Distractions, Obstacles, and Blowback
I backed the Unknown Armies 3rd edition kickstarter (of course), but after a quick glace at the PDFs (cool!) I got busy and put them away. Then the hardback books arrived.
While I can't wait to play it, I don't have to wait to steal from it. Hoist the jolly roger and prepare to plunder Distractions, Obstacles, and Blowback.
Any RPG can use them. I'm running a Dracula Dossier campaign right now, and uses for these concepts in our campaign to fight Dracula, blow stuff up, and make the world safe for Malbec wineries just jumped out at me. "Use me now!" they said.
In between sessions the GM gets to scheme ways to thwart the player's plans. You can put them on note cards, and once the game starts, you have things to throw at your players. In this way they are similar to spotlight cards, only meaner.
Distractions
Distractions are aimed at a specific PC. They aim to pull the PC away from the main plot (and the group!) and into a sub-plot that ties in with what the character values. Background information is great fodder for distractions.
For example, a druid in a standard fantasy RPG is a protector of nature. You know the party is planning on raiding the Dread Tower to stop the local Necromancer from raising an undead army. But on the way, a sacred grove is under attack by woodcutters. A forest spirit calls out for help.
So what does the druid do? Leave the party? Convince the party to save the sacred grove, even if it means the Dread Tower will be that much harder? Leave the grove to die in order to fight a greater threat? Any choice is good, as it deepens the character. And any choice will lead to blowback.
I wouldn't use a distraction if it was likely to make the campaign fail or lose the fun-factor. In this example, druids aren't your undead fighting specialists, a delayed assault on the Dread Tower will be harder, but not impossible, and the destruction of a sacred grove is likely to prey on the druid's conscience but not deliver a fatal wound to the party.
Have a distraction or three ready for each PC. You don't have to use them, they'll be good in a future session.
Obstacles
Obstacles are simpler than distractions. The party is trying to do something. Some other group (or groups) want to stop them. So they send people or things to do just that. Important places have guards. Troublemakers attract unfriendly attention. Obstacles are your standard RPG encounters. You just want to have a few on hand and ready to go.
A dungeon crawl has it's traps and dungeon denizens. A Night's Black Agents game has it's vampyramid. A thieves' guild campaign has security and rivals. A political campaign has factions and dirty tricks. A high school amateur detective gang has cliques and shady characters.
You've got this. A few extra obstacles on hand in case you need them is a good idea.
Blowback
Blowback is the consequence of the characters' previous actions. It can work as a distraction or an obstacle, but it's a result of what the PCs have already been up to.
If the druid let the sacred grove die to go fight undead, they could find themselves haunted by undead spirits of the grove. You could foreshadow this for a number of session, first with bad dreams, then sightings in the distance, and finally a throw-down.
If the PCs bombed the house to get the vampire, who owned the house? Who was there during the bombing? Now a Renfield backed with a pack of ghouls is on their trail.
As the campaign goes on, more and more of the action can come from blowbacks. Just don't overdo so much that the players feel all their actions turn the world to ashes. Let some of their victories remain shining victories, while at the same time show them what they do matters.
Surprise!
Almost every roleplaying game that supports combat scenes has a rule for surprise. The surprised side gets some disadvantage, usually for the first round. Today I’m talking about when the player characters get surprised by the GM’s characters (NPCs or GMCs depending on your system), not the other way around.
Why bother with surprise? How does it translate into fun at your table?
- The default kind of fun is a more challenging combat. This is a great way to stress the PCs, and is particularly fun if the players are getting just a little too cocky. How long has it been since the players sweated the outcome of a combat? Standing there with targets on their faces while the opposition gets free shots is sure to get their attention.
- Surprise can help in world building. Maybe here in drow territory, drow have ambush points set up all over the place. You can tilt the odds of whatever surprise mechanics your system has to make it favor the drow in these encounters. As the players venture deep underground, drow ambushes become part of their world. “We go north, we need to be extra careful for drow surprises.”
- Surprise can help in shared world building. If the dice dictate the PCs are surprised, you can ask the players “Why are you surprised?” They can come up with all sorts of explanations you would never think of: “I’m so tired. Henrik’s ghost stories didn’t let me sleep last night.”
- Surprise can help build story. An antagonist might run ahead of the PCs, helping potential adversaries set up ambushes. Maybe it’s because they feel the PCs have cheated them. The GM can leave clues such as “this is the third ambush in a row that has the hallmarks of a Dr. Wild setup. The doctor sure seems to have it in for you.”
- Avoiding surprise by roleplaying can be rewarding. The players may meet someone who knows about the ambush ahead. If the players make friends, they find out about it. If the players are all murder-hobos, they’ll never learn that information.
- Avoiding surprise can be a good use of resources. Maybe use of a magic spell can reveal the ambush ahead. In a game like 13th Age, spending an icon boon could have icon send a message about the ambush. In a 5E type of game, a PC that is part of a faction may get the info as a faction favore. In a GUMSHOE game, players can spend their Sense Trouble points. The players can feel very good that they avoided walking into that trap, by spending a resource wisely to avoid it.
