Powered by the Apocalypse Style Looks for Fantasy RPG PCs

One of the little things from many (but unfortunately not all) Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) games that I think makes character creation really shine is the "Look" options. I've actually borrowed this for non-PbtA one shots, like when I ran my Planescape "Soup" one-shot (sample PCs here). While most PbtA playbooks (class write-ups) have only three or four look "slots" with four options each, I wanted to build off that to make a table of look options that could be easily used for non-PbtA fantasy RPG games, either for players wanting to come up with character appearance descriptions or for GMs who want to provide look options for PCs for one-shot games, like I do. The list is mostly based off the look options found in the Dungeon World SRD.

Obviously not every "slot" needs to be filled, if there's not an appropriate Skin/Other option for a character then don't worry about picking one (or providing options). Likewise, while I really enjoy the Voice options, those are probably ones that will often be skipped by players who intend to roleplay their character's voice or who don't want to always be trying to speak in a "booming voice"

Two examples of how to use this chart. First, imagine a player building Matilda Boomhammer, Dwarf cleric of a Thunder God. Flummoxed at how they should describe their PCs appearance they consult the table and pick some things that fit their conception of the PC, ending up with...

• Smoldering Eyes
• Battered Helmet
• Sweet Face
• Battleworn Armor
• Sturdy Body
• Braided Beard
• Calm Voice

Or perhaps a GM is creating characters for an one-shot game and while they are picking stats and powers, they want to leave choices for the players to make to encrourage what might be an otherwise disposable PC to feel like it belongs to that player. One of the PC options is a human wizard, so the GM provides these for the look options...

• Cold eyes, Crazy Eyes, Knowing Eyes, Searing Eyes
• Messy Hair, Pointed Hat, Strange Hair, Tattooed Scalp
• Bony Face, Cruel Face, Plain Face, Striking Face
• Dark Clothes, Flowing Robes, Strange Robes, Worn Robes
• Emaciated Body, Pudgy Body, Knobby Body, Wiry Body
• Nervous Hands, Ritual Scars, Unusual Jewelry, Waxen Skin

Then when a player chooses the human wizard, they don't have to come up with a look from scratch and their choices will get to add some personality to the PC they portray for the one shot, as a human wizard with "cold eyes, a tattooed scalp, a cruel face, dark clothes, an emaciated body and waxen skin" feels very different from a human wizard with "knowing eyes, a pointed hat, flowing robes, a knobby body and nervous hands".

Click here for a printer friendly PDF.

It goes without saying that these are just a starting point and meant as inspiration, if you're using them and find yourself drawn to a description that isn't on the list, you should go for it instead of limiting yourself.

Options with an *Asterisk were put in to help support more unusual races like Tieflings, Minotaurs and Dragonborn

