Yikes. The posting's been light lately, I know, but that's mainly because I've been busy -- and busy gaming. Two nights a week of Labyrinth Lord plus a new 7th Sea game just starting up has made this a very good semester.
I think I'm getting better at building characters and writing backstories, too. Time was, I'd just have my character's whole family killed off by some mysterious, unnamed menace and call it "giving her motivation." I resisted that temptation for my first character for Trollsmyth and have so far been very happy with the results; her brother has popped up in game directly (working, quite naturally, for a group that is not as bad as some of the other "bad guys" in the campaign, but still pretty bad on their own) and, more importantly, her relationship with her family has shaped the way she's reacted to most of the various exciting disasters that have befallen the party.
So in making the two characters I've built since then, I put a fair amount of thought into their families, and their relationship with their families. If nothing else, it gives me a reliable foundation for figuring out what makes that character tick. "Family" hasn't been as big of a deal for the cleric I made for the second Labyrinth Lord game, but it promises to be a major part of the 7th Sea game, seeing as how Trollsmyth is playing my character's half-sister.
But my old style of building characters did have one thing going for it--uninteresting as they were in themselves, those backgrounds did make it fairly easy for the GM to tie my character into their own schemes. In actual practice, what tends to happen with a really wide-open background like that is that it gets ignored in favor of the characters with a few interesting details filled in. You know, the ones that give the GM less work to do.
Taken to less extremes, however, throwing a few mysterious open-spaces into my backgrounds has turned out to be a handy technique. That brother I mentioned, I'd originally described as having disappeared a few years back, my cleric has a few mysterious NPCs of mysterious motive in her past, and my pirate has what I think is my best twist on this idea so far: a fight that he apparently started, but doesn't have any memory of, that went on to get him into a lot of trouble and eventually was what got him involved in the starting events the campaign. There's a couple people who he thinks might have been responsible for said trouble, including the guy who he got into the fight with (who now has an important family MacGuffin, so my character is going to go after him either way), but he's really not sure what happened.
This may or may not turn out to be a big deal in-game; likewise, the cleric's background hasn't come up yet in a significant way, but that's okay. There's already more than enough excitement going on in the game the cleric is in, and the point isn't so much to get the game to revolve around my character as to give the GM a few more options and ideas. Although it's certainly nice when a background does get used in a major way, it's not essential.
While it's too early to tell exactly how well this latest character will function in-game, he's the main reason I say I'm "getting better" at this character building business: I had more fun making this character than any I've made before, and put a lot more detail into it. Partly this is because I interlocked his background with Trollsmyth's character, and Trollsmyth writes ridiculously detailed character backgrounds, but mostly, I'm just getting better at the whole business of coming up with and picking out appropriate details, and, I think, connecting "things that have happened to my character" with "how my character acts," without tying myself down to boring or obnoxious behavior. Like most else in the hobby, it's a skill, and one I'm glad to finally be getting so much practice at.
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Dungeon Soap Operas are the Best Kind of Soap Operas
It's been three sessions since I rolled any dice in the solo game, and before that it'd been at least five or six sessions since they came up at all. (At least on my side of the screen.) It's not quite free form -- a few spells have been cast, and ability scores referenced -- but, as Trollsmyth mentioned about the time that the new style started, it's definitely shifted more towards relationships and social maneuvering, with the occasional desperate rescue attempt thrown in for good measure.
That's the key word, though: "shifted." The game started out solidly D&D. Lots of mucking about in dungeons, figuring out traps, and getting chased around by spiders. A lot of times my character ended up talking to the various dungeon residents rather than fighting them, and there was a brief detour to the plane of Fairey, but it was still mostly a game about treasure, the nasty things between me and the treasure, and the odd world-threatening artifact. A good game, but nothing too unusual.
