Campaign Design: Anime-Inspired Weird West, part 1

Just for a change of pace, I’ll be doing a series of campaign design articles discussing the development of a setting for a game I’d like to run in the future. I’m doing this primarily to serve as an archive of good (and bad) ideas, but also to serve as a brainstorming tool with a focus.

For this article, we’ll be talking about a Cross-Genre hybrid. In this case, it’s a Weird West take on Anime Fantasy, much in the same vein of the popular Playstation Wild Arms series of console games.

So, given that I’ve got a pretty clear blueprint on what I want, let’s start off with the basics:

Theme: Destiny obeys the whims of the Bold – The Wild West setting I have in mind is all about the Frontier, an unexplored and dangerous land that opens up a plethora of opportunities for the brave and the bold. As such the player characters are (theoretically) those with the courage to step up and forge the future that they want with their own hands vs. their adversaries, who may have different plans.

Mood: Survival and Discovery – The Frontier is a crucible for the characters. Even as the environment shapes the lives of the people who live at the fringe of civilization, so does adversity remove all weakness from the characters. The addition of an ancient proto-civilization in this setting will also add an element of discovery (and an excuse to use dungeons of a sort.)

Setting:

The Frontier is a predominantly desert world inhabited by humans. While the overall geography of the planet will not be discussed here (nor will it figure prominently in the game), most of the landscape will resemble Arizona, with deserts and canyons, along with mountainous regions and rivers.

The level of technology is a strange mix of Western Era devices with Magitech. Magic, while rare, isn’t something that will start a lynch mob. Healing magic, and other hearth traditions for curing livestock and people will be invaluable in such a setting. Combat magic, on the other hand, has to be taught via books or passed on by those who have knowledge of such. The Military is one of the largest repositories of magic for this very reason.

Transportation is done the old fashioned way: Horses and Trains. While there’s a possibility I might throw in an Airship as a homage to most Japanese console RPGs, everyone else has to work with knowing how to ride a horse. Trains are driven by magitech Cores, essentially sources of magical energy sealed in crystalline form, found in ancient ruins. Needless to say, the Cores are a valuable resource, and there are those who would pay a hefty sum to any treasure hunter that comes back with a goodly sized Core.

Cores are not a natural resource, as they are artifacts from an ancient civilization. As such treasure hunters have a large interest in finding new cores in unexplored ruins. Theoretically, it may be possible to synthesize a new Core, but none of the studies in that field has yielded any promising results as of yet. The rarity of the cores is also the reason why only the largest of industrial facilities or trains can afford to use them. Common household objects still require fossil fuels.

Another nod to Japanese rpg influences would be to make it so that Magic has an innate bond with the environment. Legends will tell of a time when magic was plentiful and even the smallest of children knew a cantrip or two, until a catastrophe (perhaps a Meteor strike, like the one in Arizona) destroys all of civilization. Somewhere in the ruins lies the secret to the Rebirth, a supposed magical ritual that could remake the Frontier into it’s original state of ecological harmony.

Weapons of the setting will revolve around guns for the most part, with knives or the occasional hatchet playing second fiddle. Swords might exist but they’ll probably be very rare outside of a Cavalry Saber.

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Hmm… looks pretty good on my end. I’ll be discussing what System I’ll be using for this campaign, as well as character templates or stereotypes that would be appropriate for this in the next installment.

Genre-Bender: Post-Apocalyptic Roleplaying

Been a busy weekend, so I apologize for the sudden disappearance of updates.  But hey, even on 4 hours of interrupted sleep, I’m back and posting.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Science Fiction, it’s that more often than not, they tend to be pretty pessimistic. And no variant of Science Fiction does doom and gloom more like Post-Apocalyptic games.

As the name implies Post-Apocalyptic games take place in settings after a great disaster destroys all civilization as we know it. This disaster is often a Nuclear War, but may also be the result of disease. In any case, the triggering event has left the world as a very different place. Post-Apocalyptic stories may take place directly after the event, or many generations after, making the Pre-Apocalyptic era into one of myth and legend.

Among the topics I’ve covered in genre-bender, Post-Apocalyptic movies are some of the most recognizable.  Among the more popular examples would be:

• Mad Max, Road Warriors and Beyond Thunderdome – Three really old movies starring a much younger Mel Gibson driving about endless deserts in leather and generally righting wrongs.  Beyond Thunderdome in particular is memorable for the whole “Two men enter, one man leaves” quote.
• Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind – Despite taking place in a non-earth setting, the fact remains that this is one of the most impressive examples of post-apocalyptic interpretations of a world after an ecological catastrophe.  The movie is inspired, but to see the true extent of the writer’s talent, look for the Manga.
• The Matrix - Specifically, the parts of the movie that show “reality.”  After a massive cybernetic revolt, mankind is force to live underground, while the surface world is cloaked in perpetual darkness.  Also, sentient robots wage a constant war against the human survivors.
• Fist of the North Star – Theoretically, this would count as some sort of Post-Apocalyptic Wuxia hybrid, as Kenshiro, the successor to the Hokuto Shin Ken martial art uses his martial prowess to save human civilization from cruel warlords and other martial artists.  Notable for the particularly gruesome way that people die from Hokuto Shin Ken.  Also, Kenshiro’s looks were pattered after Mad Max.

Okay, so now we’ve got some idea as to what the genre looks like, so how do you run it?