Eyes	Hair/Head	Face	Clothes/Garb	Build	Skin/Other	Voice
Cold Eyes	Bald	Aristocratic Face	Animal Skins	Built Body	Battle Scarred Skin	Booming Voice
Crazy Eyes	Battered Helm	Blunt Face	Battleworn Armor	Bulky Body	Braided Beard	Brittle Voice
Dead Eyes	Braided Hair	Bony Face	Camouflaged Garb	Compact Body	Calloused Skin	Calm Voice
Eager Eyes	Carved Horns*	Boyish Face	Cape	Creepy Body	Flexible Hands	Crackling Voice
Fiery Eyes	Cropped Hair	Broken Face	Ceremonial Garb	Emaciated Body	Flowing Beard	Deep Voice
Glowing Eyes	Dreadlocks	Cruel Face	Common Clothes	Fit Body	Many Piercings	Flat Voice
Hard Eyes	Fancy Hair	Dull Face	Dark Clothes	Flabby Body	Masked Face	Grating Voice
Haunted Eyes	Flowing Hair	Expressive Face	Fancy Clothes	Graceful Body	Nervous Hands	Gravelly Voice
Haunting Eyes	Furry Hood	Flushed Face	Finery	Knobby Body	Pale Skin	Guttural Voice
Joyous Eyes	Hooded Head	Girlish Face	Flowing Robes	Lithe Body	Perfect Skin	Heartwarming Voice
Kind Eyes	Messy Hair	Gorgeous Face	Habit	Long Shanks	Precise Hands	Hoarse Voice
Knowing Eyes	Mohawk	Haggard Face	Mismatched Armor	Mighty Thews	Quick Hands	Lilting Voice
Laughing Eyes	Plumed Helmet	Handsome Face	Polished Armor	Pudgy Body	Ritual Scars	Loud Voice
Sad Eyes	Pointed Hat	Kind Face	Poor Clothes	Rangy Body	Sausage Fingers	Low Voice
Searing Eyes	Pristine Horns*	Lively Face	Practical Leathers	Ravaged Body	Scaly Skin*	Monotonous Voice
Sharp Eyes	Scarred Horns*	Mournful Face	Ragged Clothes	Scrawny Body	Scarred Hands	Penetrating Voice
Shifty Eyes	Shaggy Hair	Plain Face	Scavenger’s Outfit	Sharp Body	Soft Skin	Reedy Voice
Shrouded Eyes	Shorn Hair	Plump Moist Face	Scraps	Stocky Body	Strange Brands	Rich Voice
Smoldering Eyes	Strange Hair	Rugged Face	Silk Clothes	Sturdy Body	Strange Tattoos	Roaring Voice
Tormented Eyes	Styled Hair	Smooth Face	Strange Robes	Supple Body	Tanned Skin	Soft Voice
Warm Eyes	Stylish Cap	Stern Face	Stylish Robes	Thin Body	Unmarred By Decoration	Soothing Voice
Watchful Eyes	Tattooed Scalp	Striking Face	Traveling Clothes	Tiny Body	Unusual Jewelry	Stentorian Voice
Weary Eyes	Tonsure	Strong Face	Weather Inappropriate Clothes	Well-Fed Body	Waxen Skin	Stern Voice
Wild Eyes	Top Knot	Sweet Face	Weathered Hides	Wild Body	Weathered Skin	Sultry Voice
Wise Eyes	Wild Hair	Weathered Face	Worn Robes	Wiry Body	Wrinkled Skin	Whispering Voice

Thought of the Day... #1 - Traps with consequences for Disarming

Here is a "Though of the Day" that's completely unrelated to any Death Trap Dungeons I'm currently designing (I swear), but wouldn't a clever/evil/spiteful creator of a dungeon make traps that have secondary traps that are only triggered when they're disarmed?

Like, if the flame nozzle trap is disarmed, part of disarming it releases Rust Monsters digestive juices ruining the specific thief's tools being used?

I really like this idea because it makes use of a couple good Dungeon World moves:

• Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities (The thief gets to find and disarm a trap, like a badass)
• Use up their resources (Even bypassing the trap has a consequence)
• Offer an opportunity, with or without cost (If the thief realizes that disarming the flame nozzles might mean not disarming a trap later in the dungeon, will the thief/party decide that they're going to try and figure out the timing and dash through instead of disarming the trap?)

Traps are one of the things I struggle most with in Dungeon World, so this realization, while it might not fit every trap, does give me an option for when PCs are deep in a dungeon designed by an insane and powerful spell-caster or his followers.

Grim World + Love Letters & Extra Life Thanks

Last Saturday I ran Grim World as a "pre-Halloween" one-shot game, which was a lot of fun and a few caveats. I'll provide a review below, but my biggest caveat was I put out a large invitation to 10+ players, thinking, as I often do, that I'd be lucky to get the four players I'd need to run... Instead, and much to my surprise, I ended up with 8 players (and 7 PCs, since there was some question if the 8th player would be able to attend so he shared a playbook with his GF) and as I always do when I run really large groups of players, I felt like I didn't do the best job of giving each PC a shot in the spotlight and let things get a little more chaotic and bogged down than I liked. But that's all on me and not on the players.

Speaking of, thanks to the incredible generosity of the players, Christy and I managed to raise $135 for Extra Life between the two of us.  I'm now over 75% to my goal (as of 10/28/2015) and if any of the players from the Grim World game want to go back and retroactively ask for any of the rewards I was offering, you certainly can. If you are a regular reader of the blog and haven't pitched in any support for the Extra Life campaign yet, we're nearing the end, with a little over two weeks left, so I hope you'll consider a donation, even if it's just $5.