Now, yes, it's very different. It's mostly talking, often about other people, and reacting to all the weird social situations my character's gotten herself into. Treasure's no longer an issue, and even saving the world has receded in importance. Now, I spend more time thinking about relationships, between my character and various NPCs, and between those NPCs themselves. An unusual amount of time, for me; while friendship, romance, loyalty, enmity, and other such bonds have always played a part in my games, we've been spending much more time than I'm used to dealing with them, sometimes to the point of simply playing them out. While I liked the game before, I'm greatly enjoying the change.
But it all grew out of that dungeoneering. Mucking about in dungeons gave my character something to do that didn't require complex relationships with several NPCs, or fifty e-mail's worth of setting knowledge. It was fun to do on it's own (particularly the kind of dungeons Trollsmyth runs, where you learn all kinds of things about elven history when you're not busy running for your life), but it also lent itself to developing the kinds of relationships that now support the game. The dungeon, after all, is how my character met those people in the first place, and the danger was part of why she started to care so much. It provided a backdrop, and a backbone, for the development of the friendships we're now exploring.
To take the most obvious example: The big turning point in the campaign, the moment when it became clear even to me that something different was going on, was when my character and one of the clerics she'd hired back at the beginning of the game got themselves involved in an awkward budding romance, and we spent most of several sessions just playing it out. But things had been developing in that direction for a while, all in the context of their adventures. He delayed an expedition half a day looking for her when she disappeared into Fairey; she opened the potentially deadly door into the Tower of the Stars partly so he wouldn't. When they finally acknowledged, and acted on, those feelings, it was with that history. Dungeoneering created situations where those moments could happen.
That's the key word, though: "shifted." The game started out solidly D&D. Lots of mucking about in dungeons, figuring out traps, and getting chased around by spiders. A lot of times my character ended up talking to the various dungeon residents rather than fighting them, and there was a brief detour to the plane of Fairey, but it was still mostly a game about treasure, the nasty things between me and the treasure, and the odd world-threatening artifact. A good game, but nothing too unusual.
Now, yes, it's very different. It's mostly talking, often about other people, and reacting to all the weird social situations my character's gotten herself into. Treasure's no longer an issue, and even saving the world has receded in importance. Now, I spend more time thinking about relationships, between my character and various NPCs, and between those NPCs themselves. An unusual amount of time, for me; while friendship, romance, loyalty, enmity, and other such bonds have always played a part in my games, we've been spending much more time than I'm used to dealing with them, sometimes to the point of simply playing them out. While I liked the game before, I'm greatly enjoying the change.
But it all grew out of that dungeoneering. Mucking about in dungeons gave my character something to do that didn't require complex relationships with several NPCs, or fifty e-mail's worth of setting knowledge. It was fun to do on it's own (particularly the kind of dungeons Trollsmyth runs, where you learn all kinds of things about elven history when you're not busy running for your life), but it also lent itself to developing the kinds of relationships that now support the game. The dungeon, after all, is how my character met those people in the first place, and the danger was part of why she started to care so much. It provided a backdrop, and a backbone, for the development of the friendships we're now exploring.
To take the most obvious example: The big turning point in the campaign, the moment when it became clear even to me that something different was going on, was when my character and one of the clerics she'd hired back at the beginning of the game got themselves involved in an awkward budding romance, and we spent most of several sessions just playing it out. But things had been developing in that direction for a while, all in the context of their adventures. He delayed an expedition half a day looking for her when she disappeared into Fairey; she opened the potentially deadly door into the Tower of the Stars partly so he wouldn't. When they finally acknowledged, and acted on, those feelings, it was with that history. Dungeoneering created situations where those moments could happen.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Fantastic Characters vs. Common Characters
Robertson Games recently posted an interesting contribution to the on-going discussion of how to define "old school," Differences & Directions in Dungeons & Dragons, which lists a bunch of differences he sees between Basic D&D and the latest edition. It hits most of the major features that I think of as differentiating the styles behind the two games, and both makes it clear that neither style is inherently superior to the other and demonstrates why different people might naturally prefer one style to the other.
