Realism and Challenge

I am back with another contribution to the GM's Roundtable of Doom.

This month's topic comes to us courtesy of Lex Starwalker:

Many of us probably remember the AD&D days when the DM could roll a black dragon on the random encounter table and end a low-level party’s career. The 3rd and 4th editions of the game led some newer players to believe that every encounter should be defeatable and appropriate to their level and capabilities. However, 5th edition has moved away from this structure. 

We see this mirrored in other games as well. At one end of the spectrum is the style and belief that the PCs should be able to overcome any challenge that comes their way, that challenges should be “appropriate”. On the other end of the spectrum is the syle and belief that the world should be realistic, that every fight shouldn’t be able to be won, and that one of the requisite skills of the game is knowing when to fight and when to run.

Where do you, as a GM, fall on this spectrum, and why? Should the PCs always be able to win?

Workshop on Fronts for The Strange part I

I previously wrote about the notion of developing "fronts" as a way to plan out a dynamic campaign.  I am now in the process of planning out my actual campaign for my Wednesday night Roll20 game.  As a result, I am returning to my previous discussion of fronts to help guide the development.  I won't go into great detail on the nature of fronts (that is what the previous post did).  Instead, I use this space to work out how I plan to use several fronts for my upcoming campaign.

It should go without saying that if you happen to be playing in my games, you probably should not read this.

This might get a little bumpy -- it is basically a set of working notes -- but I think it could be useful to see one person's attempts to implement some of the key ideas from fronts for campaign planning in The Strange.

Alignment Workshop: WoD Path/Road in the Cypher System

In the previous post, I discussed the use of "drives" from the Night's Black Agents RPG.  It served some of the purposes of an alignment system in an RPG while avoiding some of the awkwardness of classical systems.  In this post, I will review another alternative system that can fill the role of the alignment system:  the path/road system from various versions of the World of Darkness / Vampire RPG.  Specifically, I am drawing from the soon to be released Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Editions explanation of the road system.

Alignment Workshop: Adapting Drives from Nights Black Agents

As I have been threatening to do, I am starting a series of blog posts on alternatives to the traditional DnD alignment system.  As I reviewed earlier, there have been several criticisms of the traditional alignment system.  That being said, I see an important role played by alignment systems.  When playing DnD, the party's range of alignment give you some sense of how the party will deal with prisoners, respond to offers of dark bargains, etc.  Alignment can also help provide a reason for characters to act.  In the absence of such a system can leave players wondering what their character will do.  The background system can help but I have found that Cypher System characters sometimes need a little more of a push and some signposts for the behavior for their characters.

In this post, I want to discuss you the use character "drives" from Nights Black Agents for characters in The Strange.

Encoding Improvisation

Welcome to my contribution to the GM's Roundtable of Doom.  

This month's topic comes to us courtesy of Marc Plourde:

There are many different skills that come together to make up a GM. The ability to think on the fly, knowledge of the rules, plotting, etc. What skill do you think is your weakest? What have you done to try and improve that skill? What advice do you have to offer others trying to improve that skill set?

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I have to admit I struggled with this one.  There are so many areas where I am trying to improve that it is hard to narrow it down to one.  I can definitely use more work on narrative improvisation and balancing attention across players during sessions.  I have more or less given up on developing voices.  What I am working on most, though, is documenting improvised components to create a consistent and reliable world.

"Random Interesting Stuff" by Joe Hackman (flikr)

No-longer Secret Project -- and Why It Has Been Slow

You may have been wondering why posts on Strange Encounters have been slowing down.  Some has been a rush at work - to be honest.  The largest cause, though, has been a project that has been under wraps until this week.  I can now explain an exciting new direction for my efforts related to the Cypher System.

Lethality and the RPG as a Relativistic Game

The Game Masters’ Roundtable of Doom is a meeting of the minds of tabletop RPG bloggers and GMs. We endeavor to transcend a particular system or game and discuss topics that are relevant to GMs and players of all roleplaying games.

If you’d like to submit a topic for our future discussions, or if you’re a blogger who’d like to participate in the Game Master’s Roundtable of Doom, send an email to Lex Starwalker.

 This month's topic comes to us courtesy of Lex Starwalker, who poses the following question:

There is a wide spectrum of lethality in RPGs, and there are GMs who fall on every possible point within it. These range from GMs who run campaigns where PCs can never die to the other extreme—GMs who delight in killing PCs. Where do you fall on this spectrum? How lethal are your games and why? How do you handle PC death if and when it happens?

[The above text is directly from Lex Starwalker's blog - linked at the end of this post]

My feelings on lethality in RPGs have evolved along much the same lines as my general approach to being a GM (reviewed in last month's post).  Through high school, my gaming (mostly DnD -- some other systems like Marvel Super Heroes, TMNT, Rifts, etc.) took the game as a challenge.  The experience was largely one that pitted the players against the DM and the game itself.  I guess we all wanted to brag about surviving the Lost Tower on Inverness or escaping the shackles of the slavers from the classic A series.  We could brag about surviving the Tomb of Horrors but no one would believe us.