Click here to skip the Grim World Review and go straight to my further thoughts on Love Letters...

Menacing Manticores and Stinging Scorpions - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #3

I've had Manticores on my mind lately, primarily due to my Planarch Codex pick up game which featured a manticore obsessed wizard tower, a manticore vs. gelatinous cube fight and now an order of wizard experimenters who call themselves the Millenary Order of the Manticore. Head of a man, with three rows of fangs, body of a lion, wings of a dragon (not pictured above), spiked tail that shoots spines like arrows and per legendarily accurate information source, Wikipedia, " It devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind." So imagine my (lack) of surprise when the D&D 5e Manticore is completely... uninspiring... How uninspiring is it? So uninspiring that the Giant Scorpion, which is also a CR 3 monster, is more dynamic but also might be overpowered, which is why covering that monster in this post as well.

Standard disclaimers apply and all that nonsense...
I haven't play-tested these at all, so they're entirely theoretical. It's changes I like, so I'll probably make use of them when I use the creatures in 5e and update the posts with any notes or discoveries. 

Brutal Bugbears and Baleful Banshees - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #1

As discussed before, Thomas and I have been thinking of how to improve 5e Combat and part of that is tinkering with monsters. So here are my first attempts, a take on the Bugbear and the Banshee, both of which are included in the D&D Basic packet.

A few notes first...

I haven't play-tested these at all, so they're entirely theoretical. It's changes I like, so I'll probably make use of them when I use the creatures in 5e and update the posts with any notes or discoveries.

I'll probably steal liberally from 13th Age and Dungeon World. I also plan on only looking at monsters from the D&D Basic rules so that the originals are freely available for comparison.

Planarch Codex - Job Board & Canned Introduction

Here it is, the Job Board I'm using for my drop in when you can, pick up friendly World of Dungeons 1979 - Planarch Codex game.

Last Session: 9/7/2015
Last Update: 9/18/2015
 
Non-embedded version here.
 

Canned Intro:

You're a freebooter who's ended up in the planar city of Dis, ruled by the enigmatic Sultana and maintained by her Roadwardens. You need to scramble for enough dosh to pay the rent, get enough grub for your growling stomach and booze to carouse. Fortunately the city is full of Jobs, some jobs take you to other parishes in Dis, little bits of other cities on far-away planes that Dis has devoured and made part of itself. Other jobs take you to far off and dangerous planes, either through portals or perhaps on Tungsten Galleys across the Sea of Embers. A game of Feral Anthropologies, Corsairs, Freebooters and Low Brigands and a Ravenous City that is full of dangers.

More Planarch Codex Stuff on Antagonist Relations

Antagonist Relations Actual Play Podcast 1 - GM Commentary

First, go listen to Antagonist Relations Podcast - Episode 14 - The Family That Yanks Together as that is the session that I'll be commenting on. A Red and Pleasant Land is abbreviated as aR&PL below. Also, spoilers for the podcast, though I won't post any spoilers for the players about upcoming sessions.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant - Pod People

Two, count 'em, two new podcasts.

First, Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13 - Owlbears and Wendigos. In which the Ginger Giant and I discuss the games we've been running and playing lately, with our better halves providing insights into what it's like to be subjected to our GMing.

Second, the first of our new Actual Play podcast series, wherein I run A Red and Pleasant Land using the Planarch Codex hack of World of Dungeons 1979 (itself a Dungeon World Hack) -  Antagonist Relations Podcast - Episode 14 - The Family That Yanks Together

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13

Because I've been a terrible blogger, here's another Antagonist Relations Podcast. We bring on our good friend Bob who's recently been making the leap from player to Game Master.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13 - Sternly Worded Letters

PS. you can leave your complaints here.

