Running a Minimalist Game

After writing a bit about how I design games with minimalism in mind, my thoughts turned to whether this carries over to how I run games.

Standard disclaimer that this isn't the only way to run a game, this is just a look at how I tend to run games like Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland.

As with so many things, we're breaking this down into three parts.

Use Little

I must confess, I do occasionally break out an erasable battle mat but it's really just a whiteboard and I deliberately keep my maps super abstract. For the characters I use coloured pawns from Pandemic. 

But aside from physical tools, remember that you don't have to use every part of the rules buffalo. I still stand by this guidance and note that it doesn't include a section for "now begin using the combat rules". I can absolutely see somebody running a really fun game of ITO or EB just using this process and adjudicating combat through Dilemmas, Saves, and Consequences. 

So much of what makes for an enjoyable game for me exists outside of the rules, so the less I'm thinking about systems the more I can think about the world, the players, and their characters. 

Ask for Little

Perhaps it's because I often play with brand new players, or friends that only have a tangential interest in RPGs, but I always run my games in a way that asks for as little as possible from the players. 

"No, don't worry about reading any rules before we play. Yeah we'll do character creation right there on the night, nothing needed ahead of time. The setting? Aaah it's this big city called Bastion and it's weird but we'll discover that as we go". 

Now, just because I'm asking for little doesn't mean that I don't secretly expect a lot from them, but laying those expectations on them ahead of the game hasn't always been a fruitful approach for me. If I want players to get invested in their characters then I'll lay out opportunities to characterise them through play and ask them the occasional probing question. If I want them to care about the world then I'll do my best to make the world immediately interesting to both themselves and their character. 

Make it Matter

When running very simple systems there's always a risk that things start to feel arbitrary or inconsequential. The lightness of rules infects the fiction and you start to feel disconnected from the ground of your fictional world. 

Personally, I feel like simple rules let you make things matter more if you remember to keep it as a key focus of your game. 

The rules on the page won't give any distinction between wielding a Claymore (d8, bulky) and a Billhook (d8, bulky), but because nobody is worrying about a million small rules your mind is free to make that distinction significant. Description is a huge part of this, and should never be underestimated just because it doesn't carry mechanical weight, but in a rules-lite game of exploration and problem solving the difference of utility between a heavy blade and a spiky polearm often emerge gradually. 

Cheap Tricks

There's a lot of good GM advice out there at the high end. How to ensure the players are engaged, that they have agency, that your world feels alive. Really lofty stuff.

These are the cheap little tricks down in the lower decks, the little things that can grease the wheels of your game if things start to stall. The salt of the RPG earth. They aren't going to win any awards as groundbreaking RPG theory, but I find it useful to keep some of them on-hand when running a game.

Cheap is not used here to mean unfair. Rather quick and easy things you can use without any forward planning.


Cheap Feelgood Tricks
Sometimes you just want to revel in the good times. Maybe you need a touch of relief after a tough situation or just want to reward the players for doing something really well.

• Amplify their competence: When they do something well in an area the character should be competent in, make sure you really show well they do it.
• Show how their planning paid off: If they put a careful plan in place and don't leave any loose threads, you don't always have to throw a spanner in the works. Let them revel in their master-plan going off without a hitch. Of course there will be a challenge to follow this, but reward them for their planning and put them in a strong position to move forward.
• Shine a spotlight on a past good-deed: If they did something good a while back, show how it's paying off for them now. Think of strong relationships they've built and let them rep the benefits, or show how somebody they've previously helped is now flourishing.
• Have the NPCs remember them: Everybody wants to be remembered. Have NPCs ask about something from their last conversation. You might know the answer, but the NPC doesn't, and it gives the players an opportunity to relive a positive moment in brief.

Cheap Failure Tricks
On the other hand, sometimes the players willingly put themselves in a situation ripe for consequences. These aren't things you should throw in without warning, but negative outcomes that should feel like the natural consequence of the players taking a risk and failing.

• Show the collateral damage: Maybe they do what they wanted to do, but at the cost of hurting somebody else or damaging a valuable resource.
• Start a ticking time-bomb: Immediate consequences are fine, but I like to set up for worse consequences and start a ticking clock (something literally). 
• Exploit a flaw of a person or gear: Put the blame for the failure squarely on a piece of gear or an allied NPC, pinning it down on a weakness that the players knew about. 
• Put somebody inconvenient in their way: Think of the person that the players would least like to see in the present situation and put them right there. This could be an old adversary, an inconvenient witness, or a friend that's now in the line of fire.
• Cut a connection: You might avoid consequences yourself, but one of your allies or resources is now completely cut off. It won't be permanent, but you're going to have to operate without them for a while.
• Leave a loose thread hanging: One of my favourites. Have things stay fine for now, but maybe you owe somebody bad a favour, or you left behind a trail that leads an enemy back to you. Do you risk leaving it, or waste valuable time going back to clean up after yourself?

