Dungeon Chatter

A Party Comes Together: A Modal Approach to Group Dynamics Travis Joseph Rodgers Ars Arcana Blog Volume III, Number 1 Two of the central struggles associated with an RPG party - as opposed to the players or the game itself - are how to bring a diverse group of characters together in the first place and how to keep them sufficiently together in the long run to keep them a party. I draw out two distinct polaristic approaches that are especially difficult to make work for most groups: hard railroad and utter chaos. I draw out a third possibility, based on modal operators (what is possible, what is necessary, what is impossible). Hard Railroad Whatever railroading is in an RPG, there is a bad version of it. Eliminating player agency altogether seems also to eliminate the role of the player. This seems antithetical to the nature of an RPG (it's a ROLE PLAYING game, after all). At the same time, what amounts to railroading will depend upon what an agent wants to do. If an agent w...

In Search of a Railroad (1 of 2 on Railroading) Travis Joseph Rodgers Evidently, one of the worst things that can happen in an RPG is railroading. It sounds terrible, at least, to hear from many who discuss the topic on Twitter’s #rpg or #ttrpg tags. So, consider this brief essay an exercise in conceptual analysis. I’m simply attempting to understand what railroading is, such that it is objectionable. The RPG Theory Review blog has the following to say: Railroading only takes place when player actions are prevented from having any effect on the flow of events . Stack Exchange diagnoses the central wrong of Railroading: It's generally frowned upon, because it disrupts the free-will oriented nature of roleplaying . The Angry GM agrees: Railroading used to refer to the GM forcing the players on a predetermined path through a story . Even TV Tropes.Org chimes in: In short, the GM takes any measure necessary to ensure there is only one direction the campaig...

Ars Arcana Blog: Bringing Your Character to Life with SPARK Travis J. Rodgers The Challenge(s) For the grizzled vet of RPGs, creating a character is often a struggle of too many options rather than not knowing where to start. The character concept comes easily to mind, either because there is a character the vet has been wanting to play or because vets often have served as GM as well as player for so long, character concepts seem to spring from an endless font. The challenge becomes determining which of the system options is the best way to make use of your character concept. Let’s call this the “How? Question” of character design. On the other hand, for the relative novice to Roleplaying, the challenge is two-fold. In addition, to the struggles of navigating a system’s options, the novice may not have, and may struggle to create, the character concept. Let’s call this new question the “What? Question” of character design. The SPARK In an episode of the Dungeon Chat...

Why No One Understands Alignment Travis J. Rodgers Alignment was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons as a character (NPC or PC) attribute. It wasn’t rolled for; it was typically selected, but sometimes a particular alignment was necessitated by the character’s race or class. But what is ostensibly a kind of “outlook” piece, cross-indexing a regard for law and chaos on one axis and good and evil on the other is at best a concept evolving across game versions. This fact would explain why long-time gamers, or at least gamers who have played multiple iterations of D&D, might view alignment differently from others. At worst, however, it’s essentially meaningless. There’s a middle path, which may be its original intent, one according to which alignment is both meaningful and quite objective – but then it’s extremely contentious. My considered view is that alignment is either meaningless or objective in a way that many players do not like (which is accurate is undertermined – the...

Strange Beginnings Session 1 Recap of session 1 with game design and module design notes in italics. Bringing a party together is probably the biggest challenge in a present-day supernatural game. As a GM, you’re essentially introducing the supernatural element while at the same time dealing with the challenges of forming a party that would in reality form and stick together. The PCs did an excellent job with the individual pieces of the story they had from character creation and session zero, so that made the task much easier. This module needs a strong hook in order to get the buy-in necessary to serve as a session 1. So, after receiving a text message from a missing co-worker asking for help, Riley (played by Erika) summoned two contacts and hit the road. In tow were Brian, a gun aficionado, and Dani, a paramedic. For his part, Brian, played by Austin, was happy to go along even if he didn’t quite understand what was at stake. Dani, on the other hand, looked a few ti...

