Elevator Pitches and DD12 Cataclyzm, @ Concentric on the 16th.

When asked to describe my game world, I use this phrase (or words to this effect)

Terry Pratchett: Discworld and Geroge R.R.Martin: Game of Thrones have a kid, They adopted Adam Poots:Kingdom Death Monster as their first child, so their own child gets some overbearing influence and they have to ensure that their next kid is not so screwed up.

Or in more concise terms:

Terry Pratchett and Game of Thrones have a kid who discovered Kingdom Death Monster.

How to describe your game

I've actually had arguments with people about this, when asked "how to describe their game" I saw people write whole blogs about it.. (this is not a blog about my game, its a blog about blogs about peoples games..lol)

They just didn't seem to get it, I have Zero interest in your game yet, I have yet to understand anything about it, I am a random person on the internet, So why would I read your whole blog about how Zee of the underworld rose against whY and eXx to fight with the grand master of duble-Wuu, to defeat the power of Vee. None.. and I don't expect anyone reading anything I write to have any more of the time of day than I do.

So You make an elevator pitch,  1 line, references that you should be aware of if you're part of my target audience. Do you read? are you aware of two authors, Terry Practchet is known for his discworld novels, yet if you say Discworld to some people, they look at you slightly quizzically, say Terry pratchett and their eyes light up. vice versa with Martin, say George RR Martin and as often as not, they think RR Tokien, but say Game of thrones and they know exactly what you're on about. If the two of them had a kid.. what would that be like.. now, that kid, has recently discovered a new game, Kingdom Death monster, and he's into that.

Now this is the interesting part, there is an even smaller audience that knows what Kingdom Death Monster is, but the words by themselves explain enough of it. Its a Kingdom.. right? it has a lot of Death in it, and Monsters.. could be any generic RPG clone, but just enough people, usually board gamers, and more often Kickstarter backers, have heard of the no.1 most funded board game on Kickstarter. And since its typical that a Game of Throne player, who has read Terry Pratchett is going to be a board game player, then likely they will know what these three references are..So likely this sounds interesting..

Practhett: Rincewind on a walking chest 

The TV series cover for Game of Thrones

Yet, if they haven't heard of, they're heard of the first two, then maybe they're asking.. ok so whats this third one.. what am I missing out on.

Lastly, Because of the influence order.. Terry Pratchetts Discworld is a far more influencing factor here, so he goes in first. Game of throne is less of an influencer, but its a world where there is more humans and less magic, but yet, dragons and frost zombie and fire magic exists.. So while it has very little direct influence, its very well known, so people recognize the name, the genre and what it means as a character in that world.. death.. even if you're the main hero. 

Had to cut off the NSFW bits.. KDM is quite the horrific game

Finally Kingdom Death taught me two main points, Get your players into the game quickly, so they're invested faster, and give them showdowns, because we can always fight off small hoardes of mini monsters, but its the boss monster we're trying to get to.

So, giving your readers / audience a nice quick title with plausible descriptions of your game will likely bring in interested people.. Or, scare them away if its not what they're looking for..

Darkest Dungeon, It indeed looks like something I'd quote, if I'd even played it. someday.. someday..

Cataclyzm is being played (and play tested) at Concentric this Saturday and Sunday (15th and 16th of September 2018). I'll do a write up of the results.

The premise: (if you are unaware), Your characters have awoken, strangely, in the dark, small fungal light sources exist, but not much else, yet at some distance, something else has awoken and it seems to sense you, smells you.. hungers for you. It approaches. You glance around at others also awakening, quickly you scramble for something, anything.. too late, it is upon you.. scratching biting, can you kill it before it kills you.

Character Creation is only partly played out during this first combat, then added to in the next phase, and completed over several phases as your characters slowly begin to remember their pasts and how they got here.. I won't include any spoilers.. but you must survive to unlock the secrets.

Stay tuned for more.

The Gorgon: DD12 Cataclysm & Beyond

Backstory: DD12:Cataclyzm is the survival horror scenario for Dungeon Delvers Twelve world/system. Your group has 'arrived' on this world, and before they have time to even think, something in the shadows and darkness has decided that you are its next meal.

The Male Gorgon.. minus snake hair...

The Gorgon:

So what is a Gorgon?

According to several mythological stories, the gorgon gets a wide variety of descriptions, from snakes, snake haired, bulls with volcanic or metallic flesh, other things with scales, wings, claws, tusks, mixtures of all the above, even the sphinx, satyr, hippocampus and mermaid are considered a gorgon.

All of the above.. maybe

So likely gorgon means demon, more than specifically Medusa and her sisters, of which they are likely demons.

So what is a demon? well, for a medieval peasant, anything that's scary enough to have come up from the depths of hell (if that's their local religion).

So Gorgons are just labels for demons.. but more commonly, demons that are mashed together bits of other animals. So, a hybrid right?

More like the Colchis Bull or the D&D gorgon here

Except, not theriocephalic, because that's just head of an animal, body of a human. and we're not talking humanoid, because that's a whole nother set of monsters.

So Gorgons, are hybrids, Heads like humans, or at least faces like humans, and then a whole mixed bag of what the rest of it is..

Except also, that any of those body parts, could be parts of humanoids, or theriocephaloids?

Whoa, where is this going?

