Philosopher Gamer

Dungeons & Death: 4E encounters death mod (and another AD&D death idea)

2012-05-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

It's interesting. In the local gaming store they run a D&D 4e encounters session each week, for people to drop into and try out the game. Encounters typically run from level 1 to level 3 and shortly after end. They are there to whet the appetite (and they do)

Previously what exactly happened when a PC died was kind of ... not talked about!

This time around though, actually there is a rule and...if you die, next session your down four healing surges. And that's it!

It's interesting to see an actual engagement of the scenario (a scenario one presumes is possible) and what they'd actually do with it (rather than just speculating what they'd do).

It kind of shows exactly how much death there is, rather than leaving an ambiguous mystery about the whole thing and leaving people to think their assumptions (like, maybe, that you just die and the characters gone) are true. When they aren't. But how can you prove that when you can only speculate what WOTC would do? So yeah, interesting to actually know.

AD&D

I was thinking about the last post on risk of death in AD&D. And it just didn't quite satisfy me, on reflection. The reduction in max HP just wasn't an impact. So I thought about it more and have this idea, which both combines random risk and player choice.

Survival Potions
Some monsters attacks are more vicious than others. If they reduce you to negative hitpoints, you have a 1% chance of instantly dying from the extensive wounds delivered by the attack! This is a Survival Roll! But in town you can buy Survival Potions for 500 gold. Indeed, if you have some reputation as having done good deeds, the towns folk will even let you return unused potions and receive the 500 gold back (so it's like a deposit!). If a Survival Potion is fed to a character reduced to negatives, they do not have to make the Survival Roll.

So, make your choice - lose gold! Or take a risk!

Further, for each Survival Potion used or Survival Roll made, the GM secretly rolls percentile. There is a 10% chance that the character, unbeknown to the player, gains a survival point (the GM keeps a record of this). If they have a survival point and make a survival roll and fail, the survival point is used up and they instead pass! However, the chance of failure is increased from 1% to 10% (the GM does not tell the player this unless the roll is within that range)! A character can only have one survival point at a time.

No Challenge or low Risk?

2012-05-19T15:45:00.003-07:00

I got a couple of long posts from Strain of Thought, in regards to "The honest 'No challenge' gamer".

I really can't 'profile' it - at one point it's team fortress with no consequence for failure along with not liking being squeezed out in civilisation. But the next it's a promotion of Hydorah, an incredibly tough shoot 'em up!

I can't really see any pattern! Except that Hydorah uses a checkpoint system (you do not have to play the whole game through fromt the start, you can start from a latter point), while in a game of civilisation, if you get beaten a certain way in - that's it! The whole thing is lost - you can't pick up from a little way back and keep plugging at it.

For that reason I'm imagining nethack would frustrate Strain of thought (you die, then you start over from the start), but Spelunky (another kinda rogue like) which has a checkpoint system (ie you die, you start again but can start in latter worlds you've unlocked), would suit.

Strain of thought may be more of a low risk gamer - he/she doesn't want to bank up a lot of progress then risk it all on play. Instead after a certain time, you can 'bank' your progress and start off from the banked amount.

But that's jumping to a conclusion and there's alot in the comments that I'm not sure what pattern the descriptions would fit into. We'll see if Strain returns with further comments! :)

AD&D idea: Long term damage.

2012-05-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

I look at combat in AD&D now, at the level ~5 range and...I run into the problem I've talked about before. You cannot include a statistical chance of death, without instigating a certain death sentence. But without a chance of death, the thrill that you get at level one ("OMG am I gunna die!!?!?!") is absent.

I'm considering this idea now were at higher levels: Saying that various monsters attacks are so vicious that for some of them, if they drop you to the negatives you suffer a long term loss in the maximum number of hit points you have. When you go down, you make a system shock save. If you pass, you lose 5 hitpoints off your max, for this session and one future game session. If you fail, it's for this session and two future game sessions. You can gain this penalty twice and the HP penalty stacks, but no more than that.

The reason I say game sessions instead of just weeks is because if at the start of the session the players just go 'oh, we sit around in the tavern for two weeks - there, effects gone! Then we adventure!' it sucks. It's the most weak ass way of avoiding consequences - it's just a free get out of jail card. That sort of stuff is for pure simulationists who don't care if the game is challenging for players (they only care about playing out a world, no matter how easy or hard that makes gameplay).

So the idea is that it will definately affect future sessions. It may even bring about your demise! But since it doesn't kill you in itself, it gives some wiggle room for the players to avoid death (so it's not just a statistical implementation of a death chance).

Possibly at levels 10 to 15 it might become a 10 hit point penalty. 16 to 20, a 20 hitpoint penalty.

MMORPG's Gone Wild!

2012-05-09T16:50:00.001-07:00

Once again I leave a comment at someone elses blog and realise, hey, that'd make a moderately okay blog post!

The problem: I can't permanently kill NPCs in a MMO, much less depopulate entire towns because the gatekeeper gives me lip, as it will bork quests for other players. I can't create spells or magic items that are stupidly overpowered since they would throw off balance.

I thought about this awhile ago - basically I think it's doable, you simply have a 'balance' server and a 'gone wild' server. You can even migrate your character from one to the other (though when migrating from the gone wild server to balance, you will suffer huge nerfs no doubt).

