"Precious and few are the moments that you and your own worst enemy share."
TPK is like a feature, something I'm going to return to semi-often on the blog. On TPK I'm going to discuss problems that might cause a pen and paper game to end early. Good games go bad for millions of reasons, and a lot of them are social. However, a lot of them are also super easy to avoid and only really require a certain amount of planning or a different mindset. I'm hoping pointing them out at least gets people to think differently about GMing, which is really what this first one requires. We're not covering the most COMMON problem, the dreaded "scheduling conflict", instead we're covering the most insidious: the GM tying his own hands.
I'll unpack that one for you momentarily. First, I have a little story. This is a story about a whale.
NO.
This is a story about a hot-shot test pilot named Captain William. The 'Homeworld' game was set in the Star Wars universe and used Star Wars D20 for its system. SWD20 has many problems but, blessedly, with our game's relative lack of force users not a lot of those problems came up. Our SW games tended to crash and burn before players had their fill of their concepts, so a pilot was something we'd tend to see at least one of in a game. However, the Captain's player, Ray, added a slight twist to the concept: He was the Homeworld scientists personal guinea pig, testing anything from new technologies to weapons or ships. It was a pretty sweet twist to something that can get pretty boring, considering SWD20's space combat system was neat, but deadly and seldom used.
So we were making characters(I made a droid at first, if you must know) and rolling for stats since the GM likes it that way. 4D6, drop lowest, and you can rearrange your points if you'd like. Ray rolls a really badass set that I can't precisely remember, but what you need to know is that it had something like two eighteens, a sixteen...and a six.
Now, the GM, Dean, rightly believes that a character is made from their flaws. Be they mechanical, emotional, physical or social. So, when he sees the set, Dean jumps up on a hickory stump and says "If you keep that set, you're keeping that six.". This was partly because he felt William's other amazing stats needed some sort of balancing factor, and I'm sure he thought a 'six' would cause some interesting role-playing opportunities.
Now, what you know of Captain William, where would YOU put a six? INT? He needs that stat. STR? maybe, but dumping STR or CHA always feels like a bit of a copout. No, William sure sounds like he'd have a WIS of six, doesn't he? You'd have to have a low one to happily test a salve that makes your arms disappear by shifting them by a few microns into another dimension.
Well, it turned out Dean was right. Horribly, horribly right. Ray turned out really good at properly roleplaying a WIS of six, and had a blast doing it. This also means that the game would derail one or two times each night. The other PCs (A career-military diplomat and a brawling, Michelle Rodriguez-style repair specialist, among others) sort of vaguely disliked him, but he was so earnest and personable that he was never confronted or reigned in. At one point Dean even decided to test him with the world's worst bank-robbery plan, to see where Captain William would draw the line. It turned out he didn't HAVE one, and the robbery(which took up about half a session) nearly ended in William being killed or incarcerated.
William did retire, though. Eventually, even Ray felt bad and William sailed off into the Aether on the wings of an experimental ship. Too weird to live, too rare to die. His replacement was a Jedi, which should tell you something about what Dean was willing to accept in replacement.
My point is, this could've gone a lot worse. William was a wrecking ball swinging wildly around the game, and we all narrowly avoided destruction. It's a GM's job to challenge the players, to throw difficulties in their way and things for them to overcome. However, when you're designing these things, you have to think of how the PCs are going to react and what the 'challenge' is going to mean for you: Basically, I'm telling you to always look at the bottom line. Make sure every problem you throw their way is a problem they'll have to deal with instead of you. In this case, something that was meant to challenge or balance Captain William ended up simply being a constant distraction.
Consider a game of intrigue where the PCs aren't certain who they can trust, they're repeatedly double crossed and constantly on the run. That sounds like a great game and really does have the potential to be a lot of fun, but you'd better hope you don't need to introduce a new PC or an NPC they need to trust. Too much paranoia and it will grow completely impossible and the new PC will end up off in the corner playing Smash Bros or something. Remember even Mulder had Mister X and the Lone Gunmen.