Cheap Humour Tricks
Not every game benefits from humour. For more traditional D&D I like the idea that the game acts as the straight-man to the players, who will inevitably find certain situations funny. But for Bastionland I have some dark and absurd humour baked into the setting, so sometimes it's fun to lean into that. Humour is one of the hardest areas to apply universal cheap tricks to, but these have worked for me in the past.

• Establish a genre trope before subverting it: Set up an expectation and then subvert it. This is a building-block of comedy. Maybe you're waiting to meet with a private detective in a smoky bar, soft jazz music is playing, the lights are dim and then... think of the least likely person to stroll to the table and announce themselves as a detective. Or maybe they've got the classic look, but their behaviour is utterly against type. Rather than hard-boiled they're more soft-poached. 
• Have somebody treat a situation with a totally inappropriate tone: Somebody treating a trivial matter with the utmost gravitas, or somebody being jovially unconcerned about their house burning to the ground. 
• Indulge in a silly amount of detail: In Bastion this is often done through Bureaucracy. I don't want to sit my players down and actually make them complete paperwork, but I like to show a window into that side of the city. This is a tricky balance, and if you mess it up you might bore your players, but sincerely describing every detail of the meticulously prepared afternoon-tea spread can also double as the perfect setup to having the ceiling collapse in and smash it to pieces.
• Have the world drag the players down to its level: Put them in a position where they need to impress somebody that they wouldn't normally give the time of day to. Your only hope of chasing a new lead on the lost treasure of the narrow-boat-graveyard is to attend a meeting of the Fellows for the Discussion of Tug, Barge, and Other Civic Waterway Vessels and put up with the personalities within. 

Cheap Horror Tricks
Humour and horror are a often more similar than it might seem. Hear these are tricks mainly focused on building tension and creeping players out rather than causing sudden shocks.

• Keep things in shadow: Use vague descriptions of your horrific elements and let their fear fill in the blanks. The bucket is filled with wet meat. The face beneath the robe looks like gnarled wood. Then before they can ask too many questions...
• Cut off mid-sentence: The wardrobe is covered in cobwebs. You slowly crack it open and you feel the air get cold around you. You smell rotten wood and see...
• Don’t give them time to look properly: Somebody is approaching from the other direction. Are you going to stick around to examine this wardrobe or find somewhere to hide? Maybe you'll just throw the doors open?
• Have an NPC massively overreact or under-react: A widow that seems somewhat chirpy about the recent death of her husband in a mine collapse. The shopkeeper yelling till they're hoarse at the pigeon that won't stop perching on his sign, tears streaking down their face. 
• Place something unusual next to something very mundane: The classic severed hand in the toy-box or untouched flute of sparkling wine in the middle of a pub levelled by an artillery barrage.
• Equipment glitching out: More of a sci-fi thing, but we have electric devices in Bastion now. From the basic flickering lamps to record-players stuck on a looped phrase or radio static that sounds like screaming.
• Give them the opportunity to escape at a cost: Put the doorway right there, the light becoming them back to safety, but they can only take it if they leave something behind.

The ICI Doctrine: Information, Choice, Impact

Doctrine might be a bit strong.

Still, I'm trying to keep these three words in my head whenever I'm planning or running a game. They're the three-beat tempo of a game, even if you aren't thinking about it. Slacking on any one of them can result in a worse game. Get them all spot on and things will feel just right.

They're everything that's great about tabletop RPGs. Everything that sets them apart from video games, board games, novels, can be found in this, the spine of gameplay.

It all comes back to Player Agency, but I find it useful to break things down into threes.

Information

In RPGs, questions are gameplay.

I guess this is the hill I want to die on. I've written about it in relation to traps before, but it's applicable to the rest of the game too. *clears throat*

Players cannot make a proper choice unless they have enough information!

Knowledge and Perception Rolls are the worst offenders of not understanding the importance of Information. When I see them in use I just wonder what could be lost by just giving the players the information?

