Classes of Monsters

Monsters.

They hide under the bed. They lurk in the shadows of your closet. They’ve fangs, claws, and muscles. They are quicker, stronger, more savage than anything you know.

In short, monsters ROCK.

But when I cast my mind about monsters I see very few actual groups:

SEXY UNDEAD – Vampires and ghosts. Possessing spirits, too.

HORRIFYING UNDEAD – Mummies and Zombies and Skeletons

CREATURES OF MYTH – Dragons, Giants, Golems, a few odds and ends (look in your Monster Manual).

FEY – Mean leprechauns, sprites, brownies . . . other malicious tricksters.

DEMONS/DEVILS – Hellraiser to succubus.

CTHULU  - Alien beings.

ALIENS – Beings that are aliens.

FROM THE DEEP – Nessie and her ilk.

What am I missing? I feel like I am there is some category I am overlooking.

Hmm. While you are pondering monsters you should check out Nevermet Press. They are running a contest with a lot of freebies you can win. All you have to do is describe a monster . . . can you break from these categories?

GM versus Players, Round 3

Rolling along  . . .

Let’s finish this mini-series, shall we?

Last time we discussed ‘coolness’ – now let’s focus on the concept of power.

D&D, and its clones, really hammer home the concept of power and acquisition. Levels are gained and their accumulation determines the power a character is capable of. Running parallel to level advancement is the attainment of magical items.

Again, these things are inherent to D&D and I imagine a lot of people, including myself, would argue these basic concepts, along with killing monsters, make D&D the great game it is.

Vampire operates differently.

Experience is gained, but its value is not seen through level advancement. The acquisition of power comes much slower instead. Points are spent to advance traits, skills, attributes, disciplines, etc.

Items are different too. Not many +2 Longswords floating around in the World of Darkness – guns, cars, businesses, other items, sure.

My player’s are the classic D&D ‘type;’ they love gaining levels and items. These benchmarks provide a feeling of accomplishment and success. When a player goes up a level and finds that ring of invisibility in the dragon’s loot, he knows he’s done well. He has achieved something for the way he has played his character.

The key, then, is to port this sense of accomplishment over to Vampire.

Power – Vampires are physical specimens, can take a bullet or two, and possess unique super powers (Disciplines). So . . . technically they are powerful. However, the World of Darkness is full of creatures as powerful and many that are more so. Whereas D&D is setup for the players to fight foes they can constantly conquer, Vampire is an open sandbox in which the PCs are thrown to the sharks. There are no kobolds walking around, no clear delineations as to which beings are weaker than the PCs.

Except for the common mortal. One way to give my players a sense of strength is to really play up the hunts and their interactions with mortals. In other words, mortals are a great place to blow off some steam. Let them crush weak human wills with dominate and majesty. Let them savage gangs, cops, whomever with celerity and vigor. Against most mortals, vampires are unstoppable monsters. This is the ONE PLACE your vampire players can really cut loose . . . let them. (Though it doesn’t hurt to occasionally throw in a lupine or hunter . . .)

The other key is making other power feel like D&D power. Political power, financial power, allies, wits, make all of these things contribute visibly to a player’s success. Train your players to understand that these fields of the game are in many ways like magical power, to hit bonus, and AC in D&D. They are fundamental to cementing your character as a powerhouse.

This last thought ties into the whole need to conquer concept from our graphic two posts ago. While the PCs will feel like they are gaining things from XP, the amount is going to pale in comparison to the average D&D game. Knowing this, I intend to play up things like haven, status, and contacts – more ethereal concepts, but conquered bits in their own right.

I feel the key here will be making sure my players are overcoming something to gain something. The Ventrue dominates the human – the human owns a clothing store – the Ventrue now has access to the cutting edge of men’s fashion . . . the Nosferatu gets his hands on the Primogen’s business ledger, he blackmails the Primogen to blood bind his rival, etc and so on.

Boiling all this down – Just make sure player’s feel like they are accomplishing something and being rewarded. Yes, the rewards are more esoteric, but if you give them value, a fundamental, positive effect on the game world (just like that +2 longsword does) I think the player will grok the sense of accomplishment and realize what established the reward.

I want to get into the details of my WoD campaign and talk about some other RPG things I’ve got going on. I hope this series made a little bit of sense or helped someone a bit . . . either way it was useful for me to write this all down.

GM versus Players, Round 2

Last post, I used some really sweet graphics (see also: a table) to show you how this GM’s mind was taking into consideration both what I wanted from a game and what I imagined my player’s wanted . . . I then proceeded to spend roughly 1,000 words detailing how to achieve everything within the “Want Box” except for three things.

From my last post . . .

The chore, loved as it is, is to blend this above paragraph with all the things the players want. How do I keep my cherished grit and tight grasp on power but still make the PCs cool as the Jonas Brothers at a 6^th grade dance? How do I make them feel ‘powerful?’ I do I fulfill their need to conquer, to gain importance and stature?