So In Cataclyzm, the idea is that anything could come from anywhere, and as such, alot of it, might not so do well on a world with gravity, or air, or sunlight or a lack of sunlight (like nighttime) and so, a Gorgon, in this context, is any creature of anything that the GM comes up with, a mishmash of bits and peices, resulting in something the players might run away from, get eaten by or manage to hack apart and use.

Cataclysm was about lack of resources, cave-people of the Coyn World, you start with nothing and you build something, on a wider scale than a standard RPG where you start in an existing culture, and rise a little bit in comparison to all that is around you, to a well known hero.

Catacylsm won't have grand overarching bag guy plots, or heroic status when visiting nearby towns, not instead people will probably just have a general Awe and Fear for someone who managed to travel from one location to the next, and not get eaten.

Googling Gorgon can produce many varied results

So, The Gorgon is a multi-roll (or choice) on a chart that gives the GM a thing that he can describe, maybe its a bull body, a fish tail, arms of a rhino and the face of a chicken, it breathes air, but lives in a 0.5x gravity. As a result the GM can double the creatures Initiative costs, making it slow, it has a peck attack, and horns, it stomp around on two legs and maybe has a slap attack with its tailfin.

More interestingly, when you defeat it (if you do) you've gained access to cow leather, fish scales, large fore-arm bones, horns and probably a strange beefy-fish meat, with intestines, organs and the like.

Surprisingly, no Heart as Meat Potion images exist in google

While Early DD12 Cataclyzm notes had leather, horns and bones, more recently I've added in the organs, intestines and such so you can play as a shaman who gathers strange exotic liquids and meat sacks to attempt to brew up some very weird things indeed.

The Gorgon, gives us the ability to create some truely weird things, without the need for the exotic locations and the plot on how your group got you there.

Cataclyzm works well as a "westmarches" style game, each week you can have a whole new set of players, make up characters based on the villagers that still exist. They go out into the wilds to discover whats around, maybe they survive, maybe they don't, they bring back information, resources and new skills, so that hopefully, an established location can be added to the historical maps.

Gorgons should be used somewhat sparingly, once a month if you're playing weekly, its a freak of ... well not of nature.. it might be defeatable, it might be able to live in the world and become a re-occuring nightmare.

While the name Gorgon, brings up images of snake headed women, or metallic bulls for some, I do wonder if the controversy of keeping the generic "abomination" called a Gorgon would be a good idea or maybe the old adage, "All publicity is good publicity", if they're talking about my game, who cares if its trash talk?

Why would you pay a GM to roleplay?

In case you're new here, I've been a professionally paid gamesmaster for over 30 years. I started when I was 13, I was paid to GM some guys, who wanted to play, had the books, but none of them wanted to GM. They paid with pizza. I hated the system, so I wrote my own. Since then I've worked over 10,000 hours as a paid GM, most of it between 2003 and 2013, because I did it full time.

So I think I know a little about the topic, so here's my opinion:

Don't pay your friends, but compensate a Professional.

There are currently about some major thoughts as to why people would/wouldn't pay a GM. Quite a few threads on reddit, roll20 forums and other locations around the web, there are very valid reasons why you shouldn't and very valid reasons why you should be able to.

Most people play RPGs because its an activity, like a board game, between friends. They get together, maybe have drinks, food, break out a game and play it. Just in this instance, its a roleplaying game, and they've been doing it for a few weeks or months. Typically, the GM of such a group, would be using a module, because prep time is limited, but often eventually, they've invented their own little world, and the players come back month after month, until the social dynamic of the group changes.

Just a round of beer with the mates.. and a DMs guide..

Should people pay for this?

Just like board games night, these people should contribute to the cost of the game, if there is any, you take turns bringing your game around to be played, each player has bought one or two games, so no one individual is paying for all the game.
Yet in roleplay, usually the GM has bought all the core books, used his Uni credit to photo copy character sheets, so its best for players to buy supplements they want to see in the game, or another approach is the players pay for the GMs share of the pizza, especially if he's making up the world and creating all the fun for the group.
Participate in the cost is what I'm saying here, buy and paint your own mini, photo copy the character sheets for them, buy your own dice, buy your DM some dice, make a physical contribution to the group, that's a decent way to contribute, yet consider it a gift, not a payment.

But people shouldn't pay the GM for this. Paying your friends for their time?

Roleplaying has become rather popular lately, the increase of players, due to movies and computer games in the genre, peaks the interest of some, but also like board games, we see the backlash of people being too involved in their phones, they crave being in a room of real people, socialising, away from others who are not of their ilk.

As such, there are a number of people who just don't know where or how they can get into RPGs.. and this creates a market. The vacuum of players with needs to play has outnumbered the people who can run a game, so much so that popular brands have set up cookie cutter plots with GMs to run them at local game shops. The main problem I see with this, the experience of the cookie cutter guilds and leagues is a far cry from what roleplay is really about. Its stale, dry and unrealistic in so many ways. Trying to untrain an initiate of that industrial machine, is so hard. Its damaging the industry as a whole.

Professional Gamesmaster at work in Calgary

So, we can see a market of individuals who have a genuine need for a Paid GM. This Audience of people, interested to get involved, but not sure how to go about it. Partly because of the standard social stigmatism of trying something new and being bad at it. Partly because you'd like to know what you're getting yourself into before making any kind of commitment and Partly because its cost effective to get someone to teach you the first years worth of experience, in 2-4 sessions. Its why people take classes in something.