In fact, it creates a pretty thorough checklist of things that I think are awesome in the Labyrinth Lord game. But not a completely thorough one, and that's another advantage of the list. It presents old school as a handful of features that, while they work well together, can also be taken and considered individually or in groups.
In my case, besides some quibbles about the power level part of the list (I love having just one spell slot to wrangle at first level, but I can't legitimately describe a game where a gang of 1st and 2nd level characters end up on the plane of Fire, however badly they do there, as "low power.") the main area where I don't clearly lean towards the Basic side is in the "Fantastic Characters vs. Common Characters" category. I really can't be -- I'm having too much fun playing a nixie, which isn't as far out there as you can be in terms of monsters with weird powers, but it's still a lot more exotic than the standard options.
But I'm not completely in the 4e camp, either. The character who's now a nixie started out as a dwarf, and a fairly non-descript one at that. No unusual powers, fairly standard backstory. Likewise, I tried to make my cleric a reasonably typical human with a reasonably typical backstory. I've been having all kinds of fun with her, because "reasonably typical" means she's actually fairly odd in some respects, by my standards -- she's argued with the party half-ogre in favor of slavery, and her religious ideas are, obviously, pretty far out from my own.
For the most part, I like making characters who are fairly normal, particularly when the setting itself is interesting. It's easier to explore a distinct milieu when my character's not an odd-ball herself. But I don't mind at all when a character doesn't stay normal. I'm much happier with my dwarf-turned-nixie than I would have been if she'd stayed a dwarf; though then again, that's partly because of all the interesting social issues it brings up for her and the rest of the group. And those wouldn't have been as interesting if I hadn't already been playing a relatively normal dwarf to begin with.
(Not entirely normal, mind. One of the things that made her being a nixie interesting to begin with was that there were a number of features of dwarven society that she really wasn't too thrilled with, but I didn't make her knowing that, and she only really found that out herself after hanging out with humans for a while.)
In fact, it creates a pretty thorough checklist of things that I think are awesome in the Labyrinth Lord game. But not a completely thorough one, and that's another advantage of the list. It presents old school as a handful of features that, while they work well together, can also be taken and considered individually or in groups.
In my case, besides some quibbles about the power level part of the list (I love having just one spell slot to wrangle at first level, but I can't legitimately describe a game where a gang of 1st and 2nd level characters end up on the plane of Fire, however badly they do there, as "low power.") the main area where I don't clearly lean towards the Basic side is in the "Fantastic Characters vs. Common Characters" category. I really can't be -- I'm having too much fun playing a nixie, which isn't as far out there as you can be in terms of monsters with weird powers, but it's still a lot more exotic than the standard options.
But I'm not completely in the 4e camp, either. The character who's now a nixie started out as a dwarf, and a fairly non-descript one at that. No unusual powers, fairly standard backstory. Likewise, I tried to make my cleric a reasonably typical human with a reasonably typical backstory. I've been having all kinds of fun with her, because "reasonably typical" means she's actually fairly odd in some respects, by my standards -- she's argued with the party half-ogre in favor of slavery, and her religious ideas are, obviously, pretty far out from my own.
For the most part, I like making characters who are fairly normal, particularly when the setting itself is interesting. It's easier to explore a distinct milieu when my character's not an odd-ball herself. But I don't mind at all when a character doesn't stay normal. I'm much happier with my dwarf-turned-nixie than I would have been if she'd stayed a dwarf; though then again, that's partly because of all the interesting social issues it brings up for her and the rest of the group. And those wouldn't have been as interesting if I hadn't already been playing a relatively normal dwarf to begin with.
(Not entirely normal, mind. One of the things that made her being a nixie interesting to begin with was that there were a number of features of dwarven society that she really wasn't too thrilled with, but I didn't make her knowing that, and she only really found that out herself after hanging out with humans for a while.)