Undertake a Perilous Journey - More Dungeon World

Draw Maps, Leave Blanks

I ran Dungeon World last Sunday. It was a last moment game for the most part and almost was Numenera, but I decided to run Dungeon World instead since not all the Numenera players could make it.  I decided to go with a plot stolen straight out of Conan having the players escort a high priest across a treacherous desert to an ancient temple to perform a ritual that would hold a demi-god-like evil sorcerer at bay.  Doing so let me try three things out, DW at higher levels, Hirelings and the "Undertake a Perilous Journey" move.

The Murder Hobo's Dilemma… "Are we in the Dungeon yet?" - Dungeon World

(Full disclosure, I'm sure this is more an issue for me, with my wanting more realism in characters and plot than realism in rules.

I've know played in three sessions of Dungeon World and I've been enjoying them but last night I realized that there was something that kept me (yes, I managed to let the group decide I was their leader, must to my chagrin) from leading the group full force ahead into adventure. The premise of the game is a modern day Twin Cities metro, but with magic and dungeons, where Adventuring Companies (emphasis on the company) send adventurers into dungeons but otherwise it's straight forward fantasy version of the present. The GM was explicit that the normal humanoid fantasy races, goblin, orc, kobold, weren't inherently evil, and that is leading to some quandaries. I had gone in expecting a fairly lighthearted game, and tenor of play-wise, it's been fairly lighthearted but the plot has been drifting much grittier.

In the first two session, the party, with the conceit that we were the local "neighborhood watch" went into a dungeon near a graveyard and fought a mixture of goblins and an elf (or two, I don't rightly recall if there was more than one) who were in what the GM described as a teenage party pad (wrecked furniture, oil barrel fire, empty keg) and while the elf was a member of a previous adventuring party to disappear into the dungeon, the goblins were definitely high school kids, ya know, wearing letter jackets and such. Now, there was a lower level of that dungeon with a definitely evil undead creature of some kind, so I think we partly rationalized things as "oh yeah, the evil undead thing was controlling them, so we're not total murder hobos for slaughtering those unarmed teenagers".

Play Report 1: Poor Player Decisions

     I'm 23 days into my GM-hiatus and I've managed to finagle my way into three games. Because I'm a jackass, I'm playing a Dungeoneer, Izotz Sendoa Harkaitz Mael or Ish, in a newly started Dungeon World game set in a fantastic version of the present. Because I'm not good at going with my gut or putting two and two together I'm playing a magic user in an ongoing AD&D/OSRIC campaign that I've joined. And because I didn't do a good job of considering the play style or potential story lines and didn't ask, as a player, what the game was going to be about, I built a Troll for a new Shadowrun campaign that I will be completely scrapping in favor of a character better suited to the game and group. Finally, because the scheduling gods are cruel and fickle bastards whose rituals I no longer have the patience to perform, I had to take a pass on playing 5E D&D for now.

     Overall, as I reflect on the play I've gotten in over the last few weeks I've realized that I've been making (1) Poor Character Choices and (2) Letting my GM burnout prevent me from bringing my experience to the table.

1. Poor Character Choices

     In Dungeon World the poor character choices I've made are minimal and mostly limited to my choice of Dungeoneer, a non-standard class from DW1 - Lair of the Unknown (parenthetically, this looks like an excellent little Dungeon World Module, so maybe I'll have to try it out at some point or at least beg, borrow and steal from it) instead of taking one of the unused playbooks from the basic DW book.  I could have chosen Bard, Cleric, Druid or Paladin (or even Barbarian) but instead I had to be a special little snowflake and choose a non-standard class.  It would have probably been fairer to the other players if I had chosen one of the base classes, but with DW that's probably the least of my sins as a player.

