Minimalist Encounter Descriptions

I've been reading some adventures of late (for the fun of it) and comparing writing styles between them. One thing that struck me was the way encounters are written, and how one methodology is inherently better than another. Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about...

-In a recent Necessary Evil (a super-hero rpg) encounter the characters are tasked to move a bulky and heavy generator from a warehouse to a secret lair hidden in the sewers. The encounter then gives absolutely no information on how this is to be done. It is completely left up to the players.

-In a recent Savage Worlds super-hero adventure (a generic one I've been reading), the character are tasked with entering a catacombs through a hole in the floor that is 15' deep. The encounter description then proceeds to list a variety of ways the characters can do this.

Of the two, I much prefer the first method for describing the encounter. All too often, if the text lists options the GM has a tendency to only allow those options to work. Then if the players come up with something "off-track" the tendency is to disallow it, or to come up with some in-game explanation of why it doesn't work. By not giving options, the task falls completely on the shoulders of the players to resolve the encounter and the GM can roll with whatever they come up with.

For the last couple of years there has been a trope of saying "yes". Basically this means that whatever the players come up with, a good GM will allow it, as long as it is feasible. How an adventure encounter is written can actually help a GM "say yes". In effect, the lack of options steers a GM into allowing player actions to dictate how an encounter will unfold instead of the writing of the encounter dictating what will happen. And the best way to do this is to write an encounter as minimalist as possible.

Are All The Races Done?

One of the mainstays of fantasy rpgs is the variety of non-human races available for play. The availability to play elves, dwarves and halflings has been there with us since the beginning of D&D. With the advent of science-fiction rpgs the number of playable races skyrocketed. Soon fantasy games caught up to sci-fi and the amount of races available for play is staggering. But, have we reached the limit of new races that can be designed?

These days you can play Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Orcs, Centaurs, Cat-people, Dog-people, Rock-people, Light-people, Shadow-people, Lizard-people, Snake-people, Bird-people, Dragon-people, Demon-people, Angel-people, Genii-people, Elemental-people, Fey-people, Insect-people, Plant-people, People who can change their form (race) at the their whim, a plethora of Half-races mixing together all sorts of races, Monsters as People and variations on every sort of race already established (such as High Elf, Wood Elf, Sun Elf, Drow, Eladrin, Sylvan Elf, Sea Elf, Winged Elf, Moon Elf, Silver Elf, Star Elf, Wild Elf, Ghost Elf, Grey Elf, Painted Elf, Snow Elf.)

New settings and games often seek to offer up new races as a way to entice gamers to their system/setting. However, all too often it is nothing but a variation on what has come before. This is often done one of two ways...

The Culture Swap
This method takes a race and gives it another culture often associated with a different race. For example, the Indara are a Cat-people who are very outdoorsy and love nature and the woods. They sing to nature and have bonds with Fey creatures. They are renowned for their grace and mastery of magic and proficiency with weapons such as the sword and bow. They are long-lived, capable of living more than half a millennium and remaining physically youthful. Possessed of innate beauty and easy gracefulness, they are viewed as both wondrous and haughty by other races. In effect, the Indara is an elf with a race-lift.

The New Culture
This is where the designer takes a race and gives it a new culture. Imagine halflings as shamanistic cannibals that live in treetops. Dark Sun did it that way. Of the two ways this one at least presents the players with new ways of playing that race, even if it is still nothing but a variation on something that has come before; much the same as a Wild Elf is a variation on the Elf race. However, they are not true new races.

Is there still a new race out there for rpg games or have we done it all?

 

How High-Tech Competition Has Helped Tabletop Gaming

Last week there was a nice article extolling the virtues of D&D and rpgs in general. It was titled After 40 years, popularity of tabletop gaming rises despite high-tech competition. It went on to briefly examine the origins of rpgs and looked to answer the question of why tabletop rpgs are still popular (or even rising in popularity) despite the fact that video games are so prevalent. One thing not mentioned in the article, but one I feel is a key factor for tabletop gaming's continued success, is the fact that there is "high-tech competition". High-tech video games have actually helped tabletop gaming rather than hurting them.