In the gone wild server, you can kill NPC's and make wild weapons. This server might be reset ever three or six months.

In the balance server, it's pretty much the same deal as a regular MMO - can't kill NPC's, monsters respawn, balanced weapons, etc.

(Evil and Quick!) Random Encounter set ups

2012-05-06T17:14:00.001-07:00

The main goal of these random encounters is that they launch an attack, but combat does not continue for however long the dice decide to miss for! Also the monsters want to get away, rather than fight to the death! Basically it makes time matter in the dungeon, but since room encounters are (atleast in my case) the more carefully crafted ones, it makes sure that random encounters don't take too much time away from the crafted encounters.

The set up is that upon gaining line of sight, the intelligent monsters throw down oil and a torch to light it (1D6 damage to pass through) in the area in front of them, as well as setting down portable barricades of sharpened stakes, set in a spear vs charge arrangement (this isn't perfectly book legal - it essentially gives them a ranged attack AND a spear attack - it's up to you if you actually have a second squad of monsters manning the stake barricardes). They then launch ranged attacks. Typically on an NPC party the ranged attacks would probably kill one or several, so generally the monsters are horrified when it merely aggrivates the party! So the monsters run, counting on the flaming oil and barricade to to hold off the group from pursuit.

The ranged weapons vary, being mostly the cheapest kind. Generally Gnolls have darts or javalins - while the lesser intelligent monsters might only have javalins or only slings (with this influence in mind, choose as you see fit). Generally on the round after the darts or javalins are used up, the monsters will run. Otherwise they resort to using slings (but this is a rare case as these are supposed to be quick encounters).

1. Sling (1D4 damage, range: 5/10/20)
2. Javalins (1D6 damage, range, 2/4/6, ammo: 1 per ranged attack monster)
3. Darts (Three attacks per monster, 1D3 damage, range, 1.5/3/4.5, ammo: 3 per ranged attack monster)

Monsters (in numbers equal to the number of players, maximum: 5 (as this fills a ten foot corridor))
1. Giant Rats (magically controlled by some hidden monster who does not show themselves)
2. Stirges (if their attack hits, they will attach but only draw 1D4 the next round, then fly off. If they miss, they fly off)
3. Kobold
4. Brigand
5. Goblin
6. Beserker (they don't bother with the oil, barricades or ranged weapons! They just run in screaming!)
7. Orc
8. Gnoll

AD&D random map gen: Putting a focus on treasure

2012-05-01T16:50:00.004-07:00

Currently I've been using a certain chart to outlay the basic contents of a dungeon (then I go and modify the overall result slightly, to fit how I see the creatures having gotten there and living there). The chart also determines treasure.

1-2 = Monster, 3 in 6 chance of treasure
3 = Trap, 2 in 6 chance of treasure
4 = Trick, 2 in 6 chance of treasure
5-6 = Empty, 1 in 6 chance of treasure

But I want to get the most out of each session in the time given. Granted, sometimes the players see a room with monsters in it, but no treasure - but rush them anyway! But really, I'm not quite interested in these sorts of rooms and the RL time it takes to run them.

So what if we assumed we skipped all the rooms that had no treasure in them?

Looking at the chart, you could take the odds of treasure and make a new chart - monsters having a 3 in 6 chance of treasure and there being a 1-2 chance of monsters, lets say 'monster with treasure' has a 2*3=6 point chance of occuring. Do that to the rest of the chart, then make it work on an appropriate die and you get...

1-6 = Monster with Treasure
7-8 = Trap with Treasure
9-10 = Trick with Treasure
11-12 = Empty with (hidden) Treasure

So roll 1D12 on that chart!

PS: Of course empty rooms aren't just empty - if something comes to mind for what could be in it (ie, maybe it stores food, or is a prayer room) then that's what's in it.

Edit: On reflection I would change the trap and trick to continue to be 2 in 6 chance of having treasure. Because while you might be able to see a room has a monster but no treasure, you can't exactly tell if a room with treasure is trapped or not, so you couldn't skip those. With the empty rooms, they continue to have hidden treasure, which isn't obvious because often trapped/tricked rooms without treasure look like empty rooms as well.

AD&D: Difficulty selection

2012-04-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

So, the dungeon level/depth is 4. What do I roll for the difficulty on a D10? 3!

It kind of feels a bit like a non choice - would you like to go to the marginally less dangerous dungeon?

Also since their are some party member objectives in there, I I realise I kind of have to hurumph that the objectives are in either dungeon. Also, what if they want to go to the other one? I guess I have to say it's a meta game choice - harder or easier is a player choice, not a character choice.

I guess one level of difference can make a difference. In rolling the level three stuff, if it was more powerful than the level four creature already there, I switched the two around. Also I only made the first leg of the dungeon have a different set of monsters for each.

On a side note, I have a series of treasure rooms in this one which are time sensitive (so is the end objective, but in more of a made up as I go way, not a written down time). Each has a marking near them that the players are told at the start of the dungeon. To see if they can remember when they come across the marking (not as easy as you might think). There are also four rooms where there is a way of getting the treasure without fighting. It's also possible to get to them without fighting.