I want players to imagine the situation their characters are in and think of a clever solution. Asking for more information should be rewarded! If they ask smart questions I give them great answers.

Whatever you're planning, think in advance about how you're going to present it to the players, and how you're going to give them enough information to make a proper choice.

Choice

No easy decisions.

This one is the most difficult to just insert directly. For there to be a proper Choice, there have to be multiple actions the players can choose between, and deciding between them shouldn't be easy.

This is really the glue between Information and Impact. Get those two right and this will often fall into place, but you still need to make sure your world supports multiple solutions to problems.

Look at your prep and try to identify the decision points the players will come across. Left or right at this junction? How do we get past this broken guard robot? How can we trust these shady mercenaries? If any of them have one really obvious solution then you need to make the situation more interesting!

One always-hostile orc guarding a chest isn't a decision point. You kill the orc and take the Treasure. Give the Orc a death ray, make him sympathetic just trying to hold down a job, or give him an alarm he can pull to bring the whole army down on you. Now you've got a Choice.

Impact

Everything you do matters.

I used to call this section Consequences but it felt negative-leaning, and Impact fits so well after reading Arnold's post on the topic.

Essentially, when your players have made a choice, things should happen so that they look back and think "huh, we did that!".

Maybe they regret it, maybe they're proud of themselves, maybe they just wonder how things could have been different.

My vice is making players feel guilty for killing some innocent monster or screwing over an NPC, so I ham it up real good. They always remember that, because it's over-the-top emotional silliness, but they know that they did it. I've seen players feel more strongly about killing an NPC than losing their own character to death.

This is the payoff for everything before this point, and without it your game is going to feel flat.

The Referee is a Game Designer

From the Oddendum of Electric Bastionland

This game does not have rules for everything. You can use normal conversation in combinations with the rules of the game to adjudicate most situations, but eventually you’re going to want to create a new mechanic for your game. It might be for a particularly unusual monster, or a situation beyond the general scope of Treasure Hunting.

This is inevitable. When running the game, you’re also taking on the role of game designer.

First, think whether you need to create something new. Could this be handled as a Dilemma? Could you use a Luck Roll or a Save? Maybe you can just let it happen based on common sense?

If you definitely want to create a new mechanic or rule, try to make it:

• Simple
• Transparent
• Decisive

Simplicity

Into the Odd was created out of a desire for simplicity. I wanted to strip back as many rules as I could without damaging the core of gameplay. It’s easy to look at the system and decide to add in a few house-rules here, a class system there, maybe tweak something you think is unrealistic, and before you know it the whole table is spending more time interacting with the rules than the situation the characters are in.

I like the game to be playable by somebody that hasn’t read a word of the rules. You can explain Saves to them, and how Damage works, then you’re good to go five minutes after they sat down.

Try and keep this level of simplicity. Keep the following in mind:

• The players should be able to carry on playing without learning your new rule.
• Consider if multiple rolls can be made into one roll.
• Consider if a single roll needs to exist at all. Could it be a decision instead?
• Will this rule end up taking more time than we want to spend resolving the situation at hand?

Transparency

A great rule should have results that the players expect without them having to learn anything new. If it feels like it should be a 50/50 shot, then a good rule will reflect this. If your rule ends up giving a 10% chance of success instead, it’s going to feel off.

If the players are expecting a 50/50 shot, and you feel it should only be a 10% chance, make sure they know that going in. They can only make an informed decision if they understand what sort of chances of success they have.

Decisiveness

You’ve gone to the effort of creating a new mechanic, so it should have clear and decisive results. Don’t make your work all for nothing!

Most mechanics come down to Risk vs Reward. Make both more impactful than you’d imagine.

Example

For whatever reason, the characters have entered a Cocktail Mixing Contest.

A straight dilemma doesn’t feel quite right here.

Saves don’t really work on their own, or even Luck Rolls. You want it to be a bit more involved.

Let’s make something new, aiming for Simplicity, Transparency, and Decisiveness.

Because the characters’ Ability Scores don’t really factor into this (arguably DEX, but I don’t want it to just come down to who has the highest score) I’m going to base this around the Luck Roll and a choice of how risky to go with the recipe.

Adding more dice to a roll and keeping the highest or lowest single die is a nice safe way of shifting chance of success without shifting the range of results, so let's use that here. 

The contest has three rounds. For each round the contestants can choose to mix:

• A Classic – Roll 2d6 and keep the highest.
• A Twist on a Classic – Roll 1d6.
• Something Crazy – Roll 1d4.