Paying a GM "Teacher" is a plausible gig for this audience.

What about when they do join a group, what of the other players. In many social groups, there are people who are there, because their friends are there, they have less interest in the game, the plot and the world, than they do blowing stuff up, having a laugh and disrupting everyone else. If your whole group is just being socialable, as a group of friends, just hanging out, this should be fine for you. Yet there are scores of people who put up with these clowns, because of the same reasons that people who don't play but want to, a further niche are those who want to play, properly, but have to put up with the rest because they don't know how or where to find the real players.

A Paid GM, is like a nexus of core roleplaying. Like a course in Uni, you pay for the atmosphere as much as the information.

Over time, a GM figures out the players who are there for the game, who are there to play vs those who are just there. Often I've seen the GM focus their attention on that player. It unfortunately causes the person who has less interest, now that they're getting less attention, to be more vocal and more destructive, which can drive away the player that's there to play. A better solution is to bring that player to a better game.
I know I've cherry picked players to a special game, they get the real stuff, the good plots and adventures and equipment, because for them, its not just a scribble on a page, its a real cross over to an other world.
People pay to be in those games, I've had 6 hours sessions, where we got more done than normal groups do in months. On the other end, I've had groups play out a single day of events, over several weeks, because of all the cross talk, and off topic banter. 4 hours of roleplay, and all we did was ask the tavern keeper if he had a room and discuss grapple rules incase a bar-room brawl broke out.

People pay to have their sessions at regular intervals with like minded folks who are there to get their game on.

People pay a Gym to get focus on their physical health. They can do it all at home, sure, but with distractions, lack of space, lack of motivation, they just don't. When payment is involved, you want focus, you are motivated to turn up, to be there, to actually play, and get involved in the world you are playing in. and you don't want to be surrounded by chit chat and lolly gagging.

People also pay to avoid the riff raff and the ne'er-do-wells.

Now a problem that comes up, is that its not only the players who are sub-par. Some GMs do so, because they like the power trip, or they want to influence people, or they want to tell 'their' story. As often as not, on any GM site or service, there are GMs that are in it for the money and not the game. They might be very decent GMs, yet their focus is on  keeping their players and their income, more than on GMing a good story, this might lead to an increase in magical items, lower chance of death, any number of immersion breaking flaws.

So How can you tell if the GM is a decent GM or not. Some websites and groups, such as the Professional Gamesmaster Society has taken point, on a dialog of ideas and thoughts on the subject. The currently on paused Looking-For-Games-Masters site: http://www.lookingforgm.com/ had a nice ratings system, so you could give your GM some votes if he did a good job, or neutral if on par or sub standard.
This promoted GMs to be a little stricter in their play styles, but I think, given the play styles of the average GM, this is warranted. If a number of poor GMs are out there charging money and providing bad service, it could hurt the industry as a whole.

So yeah, you're also paying to have a decent dungeon/games master.

The Topic of ProPlayers has come up, a Pro Gamer group could try out new GMs, vetting them, so they can't hurt the industry. This is sorta how I see the ProGMSociety working, legitimizing the GMs to ensure a decent group of GMs are improving the industry of ProGMing, so players build trust and more games get played.

So Paying for the right GM, the right group, and a more professional experience, is kind on par with anything in life. You get what you pay for. If you're looking for a roleplay experience.

Now that's a cool roleplay room. I'd pay to play there..

There are some spectrums of the gamut of paid GMing to address:

There is of course the whole "Immersion, Experience and Entertainment" where the GM might have an assistant, colour print outs, maps, sound effects, lighting effects, props, miniatures,  a whole world with backstories and plots ticking along as the players enjoy their little adventure. This of course should be paid for, the extra work and effort to provide such a premium service, is justifiably costly. 

The other given reason people pay for GMs is the scarcity of GMs. While this seems to be the angle of the average paid GM, and I get it, supply vs demand, creates the audience for the paid GM, I think this is where the average "I don't think its right" person rails against. Surely some GM out there is looking for players for free? I think this is where my first point clashes:

"If supply is low, demand is high and people are prepared to pay me to GM, why shouldn't I? My group loves my game, surely other people will love my game and will pay me because I'm doing all this work for them?"

So, yes, if you don't have a local group, and you have a decent enough income, maybe paying a GM will suit your lifestyle.

Yet, there are GMs who should not be GMs, and they shouldn't be paid for it, but the same can be said of any profession. so when the supply is low and demand is high, people are going to pay for anything.

The world is not fair, there are great GMs who don't have the time to be great GMs because they have bills to pay, and either they don't think it fair to charge, and that's fair, yet they probably should, so we can bring the level of quality GMing up in standard.
GMing costs time, prep time, plus game time plus prior experience time. As much as some GMs say that prep time is minimalistic, In my opinion, I can guarantee that their game is so flawed and so broken, that MY immersion would be destroyed within 2-3 sessions.
Good GMing takes years of prep time & sometimes hours before a session, and if you're going to pay for it, might as well get the best. So look for a GM that has that pre-requisite 10k hours behind them (they say, it takes 10,000 hours of experience to be considered a professional)

To Sum Up, Against the idea:

• You shouldn't pay for the stock standard average "I just started doing this 2 weeks ago" GM.
• You shouldn't pay your mate to run your saturday games night sessions, but its polite to cover some of the expenses they go through to set up and run the game.