Friday, September 04, 2009
Writing as a Player
So. Posting. It's been light lately. Trollsmyth's already covered a big part of why pretty well, pointing out that the solo game we're doing has recently veered into social, setting-heavy territory that makes it even more difficult to discuss intelligently than most campaigns. I've also just moved back to college, and I'm still adjusting to the changes in my schedule and social life associated with that. But I'm also still figuring out how to write about being a player, and how to think about it in a way that I can write about.
It's pretty easy for me to write about DMing, because when I DM, I'm thinking a lot about what I'm doing and the technique I'm using and so on. I'm naturally in an analytical mode, because I want to improve what I'm doing. As a player, I'm mostly thinking about what my character's doing and how she's going to react. It's much less about technique and much more about the game itself, which runs me right into the problem that Trollsmyth discussed.
When I do think about technique during a game that I'm playing in, it's usually in reference to something that the DM seems to be doing. Lately, for instance, I've been thinking a lot about player failure, since my character in the solo game has been doing a lot of pretty serious failing, and I've been having all kinds of fun doing it. Part of the reason for that is that even when things go spectacularly wrong in the game, they often end up working out in her favor in some way. Things don't always work out exactly well, and there's usually some fairly significant fallout along the way, but she's also gotten a number of rewards -- and a few allies -- by taking advantage of the consequences of failed die rolls.
The trouble with writing about that from a technique standpoint is that I don't really know what the DM is doing, since I'm not the one doing it. It's even possible that this pattern I've noticed is completely unintentional. I've gotten some ideas from it for how I'm going to run things in the future, but that doesn't help much because to focus strictly on what I "would" do makes the discussion a little too hypothetical to be of much interest to me.
On the other hand, I've gotten some interesting ideas out of looking at my reaction as a player to various DMing techniques, so despite the problems with that format it can be worthwhile. But I haven't been playing exclusively all that long, so I'm still figuring it out.
It's pretty easy for me to write about DMing, because when I DM, I'm thinking a lot about what I'm doing and the technique I'm using and so on. I'm naturally in an analytical mode, because I want to improve what I'm doing. As a player, I'm mostly thinking about what my character's doing and how she's going to react. It's much less about technique and much more about the game itself, which runs me right into the problem that Trollsmyth discussed.
When I do think about technique during a game that I'm playing in, it's usually in reference to something that the DM seems to be doing. Lately, for instance, I've been thinking a lot about player failure, since my character in the solo game has been doing a lot of pretty serious failing, and I've been having all kinds of fun doing it. Part of the reason for that is that even when things go spectacularly wrong in the game, they often end up working out in her favor in some way. Things don't always work out exactly well, and there's usually some fairly significant fallout along the way, but she's also gotten a number of rewards -- and a few allies -- by taking advantage of the consequences of failed die rolls.
The trouble with writing about that from a technique standpoint is that I don't really know what the DM is doing, since I'm not the one doing it. It's even possible that this pattern I've noticed is completely unintentional. I've gotten some ideas from it for how I'm going to run things in the future, but that doesn't help much because to focus strictly on what I "would" do makes the discussion a little too hypothetical to be of much interest to me.
On the other hand, I've gotten some interesting ideas out of looking at my reaction as a player to various DMing techniques, so despite the problems with that format it can be worthwhile. But I haven't been playing exclusively all that long, so I'm still figuring it out.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
An Unusual Situation
Last week I played a little 4e for the first time. I've DM'd it before, but never sat down and ran my own character. It was pretty fun, especially considering that it was Maggie's first shot behind the table for us. So the pacing was a little rough, and we didn't have time get to the "real" part of the adventure, but what we did do was fun; I was particularly impressed by her combat descriptions, and renewed my resolve to work on my own skills in that area.