Also have a bunch of other ideas I'm trying out in the dungeon, as I tend to do - looking to work out some special combination of effects!

RPG/AD&D design: Naturalistic Difficulty

2012-04-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

The first point in my last post might have seemed unsurprising: Adjustable difficulty.

But I'm actually excited about it. Because it combines a sort of Gygaxian naturalism...wait, let me define that a bit. The ol' Gyg. Nat. is whatever turns up is whatever turns up - if there's a goblin around the corner, then there is. If there's an ancient red dragon around the corner, then there is - what's around the corner isn't constrained to being withing -/+ one level of the partys average level.

The combination here is that you have that constraint, but you also ROLL a second option for how tough a dungeon they can run. Right now I'm thinking a D10, because the party is around level 4. Perhaps when they are around level 10, then I'd roll a D20, which makes the second option go right up to the top.

The thing I like about this is that I think it sucks that if you level and gain +1 to hit, the monsters you encounter will be forced to have +1 improved armour class anyway. What I like about rolling is maybe the roll brings up a level one dungeon - a level four party will tromp through it! And guess what, they've earned it!

BUT! What if they want a dungeon about their own level, for more XP and loot and general thrill of being harder? Well, now you've a choice between two option - go with the natural roll, or go with the dungeon that matches party level!

BUT, I hear you say, what if the natural roll comes up a 6 or 9 or something above the average party level of 4? Well, you can still take that option! Maybe you think you can hack it?

Or if you think its just impossible, well then here is Gygaxian Naturalism and tough! You're stuck with one option only of the dungeon at your level. But the more you level, the more of a chance you get of a dungeon below yours - ie, a cakewalk dungeon!

Only snag? Writing up two dungeons? Or use one and roll differing monsters for each room that has monsters (and since I tend to write the monsters on the sheet, there wont be much room for that). So I'll have to work out something for this.

But I really like the idea of a dungeon that is just WHATEVER! Just crazy comes as it will, instead of always being a tight, predictable power band (that essentially undermines the idea of leveling).

AD&D: What I'm looking to include next time!

2012-04-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

GM'ed a dungeon (the one shown in previous posts) the other night! Ended up granting each player over 5K of experience! It was a level 3 dungeon.

Now I'd like to touch on areas I don't think I quite got to with it. Some ideas are

A difficulty option.
Rolling attacks outside the DM screen. Physically this is difficult - I still want to have a screen. Maybe I can cover the map, lift the screen and roll? That might work. Oh, that reminds me - in advance declare that I will make up, based on judging the situation, who goes first (or if it's simultanious) on tied iniative.
Work out some way of distributing attacks on PC's neatly. I've been using colour coded (to each player) dice. Kind of handy, but if I'm rolling outside I need some distribution method for attacks? Perhaps I could just roll on everyone, then roll another die (equal to group size) to determine which attack did or didn't happen?
I'd like to try out making carrying weight matter! I guess this'll most likely tie in with #5. Maybe add some exhaustion modifiers to combat, if they just try for 'oh, we just do alot of draggin of sacks of gold'. I guess in the end really it's just a question of whether they leave any loot unguarded and if some monsters come across it.
I'd like to make time passing matter, instead of a dungeon that just sits and waits for the PC's. I'm thinking perhaps monsters who have attack animals (giant centipedes in a cage?) that they release at the PC's. Or a group of archers who do a hit and run attack. I don't want these to be a full scale combat engagement - they wont have treasure and it'll just take time away from the detailing I've put into the dungeon. How can I have some archers attack, but without the PC's manically chasing them down and having to dispatch them all utterly? Perhaps a spell that creates etherial archers? Or a portable dart firing mechanism - the patrol detects the PC's, sets the dart gun near a corner, then they scuttle away and activate it remotely (or it's on a short timer - yeah, I'll go with that). The dart guns mechanism makes it roll around the corner, then fire a bunch of darts. I guess the problem is the rogue will then grab this thing and try and use it against monsters? Maybe just make it less accurate when those who didn't make it (ie, the PC's) try and use it, and thus it'll have some use, but not a substitute for combat.
I'd like to really figure out how to handle fleeing players, instead of simply erring on the side of the players because I had nothing made up. Movement speeds will be crucial to this, perhaps even the decider. As is, if you have somewhere to run to, then it seems to be a matter of calculating how many times the monster catches up to you (if you happen to be faster, then no sweat). If you have nowhere to run to (no door to get behind and bar, for example), then you are doomed - the monster would just keep hen pecking at you till you die. This feels odd though - it feels like you should play it out with dice, but it's also a foregone conclusion that you'll die, so why bother?
Finally I'd like rogue backstab or sneak opps to be more prevalent. I'm thinking of designating some as being special, where the rogue can use flash powder (cost: 25 gold) if he fails a sneak roll to perform a backstab in order to pass (but there's a negative to damage equal to his backstab multiplier, just to make it that a passing roll is still the best thing). This is because it just gets a little lame when the rogue flubs his chance 60% of the time (it's fine for fighters to miss over and over because they get lots of chances to hit. A rogue gets one chance at backstab and if they fail 60% of the time, then 60% of the time their backstab is irrelavent). I'm also thinking of having spots where the rogue can drink a 'skill potion' (ie, just cross off 25 gold from his sheet) to make a failing hide in shadows or move silent into a passing one.