Think of how the PCs will react, and not about how you want or need them to react. Even something as simple as highlighting how a goblin village is full of women and children(as it would logically be) can cause the pacing of your game to dive into the toilet, giving the PCs a moral quandary when you'd rather the PCs just move on. Every group is different, and you've got to learn when to play your cards, and when to hold them for another time.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
MAD and SAD
So I explained part of why you shouldn't whip out your iron fist when it comes to player stats, but I didn't explain one major reason. This next one is going to discuss class balance in pathfinder and D&D 3.X in fairly general terms, but I hope you can take the philosophy and start to see it in other games. I discussed The Eighteen to convey the concept that a player naturally wants to put the best numbers they can in their most important stats. However, where they put those numbers is quite an interesting little question.
Classes are dependent on stats to function. However, not all classes are created equal, and can be divided into two categories called Single Attribute Dependent and Multiple Attribute Dependent. Everyone needs CON equally, so it doesn't factor into which category a class goes into. In fact, classes that are solely dependent on CON like Kineticist or the Scarred Witch Doctor variant have a bit of a leg up on other classes, at least in terms of variety. Regardless, classes whose effectiveness hinge on one stat go in the first category, while classes who have to worry about more than one go into the second. This is why abilities or feats like Slashing Grace are so nice: They let you reduce the number of stats your class is dependent on.
Single Attribute Classes are like wizard, sorcerer or fighter. The fighter needs a big CON(like everyone does) but then either a big STR or a big DEX, depending on their build. They can deal with a low dex with armor, and INT, WIS and CHA don't really help them very much even if they were quite high. They get skill points from INT, but even an 18 won't get them more skill points than a rogue with a 10. They need it to get Combat Expertise or any of its children feats, but all that really requires is a 13. WIS is even less useful, giving them Will Save bonuses that would be relatively overshadowed by save bonus items, or even their wizard friend. The less we say about CHA, the better, since the only CHA skill they've got is Intimidate, and skill bonuses are all they're ever going to receive from the stat.
Compare this to the Paladin. They need CON like everyone does. They need CHA for all of their class abilities, some of which(like Divine Grace, their bonus to saving throws) are very important. However, they also still need STR or DEX to attack people with, because while CHA provides a lot of bonuses, direct, reliable damage isn't one of them. Smite Evil softens the blow by adding CHA to damage, but it's an ability that only has so many uses per day. To capitalize on it and to be the most effective they can, they needs STR.
Monk is even worse. They need WIS for AC and class abilities. STR to hit people with, CON to take a hit, and DEX to shore up their AC(since they can't wear armor) and improve the skill utility their class is geared toward. Multiclass characters or atypical builds can hit this as well and end up having to either take steps toward lowering their reliance on other stats(consider the sorcerer/rogue who takes only a sixteen in charisma and focuses on buff or utility spells that don't cause saving throws) or get a little clever in how their character is played.
Let's look at two stat values for a fighter. Punch is going to be built on 76 points, and Judy is going to be built on 84. Both of them are going to try to build the best STR-based fighter they can.
Punch: STR 18 DEX 12 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 10
Judy: STR 18 DEX 14 CON 18 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 10
So what's the difference? What's the REAL difference that a whopping 8 more build points made? Judy is going to have one more hit point per level, one more point of AC, and two more skill points per level. She can take some Combat Expertise feats if she wants(but let's face it, she's a violent little bitch. It's not likely) and she's a bit tougher than Punch. All those skill points might help her feel useful outside of combat, which means less standing around and less starting fights just so she can feel useful again.
All in all, it's not MUCH of a difference. Eight points didn't go as far as a lot of people might have thought, because classes dependent on a single stat hit a saturation point where more points just aren't really all that useful. Neither of our two lovebirds above really benefits from pumping even more in their dexterity: Both are planning on wearing full plate. More DEX would mean wearing lighter armor, which is a benefit to movement and skill points, but not to their AC.
Here's an interesting question, though. Could Punch have built a paladin, if he wanted? Maybe. Would he feel good doing it? Definitely not. Paladin is balanced with its extra dependence in mind, but he'd be stretched too thin to feel like he made the best paladin he could, and would probably rather go back to his fighter. Could Judy have built a paladin? Absolutely. She wouldn't have The Eighteen in all of her important stats, but she'd be satisfied with the choices she made. Of course, both of those shits would probably build an antipaladin instead, but the logic still applies.