The interesting thing to note about this genre is how close it can get to standard fantasy, except perhaps with a slightly heavier survivalist angle. Characters in campaigns for this genre are often valued for their skills.  Those with technological know-how are extremely valuable in jury rigging old tech, and those with survival skills can make sure that people can survive the harsh environments outside.

Unless it’s a setting which has a solid civilization, post-apocalyptic games lend themselves well to traveling games, where the party goes from town to town, helping people out, or generally just trying to survive.  Fist of the North Star does this really well, as Kenshiro never fails to find some small settlement in need of someone strong to stop the latest group of fashion-challenged bikers from menacing them.

One of the more interesting things about this genre is that it gives the players a chance to get their characters to enact lasting change in the face of the fall of civilization.  Sure it’s depressing at times, but now their characters get to restart civilization, establishing irrigation systems, law, learning and possibly even shreds of culture.  Mankind may have suffered from a terrible catastrophe, but the setting is open to a lot of optimism.

Of course if you players are not into the kind of rebuilding the future sort of game, they can pretty much turn the tables and end up playing rigid tyrants that take over a given settlement, hardening it’s inhabitants to create a military force that may have advanced (salvaged) technology that they can use to carve a new nation under their heel.

While this genre might not be all that popular with both the hack and slash and the storytelling crowd, there’s a certain appeal to playing the last of hope of humanity in the days after the bomb/plague/meteor/whatever.  I’d suggest that if you plan to run this for your group, it would be a good idea to go and cater to what they prefer first.  Fights are desperate, resources are scarce and hope is a luxury.  If anything else, this is a new age of heroes, where people can truly make a name for themselves.

Recommended Media:

• Fallout 1 & 2 – The king of post-apocalyptic rpgs on the PC, Fallout is a great treatment for the genre.  Stressing such problems as water shortage, lack of morals, mutants in the wastes, looking good in leather jackets, and just how pleasant it is to waste someone with a sniper rifle, this is a must have for anyone.  It’s not all fun and guts, as the storyline has a surprising amount of depth to it.  The Fallout series counts as one of my favorite PC rpgs of all time.

Genre-Bender: Wuxia Roleplaying

Wu-what?

Okay, since this article is all about identifying patterns and play styles associated with niche genres of roleplaying games, let’s go to something really obscure. Today, we’ll take a look at Wuxia, the Chinese version of High Fantasy as popularized in stories as far back as the Ming Dynasty all the way to modern comic books and films that have won awards worldwide.

Anyone who has watched even some of the cheesiest movies in Kung-Fu Theater has some concept of what Wuxia is. The fantasy aspect of this genre lies in the near magical command that the heroes have over their Chi to perform impossible deeds such as running over water, or the famous “wire-fu” jumps. In addition, Wuxia stories always revolve around people with some form of kung-fu, ranging from the various fighting styles, to even more exotic ones like fighting with the use of musical instruments, an abacus, or even hair. Their kung-fu is what enables them to rise above the common man and enact change to make the world a better place.

To better understand Wuxia, let’s take a look at some elements common to Wuxia Stories:

• Kung-fu – This may seem like a no brainer, but it’s always good to remember that the term kung-fu is actually a term to denote a cultivated skill, or individual accomplishment. Henceforth a bun maker’s proficiency in making buns could be considered his kung-fu. Wuxia celebrates the nature of accomplishment by hard work. You see this often in movies where the weak protagonist eventually becomes exceedingly powerful over the course of several months (or years) of training.
• Wandering Swordsmen – the Xia are a class of martial artists (usually swordsmen) who wander the world righting wrongs. Similar to questing knight errants and ronin samurai in Western and Japanese fiction, the Xia are invariably the heroes of most Wuxia fiction. Like their counterparts, the Xia conduct themselves along an honor code that espouses righteousness and honor. The Xia are willing to put their martial prowess to the service of the greater good, or in some cases, for righteous revenge against evildoers. Take note that this honor code does not make any any effort to say that the Xia are bound by the law, resulting in a lot of stories around kung-fu vigilantes or revenge.
• Revenge vs Pacifism – There are two general schools of thought in terms of proper conduct among the Xia. While some would go to avenge themselves or others against the villains without a thought, a second group espouses a more pacifistic Buddhist ethos of forgiveness and prohibits killing.
• Social Injustice – Most Wuxia stories take place in settings overrun with corruption, where the local government is too inept or unwilling to protect the common man from bandit raids or evil kung-fu societies. In other examples, the local government itself is the villain, usually represented by the often-used stereotype of the evil magistrate.
• 2 Basic Plots – Most Wuxia fiction follows a plot that most fans of kung-fu movies will find very familiar. The first involves a young protagonist who experiences a great tragedy or personal loss, and goes off to train to avenge and better himself, eventually returning as a great hero who will extract revenge from the evildoers. The other plot would involve an older, mature hero and his eventual showdown with his nemesis (like Li Mu-bai facing off against the Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

Now that we’ve discussed the more common threads in Wuxia stories, how does one turn a broad genre like this into something playable?