Yet for reasons:

• If you need someone to train you how to play..
• If you want to join a serious group,
• If you want a group that is on-time, always there and pay attention.

Yet in a pinch, and you gotta get your game on, If there are no groups in your social circle, and you abhore the leagues and guilds games...

That said, it isn't for everyone, There are a multitude of negative and positive reasons that people have for everything in life, expecting it to be different for roleplay, is folly.

Hmm, final note.. did the League & Guild system pop up because their respective system didn't want paid GMs and this was their solution?

p.s. apologies if anything has gone wonky.. Blogger has been playing up of late, seems google is slowly discontinuing it.

p.p.s. This is a Blog, its purely thoughts from my head, while I have researched some of these points extensively over the past few months and years, I'm speaking true from my personal perspective, but I'm not being graded by a professor, this is not a paid for journal, its just me, blogging.

Dungeon Delvers Twelve: Cataclyzm

Today, I thought I might just put it in writing, what I'm up to, what I'm developing and what you can see coming out of the EFRGames product line soon:

Dungeon Delvers Twelve: Cataclyzm

When I returned to Australia in 2012, I discovered something unsettling, The Roleplay game that I'd been working on for the last 25 years, had become outdated, outmoded. The Audience and Market for roleplay games had indeed increased, as I understood, but it had also changed.

While I have a few posts about it, <will post links later>, I'm not so stubborn to resist change. If the players can't handle accounting, math, science and are more focussed on narrative, then so be it.

So Dungeonworld, the Roleplay Game for Accountants, got shelved. Later in time, when this generation starts looking for more crunch, I'll dust it off, and print it up.

So Dungeon Delvers Twelve is the core mechanic, the Two-Twelve-Sided-Dice system, with some simplification, tweaking and the like, I trimmed the fat. I got a 1 page, convention set of rules, an 18 page core rules without any fluff, and got a 50 page cut down of the whole system.

So Now I needed a scenario.

Everyone talks about the Heartbreaker Fantasy RPG, So while that is my personal core, everyone else has done it to death, so the likelyhood anyone is going to see my fantasy core rules and even consider buying it, would be bupkis.

If I'm going to trim down my rules, change the core name, I may as well go for a whole nother aspect of genre.. but what?

I like minecraft, bought into it after meeting Marcus, should have invested, but that's another story. The Open world, Crafting gear, building locations, that appealed to me. but you are somewhat alone. This is the part of the game that gamesmaster love, they LOVE to create a world, and then have people walk in it.

The Problem is often that the system used, will reflect how the players are supposed to behave in the game. Most games focus on combat, looting, and the acquisition of power, While this plays a part in any RPG, its only a small part, yet the rules for many system are only focussed on that small part.

So, a wonderful, creative GM, makes up a great world, a great plot, and the players hack their way through it, because the system encourages it.ouch.

I asked myself this ages back.. why can't my players be something else, and I introduced the ability to be anything. Bartender? great! Shop Keeper? Great! The Local Lord, working out the logistics of his kingdom? a Doctor, discovering new potions, techniques or ways to heal people, why not a bard, travelling the land, delivering messages and lifting the spirits of those he encounters, or better yet, the nerd, the ultimate juxtaposition, by playing a nerd in a game build by nerds, for nerds. How about playing as a person who just wants to 'see' everything, and write it down for others to read about.

Add in Crafting, via the local blacksmith, and viola.. finally It seems like all the pieces have come together and I have a game that I feel proud of..

So what scenario would suit that? All of them.. Blargh.. ok.. so I need to focus on key points.

You can't escape combat, anyone doing a roleplay game that had zero combat would be shot down, because at the end of the day, the lowest form of conflict resolution, is win-lose. I hit you, your dead, conflict resolved.
Crafting is only really fun when you lack the final goods. If the local blacksmith sells weapons, why do you need to make them yourself. Sure, there comes a time when you're level is so high, that not even the most accomplished mage-blacksmith is good enough to make the ultimate blade-staff that you need, so you end up making it yourself.. with cludgy rules, tacked into the last chapter of the book.. ug!

So Crafting works better with scant resources, and even less local talent.

Medicine, a form of crafting, but then there is the human body.. Doctors are only useful when there are wounded.. which combat takes care of.. 

So It hit me, the Warrior, The Shaman (medicine man) and the Blacksmith are three characters that could fit together as their own little group.. As long as you have one of each, you can have a group without any need or backup required..

Lost? Stranded? in limited space?   The scenario works where we have : limited resources & technology, yet an abundance of opportunity to gather resources and invent the technology, a requirement to survive means a need for weapons, armour, potions and the like, and of course the need to fight, because the world is dangerous.. which often means young.

So I grabbed out my world building notes, and found what I was looking for. The Beginning of everything.

Cataclyzm, the time when all things began (and ended) A time where all great existing civilisations have come to a catastrophic finish and must start over. Some technologies might somehow survive, but for the most part its all gone.

Numinera and the Cypher system went down that path, they chose post apocalyptic, and look where that got them. Mad Max is very popular again, While I don't want to step on any toes (or risk law suits), there is nothing wrong with structuring the rules in a way that allows the players to choose that plot path for themselves. The Concept of a New beginning is rather Apt.

