The Bright Side of Light Games

JB, Wizard King of Curmudgeons, made a post on his blog B//X BLACKRAZOR wherein he speaks extensively (and then some!) about the 'wrong-bad'TM evils of 'Light Games'.

I recommend going over there and reading it, though be aware it might take some time to do so, perhaps even multiple sittings.  

The post gave me the idea to write one of my own about how awesome Light Games can be, as many of my current favorites fall into that category.

To be clear, this isn't a 'Point-Counterpoint' response and I don't intend to get into a debate with JB. His reasoning and opinions are his own and needn't be argued with by the likes of me. He is a very particular fellow with a very particular view of a very particular game.

I don't like that game. I don't enjoy playing or running it. I would much rather spend my limited free time with the great many games I do enjoy and, as stated, a lot of these would be considered 'Light Games'. 

Now, Light Games is not a term I think I've heard or seen very often, so you'll see me interchange it here with the term I'm more accustomed to, 'Rules Lite'. Also, I will be addressing the subject in very general terms, mentioning specific TRPGs as examples or points of reference when and where it's useful. 

Take it Light

Let's get the obvious and expected reasons for liking Rules Lite games out of the way first; Simpler rules and fewer of them means the game is easier to learn, explain, prep for, run, and play. In addition, play is usually faster as everything from Character Creation, to Combat, Task Resolution, and Experience/Character Improvement has less complexity to it. 

As we get older we have more responsibilities and less free time. Assuming the average adult TRPG enthusiast has maybe 24 free hours of leisure time and only 4 or 5 of those alloted to actually playing their game of choice, do you want to spend that time agonizing over mechanics and looking up rules in your preferred corebook during a session or would you rather use that time to do research, find cool images, and then hit the ground running and proceed at a smooth, exciting pace?  

I'm sure for some the answer is, "I like worrying about all 6 PC's Encumbrance Initiative Modifier! Give me so much crunch my breakfast cereal is gravel!" Well OK then, go for it! Knock yourself out. For the rest of us, we want to get to the part where we explore the game world and defeat monsters. We'll be doing just that while you're still looking up the Movement Rules by Terrain and Weather in Chapter 25.B. 

A Little Light Reading

In the time it takes to learn, let alone master, some of the more crunchy, complex TRPGs, one could get a working knowledge of a half dozen Rules Lite games. This allows you and your group to sample a variety of different approaches to mechanics, genres, and settings. One of the big hurdles I heard about when trying to get gamers to try a new games is they don't want to take the time to learn a whole new set of rules. That makes sense if you are only familiar with rules that take a long time to learn. 

Learning 6 Rules Lite games in the time it takes to learn one Rules Heavy one may sound like an exaggeration but consider my own experience and obession passionate interest in Japanese Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

It took me less time to fully translate and understand Meteor City-Star Rainy Days, Tokyo Ghost Research, and the recently obtained Zookyo Island (basically a Crime Drama/Thriller take on Disney's Zootopia) then it did to get a handle on the Cypher System. Cypher isn't super Rules Heavy per say but compared to the the games I mentioned above, it feels almost cumbersome.

I've said many times in the past that my feeling is most RPGs are 20-30 page workable games buried under 300+ pages of overthinking and unnecessary junk. Sometimes you'll find a game where those 30 pages are more than workable; they're downright good! Maybe really good! It's also possible some of those 300+ extra pages contain some interesting and useful stuff. It just like game designers over design and over write the majority of games on the market.

Cypher comes in at 450 pages [for the PDF]. Meteor City is 58 pages, Tokyo Ghost Research is just 28 pages, and Zookyo Island is 40 pages respectively. That makes those three games together 324 pages less than Cypher. See what I mean? Much easier to read through all of those in less than half the time it would take to read the core Cypher rulebook. 

My point isn't 'Smaller is Better'. My point is simpler and less complex is easier to comprehend and explain to others. It's each to remember as well. If done well, it means a more direct design that gets to the crucial features quickly.

Light on My Feet

Another benefit related to the above is the ability to ad lib and improvise feels much easier in Rules Light games. There is less of a concern/fear that making a decision on the fly is going to have rippling ramifications that 'ruin the game' for everyone involved. 

Especially with games where the base Task Resolution mechanic is the same for virtually any and all actions, if you are unsure how to ajudicate something, default to that base mechanic. Easy peasy. And once again, since a mistake or bad call is unlikely to impact a dozen other sub-systems, if your judgement wasn't perfect you come up with something better for next time without much muss or fuss. 

In full transparency I just couldn't get into the Cypher System and complete acknowledge my difficulty in wrapping my head around it isn't due to its complexity but rather how the rules are explained and all the subsystem elements that I find don't gel with my gaming style. 

Light on Calories, Heavy on Flavor

I'm a tinkerer. It's who I am. I like to customize, modify, kitbash, and adjust things just so. 

It is much easier to change or even add rules to a Light Game. Too many houserules and adjustments to a Rules Heavy RPG can result in the whole thing collapsing around your ears. Rules Light games are far more forgiving in this regard. 

I remember my first [and arguably] most successful long term 'Well Known Fantasy RPG' campaign. Over the course of the 4 years or so that I ran it (which included playing it several hours each day, Monday through Friday, in the Summers) I made a lot of modifications and houserules. Each one was specificallydesigned to give the game, the world, and the characters a certain feel. Eventually, I looked at my book of notes on the game and wondered, 'Am I really even playing Well Known Fantasy RPG anymore? If not, why am I still using it at all? Why not find or make a game that does all these things I want to do?' 

I admit it was fun to customize Well Known Fantasy Game but in the end I switched to a simpler, less rigid, more flexible set of rules that suited the game I was running much better. 