If they have an extra trick up their sleeve like a secret ingredient, add another die to their roll but only keep the highest single die. If they specifically have a background in this sort of thing then add another die.

Cocktail Contest

1: Blunder This thing is beyond saving. Zero stars!

2-3: Something’s Wrong Do you have an emergency fix? If so, you can still make it Good (see below) otherwise you just get 1 star this round.

4-6: It’s Good! It came out well! Score 3 Stars for a Classic, 4 for a Twist, 5 for Something Crazy.

Highest total stars after 3 rounds wins. On a tie break come up with a dramatic showdown.

Expose your Prep

You've probably heard the phrase "attack every part of the character sheet" from Arnold K. Let's flip that and see how the players can capitalise on every bit of your prep.

I find that the crime of giving too much information is minor in comparison to the heinous crime of giving too little information. I lead with a good chunk of info, give good answers to good questions, and I want to give even more if the players are crafty.

So what should you do to reward these exceptional player actions?

Expose the Map
I like giving the group a blank map anyway. For the most part I don't consider mapping a strong part of the challenge of my games, so I'd rather the players be tested other ways. It cuts down on a lot of time spent describing the spatial relationship between doors or sketching out rough drawings on paper.

But if the players find somebody that knows their stuff, let them have a partial or full map! If your environments are so lame that having the map negates all challenge then it's time to crank up your adventure location design.

Expose the NPCs
If they go to the effort of finding out about an NPC before engaging them, let them see their info. Show them the HP, their moves, their relationships with other NPCs.

Expose the Future
Somebody has probably worked out what's most likely to happen if the players do nothing. If they do their research then show them that timeline you've planned out. Of course, it takes a lot of time to get to that point...

Expose the Tables
Switched-on locals know the encounter table of their area. Of course there's a 50% chance of a rabid cat attack here, that's just how we live. The blister beast? Oh that thing doesn't come around all that often.

Expose the Mechanics
You're going to be making rulings when you run Into the Odd. Be transparent about it, and reward information gathering with full access to the sub-system you've thrown together for conker games or debate contests.

A Procedure for Play

Bastionland is going to distill a lot of GM guidance into very clear procedures. Each of the four sections of the world will have their own procedure, but the core procedure for running the game is something like this:

When you're Refereeing Into the Odd and the players do something, look at the list below.

Work from top to bottom, and when you find a solution to what you're trying to resolve, don't go any further down.

1. Can you make this into a Dilemma? If so, do it.
2. Does it make sense for it to just happen? If so, go right to the Consequences.
3. Is it still uncertain? If so, call for a Save.
4. I guess it was impossible, give the players more Information to help them come up with reasonable action. 

Further Guidance

Dilemma: Give a clear choice between two desirable outcomes. The players pick one or try to come up with a way to get both, usually by expending a resource or taking a risk.  

Consequences: Make their action matter in the world and push things forwards. Give them information about the new situation they find themselves in. If the consequences can ripple out to effect the world, all the better. 

Save: Saves always carry a risk, so explain what's at stake before the players commit to their action. 

Information: If in doubt, give the players more information and ask them frankly what they're actually trying to achieve with their actions. Don't be a distant referee, get down in the mud with them and discuss the situation. 

How I Run Into the Odd

Someone asked how I prepare for a game of Into the Odd, so it's time for some rapid fire tips on how to run a game exactly like I do (which you won't want to do).

DISCLAIMER
I mostly run one-shots or short campaigns using Hangouts or with around a table with friends I'm already super comfortable with. My priorities are a brisk pace, meaningful choices with big impacts, and keeping the focus on the situation rather than the mechanics.

PREPPING

Get a Map
Draw one, or steal one from Dyson. Number up the sections and think of a concept for the place. Make a random encounter table using this format.

Work out a Good Start
You really want to avoid a weak start where nothing interesting is happening and the group don't really know what they're doing. Give them something to deal with right away.
If it's a dungeon it's easy, you just throw them right into it.
If you're in a city or wilderness, have something chasing them or some big crisis kicking off right in front of them.

Bait Hooks
Link that initial situation with the place you've prepped for the game to take place. Don't railroad them into a specific place, but if you want them to stay around a particular borough or head to some distant location, give them a really good reason.