     In the AD&D/OSRIC game, the DM was subtly pushing me towards playing one of the existing henchmen, but there weren't any thieves among them and I had my heart set on a thief.  So, instead I rolled up a character and rolled extremely well and paradoxically not well enough (multiple 15s and nothing under a 10, but no 16s to be an illusionist or paladin).  Because the talk around the table was that there were no PC magic users in the party and there was a PC thief, I ignored my desire to play a thief and built a magic user instead.  I decided to make a former scholar turned magic user named Horatio, but ignored all the context of the party and spend 60% of my starting funds on six daggers so that I could potentially make it through 3 rounds of combat.  I would have been much better suited to plan on avoiding combat at any cost and putting that 120 silver into supplies like extra flasks, bottles and multipurpose adventuring gear that would have fit a scholar background, but alas, I let myself get sucked into the idea that when combat occurred, I would need to be able to defend myself for a round or two.
     Of course, I completely ignored that there were several 4th level PCs in the party and that there were at least 8 henchmen at least two of which were also Magic Users, so Horatio was never in any danger during combat.  In fact, during the three combats in the game, all I had Horatio do was "watch closely" to better understand how the various molds and fungus we were encountering behaved.  Would have been far better to have stuck with my gut and been a thief and had some scouting to undertake and a chance to make an attack or two during combat.  But now that I've committed to the Magic User, what I'll do instead is see if the GM will be kind enough to let me change my many (relatively) expensive daggers for a cheap and useful staff and to retroactively purchase a better set of adventuring equipment that better reflect a scholar exploring the world than a half a dozen daggers.

     Most grievous of my poor choices as a player was the creation of my initial Shadowrun character, Tallow, a troll ex-police officer who was going to refuse to use any weapons aside from his fists.  Seriously, like a fool, I had to have the GM badger me before I even gave Tallow a shotgun.  Most of the poor choices here flowed from not being proactive about asking about what kinds of stories would be told in the game.  Fortunately, the brief, non-canonical sample scenario gave me a feel for how much more procedural and simulationist the GM was planning on run things and quickly dissuaded me from making Tallow my actual PC.  Instead of working with the GM and other players to make a PC that would fit the group and the game, I let myself focus, laser-like, on a character I'd like to play, not bothering to figure out how my character would fit into things.  Because of this, I let myself craft a character who might have an interesting back story and personality, but who will be utterly useless on the runs the game will revolve around.
     Tallow might have been an interesting character for another game, but I don't think he'd last long or have much to do in the Shadowrun game I'm actually playing in.  Better then, for me to go back to the drawing board and craft a character who might actually fit into the party and the story of the game, a character who'd actually be useful on a run.  To that end, I'm thinking I'm going to create a Face, a smooth talker who would actually be able to talk his way out of the situation that Tallow found himself in during the sample session.

2. Poorly Shared Experience

     This wasn't really a problem in the AD&D/OSRIC game, as it's established and has been running for many months, but I for the Dungeon World and Shadowrun games I definitely let my GM burnout prevent me from applying any of my experience as a GM to help shape and start the games up, except, of course, in ways that were probably unwelcome and intrusive.
     How often, on this very blog even, have I wondered how to make more cohesive parties, how to tie player characters together, how to build good group backgrounds?  Did I bother to try and help either my DW or Shadowrun DM shape the groups into cohesive groups? No.  Instead I very selfishly and short-sightedly focused down on my characters, not even trying to build the group around them, more focused on not trying to butt in with suggestions (for whatever stupid reason) than with really assisting with character creation.  Of course, during Dungeon World that didn't prevent me from making a few obnoxious rules-lawyer-y remarks and arguments.
     So, for DW I pushed a little to have the GM explain the premise of the campaign, but did nothing to really help the other characters build their characters and to shape the party as a group, leaving the GM to declare by fiat that we were basically the neighborhood watch because the players didn't come up with any real reasons why we knew each other.
     This seems to be the biggest issue I have with the DW bonds.  They work well to tie PCs together and mechanically to give reasons to resolve intra-party interactions, but as far as initial backgrounds they need a preface statement.
     For example, one of the bonds I used, I stole from the Fighter sheet (did I mention I felt I was a special snowflake during character creation and didn't let the base book restrain me at all?) is: "I worry about the ability of _______________ to survive in the dungeon.".  Ironically, I chose the fighter for the bond, but while the bond explains some of our current relationship, it still doesn't explain our past relationship.  What it needs is a preface like "because I saw <Fighter Name> fall into a pit trap when we went into the haunted woods, I worry about the ability of _______________ to survive in the dungeon."
     Or another, for the Dungeoneer bond"I will show __________ that the underground world can beautiful as it is dangerous." I chose the elf wizard.  But that bond alone doesn't really explain how I know the elf wizard or why I'd feel that way.  Better to add a preface sentence like, "Elf Wizard is like most other Elves who hold that the underground world is to be disdained as ugly and dangerous in favor of the so-called splendor of the above ground world and it's forests.  I will show __________ that the underground world can beautiful as it is dangerous."