Given the basic plot and framework of the Wuxia film, I would suggest starting off a group of player characters with individual stories first, working with the players to hammer out just how their characters became Xia. While not all characters have to cleave to the wandering swordsman archetype, all of them must be good in something. Wuxia is not a genre where the heroes are everyday people, and their concepts must reflect this. Some common concepts would be:

• The Sword Saint, a prodigy with a given weapon who wanders the world to hone his art, or use it for the greater good. The reverse of this is the Assassin, who fights not for the perfection of his art, but instead kills for money. Assassins make up a good number of nemesis-style opponents in Wuxia.
• The Doctor, often a martial artist who specializes in knowledge of pressure points and herbs to heal injuries. This may also be reversed by the Poison Master, who uses his medical knowledge to cripple, maim or poison his opponents.
• The Courtesan, a character who does not often fight as well as the Sword Saint, but whose specialty lies in the intrigues of the court. Their power lies with the web of intrigue that they dominate. This role sees reversal usually in the form of the Eunuch.
• The Scholar, a character who practices legalism, and whose knowledge in science and lore are often the key to solving enigmas or mysteries. Scholars also practice kung-fu.  In more high powered games, the Scholar is often the one with magic, which is often the purview of his opposite, the evil Sorceror.
• The Prodigy, a character who is usually young, and most often female who represents unbridled potential in her kung-fu. The reverse of this would be the Doddering Old Man, who is quite often a powerful martial arts teacher in disguise.
• The Monk, I don’t even think I need to explain this, but the monk is often the epitome of the Buddhist Xia, who fights to defend others, or to teach bullies a lesson and never kills. An interesting reversal of this is the Evil Monk, who has either betrayed the order or follows an opposing ethos.

Some of the common plot hooks for banding characters together in other genres work well with Wuxia. One of the most effective however would be the common threat, whether it’s the corrupt government official and his private army of magistrates, or the ubiquitous Evil Kung Fu school that trains its students to be nothing more than thugs.

In terms of motivation the Xia take the law into their own hands just because there’s nobody else to count on. Rewards are secondary, and often take the form of food or wine or a place to stay rather than an actual exchange of money. Consider the scenario where the Xia are to liberate a city from a cruel taxman and his band of magistrate thugs. The most one can expect from that is perhaps a meal in a local teahouse. The Xia do good because they can.

Revenge can be the very cornerstone of a Wuxia film. By making characters all disciples in a given school, taught to focus on different aspects of a holistic martial education, you permit them to diversify while sharing a single (ill-fated) Master, who will pretty much kick the bucket at the hands of a powerful rival school. Driven by the need to avenge their master’s death, the team decide to go off to train themselves individually and swear to meet up in the ruins of their former school five years hence to enact a plan of kung-fu revenge.

However, there is something you have to pay attention to with regards to Chinese literature vs. RPGs.  For one thing, your players will proably despise you if you stick to the standard Chinese ending: Tragedy.  RPGs are all about triumph over adversity, so let’s stick with that.  Unless your players are perfectly fine playing a long drawn out tragedy of people who can parry arrows with swords and run on water but commit suicide because circumstances force them to break their code of honor, I’d suggest sticking to more positive themes.

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Overall I find that Wuxia is a severely underestimated setting.  It’s traditional fantasy using a while new tradition featuring swordsmen that leap for a dozen yards at a time, strange sorceries, superstitions and magic, an exotic collection of bizarre monsters that break away from the standard orc and goblin parade.  If your players like high adventure, just a little melodrama, and aren’t willing to trade their swords for guns, give Wuxia a try and see if they start quoting Sun Tzu.

Recommended Media:

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - One of the most easily accessible movies for the Wuxia beginner.  The introduction of various stereotypes like the Sword Saint, the Prodigy and even the Poison Master are all played out.  Add a great (if tragic) tale and you’ll enjoy the film more than you’ll be researching it.
• Once Upon a Time in China – Starring Jet Li as the legendary Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei Hung, Jet Li portrays a skilled Doctor who takes up arms to fight anything from government corruption to foreign invaders.  This is also a great alternative to the classical Wuxia setting, instead taking place in China during the times of Western Imperialism.  Extra points for great theme music.
• The Storm Riders – Check out the comic for some crazy combat.  Storm Riders is an epic tale about two Sword Saint protagonists, named Wind and Cloud, whose adventures would take too long to describe, but rest assured that the comics convey an incredible sense of motion and have some fantastic duels (mainly sword fights.)
• HERO – This movie is a visual masterpiece, and if you can pry your eyes away from the incredible use of color as a means to set the mood for the storytelling, you’ll see that this film highlights just how different the Xia code can be from Western fantasy.  This tale follows Nameless (played by Jet Li), an Assassin whose mission is to take out the King of Qin.

Related Games:

• Hong Kong Action Theater – isn’t exactly a Wuxia game, but with the well researched expansion book Blue Dragon, White Tiger, players can actually play actors playing characters in a Wuxia film.  Confused yet?
• Qin: the Warring States – is what you should pick up for adventures in the same vein as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where you don’t have magical energy bolts, but Lightfoot techniques and fighting forms are still kick ass.
• Weapons of the Gods – if you enjoy Hong Kong comic books like the Storm Riders or Weapons of the Gods, then this one is everything you need.  Written with the comic book’s setting in mind, Weapons of the Gods features mighty weapons as powerful artifacts, mountain cleaving kung-fu and a whole lot of over the top action.  Great for fans of high action.

There’s fun to be had in failure

One of the interesting things about roleplaying games, as opposed to board games, CCGs and majority of video games is that sometimes failure can be just as interesting and fun as success. With the right attitude and the appropriate genre, failure can give players more interesting situations to get out from.