So Cataclyzm starts with players opening their eyes to a blank charactersheet, like the blank world around them, and are thrown into a situation where they need to make quick decisions. Each decision helps them to create their character, as they fight off an unnameable horror, If they kill it (yes, you can die in character creation) their survival instinct kick in and their hunger takes over.. They ravange the corpse, making their first meal in this hostile environment.

The Characters then work out what they are doing in this world, who they were in the old world, and if any of their skills might match their new lives. They find others in a nearby settlement, join and begin to work together. As survivors of the horro from ouitside, they are revered as heroes, and the support of heroes is the survival of all, as such the viallge itself, becomes a character that the players interact with.

The gamesmaster plays as the village, when the heroes are returned and resting. The GM makes choices for the village and the players now are the GMs of the village. The GM can take on the roles of the Merchant, Leader or Knowledge Keeper, while the GMs take on the roles of the villagers, their needs, their wants are now part of the fabric of the game.

Through crafting, logistics and game mechanics, woven within the story, now the GM gets to play too, and together, they stand a chance to build a new life after the Cataclyzm.

[quest plot] The Disappearing Few

Every now and then an Idea for a game pops into my head, When I'm in bed or near my desk I have a notebook, I prefer to flesh it out when I have time, yet with a full time job, part time gigs, children, family commitments, etc etc.. Many of these ideas will never see the light of day. Whats the good of all these ideas if they just stay locked in the notebook.
So From now on, as I have ideas, I think I'll just shared them, maybe you'll be sparked for your own ideas, maybe you can use this one. Please, if you do use it, just a shout out that you were inspired from here, so others may come and use the ideas too.

So, for the first Idea:

The Disappearing Few

The Concept is this: You roll up several NPCs for a village, Once done, pick one each as your "group of friends / the heroes, Flesh out their characters, roleplay a small side quest that explains why you think of yourselves as the heroes of the village, and then begin the plot.

Nightmares have begun in the village, no-one rememberes specifics, only that they did not sleep well, witnesses say they tossed and turned, then when people started to discuss this, they realise that two members of the village have not been seen in days or weeks. This is not uncommon, as people on the outskirts might only visit the village once a week, sometimes once a month, but something feels off.

The Heroes investigate the home of the missing person, and nothing is to be found.

Another small quest, rats or bugs or forest creatures imposing on farmland, meanwhile another person has gone missing,

The Heroes investigate the home of the missing person, and nothing is to be found.

Another small quest,but this time, the heroes spot a villager wandering into the forest, they give chase, but lose them in some thickets. Returning to the village the partner of that villager asks, have they seen them, they just wandered off in the wee hours of the morning, they haven't seen them since.

The Heroes begin to realise, the village is under some kind of curse, nightmares, people wandering off, never to be seen again. What should they do?

Its the end of the Growing season, its harvest time, the heroes have their daily chores to take care of too, now with missing villagers, its going to be harder, people will need to pick up the slack, else the village will starve next winter.

Players now need to assign the workload to the rest of the villagers, as they continue to dissapear and the villagers depend on the heroes to make decisions.

If they Try to determine where they have gone, they lose precious harvest time, If they stay up late to 'watch' they lose sleep and are ineffective the next day, Each time a new villager goes missing is only when everyone is asleep, or at least asleep on that side of the village.

Stress to the players, people who wander into the forest go missing all the time, its not safe, so trying to follow one of them will as likely lose the whole group of heroes.

The Blacksmith, Leatherworker and Shaman of the village can prepare Armour and or weapons if the players assign them to do so, at the cost of repairs to harvesting equipment, and Protective powers.

This could be the kind of setting I'd put the game in.. 

The Players have to balance the Harvest, Sleep, and occasional defensive measures for normal forest denizens.

Once the Players have armed themselves enough to go into the forest, AND harvested enough food for the village that winter, (incase the heroes never return) then they may do so.

This could be a board game, where the end phase is the players going into the forest, matching stats against the enemy and winning (or losing if they are unprepared)


It could be the 'backstory' for your heroes.

It could be a roleplay scenario for a few weeks,

It could even be the plot of a movie, TV show, Story, Book or something entirely different.

I was thinking of calling it "Grimms Forest: Nightmares" and having it as a Forest Based board game with turns, combat and a final battle. Each round of "forest denizens" could be creatures from the Grims fairy tales or just were-versions of everything like the Grimm TV show,

Maybe its set in the Grimm Universe...?

Cold Dice and Flat Line Statistics

I've read a few articles about the good and the bad of d20 games, I've seen and heard the cries and  laments of their players, yet People still come back for more?

Cold Dice and Flat Line Statistics 

Roll yours stats, quick before they melt!

I'm not saying the idea of a Flat system with a chance at cold dice is a bad system, there is not enough evidence to say that definitively. Yet if the evidence continues to present itself, then what conclusion can I draw?

I read several forums of people discussing their games, the most common problem I see are two ends of the spectrum. My dice went cold, I hate this game.. to My Dice are Hot, WOOT, Love this game.

When did dice rolling become the reason to play? When did it ever stop? 