As I was getting ready for the game (using the Character Builder to make a half-elf bard, "Fiona Trollkin," and a longtooth shifter warden as a back-up in case we needed a defender) I thought to myself, as I often do in such situations, "Man, it'll be nice to get a chance to finally play." It took me a moment to realize that no, wait, I play all the time now. This summer there've been a couple times where I played four sessions in a single week. Sessions that often last up to eight hours. I'm not even running a game of my own right now. It's all play.
What's really weird is that I don't even have much desire to start running a game again. I'm pretty happy just playing. That's never happened to me before, and I don't know how long it'll last, but for now I'm enjoying it. Being able to game, and be really happy with the game, without the work? It's nice. (Not that I'm not doing a bit ofwork for the game, but not nearly as much as I would be were I DM. My main contribution is thinking up setting questions that Trollsmyth then answers.) Partly this is because the games I'm in right now are really good, and fit me in a way most of the games I've played in before didn't quite. But I suspect it's also partly because I've gotten really frustrated, in various ways, with most of the game mastering I've done in the past year or two. Not really sure why that is yet, but luckily I don't have a huge need to figure it out immediately. I've got time to let the answer come to me, and in the mean time, I can play.
And while I'm on the subject -- not running a game of my own is part of why the blog's been so quiet lately. I've been thinking about game stuff a lot, but mainly stuff that has no business being on the blog, or that Trollsmyth's already covered. I've also been trying to take care of my hands, since they've been acting up a little and there's other stuff I need to do on the computer that's more important, but the main of it is that I haven't had a whole lot I wanted to write about. I'm still keeping up with the blogosphere, but things may continue to be quiet around here for the time being, particularly since I'm going back to school soon.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Peculiar Challenge of Play
I've been thinking a lot about the player side of things lately. This is unusual for me. Before Trollsmyth's Labyrinth Lord game, I hadn't played in a regular game since before I started this blog. Short campaigns, the occasional one-shot, sure, but nothing like a long-term, meets-every-week game.
And heck, even before that, I've never done a whole lot of long term play. A couple of weeks ago that game became the longest game I've been in, period, and it became the longest game I've been in as a player a while ago. My group in high school always tended towards short games, and I was the GM as often as not, so my play experience is somewhat lacking in general, and deficient in the area of long-term play specifically. There are trade-offs to that -- I've run a bunch of different kinds of games -- but it's nice to get this experience now all the same.
And interesting, as it's an opportunity to learn about my playing style. First major item of note: playing is really different from GMing. I mean profoundly different.
Obvious, right? Different power level, different responsibilities, different rewards. And people tend to be one or the other, so that's a pretty powerful marker right there. But I'm thinking of one item in particular, that's at the core of all the other difference: as a player, I have only one in-put into the game.
I'm used to running NPCs, and even fairly complex ones, but a PC is an entirely different animal, and in ways that I'm only just now really appreciating. The surface qualities are pretty similar: I talk in-character. I make decisions in-character. I create a personality, appearance, backstory.
But when I'm a GM, and I create an NPC I turn out not to like, it's a pretty simple matter to kill him, ship him to another continent, or just plain forget about him. But as a player, I'm stuck with the decisions I make (to an extent depending on the GM, so if I end up with something really loathsome I can make an appeal) and those decisions take on a whole different kind of significance, because this character is the main, and in many ways only, way for me to interact with the game.
So that guides my decisions. If I want, I can make an NPC who's incurious, or obnoxiously argumentative, or sort of stupid. None of those are options for the only character I can play, because I'm curious about the world, need to stick with the team, and like to figure things out and try different ideas. My needs as a player drive the development of my character.
But that in itself is a fun sub-game, and one I don't get to play as a GM. In this game, my characters have started out fairly simple -- more playing piece than character, really, because I haven't figured out what would be interesting to play. I make decisions based on what I, as a player, think is interesting. But then that gives me something to work with. Once I find out that I like exploring dungeons and asking questions about their makers, I decide that my character is curious and likes history. Once I find out that the GM will let me get away with doing slightly crazy things as long as they're interesting -- and even reward me, occasionally, for taking risks like running off into the woods alone after the pixies who took our stuff -- I adjust my earlier idea of her being fairly cautious and make her, while not reckless, willing to take those leaps of faith that I'd discovered were so interesting.