***

I could go on and on with this subject (not unlike JB did with his post) but I have other projects going on I'd like to get to - many related to what would definitely be considered Light Games. I hope I gave you some idea of why I personally love Rules Lite games so much. Honestly some of my favorite RPGs right now are Rules Lite and I would rather run and/or play any of them a thousand times over than have to sit through one of the clunky, slow dinosaurs of gamings heyday. 

Yes, I do love Champions [4E], Yes, I love Traveller. Those are the exceptions though, not the rule. 

Sign me up for ALIEN, Footprints in the Night, Ghostbusters (Original, InSpectres, Mine), Meteor City - Star Rainy Days, Smurfs, Star Trek Adventures*, Super Happy Sentai Hour, Teenagers from Outer Space, Tokyo Ghost Research, Zookyo Island, and more...

Stay tuned and see what pops up next,

AD

Barking Alien

*Star Trek Adventures is arguably not Rules Lite but it is essentially a much less complex game than any of the previous versions of Star Trek. In addition, I find it really easy to run and to me it has the same feel as many of the Light Games I enjoy. 

I also ignore 30% of the mechanics. 

Bye now!

Pair of Fives

As should be pretty clear by now, my blogging is really slow this Summer.

It's already mid-August and I've made only 3 posts before this one. My schedule this month has gotten in the way of a lot of things but especially my 'Cities' blog project. I still intend to continue it but it may bleed over into September. *Sigh*

To shake off the disappointment I'm feeling over my own progress [or lack thereof], I thought I'd throw my two credits in on a thing two of my favorite bloggers have done, list of our First Five Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

It began with Lord Blacksteel of The Tower of Zenopus and infected Kelvin of Aiee! Run From Kelvin's Brainsplurge! and now I've caught it. No amount of Vitamin C or Chicken Soup is going to get rid of it until I join in as well...

I'm going to list My First Five RPGs based on my imperfect memory, obsessive notes, and questions to my long time gaming buddies. The years noted aren't when the games were published but rather when [I believe] I played/run them.

While D&D was definitely first, what was second is a little unclear to me. The rest should be roughly in order. Again, check out the years.

Dungeons and Dragons (August 25th, 1977)

Gamma World / Metamorphosis Alpha (1979-1980) I think.

Boot Hill (1980-81) I think.

Traveller (1980-81) Definitely after Boot Hill. 

Gangbusters (1981)

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Ed. (1981) I think.

Sometimes I think I ran Boot Hill before I played Gamma World, other times I remember it the other way around. I do recall that the first time I played Gamma World, the GM (my friend Richard T.) also owned Metamorphosis Alpha and incorporated some elements of the latter game into his Gamma World adventure.

I also included Advanced D&D 1st Edition which, though it could arguably be lumped into the D&D I had already played, is important to mention because it was here that I started being turned off to Dungeons and Dragons as a whole. I absolutely loved AD&D at the time but the more I played other games after it, the more I noticed its flaws until I realized it just wasn't what I wanted to spend my time and money on. . 

Now, since I'm me and I gotta be different, I'm adding a bonus feature:

The Five RPGs That Currently Interest Me The Most!

Thing is, I posted a collection of games presently on my mind here, just 20 days ago (roughly). This isn't going to be the same list. What's the different? Well...

The previous list was focused on games I'm in the mood to run for which I already have ideas. These five RPGs here are ones that have me thinking about games and gaming in general. They have me considering how and why I play and run games the way I do. They interest me for their potential but not necessarily for ideas I currently have. 

Hmm. On closer inspection, many of these titles are the same as those. Heh. *Sweat Drop*

ALIEN

A game I love but rarely get to play, except when I modify it to run something like Ghostbusters or Red Dwarf. It is a game in which a goal was targeted and clearly achieved; they needed a game with a mechanic that would simulate the Human tendencey to screw up when they panic. They nailed it and did so in a fun, exciting, and unpredictable way (thanks to the randomization of dice results). This game has given me a new perspective on something I've always felt but never saw as clearly as I do here - rules don't have to be complex to be effective. They just need to do what they were intended to do. 

Meteor City SFRPG Star Rainy Days

I really like this game for its ability to capture a particular feel and maintain that atmosphere throughout the book. It's humorous, a little melancholy, kind, and potentially heartbreaking. It's got that cozy, slice-of-life element that I long to include in my games again. I'm searching this game for the secrets of its ability to create that vibe. Plus, what's not to love about a game that promotes world-buidling on both a small and galactic scale?

Smurfs

What can I say, I just SMURFING LOVE this game! It's a rare gem in that it's not overwritten, it has a sense of humor and self-awareness, yet it doesn't try to deconstruct or modernize the subject. This is the Smurfs. It is what it says it is. Aside from how much fun I'm having with it, it inspires me to stay true to concept and being authentic about what I want and intend to do.

Star Trek Adventures 

Though it has more rules than it needs (I feel this way about 90% of the TRPGs in existance), it just works and it works so well. This game is great at allowing me to do what I want to do: Create exciting and intriguing Star Trek scenarios. It allows for world-building, character exploration, and space battles (with a few homemade tweaks) and all the while feels like a Star Trek TV series. It reminds me to seek a balance between the narrative and the rules. 

Tokyo Ghost Research

What can a system be? What do you want it to do? TGR made me question those things and I like the answers I came up with. This game really put control of the outcome of rolls into the hands of the player. No action they take is boring. You don't have to sit through miss after miss before you hit ineffectively. You do what you wanted to, or you do it with consequence, or you the player can decide you failed and then you're compensated by the rules. Brilliant and sublime.

Anyway, that's all I got for you. My brain is a little fried from...just life in general.

Worry not though, more to come.

AD

Barking Alien

Galaxy of Adventure

The goal of this post is to show my Storybox approach to Adventure Design 'in action' by recounting an old campaign in which I used this method. 