GMs tend to think of obstacles in a game as having a “Pass-Fail” structure. In some cases failure may mean severe and highly undesirable outcomes for the character, such as death. However, in most games, the idea of being taken out of play by having their character killed even if the dice come up that way tends to be out of sync with the genre and usually ends up being not fun for the poor unfortunate player who must then create a new character and start over (maybe with some extra experience to keep relatively competitive with the others.)

So how do you turn a loss into something more interesting?

1) Death or Capture?

The Pulps and some Adventure /Espionage movies had something right going on whenever a character goes down. Capture is always a viable alternative in a villain’s mind. After all, extracting information from the characters will give the villain insight to their plans, and will begin raising the stakes.

The other upside to this is for the characters. Rather than losing the gains they’ve worked so hard for, stripping them of their gear and leaving them in a cell is a good way for them to do the time honored prison break scenario. Reward creativity and remember that the objective is allow the characters to escape, not to piss the players off. Aside from the obvious excitement of breaking out, here’s the character’s chance to enact some good old revenge as they tear apart the enemy prison inside out.

2.) Failure or Complications?

Failing a task might not mean immediate death, but some GMs tend to take a failure as just that, a simple negation of a course of action. Instead of forcing players to try finding that elusive “one true way” of figuring out a task. I believe RPG.net had a fantastic term for it:

“The Pixelbitch” – The GM who presents obstacles before the players that can only be solved in some highly picky, obtuse manner. Nothing else works, and the game WILL NOT MOVE FORWARD until someone stumbles upon what the GM is looking for.

Remember GMs… don’t be a Pixelbitch. Failure can be turned into something interesting instead. Say hacking to disable security may trigger the alarms instead, or a failed jump between buildings might result in hanging from your fingertips rather than a long and deadly fall.

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I am aware that this isn’t the style for every game. A lot of players who prefer a more “Game” approach to things would prefer to let the dice dictate everything. As long as the entire group are on the same page, then I have no protests to that method of play. However, it’s still good to keep in mind that sometimes a straight out failure can be boring.

Genre-Bender: Cyberpunk Roleplaying

Welcome to the third installment in what is turning out to be a regular feature in this blog. Today we tackle yet another not-so-common genre: Cyberpunk.

Just what is the Cyberpunk Genre? Cyberpunk is a subset of Science Fiction which usually deals with an anti-authoritarian or non-conforming protagonist in a dystopian future. Other themes dealt with would include the nature of humanity or proof of life given ever improving Artificial Intelligence, or the inherent amorality of Technology and how new tech can be abused to ends that were never meant to be.

Perhaps the best way I can present the genre would be to introduce some examples:

• Neuromancer
• Johnny Mnemonic
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Blade Runner
• Ghost in the Shell (the Movies and the Stand Alone Complex TV Series)
• Bubblegum Crisis
• Battle Angel Alita / GUNM
• Paprika

If you go through the examples I posted, you’ll see some very familiar patterns emerging. These are the elements that make up the core of the cyberpunk experience. Some of these elements include:

• Megacorporations – large, monolithic establishments which often render an individual human peon’s life immaterial in the greater scheme of things.
• Rich vs. Poor – While the poor have access to some of the future’s technology like perhaps a robot or cybernetic parts, the rich are the ones in flying cars and with android bodyguards and sexroids.
• Crime - while organized crime and gang violence is not exclusive to Cyberpunk, most protagonists in cyberpunk are vigilantes or occasionally cops. They have to deal with all sorts from cybercrime (most thoroughly explored in Ghost in the Shell) to drugs that amplify performance of cybernetic parts to make cybered criminals even more dangerous.
• Altered States - Whether it’s jacking into the Matrix, diving into the virtual web, shooting up with the latest designer drug, or even synchronizing with someone’s dreams, Cyberpunk seems to revel in the idea of contrasting the helplessness of everyday existence with a glorified altered state. An escape to a greater reality where the protagonist usually finds the answers that he seeks, or occasionally as a subversion, is haunted by his failures.
• Guns, Chrome and Gear – Cyberpunk has always been about toys. New smart guns, cybernetic targeting systems that augment normal vision, cybernetic limbs, or even cloned organs and biomods that make a person more (or less) than human is all the rage.
• Anti-heroes – The protagonists of a cyberpunk story are very rarely the shining examples of heroism as extolled in more traditional speculative fiction. Gone are the idealistic farmboy who becomes king, instead replaced by the scarred and distrustful gun runner, or perhaps the corrupt cop who stumbles upon a larger conspiracy.

So, given all these elements, how does one go about running a cyberpunk game? Let’s start with the basic framework of the campaign. Always establish a few things about your setting. For one thing, who are the dominant factions for the game? Cyberpunk games often have several faction vying for power. Be it the Megacorporations, Big Brother styled Governments, the Mob or even just the local gangs. This will give you an idea as to the scale of your game, and the antagonists you want them to face.

Cyberpunk games lend themselves well to a mission based structure. Playing groups would be best encouraged to build their characters as a team to start with, just to avoid a conflict of interest. Smaller groups of 2-3 players might benefit from playing characters with different agendas, but for larger groups, a team structure makes sure everyone gets some screen time. A good example of a “team” would be Section 9 from Ghost in the Shell.

The primary purpose for my suggestion for a team would be niche protection. Like most rpgs, players naturally want to be the best at a certain niche, with very little overlap as to not have their character appear too much like another player’s. In providing structure, GMs also have an easier time structuring a game, making sure each niche is given something interesting to do within their character concept.