3. Goals for Next Sessions  (aka be a less cruddy player)

Dungeon World: 

• Work to coalese the group, hopefully by declaring someone else the leader and then supporting their decisions and serving as a tactical lietenant and advisor.  
• Rebuild bonds to add preface statements explaining the bond and better fleshing out the connection.
• Intrude less with alternate rules interpretations, unless asked.

AD&D/OSRIC:

• Work with DM to adjust initial equipment purchase and weapon proficiency to better reflect scholar background and non-combat role in party.
• Take better notes.  If I'm going to play a scholar, I should probably take better notes about the research and discoveries I make.  I glanced at my notes from the first session, and I have a sentence and a half.  Horatio might not care too much about mapping the dungeon, but he probably wants better notes on the endothermic mold they found. 

Shadowrun:

• Create a new character that will better fit into the group and expected story as a Face.
• Build relationships between new character and the other PCs to create a more cohesive group.

For All Games

• Minimum of time on the phone/ipad/laptop.  Since I plan on demanding this from my players, I better model it now.

Long, long overdue podcast post

So, over a month ago I ran a game of Dungeon World that we recorded and cut into three parts and then a month ago the Ginger Giant and I recorded a podcast of thoughts about it.  Then due to a myriad of factors including a vacation, a month of work weeks with 16-20 hours of overtime a week, running three ongoing games and a possibly new mini-campaign using the D&D Starter Set and good, old fashioned laziness, I never wrote a blog post for it.

So here it is!  A month late.

Here are the three parts of the Dungeon World Game:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Here is the one page dungeon I ran: Goblin Gully from Dyson's Dodecahedron 

And here is the podcast where we discuss the Dungeon World Game.

I promise that I'll try and get back into the regular blogging soon.

D&D Apocalypse - Moves from one night

A selection of Dungeon World/Apocalypse World etc moves that I used in D&D tonight as my players fought these three monsters in some abandoned Dwarven mines...

Show signs of an approaching threat.
Separate them.
Capture Someone.
Show a downside to their equipment.
Disgorge something.
Attack in great numbers.

Alignment Woes - Neutral, Unaligned and Mechanical Difficulty

What is this guy?  He's a Rilmani.  Why don't you know about him? Because Rilmani are dumb.

Go read Thomas' thoughts about Alignment in 5th Edition over at The Tower of Infinite Evil first before you read this post because originally this was just going to be a comment on that post before it got really long.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 4 - Planescape Making You Jelly

(Art of Winfred as a never-nude by the talented Heidi Blunt, former player of Kit Clovertail)

In this Podcast the Ginger Giant and I discuss our various current and future games briefly and then the last 2/3rds or 3/4s of the podcast features two of my Planescape players making Ben jealous that he cannot play in my Planescape game.  Featuring tales of Succubus towers, Halflings fighting to the death on giant platters of mutton grease, magical masterwork hoes and an elderly Bariaur's decline into senility.

Power your game with the Apocalypse - a list of GM Moves

Made this for myself and thought I'd share.  Simply a list of 208 GM Moves from Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Sagas of the Icelanders and Monsterhearts, all powered by the Apocalypse.  Use as inspiration of things to do in your games... *Updated to include 17 moves from Adventures on Dungeon Planet and new moves from Planarch Codex: Dark Heart of the Dreamer.  Link to Google Doc spreadsheet for easier printing.

Plucking the Stars from Distant Systems - Stealing Rules for Fading Suns Pt. 1 Icons and Bonds

One of the things I’ve learned about myself and GM’ing is I that as much as I enjoy running D&D, I enjoy running D&D more when it’s not the only thing I’m running. Strangely, running a non-D&D game concurrently with a D&D game or two helps keep me from getting bored with my D&D game(s) and strangling them in a bathtub or otherwise abruptly ending them. Earlier this year I ran a three session mini-campaign of Apocalypse World and not only did it change the way I ran D&D by letting me see how another system handles issues in games, but it also provided at outlook for ideas and energies that would not have had a place in either of the two D&D Next campaigns I’m running.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 3 - Rocket Sled to Failure

Long time no podcast... but I finally returned to the lair of the Ginger Giant.

