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May 1st, 2012
09:37 am - Solmukohta 2012 Report
I got back from Solmukohta 2012 in Finland two weeks ago, and I finally got around to finishing my detailed convention report. It's now listed in my convention reports page. It's long and is basically an info-dump of my notes, observations, and a few thoughts.
Solmukohta 2012 Report
I continue to have a swirl of thoughts about larp and role-playing in general going around in my head (along with Billy Joel songs thanks to Sarah Bowman). Hopefully I'll get some time upcoming to start writing them out.
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March 31st, 2012
12:20 am - Player Feedback and Pecking Order
Earlier this month, on the relatively new blog Gaming as Women, Darla Magdalene Shockley posted about some pitfalls of player feedback mechanics - drawing from experiences with Paranoia XP and Primetime Adventures - in a post called "Game Design and Sexism: Player Feedback Mechanics" . This was a controversial post, and by way of explanation, Jessica Hammer followed up with a post,
"On Being Left-Handed" that detailed how a mechanic could cause issues for a group without being. Robin Laws also commented on the topic, in "Precisely Subjective".
Way back in 2007, I posted about social hierarchy in my post "Status and Gamism" - which was jumbled mess of an article. So I'm going to try to post a little more clearly about social hierarchy and relate it to player feedback mechanics - which basically means players or the GM giving rewards (like XP or hero points) to players for doing cool things. First, some basics...
What is status hierarchy?
Any social group will have some sort of status hierarchy - also known as a pecking order, or just who is coolest and/or hottest. There may be multiple hierarchies of importance, but people will establish some sort of pecking order. These rankings correspond to how people in the group give respect to others.
Some people associate a pecking order with bullying or other dysfunction, but there is always a hierarchy. In nicer hierarchies, the people at the top may behave better and give respect back to others. However, there is still an ordering going on.
How do games affect hierarchy?
Games make a social space separate from the usual interactions. So when everyone goes out to play basketball, the person who is at the top when hanging out by the lunchroom might not be the star. Instead, the star might be someone else - based on skills different than the usual social skills. On the other hand, the usual social hierarchy can also influence the game. For example, kids playing basketball might be more likely to pass to someone they think is nice than someone they think is a jerk.
Games can reward game-specific skills (like chess strategies), isolated real-world skills (like Trivial Pursuit), or broader real-world skills. Broader skills are likely to be a basis for social hierarchy. For example, someone who is creative and outspoken may do well in party games and also be high in the social hierarchy.
What about RPGs?
RPGs are social games that tend to correlate to the group's usual social hierarchy. For example, Gary Alan Fine published his sociological study, "Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds", about mostly D&D groups in the midwest circa 1980. He observed as a sociologist that social status in the game mirrored the social status outside -- i.e. the alpha male in real life was the GM or the party leader / caller.
That isn't purely the case, though.
RPGs - along with boardgames and card games - tend to force turn-taking that gives everyone a more equal chance to shine. In contrast, some sports like baseball put certain players like the pitcher a more prominent role than others. RPGs also use other ways to rotate the spotlight, such as distinct niches for each PC. For example, if the quiet person is playing the cleric, he may still get his turn to shine when it comes to facing undead. Other games have more explicit rotating spotlight. For example, Ars Magica players take turns who is playing the more powerful magi, while campaigns of Primetime Adventures have different spotlight sessions for individual characters. Equal turns moderates or flattens the hierarchy, but it doesn't change the ordering.
Randomness can also change ordering. A player who is lucky with cards or dice may get extra attention.
In addition, some RPGs reward game-specific skill - sometimes called "system mastery," though that may emphasize only the mechanical aspects. Complex games like Burning Wheel or Champions may give players a boost who have developed skill in manipulating the system. This can change the ordering, though the more skilled player may also be the ones already socially dominant.
What do player feedback mechanics do?
Player feedback mechanics here means mechanics where a player or GM gives rewards for broad reasons like "that was cool" or "good role-playing".
It seems to me that player feedback mechanics shift the focus away from game-specific skills and from randomness, and more towards general skills. In other words, they make the game hierarchy more like the general social hierarchy.
Assuming I like my group's social dynamics outside of the game, this can be a fine thing. However, if I'm dissatisfied with certain things about the group, then the feedback mechanic may highlight those more compared to playing without that feedback. Apropos of Darla's post, a female player might be dissatisfied with her position in the social order, feeling that it's influenced by biased cultural standards. The feedback may highlight this compared to not having that feedback.
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November 2nd, 2011
07:24 am - Street Game Festival
There is an ongoing festival of "street games" that is going on in San Francisco. I haven't participated in any of them, and will be attending AmberCon NorthWest this weekend. Still, I'm curious about the relation of these with live-action RPGs.