Setting up a character before play and letting her run out like clockwork wouldn't be all that interesting to me. But exploring the tension between "this is what I want to do" and "this is what my character would do" fascinates me. It's a constant challenge, and a constant source of new ideas. The particulars of the rest of the group will encourage me to switch I a role I'd intended to play off of one party member over to another. An offhand comment and an NPC's reaction will spark an entire new dimension to a backstory. It's a very different kind of fun than GMing, but a very satisfying one.
And heck, even before that, I've never done a whole lot of long term play. A couple of weeks ago that game became the longest game I've been in, period, and it became the longest game I've been in as a player a while ago. My group in high school always tended towards short games, and I was the GM as often as not, so my play experience is somewhat lacking in general, and deficient in the area of long-term play specifically. There are trade-offs to that -- I've run a bunch of different kinds of games -- but it's nice to get this experience now all the same.
And interesting, as it's an opportunity to learn about my playing style. First major item of note: playing is really different from GMing. I mean profoundly different.
Obvious, right? Different power level, different responsibilities, different rewards. And people tend to be one or the other, so that's a pretty powerful marker right there. But I'm thinking of one item in particular, that's at the core of all the other difference: as a player, I have only one in-put into the game.
I'm used to running NPCs, and even fairly complex ones, but a PC is an entirely different animal, and in ways that I'm only just now really appreciating. The surface qualities are pretty similar: I talk in-character. I make decisions in-character. I create a personality, appearance, backstory.
But when I'm a GM, and I create an NPC I turn out not to like, it's a pretty simple matter to kill him, ship him to another continent, or just plain forget about him. But as a player, I'm stuck with the decisions I make (to an extent depending on the GM, so if I end up with something really loathsome I can make an appeal) and those decisions take on a whole different kind of significance, because this character is the main, and in many ways only, way for me to interact with the game.
So that guides my decisions. If I want, I can make an NPC who's incurious, or obnoxiously argumentative, or sort of stupid. None of those are options for the only character I can play, because I'm curious about the world, need to stick with the team, and like to figure things out and try different ideas. My needs as a player drive the development of my character.
But that in itself is a fun sub-game, and one I don't get to play as a GM. In this game, my characters have started out fairly simple -- more playing piece than character, really, because I haven't figured out what would be interesting to play. I make decisions based on what I, as a player, think is interesting. But then that gives me something to work with. Once I find out that I like exploring dungeons and asking questions about their makers, I decide that my character is curious and likes history. Once I find out that the GM will let me get away with doing slightly crazy things as long as they're interesting -- and even reward me, occasionally, for taking risks like running off into the woods alone after the pixies who took our stuff -- I adjust my earlier idea of her being fairly cautious and make her, while not reckless, willing to take those leaps of faith that I'd discovered were so interesting.
Setting up a character before play and letting her run out like clockwork wouldn't be all that interesting to me. But exploring the tension between "this is what I want to do" and "this is what my character would do" fascinates me. It's a constant challenge, and a constant source of new ideas. The particulars of the rest of the group will encourage me to switch I a role I'd intended to play off of one party member over to another. An offhand comment and an NPC's reaction will spark an entire new dimension to a backstory. It's a very different kind of fun than GMing, but a very satisfying one.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
The Ever-Present Threat of Death
Despite grim warnings to the contrary, we haven't yet lost a player character or an NPC henchman on the field of battle in Trollsmyth's game. There've been a couple of close calls, and one roll on the table of death and dismemberment, but so far all the traps we've triggered have rolled low on damage or been of the incapacitating variety, the wandering monster rolls have been fairly favorable, and the foes we have faced we've managed to trick, run away from, or defeat.