Decide the tone of the story at around the same time characters are being created. Players will appreciate it if you tell them just how gritty the game is going to be. Nobody wants to play an idealistic robotics whiz kid with a college degree only to find out that he’s going to be in a game with nothing but shades of gray, and his idealism is nothing but a big target to the other characters in the game. Remember though, that not all groups appreciate constant setbacks. Cyberpunk can be about winning too, whether or not winning means blowing up the CEO of a megacorporation, or just giving The Man a finger as you swipe a government’s plans for a top-secret armored suit.

Cyberpunk has potential for a long-term and satisfying campaign, as it naturally lends itself to an episodic structure. Given the antagonistic nature of the setting, you shouldn’t have a hard time thinking of scenarios for players to go through, and even spend some downtime highlighting their characters’ efforts to get by, or even improve their lives. Combat fans will have plenty of high-octane gunfights, social characters get to rub elbows with the elite and sneaky bastards will have all sorts of tools at their disposal. So if you feel like the group isn’t the type to enjoy the retro feel of Pulp, or can’t really accept being depowered in Horror, Cyberpunk might just be what you’re looking for.

Recommended Media:

• Ghost in the Shell (the Movie) - Dealing with the nature of humanity, and what happens if an AI were to become sufficiently advanced to have a sense of self and self-preservation. Highly recommended to get a feel for the Cyberpunk Genre.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – This TV series deals more with the cases that Section 9 has to deal with. No longer as completely focused on Major Kusanagi, the TV series might inspire more ideas on how to handle stories for characters with different abilities. Take note how stories revolving Batou or Togusa are handled differently from those around Kusanagi.
• Battle Angel Alita - Go for the Manga for this one. Alita is a truly dystopian future, where humanity has abandoned it’s poor an it’s refuse in a scrap heap of a city while they hover above in a techno-heaven. Gally is a cyborg girl without a past, with a kickass cybernetic martial art “Panzer Kunst” and must fight to find the truth to her history and why she was found in the scrap heap.
• Bubblegum Crisis – For a dose of the attitude and chrome in Cyberpunk, look for the earlier series. Starring an all-female cast of vigilantes in powered armor fighting cyborgs that run amok in Megatokyo, there’s plenty of action and attitude in this series to make it a worthwhile watch. Don’t forget to pay attention to the 80’s rock soundtrack and the ever-present threat of GENOM, the series’ Monolithic Megacorporation.

It’s not you, it’s me…

RPG gaming groups are a lot like other relationships in life. At one time or another, you’ll realize that certain groups of people are just not meant for you. Whether it be play style, odious personal habits, or even some of the other’s personalities, you’ll have to make a decision for yourself.

There was an interesting article on “Five Geek Social Fallacies” floating about in the internet that pretty much hammers in a lot of things that gamers should consider. This is doubly stressed in the case of the Philippine Gamer since we still have to consider that we adhere to the Asian concepts of “Face” or “Hiya.” Breaking with a given group because you don’t find any fun might be seen as rude or that you don’t have a sense of taking one for the team.

Of course, as the folks of RPG.net say, “Not gaming is always better than Bad Gaming.” I wholeheartedly agree with this statement, after all, life’s too short to waste on bad gaming when you can have more fun reading a good book, going out with non-gaming friends or even just watching a movie.

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One way to avoid getting stuck in a situation where you have to break up with a group is to find out what kind of games people like to play before you hop in. My advice is to take the initiative and ask. Some good questions to start off would be:

• What system/edition will be used in the game?
• Are there any other house rules that we should be aware of?
• What kind of play style is the group used to? Are we looking at a game that centers on hack-and-slash, politics or introspective reflection?
• What character concepts are acceptable in this campaign?

These questions will give you an idea of the framework that the campaign is based on. Even if the GM doesn’t think about these when he starts off, your prompting will bring it into sharper focus for him as well.

Once you’re in the game, pay attention to yourself. If you’re constantly frustrated, or if other players (including the GM) are running roughshod over your concepts or background, bring it up. Step one should always be to go and speak to the GM or the group in a neutral setting. Air out your concerns and be ready to negotiate.

Finally if stuff doesn’t look like it’s about to come a to a decent resolution, handle it with maturity. Either e-mail or talk to the GM directly and inform him of your decision to leave and your reasons for why. Don’t make this an opportunity to sling mud into the other player’s faces. Treat it like an exit interview of a job if need be. Remember to thank the GM or the other players (if you guys are still in speaking terms) and move on.

After all, if all else fails, you can start your own gaming group, right?

Subtle Differences: RPGs ≠ Novels

Being a GM that loves to think up of plots, complications and stories for the player characters of my games, it’s humbling to run into those few moments that remind you that Roleplaying Games are a genre of their own.  As any GM who has run a session or two will attest, nothing goes exactly as planned.  Changes might be small insignificant deviations, or escalate to full blown, FUBAR scenarios.

After running games for a while, it’s easy to get sidetracked and start thinking of rpgs as a story.  I’ve been guilty of this a few times, ending up stressed after my expectations of what the characters would do were blown out of the water by what the players opted to do.