Discussed herein: The depressing end of my Apocalypse World game, things I'm stealing for my Fading Suns game, my online Vampire the Dark Ages influence game and a long tangent on player assumptions leading to wild conclusions.  Oh, we also touch on my blog post about Failure.  Also, other things, but I forget.

Episode Three: Rocket Sled to Failure

We also recorded a second secret podcast that may never see the light of day or the ears of listeners.

PS.  Thomas, who is taking over GM duties on future Online Influence Games, started a new blog: A Game of Influence  If you want to read all about our continuing adventures in attempting to improve influence style games, which I touched on tangentially in my "LARP's Lessons Lost" post, then you'll enjoy his new blog.  I expect to be a regular commentator.

Using Failure as a Narrative Tool instead of a Player Frustration

How often have scenarios like these come up?

Scenario One:

Needing to kill the Goblin Chieftain, but not wanting to fight the entire goblin war camp at once, the party decides to sneak past slumbering goblins to the chieftain’s tent.  The stealthy ranger, sneaky rogue and unarmored wizard all roll well, but the scale mail wear dwarven fighter rolls poorly, eliciting a groan from the other players as now the goblin sentries raise the alarm and the party is stuck fighting the entire war-camp.

Scenario Two:

The party has just defeated a beholder and its cultist allies in a hard-fought battle.  Now catching their breath, they’re able to search the room.  Before the DM can speak, the player of the wizard says “My wizard will look at those arcane carvings in the wall more closely now…shit… I rolled a one; guess my wizard doesn’t know anything, dur dur dur.”

These scenarios and countless others like them, from the mundane, a PC missing on a melee attack to the esoteric knowledge checks.  Failure is an inevitable occurrence in any RPG, but in many D&D games I’ve played in, and yes, many D&D games I’ve run, failure just becomes boring and when it occurs repeatedly in a session due to a player having a run of bad dice luck it can extremely frustrating for a player.

Most versions of the D&D rules set up these checks as binary PASS/FAIL, maybe with a chance of automatic or extraordinary success (natural 20) and automatic or extraordinary failure (natural 1).  This works okay mechanically but in practice it can be boring, and in many cases, frustrating to players who feel like not only is their character not getting to do anything, their character falls out of the narrative of the game largely, as they repeatedly swing and miss during combat or fail perception check after perception check.  It’s a shame because many other games handle failure much better, implementing, explicitly or not, more of a “Fail Forward” approach where the player’s failures at dice rolls (or whatever mechanical randomizer is used) as a chance to continue the narrative as opposed to the way failure often functions in D&D as a narrative top (think of the dull silence that lays in wait between a player sullenly says “I got a 5, I don’t see anything” or “I rolled a 7 on my attack” and the DM picking up the narration).  In particular I’m going to draw on Dungeon World for examples of strategies to draw upon, mostly because I’ve been reading it heavily lately and also because I recently ran Apocalypse World which was the source for the Dungeon World Mechanics, but there are many other games out there that have good “Fail Forward” mechanics that you can draw on.

Now, not every roll needs to be narratively interesting, it’s okay to have the fighter swing at an orc with her axe and miss but it’s much more interesting to have some of the PC failures drive the narrative of the game forward instead of having them feel like a pause for a player, a moment where the player, due to bad dice luck, just doesn’t get to do anything.  Think of an old Final Fantasy style game from the era of NES and SNES, if you played any from that era.  Remember the frustration that would build when you had a streak of bad luck or your party accidentally ventured into an area your characters weren’t high enough level for yet?  The annoyance of watching the clunky animation of your character making an attack and then the pause before the disheartening “MISS” showed on screen and nothing happening and then having to wait for the round to cycle?  That is unfortunately what D&D emulates all too often, so below are some strategies I plan to implement in my games to turn failures from frustrating pauses in the fun for players into narrative tools to drive my games forward.