That's what I'm saying, really. When lowering starting stat values, you hit a point where all you're doing is restricting the classes people play by making the ones dependent on multiple stats either hard to build, or impossible. In a game like Pathfinder or 3.X which both have so many classes in them, you're doing the systems a disservice.
Classes are dependent on stats to function. However, not all classes are created equal, and can be divided into two categories called Single Attribute Dependent and Multiple Attribute Dependent. Everyone needs CON equally, so it doesn't factor into which category a class goes into. In fact, classes that are solely dependent on CON like Kineticist or the Scarred Witch Doctor variant have a bit of a leg up on other classes, at least in terms of variety. Regardless, classes whose effectiveness hinge on one stat go in the first category, while classes who have to worry about more than one go into the second. This is why abilities or feats like Slashing Grace are so nice: They let you reduce the number of stats your class is dependent on.
Single Attribute Classes are like wizard, sorcerer or fighter. The fighter needs a big CON(like everyone does) but then either a big STR or a big DEX, depending on their build. They can deal with a low dex with armor, and INT, WIS and CHA don't really help them very much even if they were quite high. They get skill points from INT, but even an 18 won't get them more skill points than a rogue with a 10. They need it to get Combat Expertise or any of its children feats, but all that really requires is a 13. WIS is even less useful, giving them Will Save bonuses that would be relatively overshadowed by save bonus items, or even their wizard friend. The less we say about CHA, the better, since the only CHA skill they've got is Intimidate, and skill bonuses are all they're ever going to receive from the stat.
Compare this to the Paladin. They need CON like everyone does. They need CHA for all of their class abilities, some of which(like Divine Grace, their bonus to saving throws) are very important. However, they also still need STR or DEX to attack people with, because while CHA provides a lot of bonuses, direct, reliable damage isn't one of them. Smite Evil softens the blow by adding CHA to damage, but it's an ability that only has so many uses per day. To capitalize on it and to be the most effective they can, they needs STR.
Monk is even worse. They need WIS for AC and class abilities. STR to hit people with, CON to take a hit, and DEX to shore up their AC(since they can't wear armor) and improve the skill utility their class is geared toward. Multiclass characters or atypical builds can hit this as well and end up having to either take steps toward lowering their reliance on other stats(consider the sorcerer/rogue who takes only a sixteen in charisma and focuses on buff or utility spells that don't cause saving throws) or get a little clever in how their character is played.
Let's look at two stat values for a fighter. Punch is going to be built on 76 points, and Judy is going to be built on 84. Both of them are going to try to build the best STR-based fighter they can.
Punch: STR 18 DEX 12 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 10
Judy: STR 18 DEX 14 CON 18 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 10
So what's the difference? What's the REAL difference that a whopping 8 more build points made? Judy is going to have one more hit point per level, one more point of AC, and two more skill points per level. She can take some Combat Expertise feats if she wants(but let's face it, she's a violent little bitch. It's not likely) and she's a bit tougher than Punch. All those skill points might help her feel useful outside of combat, which means less standing around and less starting fights just so she can feel useful again.
All in all, it's not MUCH of a difference. Eight points didn't go as far as a lot of people might have thought, because classes dependent on a single stat hit a saturation point where more points just aren't really all that useful. Neither of our two lovebirds above really benefits from pumping even more in their dexterity: Both are planning on wearing full plate. More DEX would mean wearing lighter armor, which is a benefit to movement and skill points, but not to their AC.
Here's an interesting question, though. Could Punch have built a paladin, if he wanted? Maybe. Would he feel good doing it? Definitely not. Paladin is balanced with its extra dependence in mind, but he'd be stretched too thin to feel like he made the best paladin he could, and would probably rather go back to his fighter. Could Judy have built a paladin? Absolutely. She wouldn't have The Eighteen in all of her important stats, but she'd be satisfied with the choices she made. Of course, both of those shits would probably build an antipaladin instead, but the logic still applies.