Statistically, The chance of rolling above a 16 on a d20 is 1/5, while decreasing to a 15 does increase your odds 20%, to a 1/4, if your attempting to break free of a hold-person spell, the chance of failing 3 times in a row is down to 42%, so almost 60/40.. but that's if the GM lets/makes you roll every round.

I know when I was a kid, I might have asked for a stealth roll every combat round, or a climb roll every 10 feet of rope, But as I matured, I don't even ask for a basic roll, unless there is a reason why a roll is suddenly needed.. 

If I attempt to climb down a rope, in real life, I know I have some basic chance at climbing down a rope, so if I do things carefully, I'll do it. If I'd never climbed down a rope, well, ok, different story, and if I go to climb down the rope and suddenly there is a reason I need to climb down fast, then I might slip, so again different story.

So it should be for game rolls, unless the character has no skill, no fall back stat of at least 60+%, then why roll, just say, ok, it takes longer or short, but you're safe, you do it.

If you don't, if you obey the dice and not the logic, you get strange scenarios, For me this spoils the game, fights break out over the bad ones, so you have to 'bend the rules' to save your game, but vice versa, if the strange scenario is funny, or allows your heroes to do some bad-ass awesome yet bu*****t moves, then that's supposed to be fun, so leave that in?

Cases in Point:

I saw a guy, in a game, his character perched on the roof, ready to fire an arrow, he crit fumbled (not a thing, except everyone does it) so instead of firing the arrow, the bow hits him in the head, he rolls for balance, crit fumbles again, so not only does he fall, he catches his buttons on the gutter, slicing open his jacket effectively reducing his armour by a few points, now falling to the ground, he tries to grab at a rope (washing line?) and crit fumbles a third time, the rope rips from the wall, bringing down bricks and plaster, compounding the damage, he dies as he hits the ground from 3 floors up and large parts of the building crush him. 

Haha, the text, it sums it up so nicely..

...from shooting an arrow..

I mean, what are the odds? 

Except we know.. 1/20 x 1/20 x 1/20.. so this means that typically, with a DEX of 13 (they are archers, who makes an archer with a dex less than 13) out of 8000 archers on rooves, 400 will crit the target!..4800 will hit the target, 2400 will miss and 400 will accidentally strike themselves in the head, causing them to fall from the roof, 260 of them will catch the roof edge and live while 120 will plummet over, and 20 more will half rip off their own armour and plummet to their deaths.. of them 13 of them will grab at the rope and catch it, 6 of them will miss and hit the ground, maybe death occurs, and that 1 guy, pulls the wall on-top of him, 100% death.

8000:1, and yet, snipers around the world, performing missions, practice tasks, war-games, the real odds of such ridiculousness would be on par with winning the lottery.

The Player, also a GM, took it in stride, thats the game. Well done to him, yet 80% of players would call shenanigans, argues the stupidity of it all and probably -redact- the scenario to something else..

Yet Counter Point: Different Game, similar system, Same player, Aims his Arrow down a corridor, hopes to bounce the arrow off the ground at speed to enable it to achieve x2 distance in order to hit the BBG at the end of the corridor, 500 feet away, He NEEDS a modified 20 make the first bounce, and the second roll to make a hit, (with mods, needs a 17+) Yet rolls a 20, GM announces the arrow bounces off the teeth of a nearby statue, the to hit roll is also a 20, not only does it bounce a second time to attain distance, it maintains its speed enough for full damage, last roll, again, a 20, critical, through the eye socket of the bad guy, killing him, and taking out his chance at escaping and returning in subsequent adventure, players shout with Joy, .. Whoa Whoa.. can the GM call shenanigans? Nope.. its done.. Game Over Man, Game Over...

The "Problem" is, that this is a game, and you WANT fun, exciting, amazing things to happen to your characters, Yet, when the same math, the same odds, KILLS the characters.. they cry foul..

My dice went cold, I hate this game.. to My Dice are Hot, WOOT, Love this game.

If you develop a game with more realistic odds (I did) You also take away the upper chance of that awesome moment, If you include some special mechanic for the awesome (I also did), you by definition add in a special death mechanic. You can't have it without, because players soon realise they can't die, and become bored with the game (I've seen that one played out a few times) or the GM does..

So how to include the awesome death, awesome kills? 

That's the million dollar question. Only recently I tried something new.. and so far, play testing suggests this might work.. more news to come...

The Snowflakes take down D&D

I saw this on Twitter the other day:

How do you explain to young players that DungeonsAndDragons stands against racism (which it does, there are wonderfully inclusive illustrations across the 5e books) while codifying "racial traits" and foregrounding race as a determinant of ability? Will 6e change language used?

Um what?

Will D&D eventually get taken down by snowflake propaganda?

Now While the reply was no, It did prompt the thought, what if it could? 

Being sexist is no longer acceptable (was it ever?), and yet many plot points, interaction in stories, conflict and resolution is based around sexist issues.

Racism is a big no-no, yet again, classifying a group of "friends" and "enemies" based on your own race, friendly races, not friendly races and downright annoying races, is again, conflict & resolution.

If you took the conflict and resolution out of stories, do you even have a story?

"Johnny went to the Dungeon of Doom, which was decommissioned due to snowflake laws no. 17 & 19, He walked casually through the interesting caves, the safe catacombs, viewed traps that were triggered and locked behind large perspex walls, and eventually arrived at the final chamber where a lovely necromancer awarded him a trophy of participation, and suggested he purchase a "I survived the Dungeon of Doom and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" t-shirt."

