Lessons Learned from 4e Part 1

The title is a little misleading. As part of a series talking about how I designed A Wanderer's Romance I had planned to stick to my own games. Then something like 4e comes along with a strongly focused design that casts its shadow over every gaming forum and blog. Even though I'm yet to play it I guess it was bound to have an effect on my design. 

I'm at the risk of repeating what Scott has said over at A Butterfly Dreaming with some of this, but Skill Challenges are an idea that looks fantastic on paper. However, plenty of people have reported problems with the system and it was one of the first to receive an official errata. Not having used the system in play I can't talk too much about it. However, I can talk about Tests in AWR and how Skill Challenges seem to have leaked over into them.

A Test could be a single roll, for jumping from one rooftop to another, using a certain skill. It could also be a series of rolls that are linked together. This could be a group of characters collaborating on a task or a single character going through a series of linked tasks. Examples of how this system can be used are given in the game document, as well as how to determine overall success or failure, but nothing as rigid as 4e's Skill Challenges. The suggested method is that a failure from one person makes the next person's job harder. Overall success could be totalled successes from all or it could come down to the last person to act.

With this in mind I was most impressed to see a first-time GM of this system throw the following Test at me and a group of players in a session for our campaign this week (keeping the numbers behind the screen, of course):

Task: Escape!

Get to port of the isle of Kincade, cannon shots having killing most of the ship's crew.  The characters will have to take over positions.

Operating the rudder requires the person to be quick-minded and have a firm control (Air + Water).

Those entwined with the rigging must be graceful of movement but driven to push themselves (Fire + Water).

The gunner must have a practical mind, be good with their hands and determined in causing destruction (Earth + Fire) .

He or she who undertakes the dangerous duty of keeping the ship afloat, sealing leaks, and fixing it under combat conditions must be both cool, logical and creative, intuitive (Fire + Water)

Rigging - TN 14 to swim to shore.
Helm - TN 12 to swim to shore.
Leaks - TN 10 to swim to shore.
Cannon - TN 10 swim to shore. Also, cannon explodes. Will allow a roll to dodge the damage if the player can convince me why.

For multiple failures ramp up the difficulty (TN)!

Needless to say, we sank the ship, but managed to pull ourselves ashore none the less. What I really enjoyed was that it felt like we were all chipping in to one goal but that failure on any part would sting the group as a whole. The more magical member of our group even managed to conjure a blast of wind to help us along, something the GM hadn't accounted for but slotted in without any trouble. If you scrub away the system-specific stuff you've got the same framework as a 4e Skill Challenge.

It's true. Skill Challenge-style Tests can work and are great fun! Just remember what they're not and remember, you don't have to be playing 4e to get in on the action. There's plenty to be learned even from games you don't enjoy, which brings my nicely onto how I intended to finish this post. In these turbulent times the least I can do is spread some cool and calm a little further through this Internet. Treat yourself to a peaceful day.

Lessons Learned from Inheritance

Each game I write benefits from the experience gained in writing the previous ones. A Wanderer's Romance is my most recent game so should, in theory, make use of lessons learned from this experience.

Inheritance was the first of my games I really got to a playable level and it's still the longest game I've written to date. While I still like the game there were a lot of mistakes I made with it that I wouldn't make again.

Long Combats with one type of attack are not fun.

For many types of character in Inheritance they had few combat options besides attacking with their weapon. Other options were there such as focusing on evasion and special attacks such as grappling, charging and disarming but they were rarely used and generally unexciting. In learning this lesson I wanted to give a useful alternative to attacking each turn, which became Focusing. This gives you not only a pretty nice bonus to your next attack but triggers special abilities in various styles. This addition, along with the variation within combat styles, has made combat in A Wanderer's Romance much more active for the player than in Inheritance.

In addition combat is much shorter, being between only two opponents in the vast majority of cases. The player is always either acting or reacting to their opponent and a hit tends to end the fight much more often than in Inheritance. This gave us fast, active combat. Much more fun.

Quick NPC generation can be your absolute saviour.

To make a standard human NPC in Inheritance you took the basic human template and chose two "Good Thing" upgrades for them. That's all you need, mechanically, for the merchant your players suddenly need statted up. When running the game this has saved me a great deal of time in comparison to something like D&D or GURPS where I'd be more likely to give in and grab a pre-generated NPC. Pre-gens are great but can't always give you what you need.