That's what I'm saying, really. When lowering starting stat values, you hit a point where all you're doing is restricting the classes people play by making the ones dependent on multiple stats either hard to build, or impossible. In a game like Pathfinder or 3.X which both have so many classes in them, you're doing the systems a disservice.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
The Eighteen
'Stop talking about anime you god damn weaboo' I hear you say. Fair enough. The point is, when you're a GM you might perceive a mechanic or habit to be your enemy when it may not be...or it even might be your friend later. Today, we're talking about the psychology of character building.
The reason you're still looking at Android 18 is that she shares her number with a legendary holy grail of gaming: a score of 18 in an attribute. In the old days of D&D, statistics were one of the few ways to measure the power of a character, and they were also pretty hard to get. These days, it's not exactly the same. Plenty of games have point buy systems where players can pick where they're putting their eggs.
What I'm saying is that you can't stop people from building the most effective character that they can, nor should you try. If you reduce the number of stats they get, that eighteen will stay there like a mesa while the other stats around it erode and flatten into the ground. Give your players a mere 23 points to spread and I promise you there'll be a guy out there with an eighteen and five ones. If you lower the 'cap' manually and tell them they simply can't take an eighteen...they'll take a sixteen. What's worse, the further you go, and the closer you get to making the player feel like you're building their character for them. I'll discuss this concept of "Socialist Gaming" in a future post, but for now let's focus on why this particular thing is bad.
People naturally want to build the most effective character they can. It's part of the fun of the game for most players, building a character can feel like putting together a car: sometimes it's tough, but it's very rewarding when you're done...plus, you get to drive it around. When you lower their points available for whatever reason, they will naturally want to sacrifice what makes them effective last. Nobody wants to play a fighter with a 14 strength, just like nobody wants to play a street samurai with a guns skill of 4 or a gunslinger with a deftness value of D8. What they will cut is fluff: things that might have made their character feel unique without really making them directly more effective. They'll also cut cross-class utility that might have made them more useful in situations their character isn't suited for. All of these, I've found, are natural inclinations.
But you want a 'low power' game. I'd first ask you to ask yourself why you want that. Really, put down the reasons you want to run a 'low power' game. Ask yourself if it's going to be fun for anyone but you, then find different ways to fulfill those reasons. Consider finding another system more suited to the tone you want and transplanting your world. Tell the players you'll be tracking seldom-used values more closely like encumbrance, or apply alternate rules to your game, such as the wealth of them inside D&D's Unearthed Arcana or Pathfinder's Pathfinder Unchained. What I'm saying is, find a way to challenge the person with the eighteen instead of making them suck.
Some game systems are made to make the character feel special. They're the hero, the man or woman with the amazing strength, the killing machine, or the crafty rogue with the golden touch. Other systems are more suited to taking the everyman and putting him in an extraordinary situation. Find which are which, and you and your players will be happier.
Next I'm going to go into why stat values in D20 games aren't as big a deal as you might think. It's a companion piece to this post.
Welcome to the Chained Desk
Hi. This blog has been a long, long time coming. I've played pen and paper games my whole life, and even though things have slowed down and several of my friends have been baby'd, I still have a lot of thoughts about them rolling around in my head. In order to exorcise them, I've created the Author Trap. Here I can put them on paper, to pull them out of my head like Dumbledore when he did that thing with his wand and that bowl of water.
Here you're going to find advice and thoughts on tabletop RPGs. I'll go into world building, character building, backgrounds, anything I think will help someone have a better time getting into these games or having a better time playing them. I'm going to try to keep my advice generic when I can, but you can expect topics on Pathfinder, D&D 3.5, Shadowrun, Mutants and Masterminds, and maybe a few others. There won't be a strict update schedule, but I hope to break the "three month" hump.
Stay a while, I hope we have a great time. I mean, I can't leave regardless. I'm chained to the desk.
Here you're going to find advice and thoughts on tabletop RPGs. I'll go into world building, character building, backgrounds, anything I think will help someone have a better time getting into these games or having a better time playing them. I'm going to try to keep my advice generic when I can, but you can expect topics on Pathfinder, D&D 3.5, Shadowrun, Mutants and Masterminds, and maybe a few others. There won't be a strict update schedule, but I hope to break the "three month" hump.
Stay a while, I hope we have a great time. I mean, I can't leave regardless. I'm chained to the desk.
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