Okay, so that's enough for now. I'm kind of realising how much expectations I pile onto myself!

Rules that provide a surprise for the GM!

2012-04-02T18:40:00.001-07:00

As GM, would you like a surprise every so often "My players already surprise me all the time!". I mean the game world surprising you, just much like it surprises the players?

The idea for the rules is pretty simple, it's simply a matter of adding a bit more treasure (or gear, whatever you use in your RPG of choice). The treasure, for whatever reason (magical or mundane), after being picked up, has to be used that day and only works for one encounter. The treasure is a kind of weapon, always giving better bonuses than usual stuff - your rolling on a chart (say a D20), so if you roll high (say a nat 20) its pretty damn awesome gear (but remember, only works for one day or one encounter, whichever comes first - this isn't permanent weaponry). Make everything else on the list a bit varied, not just meleee weapons, some more powerful ranged ammo or such as well.

The thing is, the players secretly roll on the chart. Ideally you as GM go to the toilet or something when they do this, so they can discuss it. Because the idea is they are not to mention the item within your hearing. That way you don't know if they got the super kick ass item or whatever.

That way when/if it comes out (ie, perhaps just when the players are getting wooped by a monster), its a surprise for you as well! Suddenly out of the blue an awesome weapon appears!

Maybe that doesn't seem like a feature if you want to be able to see all game world events coming in advance...

If you want to be caught by surprise a little bit, though, that's one method of doing it!

Spine of a Dungeon, Part 4 (part 3.5?)

2012-03-24T23:57:00.001-07:00

Two close up versions at the bottom of the post, below the fold...

Well, the last step kinda happens during the third step - as your filling rooms with monsters, you might start to see how the monsters live and move around in their environment. Or as you work out a trap, you might see how it creates evidence that gives a clue to look for a trap and why someone set it.

Basically in this step, it's hard to describe because your thinking of how the dungeon lives!

Who walks where - how do they interact with each other. It's also where empty rooms might contain clues or tools to help defeat latter monsters, or even appear to contain a monster when they don't!

The basic rule is not to try and force the ideas to come - if you start seeing something AND if it starts to form into something you can write down, good. If you can't see anything, that's okay - that's what the random generator was for!

It's really hard to describe this in step based form, because its really quite individual from DM to DM. But generally your aiming for two goals - difficulty in play (the statistical/luck kind) AND some way of player skill (in listening to dungeon description and thinking about the dungeon environment) to avoid or mitigate difficulty. Maybe there's some chips out of the stonework of the wall nearby. Player skill comes in in recognising that that's because an arrow trap hits that wall when fired, chipping it. Or atleast the player figures something suspect is up and searches for traps in general, maybe. A game mechanics threat and fiction that gives a clue, over and over.

Leave comments if you have any specific questions - there's alot of room for questions with this!

Side note: I'm kind of keeping the map obscured so as to not give anything away to potential players. Leave a comment if you want a better image. Edit: Though here's a couple of slightly closer versions of the map.

Spine of a Dungeon, Part 3

2012-03-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

Next is a simple chart (a sort of simplification of the random dungeon generation charts). Roll a D6!
1-2: Monster. Treasure: 3 in 6
3: Trap. Treasure: 2 in 6
4: Trick. Treasure: 2 in 6
5-6: Empty. Treasure: 1 in 6 (treasure is either hidden or is itself trapped)

With this particular map I just wrote M, T or E in each room, quickly doing them all.

For tricks and traps I quite enjoy the table on page 172 of the AD&D DMG. Either using the result directly or mutating the idea. For example, a roll of an elevator room that drops the group down one dungeon level for thirty minutes - I changed it to a bunch of portcullises closing around the room then rolled for a monster who shows up, using one dungeon level lower on the chart to roll it. Rolled human bandits, as it happened - they'll demand 2k gold or shoot through the gaps in the portaculuses (no doubt the PC's will simply shoot back instead of paying!)

For monsters, using the chart on page 174 of the DMG. One thing I do is that often rooms with predatory monsters in them have some sort of cracks and crevices in them that lead to the surface (or some other area). The monster just uses the room as it's lair and exits/enters by the cracks (which it may have burrowed or expanded itself). It's not like the monsters just trot up and down the corridors. So the don't necessarily encounter each other, particularly if there is a door on their den (they leave through the cracks, so the door is essentially a wall to them). BTW, the cracks and crevices are slow and hard for a player character to climb - they might have to drop treasure and armour to do so and it's slow, so if they are trying to escape an enemy, it's not much good - they'd be bitten over and over again. But it is still an escape option if you have the time (and inclination to leave stuff behind).

Now I don't know what to say - the fact is, if monsters that would clash with each other show up in adjacent rooms. As said above, they might not even walk the corridors. The second is that any monsters who would kill each other probably did so years before the PC's showed up. The ones that are there are those who have found some equilibrium. Maybe one sneaks out to hunt and loot outside the dungeon, while the other sleeps? Maybe one hopes the other will be killed by some other force, so they can move in - they fear they aren't enough to kill it right now. There can be many, many arrangements. Just realise the dungeon did not POOF into existence - it's been there for years. There has been a lot of time for various compromises between monsters to arise!