We've been lucky, and I'm aware that luck won't hold. The game feels very, very dangerous. Monsters do (at least) 1d6 points of damage, and at least one of the NPCs has just 6 hit points. Even my character, with 10, is just a couple of bad rolls away from death herself. And while I know Trollsmyth isn't going out of his way to try to kill us, that's usually because he's up to something worse.
Which is awesome. I've played in (and run) enough games where I was never afraid that a character would die to know that it completely changes the tenor of the game, and as far as I'm concerned, it's much better this way.
For one, I'm never bored in combat. I tend to lose interest in games where you're mostly just trying to figure out how you take down that monster, especially when it goes on for a while. In Labyrinth Lord, combat is ten minutes of terror. Most especially in that moment when I see that the monster has hit and done some serious damage, and I flip over to the table to see just what might be about to happen to my character, or to that cleric who I've gotten rather attached to over the past couple of months.
Secondly, it gets my brain going. It's not enough to set up what my character can do in combat and then wonder about what I'm going to do on my turn. I have to be thinking all the time. Where are the monsters and traps likely to be? Is there any way I can avoid running into them? Can I talk my way out of this fight? Is there any way I can distract a couple of them, maybe even the odds? What else is around that I could use rather than go head-to-head with this monster? And, above all else: when should I decide to run?
Sometimes, there's no way around it. I'm stuck in a room with two animated statues and not much else, and if there's a way to avoid crossing blows I'm just not seeing it. But even then, there's things I can do to make a messy death somewhat less probable. Having had the forethought to hire some help goes a long way, and occasionally I can think up some kind of stunt or trick to help during combat. At the very least, keeping out of fights when I can means I'm better able to handle the fights I can't avoid.
And that threat of deadliness means that I don't just think about the game when I'm not playing. I worry. I worry about whether or not my character's going to make it through the next session, about what might be around that next door that I haven't explored yet, and particularly about if and when I'm going to get those NPC henchmen killed. Now, partly that's just the kind of player I am (and that's definitely the reason that I think worrying about imaginary people is fun) but the ever-present threat of death (and doom) does increase the tension involved in that kind of investment, and makes it significantly more engaging.
Despite the occasional nerve that it wracks, I like knowing that if and when I slip up, or my luck finally runs out, bad things will happen. It's fun to work out ways to keep them from happening, and rewarding when I do. (And when I don't, well, dealing with that will be fun too.) It's got me thinking about ways to put a little of that sense into my own games. I've always felt vaguely that I pulled my punches too much when it came to character death, and now I've got some concrete reasons why that sense of danger can be a good thing.
We've been lucky, and I'm aware that luck won't hold. The game feels very, very dangerous. Monsters do (at least) 1d6 points of damage, and at least one of the NPCs has just 6 hit points. Even my character, with 10, is just a couple of bad rolls away from death herself. And while I know Trollsmyth isn't going out of his way to try to kill us, that's usually because he's up to something worse.
Which is awesome. I've played in (and run) enough games where I was never afraid that a character would die to know that it completely changes the tenor of the game, and as far as I'm concerned, it's much better this way.
For one, I'm never bored in combat. I tend to lose interest in games where you're mostly just trying to figure out how you take down that monster, especially when it goes on for a while. In Labyrinth Lord, combat is ten minutes of terror. Most especially in that moment when I see that the monster has hit and done some serious damage, and I flip over to the table to see just what might be about to happen to my character, or to that cleric who I've gotten rather attached to over the past couple of months.
Secondly, it gets my brain going. It's not enough to set up what my character can do in combat and then wonder about what I'm going to do on my turn. I have to be thinking all the time. Where are the monsters and traps likely to be? Is there any way I can avoid running into them? Can I talk my way out of this fight? Is there any way I can distract a couple of them, maybe even the odds? What else is around that I could use rather than go head-to-head with this monster? And, above all else: when should I decide to run?