Bait more Hooks, Seriously
The worst feeling I get as a player is when you're sort of passive and not particularly inspired to follow any of the directions. Bait up a couple of alternative hooks that might draw people in.
If you're using treasure as you're main hook to get an expedition going, throw in some side-hooks of mystery and power too.
Most of all, don't start the game off somewhere you don't want the group to stay. If you've prepped a dungeon off in the Far Lands and you're starting in Bastion, be prepared for the game to never leave the city.

Make the Main-Thing the Main-Thing
If you've prepared for the group to take an expedition to the Far Lands, have rival expeditions heading out, kids reading about explorers that went there and came back, market traders selling exotic things that have been brought back. If it's about a monster-of-the-week terrorising some Deep Country village than have give every villager a strong opinion on the monster and cover all angles. If you want to play in an industrial borough of Bastion then have everyone live in workhouses and make a table of nasty smog effects.



Get out your Specialist Tools
Okay so this game will probably feature a giant gorilla, so I'll make sure I have the Detachment rules to hand and I've got a load of ideas for things it can smash. I've prepared a ruling for the likely eventuality of it climbing something tall while being shot at.

I've also made sure to give the big guy some means to attack the whole group at once, and he's seriously tough. No anti-climactic gang-up-and-stab kills here.

I want these creepy number-chanter guys to be fun to deal with, so I've given them a mechanic where they pick a number and do something crazy when that number is rolled. It's meta-gaming but this group will enjoy a dash of it.

Get your tables that help when the group go off somewhere you don't have prepared. The Oddpendium tables like What's This Street Like and What's In the Darkness work well for this.

Don't Make Soft Monsters 
Into the Odd monsters shouldn't have abilities like this:

Whirlwind Flail: All surrounding the beast must pass a DEX Save or take d12 damage. 
Brain Sap: Pass a WIL Save or lose d4 WIL. 
Transformer-Needle: Pass a DEX Save to avoid the attack, or else you start a quiver. Attempt a STR Save at the start of each turn from now on. On the first fail you start to shift into a fishlike-humanoid. On the second fail you have full on scaly skin and hideous fish mouth. On a third fail you're a fish. On a pass, you shake off the effect for good.
(Yes I've done this myself in the past)

Just do the thing you want it to do. Into the Odd is designed around the idea that attacks do bad things every single time. Just because you might roll a 1 with your Musket and barely scratch your enemy doesn't mean monsters can't do horrible things every turn.

Knock it off with multiple saves, Saves against damage (NEVER use Save against Damage), Saves against Ability Score loss can work but it makes your monsters soft and unreliable. You want something meaninfgul to happen every time the players get in a position when a monster can attack them.

Go straight to the Ability Score loss. Go straight to the big d12 damage and don't be afraid to target multiple characters if it's a lone monster. Have Save vs something terrible happening. Put nasty effects on Critical Damage, because at that stage anything goes. If it's as bad as a Save or Die then forecast the hell out of it (see Danger in Plain Sight).

The abilities above should be like this:
Whirlwind Flail: d12 damage to everything surrounding the beast.
Brain Sap: Lose d6 WIL. Turn into a mindless Slave at WIL 0. 
Transformer Needle: Lose d6 STR and gain a fish-like trait. At STR 0 turn into a fish. 



Include Toys
The Starter Package section is full of toys. Little things that operate in that sweet spot between fluff and hard rules. Pots of grease, mirrors, razorwire. Things that the players can use to solve problems creatively.

Into the Odd characters tend not to have innate toyness like D&D classes do, so put extra stuff in your games to balance that.

Go full-crazy with the toys in your crazy places because players want to get a slug-mount and a moralistic-hammer to play with. Think of things that can be used creatively, rather than things that are innately powerful. They don't have to be equipment, but think of trick rooms, factions that can be manipulated, enemies that can be turned to allies. Everything that you can bend to your will to solve problems in game.

Things that just make you better at doing stuff are not toys and aren't even in the same league as this stuff.

RUNNING

Reward Questions with Good Information
Generally don't roll in response to questions. Rolls are for action or generating content you haven't prepared. Usually you can just give them more information.

Can I hear anything through the door? Sure, sounds like machinery but it's faint enough that you'll have to stick your ear right up against it to hear.

Do we know anything this guy wants that we can use to bargain? He hasn't let anything slip but you could ask him, or maybe ask some of his colleagues.

Any traps on this door? Nothing to suggest there is. You know I'm not a jerk with traps, so you'd know right away if it was.

What's in those woods to the south? The locals think the woods are haunted, but the watch say it's just kids messing around.