For A Wanderer's Romance creating a new character involve dividing six points between their four elements, choosing one or more Specialities and Styles for them and giving them a philosophy. This isn't quite as fast as Inheritance but it's still something I've been able to do on the fly without players noticing. Very handy.

Players aren't as interested in your setting as you are.

I still love the Inheritance setting. I still want to draw up the whole world map and draw trade routes, settlements, map out a full timeline of events. However, I know that this exercise would be completely separate to any useful writing I do, as only the minority of players will ever really delve deeply into your setting. With A Wanderer's Romance I took some notice of 4e's Points of Light setting guidance. I liked the fact that it was a framework for groups to create their own world in. Worlds would be different but still adhere to the feel the designers felt suited the game and, importantly for me, be consistent with the mechanics.

In A Wanderer's Romance there's little the players need to know about the setting before they play. These points are covered in around two paragraphs highlighted in coloured boxes and the rest is down relatively common knowledge of the game's influences and the GM's own contributions.

Goals for 2009

This month's RPG Blog Carnival over at that very handy network got me thinking. Resolutions aren't something I normally do but goals? I can be all over goals.

• Seal off A Wanderer's Romance and Teen Island as finished games.
• Get more people to play my games than last year, which is half of the purpose of this blog.
• Play some face to face, at-a-table games. As much as I love playing online I need to see how my games hold up to real-world play.

Realistically I can achieve these in six months, so I should come up with a new batch around July. 

Use This - The Emperor's Challenge

This small scenario is designed for use with my game, A Wanderer's Romance, but could be easily adapted to suit other systems.

You need someone in a position of power who has something to offer that the characters desire. For our example we have an Emperor looking for someone to fill the position of island champion, a prestigious honour indeed. To succeed the challenger must defeat the current champion in the Emperor's Trial. This is split over three contests.

For the first round the Emperor will choose the contest. If you're short on ideas roll a d6. Listed after each type of contest are the skills that could be used within.

1. Debating philosophical ideas- Religion/History (quoting others), Deception (bluffing) or Oratory (confidence in presenting ideas).
2. A race to the top of a mountain - Survival (finding a shortcut), Athletics, Geography (knowing the best path).
3. A drinking contest - Resist Toxins (not many other options for this one besides cheating!)
4. Creating a work of art worthy of the Emperor - Poetry, Calligraphy, Cooking (if you can pass off a great dish as art)
5. Hunting the largest stag in a nearby forest - Tracking, Archery, Storytelling (if you can exaggerate the tale of the catch it might sway things your way)
6. An arm-wrestling contest - Athletics, Intimidation (with your face that close to your opponent it must come in handy)

The winner of this first contest will choose the nature of the second contest. The third contest will always be a duel to the death, but the location and time of the duel will be chosen by the winner of the second contest. Consider the option of allowing the victor to also choose the weapon to be used in the duel or set additional stipulations. 

To save the rest of your group from missing out you could have the island champion instead be a group of champions, with the PCs entering as a team and choosing an entrant for each contest, with no one being allowed to compete twice.

Look forward to a new Use This every Sunday!

Writing a Wanderer's Romance - Concept

I've at least partially written more games than I've played. Of the two I'm most happy with A Wanderer's Romance is the one I want to talk about first.

Now that I'm at a point where I'm happy with the game I wanted to look over how I got there. The truth is a lot of things fell into place without much planning, but how does that make me look?

No. For the purposes of this series of posts you should accept this twisted version of the truth where I'm terribly organised and draw charts while sipping coffee. This will be mutually beneficial in making me seem to be a more effective designer and hopefully helping you in designing your own games.

A Wanderer's Romance is a game drawing inspiration from a number of areas, notably the following:

• Wuxia novels and films.
• Legend of the Five Rings, Chambara films and general western romanticism of Samurai culture.
• My own amusement, from afar, of Anime series where the strangest things can become epic battles.

These three combined with my dust-covered brainstorm for a system using Elements as character attributes and basic setting idea based around lots of tiny islands to eventually form the game. Frankly it's a miracle the game doesn't feel like a pile of ideas mashed together, but somehow coherence was formed.