Never ceases to amaze me that any idea, someone has thought of too

Its unlikely to happen, but I can see whole armies of snowflakes petitioning and boycotting products because they allow violence, sexism, racism, exploitation, slavery, all the standard fantasy RPG tropes. Sure, I think certain rules in FATAL went overboard, and as the industry shifts towards crunch lite games, and the backlash of crunch-heavy niche markets, games like that are cludgy, outdated, yet have a niche/cult audience, more too them.. but banning it? Ha!

What next?

If you've seen Black Mirror (in particular Season 4, episode 2) we might be looking at a dystopian future where kids are over protected by the state, and suffer horrendous psychological damage, or alternatively, our grandchilden grow up in a world bland yet peaceful, where everyone has a healthy productive life, without any struggle.. and crave it through secret underground clubs that roleplay a distopian past, where people struggle to go to work, play archaic games on weekends and write blogs of angst in the evening..

Who Knows....

{Old Drafts} Why Buy a Game?

{Old Drafts August 2015, as part of my "drafts Cleanup"}

I look at the Mobile Games market, they're evolving faster than other markets, because of the ease of entry, the numbers of people entering the market, the consumers and their attitudes, So its a micro cosmos market to study.

The Whole Freemium model, Get in for free, play the game for free, and either hit a brick pay-wall, pay or quit, or quicksand of skill, and you need to either master the game or pay to get back to the ease of playing, or the game is still free, but you can buy a cool hat for your character, or asking the player, Hey you've been playing for over 20 hours, you obviously like it, why don't you give something back to the creators.. 

So I look at myself, and ask: Why don't I pay for these games? I'm a games developer, I went to Uni for 3 years to study games design, and yet I can't bring myself to pay a cent for a single game so far? How am I going to understand how to get someone in the market to pay for my game, if I won't buy someone elses.. Am I such an outlier?

Back up a step, I played computer games for years, but only paid for a handful of them, in the beginning c64 games were easy to copy, then later, learning to hack a game was a skill in itself, which got me into computing, then later I found it more interesting to make games than to play them.. I actually only like to play games that in themselves are problem solving games.

In Roleplay, I couldn't afford games as a kid, so I played my own, I borrowed books from friends, read them, took notes, and returned them, didn't ever run them, let along buy them.. So how can I expect someone to fork out money for my RPG if I won't for someone elses?

Well, I have to be an outlier I guess.. I'm not a consumer, I'm a creator. So I can't use my own thoughts and feelings on being a consumer to judge the market with..

So Back to Mobile, What would it take for me to buy into a game.. and then it hit me.. Minecraft, the last game I bought, in 2009, I bought in for two reasons, A) because I thought it was going somewhere that no other game had gone, and B) because I could create something that lasted.. 

 ------------


The General Thought was: If people don't want to pay for a mobile game, why don't they, and when they do.. why do they?

The Mobile market is a micro-cosmos-market that we can study, because its a persons free time, they usually have to 'connect' to the net (or connect to people) to play, people wont just pay for anything, but after they get interested enough.. they pay for something in game.

I don't know if I'd pay for GM up front, I'd need to see the "product" and see that indeed it is better than average.. because average is free. Maybe once I'm in the game, I might consider paying, but once I'm in for free, I sorta feel like I'm in already..


-----------

Giving it for free vs Paying for it.. I'll come back the crude version at the end..

Players aren't just the consumers, they are contributors too, so Its actually harder to ask them to pay, You don't have a one way situation, sure the GM runs 80% of whats going on, but without the players 20%, its hot air.

I compare it to teaching a language, as a tutor, often. I need the student to want to be there, want to learn, do their homework and participate. I'll prepare the lesson, which can take as much time as the lesson itself, and which sux if they don't turn up, but at the end of the day, my skills are needed for the student to learn, because they want the skills in the language.

As a GM, I need the players to want to be there, want to play, do their own form of homework (character backstory, thoughts on what they want from the game) and participate.. I'll prepare the world, the background plot, the simulated environment, sometimes twice as much time as playing.. and while yes it sucks if they don't turn up.. we just continue the next week (worst is enough players to make it work, but the critical player isn't there) My skills are needed for the the players to have the enjoyment... but and this is the crux.. but, what do they want from the RPG session, that they can't get elsewhere, or for free? There is no clear understanding in skills or experience that will help them in the future.. so they don't compare it to a lesson, instead its considered just a fun activity.. 

------------------------



I can only compare it to the mobile games environment.. hundreds of thousands of games, for free. Hundreds of hours of artists and programmers to make these games, and one in ten will earn any money, one in a hundred will break even on costs, and one in a few thousand will make some money.. Studios come, make 2-5 games, if they hit the right audience with the right ideas with the right timing, they make 1 game which pays for all their costs for the time it took to make the 2-5 games, then they are broke and out. Many Studios don't get past the 2nd game, they don't make a cent from either their first or second and they struggle to make a third and they can't afford to make it any better, because artists want money and costs and costs and down the drain they go..

Rarely a game gets audience, ideas, timing and market penetration all together, jackpot, and they either go on to make more games, 100,000 companies and one gets to survive a few more years. Its all about economics.