MAKE THE PCS ‘COOL’ –

Another hidden benefit of playing Vampire is that being a bloodsucking prince of the night comes pretty stuffed-to-the-fucking-gills with cool. The player is undead. He hunts mortals. He can instill fear in most mortals with but a smile.

Vampires are also stylish, sexy, suave  . . . they prowl the cities by night, they are like sharks . . . and sharks are cool (why else so many Jaws movies?)

Let this information wash over you, let it sit like Head & Shoulders in atop your head . . . rinse, repeat  … and here we go “Then why the fuck are you sweating making the PCs feel cool, Rogue?”

Because 85% of the people they deal with are cool-ass vampires. Being cool is standing out . . . c’mon you remember high school, right? Being cool is half mysterious, half different. Just ask the kid who wears his ballcap sideways and walks like he has Slinky legs.

The coolness factor can be achieved in two ways:

                1. Before Story – I need to make sure the character has chosen a concept, a clan, and a character that is going to fulfill the actions the player is going to want to achieve. Vampire, again, does a good job with this . . . the prelude allows for some serious GM probing into a player’s character creation and really enforces a collaborative environment that I feel helps iron these kinks out early.

                2. During Play – Got to, got to, got to make sure the player’s feel like their characters are respected. Amongst other vamps, they are the unknown, the center of attention – some want to manipulate them, some want to see them removed, some want to make sure they join the ‘right’ team, etc. Despite the preponderance of more powerful supernatural entities than the PCs, the story must be about them.

They must be the heroes  . . . or anti-heroes . . . or villains.

Combat effectiveness can help increase coolness, but it is far from the end all be all. Let the player’s engage in witty repartee with the Prince of the city. Let some rabblerousing vamps be impressed with a PC and woo them to their side.

A setting should be living, breathing, and full of motion. NPCs are constantly doing things . . . but the key to making your player’s feel cool, is the knowledge that all of this comes back to them.

OTHER QUICK POINTERS:

a. Just like describing an epic combat, make sure characters are also achieving similarly impressive things elsewhere. If your Mehket vampire is chasing down a hunter on motorcycle, describe the burst of celerity rushing through his undead body and make snatching the mortal a vivid moment.

b. Play to the player. If you Player A is going out of his way to look for guns, keep a gun cabinet, dominate a gun shop owner . . . take fucking notice. Have a mortal challenge him to a duel or contest, have that gun shop get investigated for selling illegally. Have an old, classic, antique pistol show up . . . with silver bullets (Cue spooky music).

c. Be prepared to cut slack. World of Darkness is not forgiving, but a good GM should be at times. If you are going to take the time to fudge the die in your player’s favor every now and then anyways, why not allow for the occasional spectacular success too? Player’s enjoy doing something well more than skating by on GM’s good graces.

Instead, take a player who’s had a rough night of dice-tossing and find excuses to make them succeed . . . bonus die, story reasons, etc. Being a GM is unique, on some level you have 3+ of your friends vying for your attention . . . if you can keep your output level and fair, not just in terms of attention, but in terms of communication and realization of what each player/character wants, and helping them obtain that want, they’re going to feel attended to, their ideas validated, their character . . . cool!

Ok, I will deal with the other two issues Monday.

GM versus Players, Round 1

My mind is awhirl lately with RPG possibilities . . . recently a Pathfinder query of mine got picked up b a 3^rd party publisher (they are reviewing the piece now)  and I just submitted two other Pathfinder pieces for another company – bottom line Pathfinder’s been on my mind a lot again. But, I also have Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3^rd edition sitting on my shelf like some enormous monument of gaming – the box is big, people. And for anyone whose read this blog lately, I’ve been immersing myself in the ‘new’ World of Darkness stuff.

This progress is coming along nicely. I had some issues with the covenants and political factions in Vampire: The Requiem but have decided to really use their open backstory and sandbox approach to minimize the importance of those factions and to sneak a little bit of Vampire: The Masquerade into the game. More on this later.

However, as I plan the game I realize that what fuels my desire to play V: tR or any RPG game is likely different than what fuels my players’ enjoyment of a game.  Now, this realization is not as novel as theorizing the existence of Obama clones or discovering the cure for gonorrhea. Robin D. Laws has long talked of certain player types . . . and we are all familiar with players who prefer powergaming or being dramatic or what-have-you.

But putting that idea to use is important. I’ve played with relatively the same group of players and I know what they enjoy out of a game. Hell, I enjoy some of the same things; still, without a doubt, I’ m the avant-garde one. I push for games besides D&D, I push for one-shots, I write house rules, deal with the online community of gaming more often, and I’m the one who actively amasses a library of RPGs, many of which will likely not be played.

Ultimately, what I want out of a campaign can often be different than what the players want. On some level the very fact of playing a GM or a CHARACTER is going to dictate that the person accepting that role is going to be getting/seeking a different reward from the game than the other.

But let’s chart it, eh? Note that something one side of the chart is not diametrically opposed to something on the other . . .

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

Now may my players want other things? Of course. This list is composed from experience, from noting the things that I see my friends really dig into. I won’t know everything unless I ask them what they want; and I will.

