Player Sheets

I had a strange idea the other day. We're all familiar with the concept of the character sheet. It records the state and abilities of your character.

What about a player sheet?

See, one thing I really don't like doing as a GM is killing PCs. When a PC dies, not only does that character's story comes to an abrupt halt, but the player also gets more-or-less kicked from the game until a resurrection or introduction of a new character can occur. This is really kind of lame, especially since folks have gone out of their way to attend the game.

The player sheet would theoretically provide some sort of codified narrative control resources for the player to employ while he waits for a new opportunity to bring a character in, as well as some narrative control resources for when he or she does have a character. I think this might soften some of the blow of having a PC die. Play of any given character would add resources to the player sheet based on the character's achievements.

One thing that had a hand in inspiring this idea is the concept of achievements in video games. On the XBox 360 for example, just because you finish a game and sell it doesn't mean that your experiences in that game cease to matter. You gain points for your GamerScore, which exists outside of individual games to provide a record of your accomplishments across all XBox 360 titles. I'm pretty sure the score isn't really good for anything other than bragging rights, but it planted the seed of the player sheet in my head.

Really, if you and your friends wanted to, you could have player sheets that had impacts regardless of who among you was GMing or what system said GM was running. You might need to do some trial-and-error experimentation to find the sweet spot of making the sheets matter without having them either throw off game balance or restrict players from having powers and defining details that the GM would have handed over anyway were the sheets not a hurdle to that, but if successful, it could end up a gaming scrapbook with purpose in play.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Tweaking Savage Worlds

In a previous post, I talked a little about my opinion of the Savage Worlds RPG, and as you may recall I'm not overly fond of it. Still, it has some good bits, and the other day I started thinking about what I might be able to do to bring the things I dislike more in line with my preferred mechanics.

One of the mechanics that rubs me the wrong way is the spell point system. In fact, most times that I run into a system that seems like ammunition, my knee-jerk response is, "Oh, so you're saying that I can have exactly this much fun before I suck at life." If a character wants to build a magic-user in an RPG, he should be able to be a magic user all day, every day. That's his schtick. He shouldn't have to turn it off halfway through a day or a fight.

So I began tinkering. I wanted to share the results. Mind you, the following system won't make sense married to the Weird Science arcane background, but for backgrounds like Magic or Miracles, I think it looks pretty good.

Arcane Power Fatigue

Characters do not have power points. All arcane backgrounds should have their Starting Power Points entry replaced with a Resist Fatigue entry. Resist Fatigue will determine with which of the five basic attributes (usually Vigor or Spirit) characters of a particular arcane background resist drain.

When a character uses a power, instead of deducting the corresponding number of power points from a pool, he will make a trait test with the appropriate attribute. The target number for this trait test is equal to the number of power points the effect would have cost. Failed checks generate one level of fatigue. Successful checks generate no fatigue. This check occurs immediately after the effects of the power occur

Maintaining a spell after its standard duration expires subtracts one from the corresponding arcane skill roll as usual. The character also subtracts one from his rolls to resist fatigue from spellcasting.

Levels of fatigue from spellcasting fade as soon as the caster has a moment to catch his breath away from urgent situations.

Non wild card characters who fail spellcasting Resist Fatigue rolls do not accumulate fatigue, but are instead shaken. This shaken result cannot cause a wound.

With this system, a character can easily cast 1 and 2 cost effects over and over again as long as he hasn't been wounded. As the cost of an effect rises, so does the risk. The game would need a few new edges that might add a +1 or +2 to the fatigue resistance rolls, and edges that currently reference power points would have to be stripped, but I think you get the idea. If you're experienced with Savage Worlds, I'd welcome your feedback since my experience is a bit limited. Feel free to nitpick if my SW jargon in the italicized rules text isn't accurate too.

Fear the Con 3: Reflections

First, apologies for failing to post last week. Between the launch of Final Fantasy XIII and the convention that weekend, I was thoroughly distracted from blogging. Here's to getting back on the wagon.

Fear the Con 3 was very enjoyable. Festivities started on Thursday evening with me knowing only two attendees, and ended (for me anyway) after some post-con tourism with visitors on Tuesday with a lot of fun behind me and a lot of new friendships.

I mentioned in my last post that I was signed up for all but one gaming slot at the convention, and that ended up getting me just about as much gaming as I wanted, but did so because one GM canceled and another no-showed at game time. Three slots of scheduled gaming ended up being enough for me, and gave me time to mill around, join pick-up board games, and watch a lot of play as well.

I definitely took home some good observations about RPGs for convention play. Con games are a very different animal compared to a one-shot game with close friends. If I end up running something at a future con, here are two of the factors I'll consider during prep.

Have events suggest a clear course of action - For one of the games in which I played, the GM gave our party a mission without providing clear direction on how to achieve our goal. We infiltrated a space station held by two factions while disguised as members of one of the factions. Our goal was to disrupt peace negotiations so that the two factions wouldn't trust one another, and would be easy for our true masters to subjugate. Unfortunately, we were given so much latitude in how to achieve our goal that we became paralyzed by indecision. When I prep for convention play, I'll make sure that a course of action is always suggested, so that if the players fail to be proactive, they don't flounder on account of that alone.