Back when D&D first came out it was seen as a game for nerds. You were weird for wanting to live in a fantasy world, even if it was temporary. Fantasy was also seen as this new thing that no one understood. For some people it was too hard to grasp. Times have changed.

Video games have become main-stream. Everyone, at least in most countries, have played or seen a video game played. In some ways, video games have become the new national past-time. It has replaced time spent and investment that people used to spend in sports, book reading and other pursuits. Along the way, video games went from being a thing computer nerds played to something every kid plays.

In many ways, modern day video games are rpgs. There are the obvious games that are rpgs, such as Skyrim or Mass Effect. Then there are the less "obvious" ones such as SimCity, which allow people to pretend to be someone else. Even first person shooters involve some playing of a character, even if its just playing the "guy-with-the-flamethrower". MMOs have expanded this concept into a perpetual world wherein personas are played, bringing the concepts found in tabletop games even more to the forefront.

The concept of pretending to be someone else while playing a game has become main-stream. The high-tech competition has made rpgs popular. No longer is it just nerds that play rpgs. In one way or another, everyone does it. This has made playing tabletop games easier to understand and more socially acceptable. The high-tech competition (video games) that once was feared as the deathnell of tabletop gaming may actually be its greatest aid.

Gary Who?

When I first started gaming Gary Gygax was the man. He was the man who started it all (at least as far as bringing rpgs to the public masses) and everyone hung on every utterance he made. His rules supplements were studied, his modules the epitome of how to create adventures and his Dragon articles were considered canon. If he gave an interview it was scrutinized as additional material on "how to play the game". Even second hand hear-say ("I once played with Gary at a convention and he said...") was given credence as words from the wise. But I have to ask...

Is Gary Gygax still relevant to the modern rpg gaming community?

Many of the gamers coming into the rpg hobby have never heard of Gary Gygax. Players no longer come into the hobby through Gary's creation, D&D; many have come into the hobby through other games. They thus base their perceptions and attitudes on what makes a good rpg on the game that brought them into the hobby. Sure, it's likely that the "new game" is based on many of the things Gary once espoused but there have to be inherent differences and divergent game design from D&D, otherwise it would just be D&D. This new generation of gamers either doesn't know who Gary Gygax is, or don't care.

To me, this is both good and bad. Bad in the sense that Gary actually had a lot of really good advice for playing and running role-playing games...

"The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience."

"There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things."

"Role-playing isn't storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game."

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules."

However, it is never a good thing when the viewpoint of one person dictates what is right or wrong. Too often I see comments like "What would Gary say about this?", "What did Gary think about edition X?", "That's not what Gary would do." Too many people have put the words of Gary up on some sort of holy pedestal and any deviation from those words is a form of heresy. This is unhealthy and does no service to the rpg hobby. To focus in on one person's viewpoints of what is right and wrong in something as diverse as rpgs can be detrimental to gaming. There is no one-way of running and playing an rpg. The greatest strength about rpgs is that it is possible to play them in many different ways.

The best-case scenario is that people remember the words of Gary Gygax, but then make up their own minds as to what makes a good game.

Your Favorite Module Series - Results

Last month I ran a poll to see what D&D module series was their favorite. This was not about the best single module, but the best set of connected modules. I offered up 6 different series ranging from 1E to 3E (and allowed for write-ins) and the results are in. We only had 13 participants, but since this site doesn't get a lot of viewership that is a pretty good number. And the results are...

6      Queen of the Spiders (G1-Q1)
3      Darksun (DS1-DSQ3)
2      Desert of Desolation (I3-I5)
1      Scourge of the Slavelords (A1-A4)
1      Rappan Athuk (1-3)
0      Dragonlance (DL1-DL14)

That Queen of the Spiders won is no surprise to me; it has been a perennial favorite for years now. I was a little surprised Darksun did so well, but I think it was more about the world of Darksun than any greatness in the modules. I'm a bit surprised Scourge of the Slavelords didn't do better and even more surprised Dragonlance didn't get any votes.

Thanks to all those who voted. It was a fun look at modules series.