Before I get into it though, I want to say I'm a little surprised by the response to this or lack there of. I was really expecting more views and comments.

Sure, most would be of the 'have you lost your mind' sort of thing, followed by the 'what you describe would never work' variety. Instead...nothing so far.

Hmm. Perhaps people are just nodding their heads in agreement and understanding. Maybe what I am proposing isn't all that strange these days. Have I waited too long and now my off beat way of doing things is just the norm or worse yet...mundane? Good grief. I don't know that I could live that down. 

Please, someone out there read from a boxed text or remind me how 'adventure paths' work. 

To illustrate exactly how the Storybox method works, I will recount one of the first campaigns I can remember where I consciously used this approach. It was a homebrew Star Wars campaign from back in 1985-86. The campaign never received a title but was jokingly referred to for years as the 'Forcepunk' campaign.

The game featured a view of the Star Wars universe from the average citizen of the Galaxy instead of the big heroes and villains of the war between the remnants of the Imperial Empire and the New Republic. It also had a bit of dark humor. 

Now let's break it down Storybox style:

The Premise: A Star Wars campaign focused on a group of misfits trying to survive in the aftermath of the Emperor's death and the fall of the Galactic Empire. The New Republic has been established but things aren't going all that smoothly on the frontier (what we now call The Outer Rim Territories)

The Map*: The map is mostly concerned with Hutt Space and independent worlds beyond the reach of the New Republic and the Imperial Remnants; the latter being small groups of Empire holdovers serving as regional warlords or trying to pretend the Imperials are still in charge.  

 

Star systems noted with a blue star are ones from Star Wars canon. Those with yellow stars are original locations created by me. The PCs were free to travel anywhere they wanted with the limitations of having the Hyperspace Coordinates, time, fuel*, and the like. 

Most of the campaign ended up with the PCs traveling to many worlds but often bouncing back and forth between Gardine**, Tatooine, and ZellZell. They would do jaunts to worlds as far away as Corellia, Mandalore, and Ord Mantell but then head back 'home' to their base of sorts on Gardine. 

Of special note is Kolindoor, identified on the map with a blue ring around the yellow star. This planet was not originally on the map. Its coordinates were obtained by the PCs after a new PC joined and the others helped him obtain it from hidden ruins on Mandalore. 

Conceits: The prevailing themes of the campaign were as follows...

The PCs were bad people ashamed or tired of being bad. They sought redemption. 

They were good at being bad but sort of bad at being good. 

The campaign's take on The Force was that it was much like Karma. 

The Opening:

The campaign opened with the PCs, a group of Gangsters, and a group of Imperials in a firefight on the planet Ord Itani. I made references to a deal, a botched job, a double cross, and a desperate squad of Imperials swooping in to claim the prize. 

Improvised dialogue between the Players/PCs filled in the details. The Gangsters hired the PCs to get Spice from Kessel. Imperials showed up so the PCs dumped their cargo and the Imperials found nothing. The PCs never dumped anything; it was a trick. They reached Ord Itani and gave the Spice to the Gangsters but the Imperials followed the PCs there and demanded the shipment. The Gangster refused to pay the PCs since they brought the Imperials to them. 

Blaster fire and chaos ensued. 

PC party splits up. Three hold off the enemies with blasters, smoke bombs, and some neat tricks using the environment of the jungle spaceport. Two sneak off to the docking bay where their ship is to get it ready to leave. One steals a Speeder Bike and attempts to nab some of the Spice. 

A bit later, the ship flies right over head and picks up the rest of the party. The guy on the Speeder Bike gets one case of Spice and drives the cycle into the PC freighter's cargo hold. One PC manages to get the Imperials and Gangsters shooting each other more than they shoot the PCs. Still and all, two of the PCs are badly wounded. 

Escaping into space, the freighter is soon pursued by Gangster ships and TIE Fighters. The players ask me where they should jump to next. 

This is key. I said, "I don't know. It's your ship. Where do you want to go?"

Absorbing this, the PCs check their Nav Computer to see what's near by and what are these places like. They decide to go to Gardine, an original planet not far from Tatooine. It is independent of the Hutts and a good place to lay low because its largely unpleasant and few want to go there (heheh). The PCs eventually find Gardine so cool they make it their unofficial base of operations. 

Onward:

While they start off as low lives and ne'er do wells (except for the Jedi Wannabe who joins later), the PCs play out the idea that this isn't what they want. In fact, many of them are trying to leave that lifestyle behind and do some good. Others don't know any other way to be. As the campaign progressed, the PCs went from smuggling Spice and taking on underworld bounties to trying to protect alien refugees and turning the Gangsters of Ord Itani in to the New Republic. 

As is the nature of my Storybox philosophy, the PCs would ask around once arriving on a planet and find out the local goings on. One world might be the domain of a interstellar kingpin but also noted for a rare fruit and offering a bounty on illegal poachers. There were always multiple things happening on a given planet. Add to these hooks and leads whatever it was the players were looking to do. 

Thoughts:

I never quite knew what the next game session would bring though and neither did they. Although I had laid out all the current politics and happenings, made notes on each of the planets and their inhabitants, I had no idea which of these would see the light of day until the PCs decided to go there. 

In one session I'll never forget, the PCs find out that their 'change of heart' activities have them wanted by several figures of the Galactic Underworld. One of the bounty hunters after them is rumored to be Boba Fett, even though the PCs had heard Fett died three years ago on Tatooine. 

Anyway, this event was supposed to be part of the living background, a little crumb to be explored at some later point. One of the PCs, the one with the highest bounty on his head, decided the group needed to do something about this right away. With the help of his companions the PC enacted a brilliant plan; he appeared to blow himself up in his landspeeder, left one identifying piece behind, then disguised himself as a different bounty hunter and turned it in to collect the bounty - ON HIMSELF! 