Come Out & Play 2011 San Francisco
Certainly a few of the games sound very much like LARPs such as the Cowgirl Way Society's Wanted!:
Maggie Durrant is WANTED! Dead or alive! And there’s a generous bounty on her head.
Maggie Durrant is on the run. Ever since she left the East Coast, her uncle’s goons are on her tail. Will you help get Maggie and her horse get on the next train out of town? Or, will you try to catch her for the bounty? With the stealth of the Underground Railroad and the dynamics of assassins, you’ll wind your way through Mission streets and alleys trying to throw the other team off the trail. Meanwhile, the Cowgirl Way Society will help you unpack Maggie’s story, make and spot lookalikes, track down safe houses, and scrape together the right train information.
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October 24th, 2011
07:53 pm - Big Bad Con 2011 Report posted
I've finally updated my Convention Reports page with my report on the premiere of Big Bad Con - a new Bay Area gaming convention.
It was generally a good start. There were around 220 players, and 83 games on the schedule. A fair variety of RPGs (including 5 LARPs), and a bit of board and card gaming - though no miniatures that I saw. One store was in their dealer's room (End Game Oakland). The venue was overall mediocre. Tabletop RPGs were four to a large conference room, with reasonable sound baffling from heavy curtains.
The big difference from other cons was that sign-up for games was done in advance, on a first-come first-served basis. Only one of my games took advantage of this by contacting players via email before the con, but perhaps more games will take advantage of it next year.
For the full gory details:
Big Bad Con 2011 Report
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September 18th, 2011
11:19 pm - LARP Scenarios Posted
I have just put up three of my earlier LARP scenarios on my LARP Page. Their write-ups are rather rough, but the materials are all the ones that I have used in my runs of them. The three scenarios are:
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September 17th, 2011
12:11 pm - Pacificon 2011 Report
I just posted my Pacificon 2011 Report, linked as part of my Convention Reports Page.
On a related note for those in the Bay Area, there is a new convention called Big Bad Con that will be starting October 7-9. The schedule is posted, and signing up for games in advance will start tomorrow at 1:00PM.
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12:39 am - A Critical History of Role-playing Games
I have an essay from a long time ago on the history of RPGs. I have just now linked it into my RPG Theory page, along with a collection of other links on the history of RPGs. Here's the essay itself:
A Critical History of Role-playing Games
I had written it for an old academic call for papers, and I worry that it's too dry. Still, any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
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August 31st, 2011
04:19 pm - French essay on role-playing immersion
So Mike Pohjola posted a link to this essay in French by Vincent Choupat,
http://www.electro-gn.com/article-immersionnisme-1ere-partie-l-enfant-batard-des-theories-rolistes-80373168.html
I scanned it via the Google Translate version, but of course that is prone to huge misunderstandings.
The funny part is that the last section is titled "Kim 1 - Pohjola / Bockman 0." From what I can tell, he is referring that Bockman's adaptation of the Threefold Model for Scandanavian larp, where he substituted "Immersionism" instead of "Simulationism". Choupat seems to think that this was mistaken, in that while he accepts the Threefold Model divisions as useful, he feels that immersion can be a part of any of those styles - just different kinds of immersion.
I have been wondering for a while about what to say about the Threefold Model. I still think it was a good idea at the time, and I have the feeling that I should be moving past it to more nuanced distinctions. Still, it seems to stick around.
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August 24th, 2011
02:05 am - Thoughts on "Wrath of Ashardalon"
I first played Wrath of Ashardalon in May at KublaCon, but I didn't play it again until my summer vacation in New York. I've now played it half a dozen times, adding to another half-dozen times playing the Castle Ravenloft board game. Besides BoardGameGeek, there is an unofficial wiki with a lot of data from both games and the upcoming "Legend of Drizzt". There is a short official FAQ and a more complete unofficial unofficial FAQ (PDF) with reported rulings.
Overview
Ashardalon and Ravenloft both use almost the same rules with different sets of player characters along with monster, encounter, and treasure cards. Coming from the dungeon crawl experience in RPGs, it can seem bizarre in that new monsters and/or traps pop up with every character action. Thus, between one of your turns and the next, five or more new monsters may have appeared and several traps or events. There is a lot of room for teamwork, but it is in a different sense than otherwise.
Compared to Ravenloft, Ashardalon has slightly less brutal encounter cards - though they are still brutal. The characters seem roughly balanced, though I haven't compared point for point. Treasures seem definitely more powerful in Ashardalon - which I consider a positive point. Ravenloft sometimes seemed like a beatdown with no rewards or letup, while in Ashardalon there is more positive feedback.