Sometimes, the issue is really a lack of communication.  One classic example was in my first foray to using HERO 5th Edition Revised, when I was running a Teen Superheroes Campaign.  The situation was a heated battle, wherein a stray shot from the villain cleaved off a chunk of a nearby building, sending it tumbling towards the civilians below.  The team’s speedster ran to intercept, going so far to take a significant amount of damage and breaking his character’s shoulder in an attempt to ram the falling debris away.  He was successful in rescuing the civilians below, and was feeling pretty good about pulling off a great heroic self-sacrifice for the good of others when another player quipped, “What the hell did you do that for?  They’re only civilians!”

Instant mood killer.

The game almost stopped immediately as myself and three others tried to drive home the fact that civilians DO matter in the game, because it’s a game about superheroes.  I had to struggle uphill to get the session back to it’s normal pace but ended before I could recover any further momentum.

In that case it was possibly a case of different perceptions of comic books.  I started reading comics back in the 1980’s with Spider-man.  Considering the outspoken player was younger than I am, he may have been indoctrinated to the admittedly questionable morals of the Iron Age of comics.  Given the disconnect with the assumptions and “Acceptable” behaviors among both ends of the spectrum, it’s no wonder then that I was getting the impression that his character was needlessly dark.

Another case of subtle differences between rpgs and stories in general is that in stories, the writer has no problem with what the characters will be doing.  Writers sometimes speak of “characters coming to life”, and “being surprised at what the characters do” in their stories, but I suspect that it’s not quite the same thing when you’re running a game for different people with very different ideas on how to react to a situation.

I offer, as an example, the same superhero game.  The “They’re only civilians” player was now in control of a character that was essentially the setting’s answer to a Nanite-powered supersoldier, devised by the military to stop Hulk-level threats that most modern armies would be useless against.  Unfortunately, when I sprung a bizarre magically-powered villain at them that seemingly had powers that were beyond the player’s ability to accurately judge or measure his combat potential, the player opted that his super-patriotic Nanite superhero would be the first to flee the scene and abandon the investigation, leaving only the teenaged heroes played by the others to fend the villain off.

As you can see, GMing tends to be a tricky thing.  At times things flow naturally when players get into the right groove of things and play off each other.  At other times… well, it’s like looking at a train wreck.  It’s horrible, but you can’t look away.

Manage your expectations.  Remember that rpgs aren’t stories and vice versa.  RPGs work best when everyone is on the same page so remember to work it out with your players.  Finally learn to throw away your notes.  Sooner or later your players will find a way to throw all your plans out the window anyway, so you’d best learn to cope and run things on the fly without feeling bad for yourself.   After all, even if your plans were ditched this session, you could always find a workaround to recycle that unused plot hook further down the line.

Genre-Bender: Pulp Roleplaying

Another genre that sees very little play here in the Philippines would be Pulp Fiction.  Named after cheap fiction magazines sold in the US during the 1920’s to the 1950’s, the Pulps were all about two-fisted adventurers and not a lot of political correctness.  This was a genre where Justice was a defining virtue, the motivation of many a dark Vigilante, or daring Adventurer.

Thinking about it, Pulp Fiction would be considered an umbrella term for a host of other sub-genres written in the same style.  There were Sci-fi, Horror, Crime and Adventure stories that all became famous in the Pulp era.

Pulp Fiction gave birth to many heroic stereotypes that eventually evolved into the superheroes of today.  Among the more popular ones would be:

• The Shadow -”Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”
• Doc Savage – “He rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.”
• Conan the Barbarian – “By Crom!”
• Buck Rogers -I don’t have a quote for this but hey, it’s Buck Rogers of the 25th Century!
• Flash Gordon – No quote either, but look! QUEEN!
• John Carter of Mars – Warlord of MARS!
• Zorro – “The pointy end goes into the other man”
• Tarzan – Lord of the Jungle

Now that you more or less know what I’m talking about when I make mention of the Pulps, let’s take a look at the elements of running a Pulp campaign:

1.) 1920’s Morality -  Pulp fiction, much like 1980’s action movies, didn’t really concern themselves with going all emo over questions of morality.  Dark vigilantes like The Shadow or The Spider pretty much kicked down doors of warehouses and gunned down criminals with impunity.  While pulp writers occasionally gave a nod to the normal procedure of taking thugs to jail, it was at par with the genre to dispense swift justice without giving it a second thought.

2.) First among equals – Pulp heroes were not everyday people.  They were above that of normal men, usually displaying almost superhuman skills or training, able to do thing better, faster or stronger than any of their compatriots.  A fine example of this would be Doc Savage, who according to Wikipedia: “is a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher, and musician — a renaissance man. A team of scientists (assembled by his father) trained his mind and body to near-superhuman abilities almost from birth, giving him great strength and endurance, a photographic memory, mastery of the martial arts, and vast knowledge of the sciences. Doc is also a master of disguise and an excellent imitator of voices, though he admits to having trouble with women’s voices. ‘He rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.’ Dent described the hero as a mix of Sherlock Holmes’ deductive abilities, Tarzan’s outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy’s scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln’s goodness. Dent described Doc Savage as manifesting ‘Christliness.”

Take note of course, that despite all of this, there is hardly anything supernatural about his abilities.  Think of Batman, no flight, no heat rays, nothing but being a superior human in all aspects.