Be prepared for wacky play - At a convention, you'll often be roleplaying with people who you don't know very well. When people first meet, it's common for them to make small talk, and the RPG equivalent of small talk seems to be craziness. Expect players to play their characters in a one-dimensional fashion, blowing the smallest hints of personality into behavior-defining characteristics. If you're using a system that shares a lot of narrative control around the table, the story will likely take a turn for the comedic very quickly, and if you're playing an action packed game, don't be too surprised if the characters die in a blaze of glory. After all, the players have no long term investment in their characters since they won't see a second session.

I'm still turning over the events of the con in my mind to see if I can produce any more nuggets of wisdom. If I come to more conclusions, I'll make sure to post them.

Going to my first RPG convention!

Late next week, I'll be attending my first ever RPG convention. Fear the Con takes place in St. Charles, MO, which is just a short half-hour drive from where I live, so I won't have to deal with any great expense to participate. Fear the Con is the official convention for the Fear the Boot gaming community, and I recommend the podcast and message board. They're full of friendly and polite folk who exhibit a strong sense of community.

I'm not entirely sure what to expect from the con. I think the closest thing to this that I've ever participated in is a Magic: the Gathering pre-release tournament, and I don't have the fondest memories of that experience. I almost slid my car off of the highway on an icy patch on the 2+ hour drive into Detroit from where I attended college. I played on little sleep since I was nervous about how I'd perform, and it seemed like all of the players were pretty cutthroat and business-minded in my matches. A friend who rode to the tournament with me performed pretty well, but beyond that I mostly remember just a string of losses.

Obviously, an RPG convention is a different animal. Our games are cooperative in nature so I don't need to worry about vicious play souring my day. I won't be running any events since I thought I'd find the newness of the experience stimulating enough without adding particular responsibilities on top of it. Also, I'm signed up for a number of RPGs that I've always wanted to try out as a player like Fantasy Craft and Spirit of the Century.

Still, I'm a bit nervous. I have introverted tendencies, and I'll be meeting a lot of new people. I've also filled all but one event slot in my schedule, so I'll be roleplaying for over 10 hours each day, which could get exhausting. Having a one-shot with relative strangers will be a new experience for me too, though I have played over Skype with a few community members who will be in attendance. Still, in a one-shot game, there's not a great deal of time to find my footing with my character, both mechanically and from a roleplaying standpoint.

Anyway, I'll try to make at least one post from the convention itself on Friday or Saturday. Furthermore, after the event is over I'm sure I'll have at least a few more posts in the near future in response to the event. If you've never been to an RPG convention before, I hope my reflections on my first time will be valuable to you. Also, if you've attended an RPG convention before and have any general advice for me, I'd love to read it in the comments section.

S7S Pick-Up Game: Session 2

The GM who runs the Savage Worlds Eberron campaign that I play over Skype canceled last week, so I agreed to run a second session of Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies for the remaining players. Running this game with no warning and no prep is slowly teaching me the art of the pick-up game, which is an area in which I've been historically uncomfortable. S7S makes this approach relatively easy compared to many other systems for a number of reasons.

-As written, the rules dictate that the players describe their character's successes and failures in play. This removes some burden of creative output from the GM's shoulders.
-The players have a currency (style dice) with which they can take some directorial control of the game.
-Play regularly generates story hooks, which are keywords that the GM is obligated to use in shaping future scenes and sessions.

All of these factors make the game a playground for proactive players, and if the GM comes to the table with little to no agenda, it isn't really a problem. (And with this being a pick-up game, I don't think I could bring less agenda if I tried.)

Some really cool descriptive flourishes came out of letting players take charge of narrating successes and failures. I think my favorite description came from the player playing a knife-fighting spy. His roll in combat determined that he took a fairly serious wound but took out all four of the minions he was fighting in the process, so he described the gradually escalating exchange and finished it with something to the effect of, "...and when the last pirate tries to make a break for the door, I grab a banquet chair from the nearby table and hurl it into his head, knocking him out!" It was wonderfully swashbuckley.

Strangely enough though, I found myself eager at points to take charge of narrating the results PC checks. I didn't initially expect to feel that way, but now that I've had time to think it over, it actually makes a lot of sense. When I (as the GM) narrate the results of all PC and NPC actions, I can make sure a constant tone is maintained, and furthermore that the tone is something I like best. For example, I like combat narration to stay PG-13, but some of the players are more comfortable providing graphic descriptions of gore when they down their foes. This left me experiencing a more gritty-feeling game in some scenes, which was counter to the lighthearted, swashbuckling adventure tone that I imagined the game having.

In any case, at the end of the session, all of the players said that they'd enjoyed playing, so that felt really good. I hope our GM is well enough and free enough to run his game this week. If not, one of the other players might run a one-shot. We'll probably revisit the S7S game again in a few weeks, and thanks to the rules that generate story hooks from play, I'll at least have a few keywords to work off of as I pull the threads of another impromptu adventure together.