Sometimes, there's no way around it. I'm stuck in a room with two animated statues and not much else, and if there's a way to avoid crossing blows I'm just not seeing it. But even then, there's things I can do to make a messy death somewhat less probable. Having had the forethought to hire some help goes a long way, and occasionally I can think up some kind of stunt or trick to help during combat. At the very least, keeping out of fights when I can means I'm better able to handle the fights I can't avoid.
And that threat of deadliness means that I don't just think about the game when I'm not playing. I worry. I worry about whether or not my character's going to make it through the next session, about what might be around that next door that I haven't explored yet, and particularly about if and when I'm going to get those NPC henchmen killed. Now, partly that's just the kind of player I am (and that's definitely the reason that I think worrying about imaginary people is fun) but the ever-present threat of death (and doom) does increase the tension involved in that kind of investment, and makes it significantly more engaging.
Despite the occasional nerve that it wracks, I like knowing that if and when I slip up, or my luck finally runs out, bad things will happen. It's fun to work out ways to keep them from happening, and rewarding when I do. (And when I don't, well, dealing with that will be fun too.) It's got me thinking about ways to put a little of that sense into my own games. I've always felt vaguely that I pulled my punches too much when it came to character death, and now I've got some concrete reasons why that sense of danger can be a good thing.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Pausing to Appreciate the Game
I haven't been writing much about Trollsmyth's Labyrinth Lord game, even though it's been (pretty much) weekly since late January, and we've had thirteen sessions to date. Mostly this is because, as a player, I'm not so much in the analytical mode that then causes me to write blog posts as I am when I GM, so discussion of the game where I'm a player gets crowded out by my plans for and reactions to whatever game I'm running at the time. But it's too bad, because that game has been blowing my mind on a regular basis.
First off, it introduced me to dungeons. Shortly therafter, I realized that I'm not a drama/actor player (in Robin Laws' player types, later co-opted by the 3rd edition DMG II and 4e DMG), as I'd always assumed since those are the players I get along with best as a GM. Instead, I'm pretty firmly in the explorer category. Which is kind of the opposite of how I am as a GM; I don't usually have the patience for world detail, and it's been ages since I put together a proper homebrew. But I used to love books like Dinotopia, non-fiction about imaginary places, and gaming can scratch exactly that itch.
Now, I'm finding out about the joys of discovering a character throuh play. Thirteen sessions is a long campaign for me, especially as a player. My record on the stranger side of the screen is 22, and I'd be surprised if, before the Labyrinth Lord game, I'd played in a campaign half that long. My first group had a lot of campaign turnover, and I've yet to establish a long-term group since then. While I enjoy the novelty of short campaigns, I now have a much better grasp on what I'd been missing. Figuring out details about a character (and dwarves in general, in this case) in response to the demands of play is fun, and not really practicle in a short game. Likewise, I'm enjoying the process of negotiating between what I think would be fun and "what my character would do."
Most importantly, I'm starting to understand this thing some call "immersion." I've always been aware of it in general terms, but I'm usually too busy responding to three different player queries at once to really get in to. (I wrote a short story once, but that was based on observing my players more than my own experience.) When I do play, I'm usually equally distracted, whether by books or my own weird conspiracy theories. ("Snakes took our hyperdrive!")
But lately, I really have been getting lost in a fantasy world for a couple of hours a week. Some of it's the length of time I've been playing; I've gotten used to my character and the world and the genral feel of the game. It's also mostly been solo, which might have something to do with it. And a large part of the experience is simply due to the format of online chat. Sure, it's missing that at-the-table social experience, but it's also missing a lot of the distractions of the table, and I'm already pretty well trained to get absorbed into worlds of text.
Still, though it goes contrary to my usual inclination, dissecting the experience isn't as important as the fact that I'm having more fun as a player than I have in years. That's something worth posting about.
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