Ars Arcana Blog 2.5 Travis Joseph Rodgers Levelling Encounters You’re planning a scenario for a new party, but you’re not sure of their precise capabilities. You don’t want them to be able to walk through every encounter without fear, but you also don’t want them to die before they have a chance to explore the scenario you’ve plotted. You need help levelling encounters. The advice contained herein comes with a few important caveats, but if you observe the caveats, you can tailor and tweak encounters to give the precise feel and flavor you and your players are striving for. First, this approach works best with games that use levels, but it can apply well to games without levels, too. It just takes another step. Second, levels might not scale exactly similarly in different games. Still, that doesn’t mean that helpful guidelines cannot be constructed. Third, parties and players are individuals; they may have unanticipated skills, plans, and the dice may be ever in their fa...

Forking Paths in RPGs Ars Arcana 2.3 Travis Joseph Rodgers Roleplaying Games offer the possibility of solitude and solidarity. This might sound paradoxical. On one hand, however, RPGs afford something sometimes pejoratively called escapism. In an RPG, the players get away from things, or at least screen off things for a time being. The etymology of solitude is instructive: in its most extreme form, an RPG offers an escape for one. At the same time, RPGs offer solidarity: a shared, kindred experience. One of the ways this was accomplished in the past was by a sort of transgressive move: the adventure books and games in which individuals separately explored a foreign world then traded the books and experienced the world the other individual had experienced, though with some individual differences. I’ll call these Forking Paths, for the Borges story (strong recommend), and I’ll explain what they are and what value they still possess. Forking Paths In Jorge Luis Borges’s “The...

On the Value of Generics Ars Arcana 2.2 Travis Joseph Rodgers   Scenario 1: Someone has been captured. Version 1: A group of brigands are holding the Lord's child, asking for the release of one of their members. Version 2: Armed mercs stormed the local university, kidnapped a Senator's son, and are holding him as collateral, asking for the return of their seized funds. Scenario 2: Workplace Hazard The bots that patrol the nuclear facility have begun targeting workers for extermination. Victims of a recent trauma have risen from their slabs to attack the morgue workers. Adaptability The principal value of a generic approach to game design is its tremendous adaptability. By changing the setting, the technology level, and the flavor, you can very quickly adapt adventures - yes, even good ones - to different games. I here do two main things: explore why you might want to do this and then consider how you might do it. Why Adapt a Module? I sugges...

ROIL System for Campaign Design ARS ARCANA 2.1 Travis Joseph Rodgers Open-Endedness and Randomness You are a role player. You roll dice. You assume ridiculous voices. You might even don the garb of your character. You spend hours working on back stories, excruciating over the name of your great-great-uncle. You don’t want a random world to play in. You want the world you play in and the system you employ to do so to reflect the thought and planning you’ve put into it. You want open-endedness, not randomness. So, how does a GM (Game Master) or GD (Game Designer) manage to do such a thing? I think there are many ways to accomplish this, but I want to suggest one very helpful path for navigating a few desiderata on a gaming experience. On one hand, many players and parties want fast start capabilities. They don’t want a session zero . They want to be able to sit down and begin playing in the very first session. I’ll call this characteristic INCIPIENCE . On the other hand, part...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 6: F is for Fail In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss modeling failure in an RPG. It seems clear enough that a successful attack hits and deals damange, but what does a failed attack mean? We discuss failure in combat, moving maneuvers, perception, and persuasion. iTunes Link https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dungeon-chatter-rpg-podcast/id1435743168 Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) Video Games Super Mario Bros., Wasteland Concepts Failure, Critical Failure, Natural 20, Natural 1, The DM Screen Show Notes Victoria is becoming an editing pro. This episode sounds great, and she should soon edit out an F-bomb that she missed in the first edit through. The Pitch Simple Failure: Die rolls of 0-9 represent rough percentage of task completed. So, 10% x die roll = % of action completed (6x10% = 60%). Critical failures In general, they set you back, offering a penalty to further attempts. neg...