Or, at least after thinking about it that much, if still nothing comes to mind, roll again. Just don't give up straight away - the imagination is like a muscle and this sort of stuff is exercise for it. Don't immediately skip the exercise.

Finally on empty rooms - well, I didn't invent the above chart. I personally don't like empty rooms that much - so for some of them I roll a monster anyway! What I do in these cases is keep a little 'E' in the room, to show it should have been empty and so the monster in it is not so perceptive and less likely to react to any noises in the corridor outside, etc. In mmorpg terms, they have a small aggro range!

Don't forget to roll the treasure chance of each entry!

And that's it for this step - the final step is more one of going through, looking at each room and seeing if any extra details spring to mind. That's in upcoming part 4!

Spine of a Dungeon, Part 2

2012-03-19T16:41:00.001-07:00

Now in laying out the dungeon, I like my dungeons DENSE! I see no real joy in 60 foot corridors of emptiness over and over - never mind that I'm sure the diggers who made it really wouldn't want to dig a lot for no real reason. But maybe you do and you want to staple graph paper together to accommodate it - fair enough.

Anyway, here we roll on the chart...

1-2 Split Chamber
3-4 Room without door
5-6 Room with door

Here I'm using 20 foot by 20 foot standard rooms, with a tunnel going right up the graph paper. Perhaps a little regular in structure but A: I don't think the players will notice and B: What does it add to have gone through a wobbly tunnel rather than a straight one?

So, starting the tunnel at the bottom left corner of the page, basically move up enough to accommodate a room and roll. When it come to a split chamber, ie a chamber where the tunnel comes to a T intersection and then each leads into a separate chamber (who's exits then recombine afterward), there are a lot of layouts possible and you can see a few in the picture above. I kept mine to an overall space of 50 feet by 30 feet, fitting both chambers inside that.

Once you are near the top of the grid paper, make a curving tunnel that stretches over far enough to accommodate another tunnel running down the page with possible 20 foot chambers on either side and a 10 foot gap between those and the previous rooms.

Go down the page and near the bottom, make a curving tunnel that takes it back up again.

Of course what you have is one long snaking tube, a linear tunnel with many choices along it. What you can do is simply build horizontal cross tunnels now, to connect it that way. Or if you can't think of any places to put them, hey, just stick with the linear choice tunnel. One idea though is to make the cross tunnels often be secret or concealed. That way it's a sneaky way of getting ahead. If you just have a lot of cross tunnels, then the dungeon doesn't really have an end position, just a lot of places. Which works in some ways, but can also mean a lot of dungeon gets ignored.

In the image above I have no completed the map as yet.

The next part of the series is using a chart to populate the rooms. Oh don't fret, vermisitud-iasts, if some dread and seemingly impossible combination of monstrous neighbours comes into existence, that'll be talked about as well in part 3!

Spine of a Dungeon, Part 1

2012-03-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

I upped the contrast on this a bit to make the path clear for ye, adventurer...

Doing AD&D recently, I've kind of struggeled with room layout. Fact is, as a human you can't really just 'randomly' assign rooms. To make the next room you always rely on some line of reasoning/thinking/vibe/theme, whatever. When really what I want for now is to be entertained - currenly I don't have a big urge to develop a big line of thinking/vibe/theme of dungeon design. Which makes it a bit hard to be entertained when the only generator is you.

Well actually the DM manual has a dungeon generator, but - it appears to produce things I wouldn't find entertaining (oh, another 60 foot corridor? Bliss!). Maybe I'm wrong on that and should give it a try one day to see atleast one result of it.

So what I ended up doing was to narrow it down to the basic structures...

More after the fold...

First is the classic room with a door.

Next - well, most of the dungeons we deal with seem to have been ruins taken over, so to me there also should be alot of rooms without doors (wooden doors have rotten away, or monsters have used them for firewood, etc). How my imagination works is that (assuming monsters are inside AND looking towards the doorway at all) a rogue can use move in shadows (on a successful roll) to find a path past the door and the rest of the party can follow his exact method as well. So the rogue becomes a pathfinder in that respect (pathfinder - someone should make a game called that!)

Last is the split chamber. The reason for not just having the path enter a chamber is because this forces the players through it. If it's too lethal for it (AND they can't escape it) then they are all whine, whine, whine, it was too hard for us, whine, whine, whine, we were forced into it, whine, whine, whine. Well, they whine like that normally, but the fun thing is in how that it is the players, through their own choice, who are atleast partly to blame for their own demise. That's the bit a DM savours, above all the whining! And since that's the bit you savour, you want the portion they are responsibile for their own death to be pretty damn big, for your enjoyment! This is why you have the dungeon split to two chambers, each with a different contents. Of course, often clever players will, gasp, use their choice wisely and avoid an untimely death! This is enjoyable as well, though not quite as much as the players killing themselves is! So basically win-win! Though I kind of don't like the chambers exit tunnels reconnecting afterward (though this is necessary to avoid forcing players through a particular chamber). I'm thinking after drawing I'll make some of the tunnels that reconnect into concealed tunnels. Behind tapestries or doors under beds, etc. so even a failed search roll doesn't mean they can never find it, if they just think about the description of the room and look behind stuff.