Danger in Plain Sight
I told you to make monsters dangerous, but the more dangerous something is, the more obvious it has to be.

Snotlings can be sneaky little bastards because they're just throwing itchy fungus at you from the shadows. A medusa isn't going to come out of nowhere and hit you with a Save or Stone.

I announce the presence of traps, because trying to get around a trap is the fun part. Spotting the tripwire isn't fun. The exception is if you're bolting blindly through darkness, at which point I'll say "You know you'll just run into anything down there, right? Sure you want to run away from the monster in that direction?"

Death Traps are big whirring devices, lots of hanging blades and ominous holes in the walls. You want to get through? Deal with it.

So you won't get killed in the night by a skilled assassin, or impaled on a well-hidden spear trap out of nowhere. I think we're all fine with that.

Force Choices

You stop to patch up your wounds? 

Are you doing it down here out in the open or going to look for somewhere more hidden?

You fail to kick the door in? 

The noise echos through the Underground and you hear sudden heavy breathing from the other side. What do you do?

You're going to hang around this pub and get drunk? 

Looks like the drinkers are split into two gangs in silly uniforms. Do you try to socialise with one or stick to yourselves?

In short: You do a thing that doesn't immediately push things forward? Make a choice that will move things for you. 

I like the rulings mantra "If in doubt, look for the interesting choice".

Deep Impact
Everything the group do has a massive impact on the world. You killed that stray dog? The street urchin gang that look after him are coming for you. You donated a bunch of money to this cult? They bounce between treating you like royalty and trying to sponge more money from you. You offended the guy on the toll-booth? He's told all his colleagues to give you an extra hard time.

Amplify People
Nobody will remember your NPCs if they're all nuanced realistic individuals. Give each of them some weird quirk that comes out when you interact with them. Silly voices are great, but hammer home their personality and desires as much as you can. If this boring shop-keeper wants to be mayor of the borough, make him never shut up about it and give him really clear political stances. If this dog is stupid and gluttonous have him eat every gross thing you come across in the dungeon.

CHEAT LIST

- Make things fun to interact with and combine to interesting effect.
- No soft monsters, weak consequences, or subtle characters.
- The more dangerous something is, the more obvious it is.
- Reward questions with good information.
- In in doubt look for an Interesting Choice.

Not-Quite-Infinite Possibilities

Tactical Infinity is the beauty of RPGs. You can go anywhere, attempt any action, imagine your character however you like.

You might think the GM has the same sort of luxury. Creating crazy monsters, describing terrifying dungeon environments, and acting out memorable characters.

In reality, I've moved towards a few limitations.

There are certain things that exist in reality that I just won't put into a game. Above any ideas of tactical infinity, I want to play a fun game, and some things innately suck this fun away.

These are the first few entries on the list.

- Well-hidden traps that would likely kill the victim instantly. Think of a 100ft spiked pit, covered to look exactly like every other floor tile. At the moment, I'm only interested in traps you can interact with.

- Attempts at one-shot kills. I use HP as a sort of countdown-to-death, so going for a kill shot against anything with a good chunk of HP is an impossibility. In return, your character won't get sniped by a grassy gnoll.

- Characters with highly specialised skills. I use Ability Scores and no skills. I assume that adventurers are generally jack-of-all-trades, and I'm generous with their knowledge and capabilities. If you want to build the perfect diplomat or pickpocket then put your high Ability Score in the right place and play your character well to achieve the goals you have in mind. You're not going to get a +20 modifier to pickpocketing rolls off me.

- Sudden death out of nowhere. Some people die by losing their grip climbing a rope. You'll only do this if you're climbing a rope while flame-throwing drones harass you. If you're just climbing a rope, you can do it safely, even without a helmet.

Five-Die Dungeon Generation

Need a dungeon right now? Grab a sheet of paper.

Throw down five dice.

Draw a room around each die that landed on the paper. Throw away those dice that fell onto the table. 

Put some big nasty monster in each of these rooms. Something that's going to lair up and not go wandering around too much. 

Now, for each room look at the pips on the die*. Add some rooms around it until it looks like the pips. So a 4 is a box, 5 make a sort of cross. You get the idea. Connect the surrounding rooms to the monster lairs, but keep each monster's territory separate for now!

Now in each rooms put something linked to the nearby monster. A home for their minions, their treasure hoard, the place they take a dump. Something to warn adventurers that they're getting close. 