3.) Action, action, action – Pulp is all about going out and doing stuff.  In a way, this makes for some pretty fun games, as you should encourage your players to live up to the source material.  Pulp games are games where there’s little room for sitting around doing nothing.  As a GM, your objective would be to skim over the “boring” parts and get right to where the action is.  Of course, action is defined as any scene where something noteworthy happens.  It could be a tense social scene, like running into the Don of the local Mafia in a large dinner party on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, or it could be something more spectacular, like the appearance of a squadron of sky pirates appearing from cloud cover to strafe at the said party.

4.) Cliffhangers – Being in serial fiction, pulp stories often ended in cliffhangers, situations where the characters were suddenly confronted with an unexpected (and often dangerous) situation.  Anyone who has watched the really old Adam West Batman TV series knows that they often end with Batman (or Robin) stuck in a precarious trap or situation with seemingly no way out.  Of course, cliffhangers don’t always have to be traps, usually a sufficiently unexpected twist to a given situation is sufficient as long as you leave your players stuck on a limb and asking for more.  Rule of thumb: if the players demand that you keep running so they can find out what happened next, you’re doing it right.

5.) Yes, but – Don’t get in the way of players when they want their characters to do something incredibly heroic and incredibly stupid at the same time.  Sure we know that according to the rules, the chances of the hero leaping over from the side of the building to catch the fleeing Zeppelin’s mooring cable is slim to nil, but let them do it.  If they fail, don’t crush your player’s adventurous spirit by saying that they fall to their doom, have them, make it by just a fraction, only to be noticed by a member of the villain’s crew who was hoisting the said cable.  Rather than punish failures (or even botches) give them complications.  This achieves 2 things: The players are encouraged to keep with the Pulp genre of being brass balled adventurers, and you get to keep flinging complication after complication after them.  After all, part of the fun of getting captured rather than killed is breaking out.

Pulp Fiction based games might not be as mainstream in the Philippines as Dungeons and Dragons, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to run games in the spirit of the pulps.  Next time your group is tired of the same old dungeon hacking, why not suggest a Pulp game?  It might just be what your group is looking for.

Related Media:

As suggested by RV in Genre-Bender: Horror Roleplaying, a great way to get the feel for a genre would be to immerse yourself in it.  As such here’s a list of some good movies to start you off:

• The Rocketeer
• The Shadow
• The Phantom
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• The Mummy and The Mummy Returns
• Indiana Jones
• Flash Gordon

Pulp RPGs:

For those looking for a place to start off with Pulp RPGs, you may want to check out the following games:

• White Wolf’s Adventure! is a self-contained setting with a weird science explanation for the appearance of these larger than life heroes.  Also contains a gallery of colorful heroes and villains, as well as rules for supernatural knacks.
• Pulp HERO for use with the HERO system is a great resource tackling the history, the nature, the characters and even the plots and elements you can find in an iconic pulp game.  By far the best possible resource you can get to cover Pulps as a whole, from Flash Gordon-esque Sci-fi to Conan the Barbarian Fantasy.

If I had a Million Dollars…

If there’s something true about the gaming hobby, it would be that there’s never enough money to buy all the games you wanted.  So here’s a quick rundown on some games I would buy in a heartbeat, if I only had the cash.

Board Games:

Descent: Journeys in the Dark – This looks like a fine board game for someone who enjoys rpgs like me.  It’s a pretty impressive package overall, with a ton of components, its own set of characters and as the package puts it: “Dungeon Delving Adventure.”  Kick down door, slay the orc and take its pie.

Tannhauser – I’ve always been a fan of alternate history settings whenever there’s pulp elements or weird science involved, and from the art and story alone Tannhauser looks like it delivers.  It looks like a mix between Hellboy’s Nazi Occultists vs. G.I. Joe.  What’s not to love?

Monsters Menace America – Speaking of cheesy retro settings, Monsters Menace America still hounds my thoughts after playing it for one time.  Players take control of one giant monster (and yes, there’s a godzilla and king kong analogue) as well as one branch of the military.  The objective is to harass and weaken the other players monsters while you beef yourself up with mutations and gain more health by stomping cities.  In the endgame all the monsters are made to fight one on one to determine who is the meanest, toughest monster there is.

Betrayal on the House on the Hill – This game presents an interesting premise.  Players all take the role of characters who for some undefined reason, decide to explore a mysterious house.  The house is randomly generated, and when certain conditions are met, a random player suddenly becomes a traitor, and the game shifts to high gear as the traitor begins to try hunting down the other players.  Boasting of Fifty different possible scenarios (and reasons to turn traitor), Betrayal on the Houe on the Hill is always a surprise.

Roleplaying Games:

Qin: the Warring States – Blame it perhaps on my heritage, but I have yet to find a really decent Wuxia game.  Qin may be my best hope at such a thing.  Opinions in RPG.net place this game highly on the list of recommendations to fans of the genre, with a few caveats that while some wire-fu is made possible, don’t expect to pull off anything from Jet Li’s HERO until you reach the higher levels of power.

Weapons of the Gods – Another rpg based on Chinese literature, Weapons of the Gods is a take on a totally overpowered martial arts world based off the comic book of the same name.  Of course, given the nature of it’s source, this is where the martial arts gets really wild.  I’ve heard comments about problems with the way the book is written and some difficulties with finding the rules buried in prose when in play, but hey, our premise for the list is being filthy rich enough not to care.

Unhallowed Metropolis – Another alternate history game, this one boasts that it was “Inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Nikola Tesla and painstakingly researched by the authors, the game is steeped heavily in Victorian history and science to provide a rich role-playing experience.”   With all that name dropping and the artwork on the website, it looks pretty damn cool.