So, it ends up as a chart, rolling 1D6
1-2 Split chamber
3-4 Room without door
5-6 Room with door

I might mess with the numbers at some point - might make split chamber only on a one, room without door on 2-4.

Anyway, you can see in the picture above what can be generated! And more on that generation (dimensions and such) in Part 2!

More reward for higher difficulty is...rubbish?

2012-03-17T13:53:00.001-07:00

Might be wrong, but I think that's been pushed in game design (particularly around the mmorpg area) that more difficulty of play aught to equal more reward.

The thing is more reward for more 'difficulty' (where that difficulty is just higher enemy stats) can even be easier than before. Say instead the monster that would normally inflict on average 10 damage over a fight to your 30 hit points and give 100 gold, inflicts 20 points on average and gives 200 gold. You can then go and heal. Well this is easier! What's the difference between healing off the damage? None and you got more gold? It's just easier than before! The only thing that could change that is a spike in damage (and dice pools tend to average out).

If reward actually tracked to higher difficulty perfectly, then unless there is spiking damage, there is no point, it would always be effectively the exact same difficulty as before, but with higher numbers (though it would cut down on grind, granted!).

Difficulty has to always be incommensurate to reward otherwise difficulty has not been raised. The only reward higher difficulty can really impart and still be higher difficulty, is the knowledge you did it on a harder difficulty.

The plausible escape: Are reloads jarring?

2012-03-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

What'd be nice is if more games didn't rely on the reload button for death.

Far cry 2 (despite its flaws) did this really neatly where you had a buddy and if you went down, you had these great black out scenes of him carrying you and shooting enemies. It'd black in and out, making you want to see how bad things were each time (and also skipping some time in between to save you waiting as long, I suspect). After they saved you, they then had to get away themselves (they could get shot doing this) and to 'recharge' their save you had to go meet them in a safehouse.

This is just so much better than hitting reload!

To a small degree lord of the rings online does this as well, in that once an hour you can recover from being downed, so you never leave (ie, jarringly teleport to a recovery circle) where you got hurt.

A way of being beaten in the game, but without the completely story flow jarring effect of a reload.

Or; that's a question - are reloads and their effect on continuity potentially making games less fun for you?

Roleplay: Choosin' your battles

2012-03-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

A post on 'story' in roleplaying, combat and the choosing of what combat you do and what combat you avoid. As usual I find I write more in reply to someone on their blog than I can just think of to just spontaneously say on my own blog. So I repeat my comment here:

It really depends on whether you're using the old 'you're strolling along and then monsters leap out in ambush' (which I myself have used far too many times). This cuts off any clue finding on the monster type and strength to a great degree. But even then as they wander you could describe the trails of giant rats or whatever the encounter is as they walk in, then they could pull back and consider another route IF there is another way to continue with 'the story' (ie, if they have to follow a story). If you don't use the ambush thing, you can open up opportunities to scout (wow, the ranger could actually...range!) and gather data on enemy numbers and apparent strength. Or even fighting just one monster in a too easy encounter, so the players get an idea of it's strength when they come in proper force.

The problem with story is it often starts to be put ahead of player choices, ie "What if they choose the wrong route, TPK and ruin the story!? Gah, screw giving them a chance to screw up the story, I'll just make sure every encounter is doable and intervene if that goes wrong!"

Story tends to push an agenda of reducing player choices/the effects of choices to zilch, because like no plan survives contact with the enemy, no pre written story survives contact with the players. Not entirely, anyway.

I mean really this isn't something any edition of D&D covers at a mechanical level - ie players using limited information gained on enemy forces to decide which battle they will head into and which they will avoid. So when it's not mechanically covered...there's kind of the inclination to ignore it. Which leads to needing doable fights, etc.

The whole experience of 1 to 20.

2012-03-08T18:39:00.003-08:00

Really this applies to any level based RPG, so whatever level range it has (ie, 1 to 30, whatever is the top level).

I was reading a post of a play account and it struck me how the very short term here and now appears to be a game in its entirety. And heck, I'm talking a possitive play account here, not someone who hated a game from playing only one session of it, but is talking about liking it.

What'd be interesting is like those iron chef or 24 hour game design things people run, have something like a level 20 in 20 sessions (or less) thing, with any system that uses levels. A whole bunch of people just design each adventure to really push as much potential XP as possible while trying to still use the XP system without hacks. Like one of my previous posts, but amped up even more!!!1!one!

I think the accounts of play would be cool! Though it might spoil the 'we played for three years and only got to fifth level!' type play for people who previous dug that.

The main point is, instead of talking about the game using one single session as an example, you would talk about the game from an entire 1-20 stand point!

'I am alive' - faux climbing tension?

2012-03-06T20:53:00.000-08:00

I was watching the above demo of 'I am alive' (it's in the first four minutes) and here's a thing: Although it was a demo, it has you climbing and using up your stamina bar.

But really all those climbs are set pieces - the designers and playtesters have played through that and know the exact amount of stamina that will be lost.

It's not like in, say, nethack, where a particular area of dungeon is randomised and you know part of the random elements and so can strategize, in such a case the randomisation might very well mean its not survivable. Or it is, but maybe your strategy wont be good enough?