This scenario was the culmination of numerous previous events and pro-actively initiated by a player. I like to believe myself pretty creative but there is no way I saw that coming. Is that going to happen in anyone's pre-written adventure? Is there a way to pencil in room to have that happen? I mean, it's possible but I don't recall a lot of that kind of thing coming up in the Village of Hommlet or Griffin Mountain. Again, it could happen but generally the way most adventures are created and structured there doesn't seem to be room for the kind of pro-active, player driven narratives seen in this more open-ended method. 

For me, this improvisation-with-parameters or perhaps improvisation-with-provided-tools approach works much better than the more traditional version of adventure design. 

With that, I think I will end my analysis of this idea and move on to something else. November is almost upon us and I want to consider what I am going to talk about next month and perhaps beyond...

AD

Barking Alien

*We never actually addressed fuel beyond being out of it or needing to get it. A botched Navigation or other flight based roll could have me saying, "Seems you burned a lot of fuel this trip" or "Your low on fuel after that last jump". Fuel was more of a MacGuffin than a tracked resource. 

**I have mentioned Gardine (pronounced gar-DEEN) before. It is one of my oldest original planets. It is also nearly identical to the planet Nevarro that appears in The Mandalorian streaming series from Disney+. From the ash covered landscape to the lava rivers and the presence of Offworld Jawas it is startling how similar Nevarro and Gardine are. 

Chose Your Own Adventure

Once I have the key components I need for a table-top RPG campaign  - A Premise, A Map, at least one Conceit, and a good portion of the accessible locations Fleshed Out (See the previous post) - it is time to start designing the Adventures for said campaign.

Or it would be if I designed Adventures. 

Wait...wasn't this a series of posts about Adventure Design?

Oh indeed it is but I believe you'll see that I go about things a bit differently than most. 

The point of Fleshing Out the various regions of the game world (or universe or multiverse depending on the game) is so I know who and what is there as well as why they're there and what they would do if PCs decided to visit.

It is especially important to know, for example, that the port master of the unassuming fishing town a few miles North is in on a secret smuggling operation run by local pirates. He doesn't want to get caught and hasn't so far so. I have notes as to why he's doing it and what he'll do to avoid being arrested. Is he the 'fight the PCs type' or a 'cut them in for a deal type'? This is vital because I have no idea whether or not the PCs will interact with him but if they do, I'll be ready. Regardless of what the PCs do I will be able to react appropriately based on the motivation and personality I've given him. 

Hold on...you don't know if the PCs will meet up with this guy at all? Isn't he an Encounter? If that isn't where the Adventure in that town leads, why create so much information on him at all? 

Ah, therein lies the crux of the matter. A Storybox game doesn't lead you anywhere. It follows you as you move through the setting. 

When I run a Storybox game I include lots of (hopefully) curious characters, interesting concepts, and intriguing goings-on and see which of these things the PCs latch on to. Often some of these elements, scattered here and there throughout the setting, have a direct relation to one or more of the PCs, to their goals, or to the goals of the party as a whole. 

I begin the campaign proper with either some [GM generated] event to get the ball rolling or drop a series of potential hooks, revealing some of the occurrences that I know are going on in the world/universe. These hooks will include a few that connect to the PCs' backstories as noted above. I then wait and see what the PCs want to do and which lead they want to follow. 

Other times one of the players/PCs will say something like, "OK gang, we know we need to do/buy/obtain X in order to achieve this thing that we all care about. Maybe we should start out by traveling to Such-and-Such place." Basically, the PCs can generate plot by saying, "We want to do this thing" and then the campaign will pursue that thing until something else comes up. 

What it's really all about is the choices the PCs make and the things that excite them are what generates 'Adventure' and determines the nature of the scenarios. Whoever and whatever the PCs decide to interact with then creates a domino effect of organic connections and logical consequences.

If the PCs learn of a stolen Magic Item and seek to retrieve it, they will likely cross paths with the other characters and organizations that I as Gamemaster know are also after the item. I know how the NPC from whom the item was stolen feels about the item and the PCs for trying to get it back for her. I know where it is or more accurately, where it is likely to be, but that could change based on the actions of the PCs and their antagonists. 

While I am still the GM, the players very much choose their own adventure from a combination of possible options as well as new options they can generate themselves. Also, there is a tendency in these games to see both Big Adventure Goals and smaller personal goals. The PC Superheroes may want to track down all the members of the villainous Legion of Crime but that'll take a while. Between following leads and fighting bad guys Tomorrow Man and Intrepid want to upgrade the defenses of the team headquarters. Visitor and Spellbound visit with a new hero who helped them on their last mission to see if she wants to join the team. These latter subplots - upgrading the base and recruiting a new member - were the PCs'/players' ideas, not mine. 

How do you plan encounters then?

How do you make sure there's enough treasure for the PCs efforts?

How do you manage the 'Challenge Rating' if a bunch of 'low level' PCs up and decide they want to take on an Ancient Dragon. 

Easy...

I don't. I see what happens. 

Treasure isn't a big deal in my games as I've noted before. Wealth isn't the reward the PCs are hoping for in my campaigns more often than not. In the cases where there is a monetary or physical reward of some kind that will be figured into whatever they're doing. Ridding the countryside of a terrible monster gains you are a reward from the local Duke. Successfully smuggling vital Medical Droid parts to a Rebel Base in the Bontooine System gets you credits from the Rebel Alliance but more over it helps keep the Rebels in fighting condition.

Meanwhile, saving the Earth from the menace of Dark Seid or Dr. Doom gets you thanks and praise from Humanity. That's it. It all works itself out by genre. 