Mutants & Masterminds – D20 has never really managed to win my favor when it comes to rules, but Green Ronin’s True20 variant might just win me over, especially with a Superhero setting like the one in M&M.  While it still retains Feats, it does have a good spread of powers and seems to play a lot faster with less tactical considerations and more cinematic action than HERO 5th Edition Revised.

HERO 5th Edition - While I already have the PDF, what I mean by this entry is Every Single Supplement for this awesome generic rpg toolkit.  The learning curve for this system was a little steep compared to most games, but it’s inherently rewarding since you can pretty much build anything with it.

Legend of the Five Rings, 3rd Edition – Even with it’s shoddy editing and sometimes outrageously imbalanced rules, I still love this setting to bits.  This is one of the few games that can really give a different feel to things, a paradigm shift away from your tried and true standard western fantasy.  While this may turn off some newbies who have difficulty understanding why the samurai code prevents them from looting the dead in the field of battle, it is rewarding to those who really take the time to immerse themselves in AEG’s biggest success.

World of Darkness – And by this entry, I mean Everything that’s ever come out for the new World of Darkness after the Time of Judgement reboot.  White Wolf has outdone itself with the new edition, giving it a tighter focus on horror rather than the almost gonzo approach from the previous World of Darkness.   Things are scaled down to the local, the familiar and the intimate, all excellent ingredients in making a great horror setting.

CCGs:

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been trying to wean myself off CCGs already, having spent a fortune in cardboard crack.  Still if I were to be rich enough to not care, there’s always Legend of the Five Rings, and maybe that Call of Cthulhu CCG.

Video Games:

Right now there’s only one game that’s keeping me awake at night in anticipation, and that would be ATLUS’ Persona 3, the latest in the not so famous Persona series.  I’ve been a big fan of this series ever since I got my first psx.  Sure the first one had some really crappy translation that left you scratching your head in the demon negotiation phases, but it was still an enjoyable ride.  The Persona series always deals with the inner conflicts of the characters and as a result always becomes an rpg with a lot of character development.  July 24th can’t come soon enough.

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And that’s it,  my quick and dirty list of games to want.  Do you guys have any other recommendations for games I may have missed?  Feel free to comment and tell me what I’m missing.

Genre-Bender: Horror Roleplaying

Horror is one of those genres that a lot of people have difficulty with when running a role playing game.  Being a medium that lends itself naturally to empowerment and wish-fulfillment, there’s a natural distance between a player and his character.  Unless a given person is really impressionable, it’s nigh impossible to actually instill real fear in a game.

So, what’s a GM to do?

My first step always comes to sitting down and talking to my players about expectations.  No matter what genre I run, I find this to be a very important step as it establishes the boundaries of the game.  When we brainstorm prior to the session, I make sure to go over the following:

• General Expectations – In a horror game, I expect some measure of investigative impetus from the characters.  Horror movie characters are downright famous for their ability to override common sense with their curiosity, and I expect at least a measure of daring from my players.  I tend to run horror / mysteries, and nobody found any clues by holing up in their Danger Rooms.
• Character Concepts – No, you can’t play a former Navy SEAL turned chef but somehow managed to keep your arsenal of weapons issued to you by the government.  I expect players to play everyday people with maybe a small edge in the event of supernatural weirdness.  Yes, I know that the movie “Aliens” pulled it off well, but I don’t fancy the idea of slaughtering the players in droves either.
• My Parameters – This is where I ask the players for their expectations.  I usually make commitments here about not throwing them into completely helpless situations.  Of course, I counter that since this is a Horror campaign, stupidity will not receive the Deus Ex Machina rescue.

It may seem like a lengthy and overly involved process even before character generation is done, but I feel that it saves me much grief when it comes to actual play.  By setting expectations ahead, players will know what’s expected of them, and what they can get away with.

Speaking of players, the next step to pulling off good Horror Roleplaying relies on their help.  Players must be willing to make their characters scared.  Let’s face it, looking at someone narrating a fictional story about a fictional monster menacing a fictional character isn’t really all that scary.  But if you’re willing to play your character as someone who is scared, then you preserve the whole point of being a protagonist in a horror game… mainly the fact that they’re all usually people who survive through sheer desperation and wits, rather than the careful planning and tactics that other genres are known for.

The last part would have to be the rules.  A lot of people might say that rules are irrelevant for setting the mood for a game, but I find that certain rules do extremely well in enforcing certain genre conventions.  Call of Cthulhu and Unknown Armies both pride themselves in having a system for handling a character’s descent into madness from seeing things that should not be, or performing acts that man’s psyche was not meant to handle.  The new World of Darkness also has a system for determining a person’s state of morality, a solid mechanism to see just how far detached a person is from the benchmark “Socially Acceptable” mindset you are.

All these systems are meant to hammer in another aspect in horror, which is that people who encounter the horrors that lurk beyond their safe and normal world barely come out completely unscathed.  They may not necessarily be physical scars, but psychological ones.  Being someone who actually suffers from earthquake anxiety, I can attest that all it takes is for your world to go terribly, terribly wrong to leave a lasting impression in your head.

Horror Roleplaying is admittedly one of the more difficult genres to pull off on tabletop rpgs.  However, with the proper expectations, cooperation from your players, and the use of rule systems that stress the nature of the genre, it becomes a memorable experience that your gaming group might just find to their liking.