarter is here, there are warehouses over here..."), with the option of more specific locations being marked when the players realise their significance. This has the advantage of flagging to the players, "you might want to look here", to avoid wasting their time, and it also helps any investigation along because until they've at least checked out all the key locations, they can't really get stuck.

Of course, that all seems a bit fake. And, indeed, it is - it's very much of the "the GM wouldn't mention it unless it was important" school of meta-gaming. But there seems to be a tendency in adventures (as evidenced in that first Numenera one-shot) for towns to be lovingly-detailed with fifty empty locales named - a tavern, a marketplace, several shops... all with "nothing to see here". The players are left to spin their wheels, because they can't see the three relevant trees in the forest. Which is already problematic, but when your entire projected play-time is 5 hours, it's even worse. So, cut it down to the essentials, and make sure that pretty much anything the players do "on-script" has some relevance to the story.

Incidentally, that may seem like a form of that "Chekhov's Gun" behaviour I complained about in my previous post. It's actually the opposite, though: in the CG example, every location that is to be detailed must be required for the plot, where here the locations are only relevant to the plot - they may or may not be encountered.

For example, if three locations are detailed (A, B, and C) and they're all required, then the only decision lies in the order to hit them. There are thus six possible plots: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, or CBA. However, if the same three locations are detailed and they're all relevant, then there are sixteen possible combinations: A, AB, ABC, AC, ACB, B, BA, BAC, BC, BCA, C, CA, CAB, CB, CBA, or none.

Of course, in the base town for a campaign, you wouldn't want to be so restrictive. If the PCs are going to spend a lot of time in a place, you'll want many more locations, several of which they visit regularly, and many of which will simply be irrelevant to the adventure at hand. So I'm not suggesting some universal truth here!

One more thing: the players should probably take some hand in this as well. Instead of just saying "we go to...", they can really help but saying what they're expecting to do there. Those expectations may or may not be confounded, but they're still useful - "we go to the market to pick up groceries" makes for a very different scene from "we go to the market because I need to contact the thieves' guild". By flagging that to the GM, they allow him to skip over a whole load of irrelevant detail, and lets everyone just get on with things. Or not, if they prefer.