If a bunch of novice adventurers travel from their tiny, one-horse village to the Mountain of Endless Despair to battle Mourngoth, The Ebony Dragon of Sadness Over The Departed, then they'll likely die...but maybe not. An infinite number of things could happen along the way. 

Next post I will do a mini-'Campaigns I Have Known' wherein I will recount a campaign a run with this approach and how it worked in play. 

Later,

AD

Barking Alien

A Taste For Adventure

For some time now I've wanted to convey my particular approach to Adventure Design in as concise and complete a manner as possible. 

I've made attempts to do this in the past and a number of previous posts touch on the subject to varying degrees. Honestly, I don't feel as if I've been able to properly explain what I do very well at all. It is a thing that comes very naturally to me, something I've been doing for over 40 years now and as such I've found it difficult to put it into words in a way others can understand. 

I am going to try and fix that with a short series of entries that I hope will get across the way in which I create adventures for my campaigns.  

Fingers crossed.

Please note that this is my preferred process but not the one I always use. It is best for Open World, Sandbox style campaigns with largely Pro-Active players. It showcases an approach I've nicknamed the 'Storybox' method, which I have discussed before. 

These days I find myself running adventures for my games that are more akin to the type most GMs probably employ: There is a specific thing happening, the PCs are told about it and offered a reward/paid to do a job/called upon by higher authorities or powers to take care of the situation. 

When my Starfleet crew comes upon a planet emitting unusual radiation that could endanger the entire sector...well...that's what's going on. They are Starfleet and they know they have to deal with it. On a meta-level, they understand that dealing with this is the scenario I've set up for that evening (more about this as the series goes on though...).

What I prefer and what made me a very popular GM when I was younger, was a far more open-ended approach...

My campaigns generally began with a Premise and a Map.

The Premise could be something like, 'The PCs are the crew of a starship exploring a region of the galaxy that was once home to an empire of highly advanced aliens. Their artifacts are everywhere.' It could also be something like, 'What does it mean to carry on another hero's legacy?' For the first part of this adventure design series, our Premise is 'A Medieval Fantasy setting wherein the PC Adventurers are Fantasy Foodies traveling across the world to sample and cook culinary delights largely made from Monsters and plants that grow in Dungeons.' *

I'm calling the campaign, 'A Taste For Adventure'.

Swords and Food

Art by navigavi

The game Map created for this campaign covers the lands in and around the city in which the PCs begin the game. The PCs have a wagon and beasts of burden capable of traveling between their starting city and any of the locations on the map they might be interested in investigating. That said, it would take them months to travel to reach the lands beyond the map due to distance, supplies, inclement weather, etc. but it's definitely possible with determination and forethought on the players part. 

Not my best Map.

Fantasy Maps are really hard for me. 

Next I devise a Conceit. In this context a Conceit is a concept that governs the campaign, not unlike a custom made trope. Often the Conceit has a Player Element and a Gamemaster Element. Players may be informed of one or both of these but usually they will only be aware of the Player Element. It is possible, even likely, that there won't be a need to explicitly point these elements out as the players should catch on to them pretty quickly. 

The Conceit for 'A Taste For Adventure' is that each location on the map is known for a particular kind of food or signature dish (Player Element). Eating the famous and/or rare cuisine or obtaining the ingredients to make it will allows require the PCs to overcome an obstacle or face a conflict.  

For example, the village of Draughtmount hosts an annual Beer and Mead competition as part of their Great Brewmasters Festival. Brewers from all across the land come to show off their drafts and tavern owners and barkeeps place orders for the most popular of the potations. This year, a lack of rain and good barley and hops harvests threatens the festival as few distilleries were able to make enough beer to meet the demand. 

If the PCs traveled to Draughtmoount hoping to lift a pint of Dwarven Roasted Red Stout or Elven Willowwine Ale to their lips, they are going to have to find a way to convince the brewers to part with the liquid treasure for less then a king's ransom. 

Note that some campaigns may feature multiple Conceits. 

Alright, now that we have a Premise, a Map, and a Conceit we can get to the most important part - fleshing out the locations on the map! 

Fleshing Out The Map deals with a lot more than just naming regions and identifying who the mayor of a particular city is. Some of the important things to know about any given point on the map include:

• What is this place known for? What makes it significant in the setting?
• What does it and its people produce? What do they need? What do they want?
• What are its people like? How do they think and why? 
• Who lives there that thinks things need to improve? Who wants more than they have?
• Who lives there that seeks to keep the status quo?
• What's the terrain and weather? How does it effect other details about the location?

In the case of many of these questions, the answers can sometimes be nothing and/or no one. That's fine as it says something about the place as well. What you want is a detailed understanding of each place, its people, key individuals (NPCs) who live/dwell/work there, and why these things are the way they are.

While I don't recommend you go nuts, I will say the more detail you have in this regard the better it will be for the next step in our process. I of course do indeed go nuts.  

Cool. I think we're finally ready to...

Hey Barking Alien! I thought you said this was going to be about Adventure Design! So far this is all about Campaign Design. Tell us how you write adventures!

Oh, I don't write adventures. 

You...What? You don't write adventures?

No. The players do...

To Be Continued,

AD

Barking Alien

*Clearly inspired by my favorite Manga Delicious in Dungeon (aka Dungeon Meshi). 

Sure Beats Working For A Living

A few weeks back I was discussing Treasure, Wealth, and Money in RPGs with my Sunday evening gaming group when the topic took a turn toward in game economics. 

Hmm. Perhaps that's not an accurate name for subject I want to discuss but it is how I think of it. What I really mean is the bookkeeping elements of certain RPGs that relate to the game world or universe's economy.

• Busting Ghosts, getting paid, and putting take-out Chinese on the table in Ghostbusters.
• Docking fees, repairs, and paying off that galactic gangster you owe in Star Wars.
• Hiring Hirelings for Hire and I assume paying them in Dungeons and Dragons.
• Things like fuel, upkeep, and payments on a starship in Traveller.

