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...

After podcasting about the character SPARK in episdoe O is for Origins, we decided to put together a document that could be downloaded for free to demonstrate the concept. In this document, you'll find quick selection (choose) or generation (roll) tables to help you create a character concept. If you're feeling stumped or looking to play a different sort of character, give it a shot. There are literally millions of possible combinations of characteristics. This link SHOULD work... RPG Character Concept: SPARK

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...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 5: E is for Experience In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss experience points, milestones, leveling up, and becoming harder to defeat. Podchaser RSS Link https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/dungeon-chatter-rpg-podcast-724742 Works Discussed TTRPGs:  AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Generic Universal Role Playing System AD&D 2nd edition, Unearthed Arcana, MERP, RM, World of Darkness, GURPS, Shadow Run Video Games:  Darkest Dungeon Literature:  Rilke Concepts:  Experience for killing stuff, possession of magic items, "defeating" enemies, experiencing the dungeon, using skills, failing, Milestone Leveling vs. Experience Leveling. Show Notes For the second show in a row, I think this was our best sounding podcast, from a technical point of view. There are fewer pops, too, this time around. Mostly Travis’s fault. The Pitch Blood of Heroes: Experience as...

Combat and Conversation 2: Advantages (First Strike) Travis Joseph Rodgers In the last blog, I presented a general system for quickly resolving combat. There, I assumed that the combatants were equal in all regards. Because combatants are not often equal in all regards, in this section I introduce some new wrinkles – advantages. If someone has an advantage in a combat, the advantage can likely be categorized in one of the following ways: one opponent has greater effective strike range (RANGE), one has greater speed (SPEED), one has greater accuracy (ACCURACY), one has greater capacity for devastation (DAMAGE), one has different capacity to deal damage of a certain type (TYPE), one has greater ability to dodge (DODGE), or one has greater ability to “shrug” (ARMOR) damage or “deal with”/"soak" damage despite being struck (HEALTH). There may be further types of advantage, like situational and positional advantages, but for the time being let’s suppose that we can reclass...

Split Die Pools / Multiple Actions Travis Joseph Rodgers The Dungeon Chatter system uses a d20 base roll with a modifier of XD6. So a roll at "minus 3" means that you're rolling 1d20 minus 3d6. A "10" is always a success, a negative number is always a critical failure, and a 20 is always a critical success. I've just introduced rules for split die pools. I've done it with the following three rules: Rule 1. Skill Required Your relevant skill must be above 0. A zero represents familiarity but lack of skill, so if you're only familiar with something, you can't try to trade off skill for speed/frequency. Rule 2. Buy Frequency /Spend Skill You can double your actions (from 1 to 2) by rolling each check at two less than your total pool. So, if you have a +3, you can roll two +1 actions (+3 - 2 = +1). If you have a +2, you can roll two +0 actions. If you have a +1, you can roll two -1 actions. You cannot roll two actions if you have bel...

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 3: C is for Character Creation In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss character creation methods, including how the system functions in Blood of Heroes. We create Han Solo using our heroic creation method. Soundcloud Link https://soundcloud.com/dungeonchatter/003-character-creation Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Generic Universal Role Playing System (GURPS) Video Games I don’t think we touched on any specific ones here. Literature Star Wars Concepts PBTRPG (Play by Tweet/Text RPG), PBM (Play by Mail), PBEM (Play by Email). We also discuss charisma and interactions, specifically regarding a party member (my son) who is on the autism spectrum but plays a character with a high charisma. Probably worth an entire show on its own. Show Notes I think this was our best sounding podcast, from a technical point of view. Realizing we need to reduce our mic pops...

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...