Now we want these territories to be connected, but buffered. Put in some rooms that would act as a barrier. Could be through sheer size (a sprawling sewer) or being difficult to cross (gaping chasm). You could even put something nasty in there that nobody would want to wade through (worm nest). Use these neutral rooms to connect the monster territories. 

Look around for the least horrible parts of the dungeon. Attach some entrance points to the corridors around there and you're finished!

Oh, and if you're feeling generous add some treasure. You can see I didn't bother here. Adventure!

*Yes, this is where I somehow knocked the yellow die from 3 to 4 without realising. 

Two additions to end trap-related heartbreak.

I spent a bit of time this week trying to persuade people that old-school play isn't about antagonistic GMing and pixel-bitching to avoid deathtraps. I'm hoping these additions to Into the Odd will help get that point across.

A Note on Risk
Generally the Referee should make the players aware if they are taking a risk. A game should have surprises, but players should feel that their decisions in the game have led to the risk that lead to the nasty surprise.

For example, when the characters encounter a monster or hazard that is very likely to be able to kill them outright, the Referee should ensure that the players know this is a possibility. Assessing the risk against the possible reward is an important part of the game, so the players should always have what they need to make an informed choice.

Spotting Traps
As a general rule the presence of a trap will always be noticed by characters unless they are sprinting, visually impaired or distracted by something else. After this initial clue the characters may trigger the trap through further inaction or lack of caution. The players should consider creative ways of getting around a trap or disarming it completely. Risky methods may call for a Save.

Playing Outside the Rules

The following is an excerpt from the GM's section of my work in progress, big-scale, spear-em-up RPG, Thousand Spears. Although it's part of this game I can see it applying to most systems.

Playing Outside the Rules

The most important thing to remember about Thousand Spears is that it is an RPG and not a wargame. You could play it as a wargame, but if you do you’ll be missing out on what makes RPGs so special. In an RPG the GM and players are able to step out of the rules of the game to do, quite literally, anything.

As the GM it's up to you to maintain a balance of playing within the rules and playing outside the rules. This doesn't mean breaking the rules, but is everything the players do that isn't directly linked to a rule. For example, using an individual's Ability to raise some attack dice is playing firmly within the rules, but describing how the archers are pouring arrows onto the enemy is playing outside the rules.

In the majority of games more time will be spent outside the rules than inside them. There are no rules for your Inheritor giving a rousing speech to his men, deciding how to persuade the dock-master to loan him a ship or deciding whether the mysterious Ysorn can be trusted to keep a promise. The temptation may be to play out these situations as Trials or Challenges, but it's important to remember you're not bound to using a rule for everything.

The rules are there for a reason, and there is great fun to be had using them to act out huge battles, dramatic one-on-one duels and life or death journeys across hostile landscapes. Just stop each time you're about to step back into the rules to consider whether you really need to.

Making the most of your Random Encounters

Here's the situation. Your adventurers are roaming through some rough hilly land on the way to their next shot at fame and fortune when suddenly... a random encounter!

As tempting as it is to take the result straight off the table and run through it as quickly as possible, there's no reason random encounters should be unrelated to the matters that are more at the forefront of the players' minds.

Taking some guidance from Treasure Tables the encounter can be sexed up to include a unique element and way for the game to progress if they fail. Throw in a link to an established feature of this area and suddenly your random encounter feels a lot more relevant to the game.

Using an Adventurer's Tale game I ran recently as an example, I'll hit up a random encounter generator for the aforementioned rough hills.

Three Zombie Ogres.

Link to the Game: There's no record of ogres in the area the players were in, but zombie ogres? These unfortunate creatures were servants of the local Dark Wizard, K'Thrax, who the players are very familiar with. They carry metal clubs that observant characters will recognise as being similar to those of K'Thrax's guards, but behind them they drag chains bound around their wrists and necks, in a sort of undead chain-gang. It seems even in their zombie form these ogres weren't keen on serving the Dark Wizard and made a break for it. Could this mean someone is chasing them? Is there enough intelligence left to be able to use them for good? I'd hold off on making them too aggressive and instead play them as more pitiful beasts.
Unique Element: To play up the pity angle I'd have the players encounter the Ogres trapped in a sudden dip in the rough hills, unable to climb back up the steep, jagged slopes. If the adventurers decide to fight the Ogres then play up the chain-gang aspect, perhaps having them attack in unison using their chains.
Way to Progress in case of Fail: These dim creatures will have no interest in eating the adventurers, as a normal ogre might. Instead they're more likely to beat them until they stop fighting back and continue attempting to climb the slope.