These are just some examples of what I'm talking about but hopefully enough for you to get the idea. The settings of many RPGs revolve around the making of money just like real life does. [Remember this as it will come into play later on]. Making money in this context is very different from seeking Treasure. At least it is in my mind. 

As opposed to Treasure being the one time motivation and reward for completing an adventure, Money is the ongoing ancillary element that allows the adventure to happen and to continue. Without Treasure, a Fantasy Adventurer goes on an adventure to find Treasure. Without Money, a business is out of business and the 'adventure' is over. 

Now the big question that this brought to my mind was...is this fun? Is a game where you struggle to make sure your company stays afloat or you have enough fuel to keep your ship running something people enjoy? 

Responses were mixed. 

My friend Keith summed up the overall consensus that, "Worrying about how much money I have and whether or not I can pay the bills is what I do in real life. Making that money and balancing my books is work. I am not here to do work. I'm here to have fun."

Sure, I get that. Far be for me, as Anti-Math as they come, to advocate economics as an enjoyable pastime but...well...I have on more than one occasion run and played in games where this dynamic was present to a greater or lesser extent and had a blast. Funny enough, it hasn't always involved 'real math' but rather an abstraction of money management that sets a tone and atmosphere more than anything else. 

The best example of this in my own experience is Ghostbusters, specifically my Ghostbusters/InSpectres hybrid. There you have a pool of dice or rather a set of pools called, 'Franchise Dice'. In my version, there are three pools that make up a Ghostbusters Franchise:

• Information - Resources in the form of physical or digital writing or access to it. 
• Equipment - Resources in the form of physical device and gear on hand or accessible. 
• Capital - Resources in the form of liquid assets - Cash or funds that are easily accessible. 

An example of Information would be a small library at the team headquarters that includes Spates Catalog and Tobin's Spirit Guide. An example of Equipment would be a pair of Hand-Held Fire Extinguishers or a Geiger Counter. An example of Capital would be a Bank Account that enables you to write a check to pay a fine from the EPA. 

PCs in my Ghostbusters/InSpectres mash-up get Experience Points towards improving their skills but they can also pool their points to improve one of the three Franchise Dice categories. The catch is, in order to improve any of the Franchise Dice the team must have been paid for their services and have a positive amount of money after paying for any fines or damages they caused.

In the end I am not saying monetary resource management is objectively fun, though I am sure some gamers out there do. What I am saying is that for me, some resource management and the trappings of 'needed to pay the bills' can be an interesting part of an RPG campaign; one oft overlooked aspect of 'Survival Skill' in modern to future settings. If you focus on the results more than the math itself, it adds a distinct level of immersion that makes certain genres and settings feel more real. 

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Barking Alien

There's More To You Than Money

Continuing my thoughts on the role of Treasure in RPGs...

When I first entered the RPG hobby I had very little experience with or exposure to Fantasy fiction of the type that inspired D&D.

I may have read The Hobbit by that point but I'm not positive. I first played Holmes Basic D&D in August of '77 and the animated film wouldn't air until November. Fantasy to me was Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and books like Faeries and Gnomes. I knew what Knights, Dragons, and Castles were thanks to Erol Flynn films on the Sunday Afternoon Movie, Walt Disney films and Bugs Bunny/Warner Brothers cartoons.

Yeah, I wasn't what you'd call 'well versed'. 

My closest friends were largely in the same situation, so we defaulted to what we did know: Movies, TV shows, and comic books. That's why in our first campaign ever we almost never looted the bodies, never checked for treasure, and we weren't really concerned about money for the most part. Of course we needed money from time to time but we didn't concern ourselves with it or with trying to amass it. Obtaining wealth and all that simply wasn't high on our list of interests or priorities. 

As I've mentioned, our roles models for heroic characters were Captain America, Mister Spock, and The Lone Ranger. None of these fellows searched fallen enemies for loose change. How demeaning for a hero! That's the work of low lives and common thieves. 

Sometime later when I would play with others who'd been playing the game 'correctly', I was confused and a little weirded out by all the pick pocketing, tomb robbing, and stealing from corpses. Over time and exposure to the source material found in Appendix N I found it...well...less strange but still freaking odd.

AD&D would eventually come along and we would start playing a game wherein you gain Loot Points...sorry...Experience Points for finding Treasure. Wait. Let me read that again. Experience equals something something Gold something something...hmmm. Yeah, not doing that.

It makes no sense. How does finding coins contribute to you being better at healing spells or smashing a goblin's head with your mace? The system already had enough counter-intuitive, hard to swallow concepts for me without the idea that wealth made you a better wall climber or barbarian berserker. This cognitive dissonance (which I honestly had with many elements of AD&D) was what first inspired me to do things a little differently.

Beginning with my first major Aerth/Winghorn Guard campaign in 1983 (or thereabouts), I used a homebrew Experience Point system based on things like 'Creative Use of an Ability, Spell, Item, or Weapon' and 'Personal Character Development'. Contrary to what some would assume, it wasn't that players tried to emote whenever possible to get XP but rather if you happened to you'd be rewarded.

These rewards were given by the DM (me) but based largely on popular opinion of the party members. Each player would bring up a cool moment, action, or bit of dialogue from one of the other players and we'd discuss if it warranted a reward. I still use a similar system today in many of my games. 

What made this work especially well back then was that The Winghorn Guard campaign wasn't about Treasure hunting. The game focused on the PCs as Heroes, protecting innocents from monsters, thwarting thieves guilds, and preventing mad demi-gods from taking over the world. How then would the PCs ever obtain Experience Points? In fact, I created a system wherein the PCs would get XP for donating coins/money to their organization to help maintain it. 