Here, if I'm understanding it, its a fixed, predecided climb with no strategic element (you just push in the right direction). Well, apart from hitting the extra effort button furiously.

Though I guess you have to see the right direction coming in time. Maybe when you play, especially for the first time, it's hard to know those right directions to climb and that's the uncertainty point that gives game?

Or the raw illusion of doing it all then badum, badum your stamina meter is down and OMG quick bash that button and...

Except it isn't a tension moment where things are going wrong. The designer set it to be that way.

Well, it was the tutorial level and also maybe the combats the real dealio, eh?

'I am alive' intrigues me!

2012-03-06T15:52:00.003-08:00

Whoa! What a fart, man!

Heard a review of 'I am alive' the other night. It sounds basically like puzzle combat - who to beat in what order and by what means, as well as stealth and even pure bluff (hold up a gun with no bullets, get a fear reaction anyway!). Sounds like it's been in development for a long time but finally came through, though people are whinging about the graphics. But as one youtube poster said, "Playing games for their graphics is like watching porn for its plot." Or at least for hard games - for casuals and/or people who just want to be flattered after an unflattering day at work, maybe its graphics rather than engaging game play (through difficulty) that you want.

Save or Lie

2012-03-05T16:47:00.000-08:00

Reading here about D&D 5th edition

On the other hand, the save or die mechanic can be incredibly boring. With a few dice rolls, the evening could screech to a halt as the vagaries of luck wipe out the party. A save or die situation can also cause a cascade effect. Once the fighter drops, the rest of the party's inferior AC and saving throws can lead to a TPK.

Seems to tie back to my post 'How did death become boring?'

Never mind that you could actually set up a fund for your next character from the prior storing some loot somewhere.

But this 'it's boring'? It just seems to be a code, a way to get around saying 'I don't like losing'. Wait, more than that "I don't like losing, but I do like the flattery of seemingly coming up against a save vs death...so lets have a save vs deathhhhhhhhbutonlyifyouhavexamountofhitpoints! Yeah, I'm totally up against a save vs death, all right! Badass!"

It's not the reduction in risk/difficulty (big woop if someone wants to play an easy game), it's the apparent denial of such reduction that I'm shooting at. You can see the references to a 'good GM' throughout the post. The code is, a good GM works the apparent threat factor of a save vs death, but then never applies it (unless, using the old humbug 'the players do something really stupid'). It's all working on the illusion of death, but never delivering an actual capacity for it to occur. Classic illusionism.

Just drop the concept of save vs death. Or use it. There is no die.

First Person Shooters: Shooting while walking backwards?

2012-03-02T19:10:00.001-08:00

In every first person shooter I've played, walking backwards (and maybe side straffing as well whilst walking backwards) has ALWAYS been a useful tactic?

I just wonder how effective it is in real life? I mean, the world/the battlefield isn't exactly smooth, polished plastic like most floors in video games are (no matter what skin is placed over the plastic).

Wouldn't you stumble? Or aim poorly while considering walking backwards blind or even if you worry about stumbling right in the midst of bloody combat?

It's a bit like a double jump: Silly, yet pivotal to certain tactics.

Waves of giant centipedes, with murder in their (many) eyes!

2012-03-01T15:20:00.001-08:00

Ohh, he looks frisky! Image taken from here

Recently I've wanted to ensure that when I craft a dungeon, it actually, definitely contributes to the overall advancement to the next level/the overall advancement to level 20 (ie, a full session of D&D/a full campaign).

So I invented an encounter - actually a few but I'll describe the first for now - for a roughly third level party. Basically it's a tunnel down which pours waves of giant centipedes, their fangs dripping with fatal venom! I like to think some goblin shamans actually know spells to charm and heard the centipedes, so they become the goblins private army. The shamans like to send them out, even at long range, to potentially kill things so as to take their stuff and the killed things meat (to eat!). If things go wrong, the shamans run away down escape holes and grumbling, start rearing their next swarm of giant centipedes! Yes, the encounter respawns over time!

Actually, I'll just post a one paragraph rant on that - perhaps a respawing encounter seems screwy somehow? What seems more screwy to me is where the PC's utterly destroy say a group of monsters, but at the same time there is always another source of XP points/another group of monsters. Isn't it a little contrived? How did the first group of monsters come about? What made it? And what made the second group come about? Or the third? They just come out of thin air - which is respawning, but worse, without any nod of fictional causality and renewing process at all. I really prefer there being some boss type who set up the encounter, who sneaks away like a coward to set up another one latter. To me this is better than 'There are more monsters to slay for XP because...because shut up! There just are!'

Anyway, back to the subject. The goblin shamans send the centipedes out to kill. The centipedes get into melee on the third round, being at 160 feet, then close at 10 feet, then melee (they move fast!). Really the shamans would be better off waiting for the prey to get closer, but they kind of expect they wont and will get away, so they jump the gun. Also they think no one could hit at 160 foot range!

They come in waves, the first is a single wave. 1 giant centipede per party member.

After that the players have the option to back off and go somewhere else, or to try and press on, which will trigger...