Combat and Conversation 1: The Basics Many who play RPGs love the combat experience, especially when it’s rife with opportunities for cool combat maneuvers and support options. Yet every wrinkle added to the mechanics of combat threatens to add more time and more complexity. Every addition to complexity and time should probably be regarded, at least prima facie, as undesirable in the system. Many who play RPGs also enjoy the conversational component of the RPG, even when the mechanics there are only lightly involved or wholly uninvolved. In this blog post, I begin a (hopefully brief) series of posts thinking through simple, conversational combat that affords options and flavor to players without adding so much to the machinery that it becomes a detriment to player enjoyment. A Simple Model Suppose two evenly matched foes face off. A simple d20 could model a range of combat outcomes, like the following: D20 Roll           ...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 2: B is for Blood of Heroes In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss the swords and sorcery setting they’re building. Soundcloud Link https://soundcloud.com/dungeonchatter/002-b-is-for-blood-of-heroes Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Mage: The Ascension (Sorry I couldn’t remember the name at the time), StarWars the RPG Video Games Wasteland, Bethesda generally Literature Harry Potter, JRR Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Mickey Zucker Reichert Concepts The majesty and prevalence of dragons, ritual magic/divine magic, blood magic/demonic magic Show Notes Occasional fireworks because it was July 4th The Pitch Swords (technology level) and Sorcery (there is magic) The flavor of Republican (and possibly Imperial) Rome (technology and flavor) Dragons as rare but incredibly powerful Magic as truly arcane, also possibly establishing some “good vs. evil” poss...

The Magebanes In Brief The magebanes are a guild responsible for stamping out misuses of magic in Kura. Magebanes are trained in the investigation of the arcane and the containment of dangerous arcana. This means they often operate covertly, with only the council and/or the local hiring agent being aware of their presence. Magebanes almost never advertise. Heraldry The traditional symbol of the magebane is the opposed wands rune, presented either vertically or horizontally: >--------- ---------< This symbol is quickly produced and recognized. More advanced symbols include the hooded mantle of the upper echelon members, sometimes with a vertical wand in accompaniment. Membership Apprentice > Cap > Cloak > Mantle > Council A typical apprenticeship lasts for two years (apprentices are called apprentices), before the newly-titled cape is permitted to handle jobs on her own. After adequate service through approximately five years, the cap...

The Last of the Last Good King Travis J. Rodgers It was in that cool chamber, all alone, with the sounds of pitched combat outside the door, that Doracles realized that his life was ending. His dearest wife Eridani was either dead or would soon be dead. The bodies of his sons, Dorani and Golos, had been found earlier in the day. Where Kalani, his youngest child was, Heaven alone knew. Al-Alamra, his most trusted friend and Master of Horse, had delivered the final message only moments ago: mercenaries had gained entrance to the castle by force or fraud. Countless were dead in all corners. Eridani, who not twenty minutes earlier had gone to bed and ordered him to follow not soon after, was last seen dashing into the servant’s quarters, chased by cruel men with crueler weapons. Having delivered the message, Al-Alamra had snapped shut his helmet, steeled himself, and dashed out into the fray. The door behind him had closed, and the bar had slid back into place, locking it. ...

Between Slaying Dragons: What to do with Downtime? Travis J. Rodgers What is Downtime? Downtime is the time between the characters’ active involvement in adventuring. Downtime can occur if a character is uninvolved in a scene, if the player misses a session, or if the players have reached a natural stopping point before moving onto the next adventure. Additionally, between a session zero and a first session of a campaign, the GM may allow downtime. Downtime gives players a chance to do things that are ancillary to, or at least outside the flow of, the campaign proper. The main desiderata from a gaming point of view are: increasing player enjoyment and fulfillment, allowing individual pursuits that the group need not be involved in, affording an opportunity for players who miss a session to contribute nonetheless to the story, and to minimize what might otherwise be grunt work (exploring, interrogations, restocking supplies). Degrees of Freedom There are three main...