In the end I don't recall how wealthy any of these characters became. That is to say, we don't sit around telling stories of the Treasure we found or money we made. Does anyone? Instead, we remember the characters - their personalities, activities, and the events that surrounded them. That's what was memorable and so that's what was rewarded.

Additional thoughts are brewing...

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Barking Alien

What's Treasure Worth?

One of the sacred crows of Old School gaming that I've always had a strange relationship with is the concept of 'Treasure'. 

Let me start by saying I will not be addressing Treasure from my usual vantage point as a Gamemaster and (occasional) player of games wherein Treasure simply isn't a thing - Star Trek, Star Wars, Superheroes, and others. I may talk about this in a separate post. We'll see. 

Instead, my goal is to discuss Treasure from a more general gaming point of view; though obviously one that is based on my own experiences and ideas on the subject, including my earliest forays into Dungeons & Dragons with Basic and Advanced 1st Edition.. 

Treasure is defined by Merriam-Webster as 'Wealth (such as money, jewels, or precious metals) stored up or hoarded'. 

Also:

Something of great worth or value

A collection of precious things

These certainly fit the traditional RPG meaning of Treasure wouldn't you say? We usually imagine piles of gold coins, a smattering of jewelry and gemstones, and perhaps a magical sword or ancient urn. Riches beyond ones wildest dreams are to be had for the Adventurer brave enough to seek them. 

Unless...that isn't what the Adventurer seeks.

In order to discuss Treasure as an Old School fan might understand it, I went to an Old School D&D fan - JB of B/X BLACKRAZOR - to give me his explanation of what Treasure is and why its awesome:

- As a goal, "money" is easily understood / recognized by players.

- As a goal, treasure acquisition is an objective, measurable means of success. You're not worried about what constitutes "good role-playing" or humor awards, etc.

- As a measurable objective, it invites risk-reward assessment (should we spend our resources (HPs, spells, etc.) to take down a big difficult score? etc.).

- For a GROUP of individuals (the players) it provides a unifying objective...we all want treasure, let's work (together, cooperatively) to find treasure.

- As a target objective, it invites a multitude of ways to accomplish the objective (stealth, trickery, negotiation, combat, etc.). When experience is only awarded for combat (as in 3E and 4E D&D, for example), there is only one means of earning experience points (fighting), limiting the experience overall.

- As a "tangible" objective of play (the imaginary characters must go after it), it encourages proactivity on the part of the players in order to gain the reward. Passive reward systems (XP for participation, for example) do not encourage proactivity. It provides no game-related impetus/motivation.

- With regard to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (first edition) specifically, treasure is tied directly to the game economy (it's needed for hirelings, training, equipment replacement, magical research, tithes and fees, construction, etc.) providing reinforcement of the reward system (we need money - we need to adventure - we acquire money - we spend money - we need money). 

Money is a common and easily understood goal and a common motivator for adventurers in many stories across an array of genres. Except...it isn't really. Certainly Captain James T. Kirk, Luke Skywalker, and Superman aren't motivated by the promise of wealth. Ah, I said I was going to avoid those universes so let's look at Fantasy...

Bilbo Baggins does not except the undertaking of traveling to the Lonely Mountain for the treasure. At the end of the Hobbit he is indeed a wealthy man but he is back home with a story to tell and that is his reward. 

Frodo Baggins doesn't go to Mount Doom to get rich. He journeys to rid the world of the evil of The One Ring and Sauron. 

Neither Elric, Corum, nor Dorian Hawkmoon were motivated by wealth but rather a mixture of political power, obligation, and on occasion love. 

Surely, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, the quintessential D&D Fantasy style heroes were drawn to the call of adventure by wealth, yes? Well...many of their adventures start with this idea but along the way they end up with more altruistic goals of saving cities and defeating villains. 

Money is mundane. It is a base need in societies that utilize it. The desire for it is easy to understand but simple, even shallow. There are also easier ways to obtain money than go through a trap laden cave network infested with monsters. If you're going to go through all that you'd better come out with a king's ransom in gold and there is the second problem...

If a group of PCs go through an adventure and face the hardships referred to above, do they get the same share of the Treasure? Perhaps. Though perhaps one believes they did more work and they deserve a larger share. Another feels they exhausted resources and need extra Treasure to recoup their investment. A Fighter might begin and end a dungeon excursion with the same sword or find a magic sword but a Wizard isn't often getting their material components back if used and wands have charges. Incidentally, it always kind of bugged me that such items were finite while a dagger never runs out of stab. 

Wealth and the desire to obtain it promotes greed and greed is one of the lowest and saddest qualities of your...of the Human species. How many Thieves have attempted to rob from their own party? The common motivator of Treasure can easily become the thing that divides a group. A lot of wealth is never enough. On that note...

With the exception of the misprinted Treasure cache' at the climax of Tomb of Horrors, no published adventure I've ever seen delivers what it promises in the wealth department. I've yet to see a dragon's hoard that is truly a Dragon's Hoard, with PCs swimming in coins and jewels Scrooge McDuck style. 

Bilbo Baggins and Smaug

Art by Anatofinn Stark

Funny enough, if PCs did come across a Treasure trove like that they'd likely be done. They'd stop adventuring. That's how most folklore and legends go after all; hero goes to save their true love, must defeat a cruel antagonist, does so, and finds out their opponent has a vast collection of money, gems, etc. This signals, 'And they lived happily ever after', with the hero and his beloved wedding and settling down as a rich couple with a want for nothing. 

These are the issues with Treasure that have always perplexed me. 

• It is a simple, common, base desire/need that isn't heroic.
• It isn't noble, emotionally driven, and serves no greater purpose beyond personal gain.
• Making it the primary goal promotes envy, greed, and distrust. It can divide the group.
• It is never enough, partly because no reward is as epic as described in stories or art.
• If genre appropriate, Treasure would end the story. Filthy rich PCs need not adventure.