Much better.

And as a special treat...

Zombie Ogre
Body 10
Melee 5
Metal Club (Damage 4), 3d6 Treasure.
Relentless: A zombie ignores any non-critical hits that cause less than 4 Damage. Critical hits damage the Zombie as normal.
Clumsy: Opponents may add 2 to their Grace score when rolling against an Ogre.

Lessons Learned from Teaching

Alright, quieten down and get in your usual seats. You two stop fighting, you three put your gum in the bin. Put that crossbow away.

After doing over a year of teacher training you start to notice similarities between learning theory and everything else in the world. Mostly this is down to having so much of it crammed into your brain but with game design and GMing there are genuine links!

Flow

I've seen the graph below crop up in both game design and learning theory but it makes a great, simple point. Between anxiety and boredom lies the optimal zone for a satisfying challenge. 

Simply put, if your players are bored either increase the challenges you're throwing at them or hinder their own abilities somehow (this one is trickier to pull off well...). If they seem overly stressed either give them an extra boost of power or lower the challenge slightly. Try to keep them in the zone of flow and remember individual failures are perfectly acceptable if they result in a more satisfying overall session.

Starter, Development, Plenary

These are the three ideal components to a lesson's structure and they can be easily ported across to a successful game session.

The starter is a short, usually fun task that has the main aim of engaging every single member of the class. Often they involve getting them to do something physical or loud, it wakes up their brains and reminds them all that they're in a class now and are here to do things. 

The development is the meat of the lesson and focuses on progressing the group's understanding of whatever the topic may be. 

The plenary is a recap of everything that's been covered in the lesson, cementing it in their minds.

Try using this structure for your next game. Hit them hard with something interesting as soon as they sit down. Combat is a great example for many games but most importantly this scene should engage every single character and give them all something to do.

After this you can progress the plot in the meat of the session, after that big start the players should be in the right mood to get some productive gaming going.

Finally, before you finish you should have the Plenary, where you wrap up everything covered in the development and close off the session, right? Not necessarily. I don't like to wrap everything up at the end of a session and I do love a good cliffhanger. However, the end of the session is a good time to summarise everything that's happened so far. This could happen out of game by quickly taking input from the players as you write bullet points for a session summary.

Cater to Different Types of Learner

A theory tells us that most people sway towards being either Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic learners that learn best by seeing/reading, hearing or moving/touching respectively (guess which one kids come out as more?). In any lesson plan you should cater to every one of these learning styles as much as possible. Activities can easily cater to two or three of these at once.

Uh oh, am I going to delve into the somewhat questionable GNS theory or threefold model or all that stuff? Thankfully just a very shallow dip. I do think that a good GM will use the ideas present in these theories to cater to players that might favour either plot-heavy sessions or a more "gamey" experience with more tactical choices and rolling of dice. The third group often identified are players that enjoy the simulation aspects of a system. This group can be satisfied either through the realism of the system itself or how the GM presents it. Even with a highly abstract system I believe a good GM can make the players believe they're interacting with a real-feeling world through consistency and quick thinking. 

Oh, and I really don't buy into the idea that a game has to focus on being either Gamist, Narrativist or Simulationist. But that's a topic for another day.

Get your class to do as much of your job for you as possible

Ask any teacher, this is a great piece of advice. Rather than having misbehaving pupils wash my car at break-time I'm talking more about the idea that if a lesson is going well the teacher will often look like they're not doing much at all while the pupils will be a buzz of activity. Ideally they'll be asking appropriate questions, answering the questions of other pupils, supporting each other in difficult tasks and challenging themselves with new ideas. If the teacher is talking a lot and asking a thousand questions that are getting one-word answers then it could be going better. 

This topic has arisen elsewhere so I'm going to knock out my points quickly.

• Encourage your players to ask questions and make suggestions of their own rather than waiting for you to prompt them. Do this with rewards and praise. 
• During character creation have each player create one or two NPCs concepts for characters that are linked to their character in some way. As well as this have each suggest a key location or two that are important to their character.
• Consider giving the players full control of one or more NPCs. This also helps avoid the dreaded GMPC situation. 

Take out your homework planners. For next lesson I want you to consider how your own career or studies have given you surprising tips for GMing or game design. Put them in the comments box and the best suggestion will receive a house point.