- In some systems, surprising the PCs can end up giving them resources. In Numenera and other Cypher System games, the GM can just declare the party is surprised as part of a group-wide GM Intrusion. Each PC then gets an experience point.
How have you used combat surprises to make your game more fun?
Big Book of Maps
Here at Dread Unicorn Games, we like RPG maps. Maybe you do too? Friend of the Dread Unicorn, Justin Andrew Mason, has got a Kickstarter you might want to take a look at. Maps for your table, maps for your VTT. Check it out!
Can I See Myself in your RPG Book?
As our hobby grows, I keep running into GMs and players who aren't the stereotypical gamer of the 1970s. Women, people of color, gays, trans, and even gray-haired oldies.
Which is great! More people to play with, to have fun with, to make friends with.
I have the original white box D&D set, and have been playing since the 70s. When a new player picks up a gaming book, do they see anyone that looks like their family? Images that include them? Or is there that barrier of "this is not for you."
Well, things are changing. And the lead author on The Gods Have Spoken: Deities and Domains, Vanessa Rose Phin, looks at the new 5E PHB to look at that change. Take a look on her blog. (Vanessa's also a major contributor to Gods and Icons.)
Of course this made me look at Dread Unicorn titles. Purple hermaphrodites are well represented, thank you very much. Numenera takes you out of the stereotypical RPG world in so many ways, art included. Our next titles are more in standard fantasy land, so we'll see what we can do there to make people feel like this is a game for them.
Some people have told me that if we make an effort to include more kinds of people, we could loose straight white males. Really? I think that's selling straight white males short. What if my sales are as flat as Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
Horrors!
Happy New Year from Dread Unicorn Games!!!
Dread Unicorn Games in 2016
Are you going to OrcaCon? I am, please say hi! I'll be running a few 13th Age games for Fire Opal and attending as much gaming goodness as I can.
Our first products are sister titles: Gods and Icons for 13th Age and The Gods Have Spoken: Deities and Domains for 5E. Why two? It turns out most of the writing and art will work in both products, so why not?
Here's where we are now with Gods and Icons and The Gods Have Spoken:
- The writing is 75.09% done (+ or -). Vanessa has done a great job with three pantheons, and I'm excited to plug in their relationship to the icons for Gods and Icons. There will be holy swords for paladins and religious items for all the divine classes.
- I've been playtesting Gods and Icons for a few months now. Soon I'll give it to the real playtesters to try out.
- We're going to Kickstart the gods! You'll be able to pick either or both titles as your rewards.
- Since this is our first kickstarter, we're going to be cautious. We don't want to promise what we can't deliver! For example, we're not going to do our own printing and shipping. For physical copies, we'll use Drive Thru's Print on Demand and let them do the shipping.
- But we will have lots of great stretch goals: more content and more art!
- Speaking of art, we have a great cover artist! Justin Wyatt has agreed to do our cover art, which will include three gods and three icons. Yay! Gaming art fans will recognize Justin from The Sun Below: City on the Edge where he did interior art and The Sun Below: Sleeping Lady, where he did the amazing cover and interior art.
- Some of Justin's work:
After the Kickstarter, our next title will be a return to Numenera with another adventure: The Sun Below: That's How the Light Gets In. There the players will confront what happens to the underground world when The Sun Below starts to fail!
After that? We're not telling! There is so much going on in roleplaying right now. We've got a lot of great ideas, but first, let's get these three products out the door.
Happy New Year!
John
When Dice Go Bad
In almost all roleplaying games, we use dice to make the gamy part of our roleplaying game fun. Nobody knows if your barbarian will hit the giant snake with his broadsword, if your occultist can banish the eldritch entity, or if your pilot can outpace the exploding supernova until the dice are rolled. This creates tension at the table, as players cheer critical hits and groan at critical misses.
It's all fun until somebody gets pushed out the action by the dice. Recently, I watched an rpg game and saw a single bad roll sideline a player. She had taken a prisoner, no one else seemed interested in anything but combat. As the battle wrapped up it was obvious the PCs were in no danger, so she took her prisoner aside and began to question him.
When it was her turn she would ask a question. On her first round she got to roll the die, and she rolled poorly. That was it. From then on, each turn the GM had her get stonewalled while the other players finished up a combat, took treasure, and had a good time. She got to sit out for 20 minutes while everyone else had fun. All because she tried to think out of the box, and try something new.
This broke a great rule I try to remember to use in my games: Never roll the die unless failure is interesting.
"Na, na, I won't talk" is not interesting. In fact, I felt like the player was being punished for being creative. I don't mean to pick on the GM, who was doing an overall great job. I'm sure I've done this a million times, it's just easier to see when I'm observing a game from the outside.
So what would be interesting?
No roll Have the prisoner spill some beans. It was a low level prisoner, so he probably didn't know much, but he could provide a small clue or two, something to let the captor shine in the spotlight.
Perhaps he could tell the PC where the bad guy is who hired him. Maybe you were going to give the players this clue anyway, but by giving it to the captor you make her look good.
