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“I know you…” October 22, 2007

Posted by Ian in Actual Play, Applied, Methodological, Social Consciousness.
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I was talking to a friend about the old conundrum that often faces a gaming group.  Everyone comes to the table, they have a character, a concept, a backstory, and then they have to get everyone together.

The GM often takes the lead in this process, introducing, to the best of their ability, contexts in which all the characters can meet up.  Unfortunately, unless the GM is nothing short of exceptional, these contexts are forced, artificial, and rarely facilitate player interactions.

So, here’s a simple trick I want to try out sometime.  The next time everyone comes to the table, ready to start a game, characters in hand, here’s what I want to do:

1. Have everyone share their character’s story with each other.

2.  All the players roll dice.  The player who rolls the highest gets to start.  They choose any other player at the table and say, “I [character] know you from…” and say where their character has encountered that player’s character. 

3. The  player of the selected character then responds, “Yes, I remember we were…” and briefly describes the activity the two characters were engaged in together.

4.  The player who rolled the next highest then does the same, with the selected player responding in kind.

5.  Do this until every player has done an “I know you from…”

It doesn’t really matter if one or two players are the focus of the “I know you.”  What matters most is that everyone be connected, even if by a degree or two of separation.

Rethinking the town (more reactive design) October 18, 2007

Posted by Ian in Game Design, Methodological, Theory.
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Okay, so one of the ‘classic’ things about D&D is the town or city where you go to restock and sell your treasures.  Some of my favorite memories of game play have to do with the charm and personality DM’s I had poured into these places.

How do you make that town something mechanically interesting though?  Instead of leaving it to the GM to get right by sheer effort, how do you help them (and players) make the most of the town?

I have a couple of thoughts.  They are premised on a basic idea that the town is part of a reward for dungeon play.  You go out to adventure and come back to a town to make the most of your rewards.

Instead, though, of giving player characters so much treasure to account for and sell, why not give players rewards that they can ‘redeem’ in the town?  Better yet, why not make the town and adventure phases symbiotic?  Players go away to the dungeon, for example, and acquire currency they can only spend in the town and vice versa.

What kind of currency?  Well, I’m thinking some basic stuff here.  Players go to the dungeon, rescue a young woman.  They can ‘redeem’ this resuce in town in a number of ways.  Perhaps they can return her to her family for a friendly place to stay.  Perhaps a player can court and marry her, leading to a home. 

To make the redemption process interesting, each redemption should include one or two complications, perhaps weighted according to the quality of the redemption.  Sure, your character marries her, but earns the enmity of her long time admirer, for example.

Each complication should lead to an in-town encounter which, in turn, should earn currency which can be redeemed for adventuring.  So, you must deal with her admirer.  Out of that comes a clue about what is going on in the adventure track (in contrast to the town track). 

Perhaps, by making friends with the admirer, he reveals something he saw late one evening.  Perhaps he has a key that allows access to a hidden chest. And so on.

The trick with this would be to keep the currency open until the situation were settled or to leave open the means by which the reward arrived.  For example, the GM wouldn’t want to determine that the admirer had a key that the players needed.  That would predetermine how the players had to deal with the situation too much.

The GM could assume, though, that the reward would be a key.  It could come from the admirer, the beloved, their family, anywhere.  Alternately, the GM could leave the reward open until the situation suggested something.  The players embarass and drive the rival suitor from town, but in so doing come across information that he was connected to the evil merchants the players were tracking down.