An Indie game, by a westerner needs 10,000 players to pay $1 (profit) to the developer to cover costs/minimal life expenses. It takes 6 months full time artist & programmer (or split between more people) to make an average mobile game. 

Indie Games, and Indie Mobile Games have more developers coming to market than consumers are picking up smart phones and joining the market. Each Indie Dev needs 10,000 new consumers to discover his product, to allow the market to break even. 

Then add in, that a Romanian Developer can survive on $250 a month, he only needs 1,500 players to cover his costs, he can make a slightly crappier game, maybe even spend 4 months making it, and he's set.. but the smart ones, spend 6 months, grab their artist and programmer friends and make a slightly better game, and takes 20,000 players from the market, so there goes 2 indie developers in the western market.

The Market shrinks, so prices shrink, 

Is the Indie RPG Market headed the same direction? will a few thousand writers make games, some getting a few hundred sales? some getting none? one in a 100,000 actually breaking into the 'big leagues'?

Is part of the problem, that more indie writers are coming to market faster than people interesting in mobile games?

===================
2018 Review: How does this relate to RPGs, Are more RPGs hitting the market than people willing to buy them? I know some GMs who buy everything that interests them, even if they don't have the time.

I think I read that 1400 new RPGs were released since 2015. Even if 1/12th of that match the genre you're interested in, that still means you'd need to playtest every weekend a new group, with new rules for 2 years to find out which of the 116 published games work best for the scenario you are making..

Maybe I should review all the RPGs, and provide the results as a paid product? "Comprehensive list of all RPGs til 2018.. 2020, since It'd take me two years to research and include them all.

While I never included a title, nor conclusion to this wall of text.. I think I could say that maybe people go to D&D because there is too much choice, not enough clarity.. maybe the market needs some clarity.. 

{Old Drafts} Roleplay worlds vs Novel Worlds

{As part of my "Drafts Cleanup" } Roleplay worlds vs Novel Worlds

Roleplay worlds need balance because players will test it

Novel worlds usually only have the protagoinist attempting that thing.. once, so the author can balance through story control.

Story Telling roleplay therefore, has to, by its very definition, railroad the players into doing what the Storyteller wants.. to ensure balance.

{An old draft about this thought. saved in April 2015. I never bothered to take it further.. maybe when I have time in the future}

Catch Up Posts for this Blog.. Prelude

It came to my attention that I have saved the drafts of now, over 50% of my blogs, which surprised me as I was hovering about 20% for some time.. which either means one of a few things: A blog about blogging & drafts & random thoughts

I'm being blocked in my creative process or something more..

I Often write topics that come to me, with the intention that I research the topic, fill it out, add some snappy thoughts, scrub out the crud and publish it.. as often as not I just post as I write, so its raw thoughts. I've never felt that a Blog should be a carefully crafted journalistic masterpiece. I'm no journalist, I failed English in Year 10. I have always read a blog as a person, writing their thoughts, into a website that in hope, people will read. Nothing more.

So when I write, I sometimes I ask myself.. would I want to read about this?

And too I ask.. Do I want someone to read this?

I stop for a few normal reasons,.. I have to confirm what I've written is legit.. if I'm going to quote from a rulebook, instead of using my memory, I'll check that I was right. Sometimes, my memory of an event is different than the reality.. this might become its own blog.. why would I remember that D&D fall damage is 1d20 per 10 foot? but often as not, if this is the hinge of that blog post.. and its wrong.. then its not a blog post...

So I have a few dead ends..

I might stop because I think there is more research to be done on the topic, maybe I want my point to come across as more solid, by quoting others that have said the same thing or have similar points, but research takes time, if I get bogged down with life, I might forget to come back to a topic.. and if I have a few other thoughts pop into my head before I finish..then it drifts to page two of my blog posts.. and I forget that its there..

So I have a few open thoughts...

There are posts that I start, then the media posts the same thing.. so I ask myself.. is it important for me to talk about something to bring up my 2 cents, if my 2 cents are the same two cents as someone else? this is one of those.. Hmm, moments.. Maybe the reader won't read that other post, vs maybe the reader will say.. I already read this, and the post was a week earlier than mine.. is that just a rehash of the same thoughts? I would personally not want to read a rehash, and it might cause negative thoughts for me (and therefore my readers) if I posted it, so I will avoid it...

So, there are a couple of blog vomits

And there are posts that I start, and then ask myself, am I blogging or am I ranting? These ones have topics that have riled me up, but during the process of writing, I've become more angry, not less, and I look back over the words and say, I think I have a topic, but its buried under all the bile, that I don't want people to read this.

So there are some bubbling volcanoes

But the Ones that have started to worry me more, are the ones where I poke at the beast, the SJW territory, the area of the net that, if they even read THIS post, I fear that some repercussions might come at me..

Then I read this: Unhappy DM blog and thought.. Hmm, well maybe, just maybe, those topics are not so taboo anymore..

Anyway.. my time to post has been reduced with life, so I thought why don't I just grab those posts, clean them up, add to them and post them.. with the Caveat, that I pre-warn people that what they're about to read might be outdated or trigger happy, and I could save alot of time except maybe the research titles)

Blogging allows you to 'put the date' back in time, which I considered, but this also messes with the timeline, so that people won't see them as new posts.. and they'll largely go unnoticed.. which might be a good thing?

Any thoughts?