Fail Forward When you Fail Forward you let the player roll, but if the roll is bad, you still give them something, but with a twist. When this player rolled badly, the GM could of said something like "You try to look tough but trip over your own shoelaces, but the cowering prisoner doesn't seem to notice. He says, 'OK, OK, I don't know much, we were hired by this weird guy...'"
And then drop a good clue (where the weird guys camp was), and a not so good clue (how to get there avoiding mentioning the hidden guards in the pass).
Make the Failure Interesting While a little bit of frustrating the players can be fun and motivating, a long sequence of stonewalling the PC got old fast.
What if the prisoner started shaking and then heating up? He had some suicide device that was going off. Maybe the PC could disable it fast before he burst into flames? Maybe the PC could find the map hidden in his cloak before it went up in smoke?
Happy gaming!
The Sun Below: City on the Edge, Available Now!
At long last, the PDF version of The Sun Below: City on the Edge, is available now at DriveThruRPG.com.
What if I told you there is a world below this one? A world with its own sun? Full of strange peoples, amazing discoveries, and unspeakable horror? Finding your way down to this world is almost impossible.Finding a way back up, well, that’s worse.
The Sun Below: City on the Edge, an epic adventure for Numenera that takes place deep below the surface of the Ninth World. What starts as an investigation into the aftermath of the Iron Wind soon turns to kiddnapping, a strange journey to an even stranger city.
Who will the player characters trust? Will they escape The City on the Edge?
An adventure for any tier party that your players will never forget.
New to Numenera? What do you need?
Maybe you've heard about this Numenera game, roleplaying 1 billion years in the future, but where do you start, what do you need?
First of all, Numenera is a roleplaying game. You need a few friends. One of you will be the Games Master (GM), the others will be the players. I suggest at least two, preferable three players. I like five players, but some people prefer less.
OK, you have your friends, what else? The GM needs the core book. The players need dice (they can share). What kind of dice? d100 (percentile dice), d20 (twenty sided dice) and d6 (six siders, aka normal dice). If you're experienced in other roleplaying games, you probably have the dice. Your local hobby shop probably has lots of dice (and the core book as well), or if you don't have a good game store near you, the internet is your friend.
You can download free character sheets here.
If you are an experienced GM, most of the published adventures are good for beginning player characters. If you're already good at improvising, read through the four adventures in the back of the core book just to get an idea of the system. If you want an easy introduction to GMing Numenera, start with The Beale of Boregal in the core book. It was written to teach the rules as you go.
That's it. Go have fun.
In the next post, I talk about what's the one book I recommend you get next?
Numeneraish and Numeneraocity
Like many of you, I've played a ton of different role playing games. I find it easy to make new stuff up. What I'm learning now is how to make stuff up Numenera Style.
It's all about the KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. Numenera has simple clean rules. A Numenera adventure should follow suit. Over and over in the editing phase of The Sun Below: City on the Edge, I find myself simplifying. I don't have to create a simulation. I just have to make it fun to play. And fun to GM.
For example, I have a race of blood sucking plant people, the slithik. I have different kinds of slithiks. Do I need so many? No, cut. They all have two attacks a round, one melee, one ranged. Does that make sense? No, cut. The top leader can have two ranged a round, that works.
Sometimes its a matter of making new rules feel Numeneraish. Is that a word? Of course it's a word. Or will be in 1 billion years. :)
I created an artifact where I wanted it to have special effects, but not every time. I could say if you hit with a natural even number, then "tada!" the effect goes off. But that doesn't feel very Numeneraish. What does feel Numeneraish? Ah, if you hit with a natural 17+, then it goes off. Numenera players are already used to cool stuff happening when they roll natural 17s or better.
And so on. Got to get my Numeneraocity on.
A Terrible Journey -- Part I
Order of Truth apprentices, pay attention. Today I will share a secret. How does one travel to the lands of the Sun Below? It’s not pretty, not safe, and not sane.
For over a century, the Order has used a most difficult path, through the fell city of Hidden Naresh. Our scholars have found dozens of references to other entrances, but when we look for them, we find nothing. Take heed and you will know why the Order keeps seeking for other portals to the lands below our feet.
In Hidden Naresh the world is torn and reality drips away. There is nothing for a mind to hold onto. An Aeon Priest will forget their own name, their purpose, and all that came before entering the city. One must hold on. A talisman is a necessity. Hold tight and stay focused.
Then, under the Temple of a Thousand Terrors, enter the lowest basement and find the red door. Not the blood door, but the door made out of red flesh. Enter this door and step into the pit.
Your fall will be gentled by a thousand clinging tendrils. Each will make an offer that you must not acknowledge. Do not give in. Keep falling, down, down, down, until you meet the gatekeeper.
Do not stare at her eyeless face. She will know if you do. Face away, but direct your speech to her. Ask for passage. She will open your back. Be glad you cannot see.
-- Charis Kos, Aeon Priest
The Sun Below: City on the Edge
City on the Edge
The first game from Dread Unicorn Games will be The Sun Below: City on the Edge, a licensed adventure for Numenera™. The adventure scales from Tier One to Tier Six and drops your players below the surface of the Ninth World. Deep below the surface world is an underground world of living airships, strange races, and a city on the brink. Action, intrigue, and discovery await in an underground world lit by it's own sun.