Five waves, one every two rounds (ie, one on the first round, one on the third round, one on the fifth round, etc). Again it's 1 giant centipede per party member.

Again the PC's could fall back, or press on to get another five waves as above.

After that, the goblin shamans forces are spent and they are sent scurrying for their lives down escape shafts too thin for them to take all their treasure with them (if they have any - flip a coin!).

The big deal is that this is 16 giant centipedes per player, at 31 XP each. 496 XP in the end, which is about 5% of what's needed for a third level fighter to get to fourth level.

And the thing is, if I were crafting rooms (like putting actual creative effort into making each room), it might take about eight rooms to have the same effect. That's putting effort in but not really getting anywhere in terms of advancement/finishing an overall campaign of this darn game I've never finished a 1-20 campaign of before. I'd like to finish one campaign at least before I die, and without pouring my heart out into a ka-billion little rooms which don't add up to much.

So that's why I invented the wave rooms! Good solid XP injection and then I don't have to worry as much that my crafted rooms aren't really advancing anything much.

But, what if the players don't attempt the wave rooms! Good question, and that's an answer for another post!

Internet Argument Approaches

2012-02-28T18:42:00.000-08:00

I thought I might make a post (edited over time) to address some nuances of online debate, from the position of a certain paradigm of rational thinking (and said paradigm does not have to be followed by anyone else - nothing forces it).

Here's the first entry...

#1

"What you said doesn't make sense! Try again!"

The start of this one indicates the other person is utterly stuck in thinking that they always, with god like omniscience, know when something doesn't make sense. It's not like it's something that does make sense but they don't get it - it's just anything that doesn't make sense to them doesn't make sense.

Ambiguity: Sometimes you could have failed to make sense to the other person and they would say the same thing. This legitimate situation is what the 'always right about what doesn't make sense' guy uses to make his approach seem legitimate.

How to prise the two apart and distinguish which is which? Well, if that were easy to do then this wouldn't be such a great technique for the other guy to use!

Approach: How long have you read this other guys comments from? Technically even if it's their very first post they possibly could be using the 'I always know when something doesn't make sense' card. But don't fall into temptation to just think that - you may have not communicated well. Really if you estimate (and hey, you may be wrong in your estimate, but we've all got to place our bets) they simply are the boy who cries wolf/cries 'doesn't make sense', all you can do is say that for anyone else reading it. Either everyone else can understand that you might think it's possible, or they operate from some other paradigm of reasoning entirely and really what can you do about that.

Reintegration: Reintegration is basically a way of this paradigm not just being an ostrification - this is a way it allows someone to re-enter. Basically a statement along the lines of 'Well it doesn't make sense to me right now, but maybe I'm not getting it somehow' means the other person admits a subjective evaluation of what does or doesn't make sense. To complete the other side of the job, you aught to admit that perhaps somehow you've not communicated well (though you can say you think you have). This admittances of mutual potential for failure will likely lubricate further discussion or at least leave the subject at a mutual head scratching stage.

#2

"I am completely open to constructive criticism *further down the paragraph* You're attacking me!"

This is great because the other person has decided they always know what is or isn't constructive criticism, in some objective sense. The best way to be closed minded is to only ever believe you are open minded.

A genuinely open minded person will atleast mull over the idea they are being closed minded on a matter. A closed minded person will become offended at any suggestion they are being closed minded (because to them it's so impossible a suggestion it could only be trolling for someone to say it).

Attempted approach: "Can you give me an example of constructive criticism someone gave so I can learn to write more like them?".
Result: No reply at the time of writing.

FPS idea where you don't die every minute

2012-01-31T16:29:00.000-08:00

I think maybe there's a moral in multiplayer first person shooters - I mean, you tend to get wasted time and time again. Kind of pounds in the idea that you'd just die if you went into a real life gun battle. And in real life, you tend not to respawn (if the games are somehow giving people the impression they respawn after death, well, that's surprising...)

So possibly my idea is more violent for there being less death.

The idea is that you have some sort of beat down status, instead of dying. Your character goes into a sort of defensive mode - you can't shoot, only try and get away. In the levels, there are escape hatches, which only people in beatdown status can use. You get to one, you crawl in and you see your character run down a series of escape tunnels, grab some supplies to replenish themselves, then exit from another escape tunnel point. Effectively much the same as respawning, but you have a solid narrative link from one event to the other.

It is possible to get killed whilst trying to get to an escape hatch, you only have X amount of life left. Getting killed lowers your beatdown score. So you want to develop a strategy with where they are, in case you get beat down. Or maybe your good enough you wont need it...hehe. Sure!

Getting killed can only lower your score, say, three times. And only after you've made two beat downs. So if you've only beaten down one member of the other side, you don't loose that (to give newer players some sense of accomplishment, rather than losing their very first three points of beatdown score). But if you beat down two then being killed loses that second beatdown score.

I think it'd be interesting to play in a combat where the core of the combat isn't...so freankin' rediculous, ie, coming back to life just out of thin air? Ahh, that's stupid!

Some sort of play where self preservation is actually part of play, instead of a stupid macho fantasy of going in guns blazing, neva gunna miss a shot. A fantasy that can only be supported by a rediculous respawn mechanic, showing just how stupid dumb ass that macho fantasy is!