Strategy & Tactics
Mobility is Key - Something I only realized in the Ashardalon game is how much faster PCs are than monsters. The PCs can travel 5 or 6 squares per turn and still attack - or move 10-12 squares per turn by not attacking. Monsters almost all move one tile per turn. A tile is 4 squares across, but monsters can't move diagonally. So monsters are extremely slow at turning corners, while characters can zip around a corner to go through 3 tiles and still attack. Most of the scenarios depend only on reaching an end goal after exploring a dozen or more tiles. This means that a coordinated party can pop up a host of monsters, but rather than fight them - they just leave the monsters behind in their dust while jumping ahead to reach their goal and win.
Ashardalon provides some useful tools to accomplish this. A crucial one is the "Wizard Eye" Utility Power. This lets the wizard turn over tiles from an independently moving token. Moving the eye substitutes for the wizard's movement, so you may have use some tricks or forego some attacks to catch up, but it is very useful to have monsters pop up 5+ tiles away. Others include: - The fighter's "To Arms" utility power may be misnamed as it is great for running away from monsters, pulling a slower-moving ally with her.
- The "Flying Carpet" item would slow you down to a crawl of 1 tile per turn if you used it continuously. However, it lets another character carry the wizard with them for one hop from the back of one tile to the front of the next - which frees the wizard to move his eye token instead.
- Taking the "Charge" at-will power makes the fighter the fastest character - able to move 10 squares and still attack.
- The rogue's "Positioning Shot" at-will power lets him shoot an enemy 1-2 tiles ahead of him, then even if he misses put it a tile behind him, and then move ahead out of its reach.
- The wizard's "Hypnosis" at-will power also lets him push back a monster 1 tile automatically, and he can then move forward.
- The Long Hallway and sentry monsters put monsters 2 tiles away from you (or more if there is a chain reaction). When you hit them, turn and go another direction if possible.
The funny thing is that it often isn't necessary to fight the chasing monsters at all. They can get left so far behind that you can finish the scenario without ever fighting them. There are some dangers, though. - A chasing monster can catch up if it has a duplicate card between two players - going on both of their villain phases. Kill the extras, though, and it slows down again.
- The "Dazed" condition is deadly, and in particular the Gibbering Mouther is insanely dangerous - able to attack heroes on 5 tiles and Daze them all. Do everything you can to kill it quickly.
- Chasing creatures will tend to all clump onto one or two tiles, which lets the wizard kill swaths of them with his area-effect daily power. "Flaming Sphere" does more damage but spread over 3 turns. "Shock Sphere" does less, but is good if you have some dangerous 2 hit-point creatures that need killing immediately.
- The cleric's daily power "Blade Barrier" is also amazing in that it can do 5 guaranteed damage to chasing creatures, which can be incredible for killing off the vanguard of chasing creatures - but I don't recommend it because...
- Another cleric daily, "Cause Fear," is even better. It lets everyone on a tile get a free at-will attack, and then pushes all surviving monsters two tiles back. With that lead, you likely will never have to fight them.
I have been starting scenarios by having all the rest of the party break off to the left, then have the wizard go last and cast Wizard Eye in the upper right corner of the start tile. That lets it explore for two turns without moving.
Satisfaction
The game does scratch a certain system-mastery itch for me, so I've enjoyed play. However, I find that the tactics are dominated by strange artifacts like the square/tile distinction. It is a very different experience than a role-playing game. Still, it's fun as of now, and my son has been interested. He laughed his head off at a bunch of the tactics.
I'm not thrilled about this as an entry point into RPGs, since even for this genre of game, I find it not very evocative of the fictional world. There's too much gap between the game design and even minimal logic - like how even rockslides or falling boulders can't damage monsters, but do damage heroes - while fireballs ignore heroes and damage monsters. This isn't simpler rules-wise. It would be simpler to just say that everything in a tile takes damage. I suspect that the designers thought it would be easier to mathematically balance this way, but I'm not convinced that it worked.
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August 19th, 2011
05:51 pm - Procedures of Play and Streamlining
On vacation in New York with my family recently, I played a bunch of boardgames along with a few RPGs. It has me thinking about game procedures and components of play. My son and two of my nephews were enthusiastic about the PS238 RPG.
In addition, I ran a humorous live-action game with the larger family. Our board and card games included Magic the Gathering, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, Risk, Pandemic, and the D&D boardgame Wrath of Ashardalon.
It has left me thinking some about procedures of play. What follows isn't a soft of stream of consciousness of how my mind considers aspects of play. This is something that I feel is important regardless of the underlying game design. In other words, no matter how you design your game, the mechanics should be handled smoothly and quickly.
( Four cases in the cut: Pandemic, The PS238 RPG, James Bond 007, and Marvel Superheroes )
Conclusions
I don't have a strong conclusion here, except that even in otherwise well-designed games, the mechanical process can often be streamlined. Streamlining designs is generally a good thing, though arguments could be made for the good of extra effort in some cases.
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