With all this in mind, we come to the real purpose of Treasure in most old school TRPGs: Rule mechanics. Treasure is a means to an end and that end is the meta-reward of Experience Points.

How much money you have translates to how good you are at your chosen vocation. Basically, the more coins you find on the floor the better you are at shooting arrows or praying to your deity for spells. All I can say to this is...HUH?!? This never made any sense to me. Never. Beginning with my first read throughs of Advanced D&D in the late 70s/early 80s to now I can not understand why the game was constructed this way. It feels like design laziness, though I will fully admit that's with the benefit of 40+ years of hindsight.

Dating back to my very first gaming session ever - August 25th, 1977, Holmes Basic Dungeons and Dragons - we had a plot. We had reasons for adventuring that weren't related to treasure. 

My Halfling was searching for his father who disappeared.

The Cleric was seeking a cure for a Curse.

The Elf was running from Human Undead out to get him. 

As it turned out, my father disappeared trying to deliver potions to the Human Kingdom (in the form of Hot Sauce!). The Cleric discovered the cure to the Curse involved using the potion, which had magical ingredients. The Curse was turning the dead into the Undead that were hunting the Elf.

The Elf turned out to be the lost Prince of his Kingdom but that's another tale...

The point is we were motivated by something more than money and it gave us deeper purpose. Instead of a group of ne'er do wells looking for wealth, we were heroes trying to save our Kingdoms and each other from an evil priest and his Undead curse. Everything connected and it unified the game to create a story I still remember 44+ years later.

Remember that one time you found that dollar bill on the floor? No? Neither do I. I know I've found money on the ground in the past but if you think any one of those times is specifically memorable to me...nope. Sorry. 

Art by Izzy Medrano

More thoughts to come...

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Barking Alien

He Lived Happily Ever After

I've been trying to complete this post for about a week now. For some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on, I haven't able to say what I want to say in the way I wanted to say it. 

A number of recent blog posts and social media discussions drummed up some negative memories about my gaming experiences during a specific, early period of my 'life and times' in the hobby. At the same time, I didn't want to make a negative post; I didn't want to dwell on cynical opinions and depressing feelings but I did want to convey a story and a true one at that.

Once Upon A Time, in the Dark Days of Old School Gaming...

Between 1978 and 1982 I would run and play a lot of RPGs. A lot. I was my favorite pastime and although I preferred to GM, I was often participate in games run by both friends and acquaintances (friends of friends usually). The game of choices was almost always D&D prior to '82, with Basic eventually giving way to Advanced 1st Edition. Other games were given a go but it we rarely played them more than a couple short campaigns. After 1982 things would change dramatically with the purchasing of FGU's Villains and Vigilantes and FASA's Star Trek (as revealed in my Secret Origin).

In the years between 1980 and 82, a reoccurring theme of playing D&D under another Dungeon Master was that the games would end up thoroughly disappointing if not outright discouraging. I played a number of games with friend's friends or siblings who were my senior in age. It seemed the older gamers got the more asinine and unpleasant they became. In retrospect, that is absolutely the case as they become teenagers. What did I expect? 

Nonetheless, it wasn't long before I equated Dungeons and Dragons players and DMs with being jerks. Did D&D make them into boneheads or were boneheads attracted to D&D?

Yet with this in mind, sometime in the Summer of 1982 I participated as a player in a short campaign of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition run by an older fellow in another camp group. Instead of my usual Summer gaming gang, this was one of those games with a bunch of guys one or two years my elder. The Dungeon Master ran us through one of the TSR modules. 

I can't remember the specifics of the campaign. I don't recall my character, any of the other PCs, the module, or much of anything else. I do remember it ended on a 'technical TPK', with all the PCs being killed in the last session, just not in the same battle; not all at once. It was one of the last D&D campaigns I would play in for a very long time after (though I continued to run ones myself - heavily modified). 

It had been yet another fairly crappy campaign and one consistent with my aforementioned D&D experiences. The group was made up of what we today would call Munchkins, Power Gamers, Rules Lawyers, and there had been very little in the way of Role-Playing. I was teased and treated like a Newbie even though by 1982 I'd been gaming for about 5 years and had probably played and run more non-D&D games than most of the older gamers. 

To me, this is Old School. This is what I think of when someone uses the term. It isn't fair, I'll grant you that and I have come to realize this is not what it means to most everyone else. I even see some of the positives and the reasons why some have great reverence for the 'era' of Old School D&D but it doesn't change the fact that to me it is synonymous with 'unfun', 'boorish', and even 'a little toxic'. 

Between 1982 and the early 90s I cemented by own style and approach to gaming (though I hope I to be self aware enough to continue to improve and evolve). In those first few years it was largely motivated by not wanting to be anything like the GMs and players who'd made those games so unpleasant and uninteresting for me. Some of those ideals have become mantras I still adhere to today:

Clever Player ideas trump the numbers or at least modify them. 

Character Backgrounds/Backstories are more material for the GM. Use them. 

Don't be afraid to say Yes. Yes, And, Yes, But, and No, But. 

Don't Railroad - Improv. Stay open-minded and flexible within the genre/setting established.

Have a Narrative/Story in mind for the adventure.

Let that Narrative change based on PC actions. 

Reward engagement, immersion, and creativity.

These are just some of the tenets I go by and each has its own conditions and exceptions but generally they serve as my guide to running what I define as good games. My only acknowledgement that they work is that people from across several states have, in the pre-pandemic era, adjusted their schedules and made travel plans to be in my games. Players from games I ran 30+ years ago remember their characters and the events of the campaigns I ran. 

What more could a GM ask for?

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Barking Alien