But let’s start crossing off some of these points.

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

Gaming has always been a social function for us. Snacks, beer, chatter . . . these things will be at our table. This is a mutual want, and easy to cross off.

So is my desire for a Sandbox environment. I’ve been running D&D lately (4e & PF). In both cases the games become a bit linear. I take fault for a percentage of this. I over-prep stuff to the point of practically writing an adventure. As many of us know the majority of D&D adventures have railroad-y elements in them. But D&D is a game that thrives on the structure of adventure group gets mission, completes mission, which A. means they get new mission or B. leads them to a new mission. Sometimes there are even myriad missions, but ultimately they complete them and in that manner the story progresses.

Nonetheless, as I am crafting my World of Darkness Vampire game, I am keeping freedom in mind. The game kind of begs it to be honest. Vampire games seem to operate more on the personal desires of the PCs and the reactions to the world than on a completion of tasks engine. I feel comfortable that this issue is thus taken care of.

MY WANTS	PLAYER WANTS
Gritty, story-driven campaign	Coolness factor
A sense of threat & constant challenge to the PCs	Things that make them ‘powerful’
A consistent world that holds to some kind of ‘reality’	Some form of leveling up. They want to feel they’ve gained something.
Sandbox	Freedom
Beer	Beer

My wants are easy to eliminate. I am playing Vampire: The Requiem. It is gritty. It runs on the Storyteller system. The players are vampires cast into the hard-edged world of the undead where trust is more precious than gold and horrors and humans alike may seek their death. The system is balanced, in that the acquisition of power is more of a story thing than the earning of experience. It takes a lot of time to become the most ‘physically’ powerful vampire . . . thus the world confirms to a sense of inherent reality. There are no farm boys who attain 10^th level in 8 months, who go from chasing their family dog to cleaving an axe forged by dwarven gods through the adamantine scales of a demon-possessed dragon. The power creep, the power curve is a much more subtle thing in Vampire . . . the focus gets shifted away from the mechanics due to this . . .

See it is easy to reach my desires! The chore, loved as it is, is to blend this above paragraph with all the things the players want. How do I keep my cherished grit and tight grasp on power but still make the PCs cool as the Jonas Brothers at a 6^th grade dance? How do I make them feel ‘powerful?’ I do I fulfill their need to conquer to gain importance and stature?

Well, I’ve the answers, but since I am already over 1,000 words let’s put it off until tomorrow.

Loving the Part that Bothers Me

I am currently ripping through Vampire: The Requiem and the World of Darkness rulebook.  I’m finding a fairly even mix of things I really enjoy and things that give me pause.

In all fairness, Vampire: The Masquerade was the 2^nd or 3^rd rpg I got into (D&D was the first – surprise!) and many of hesitations about giving myself fully to the new Vampire stem from this past love of the Masquerade. The story in Masquerade was solid, haunting, and fresh – it humanized vampires in a way, I’d argue, most vampire fiction fails to, it had interesting clan structures, an interesting genesis story, and enough intrigue to make the Cold War look like neighborhood kids calling each other ‘boogerbutt.’

V:tR loses a lot of the setting material that really pulled me in back in the late 90’s. Gone are the Tremere upstarts, gone is the Caine mythos, gone is the concept of generation.  However, it is not just what V:tR loses but some of the concepts it gains leave me lukewarm – some covenants (political factions) seem to smallish or ill-defined as to why a vampire would care to join them, too many bloodlines for too many niches . . . when you have a bloodline of vampires exclusively to deal with vampires who are institutionalized that may be a sign to reconsider how you are using bloodlines.

But still, this is the game I will be running next. The rework of the rules, the alterations to the disciplines, the streamlining of the clans, the concept of blood potency, these are excellent additions to the game. Also the writing in the book feels like White Wolf – it inspires gameplay and sets the atmosphere well.

Oddly enough the greatest compliment I can pay the book is the reason it ditched my beloved Masquerade storyline – it is a toolkit, a sandbox. There is no overarching backstory, that is for the GM. And all those bloodlines . . . pick and choose which, if any, fit your campaign. Oh . . . do you need new bloodlines? Powers? Etc. WW has done prepared you for that too.

I am eager to jump in and see how the game plays compared to the Masquerade version. Detroit (by night, of course) is already forming in my mind . . . from an Invictus prince to a Circle of the Crone firebrand, I’ve no doubt that I can tell intriguing games, cinematic, gothic games, games that my players want . . . and speaking of player’s wants, more on that next time.

To Game Darkly, Savagely, or Mutantly? Or All Three

I am gaming like its 1997!

By that I mean, I am playing in a game of Vampire: The Masquerade, and I have a tattered copy of the Shadowrun rules (2e) sitting on the nightstand beside my bed.

I’ve not yet tackled the Shadowrun book (though I do have many warm memories of playing it back in the day) as I’ve been absorbed by the Vampire stuff. I forgot how solid the story was that supported the game. I know the whole Caine, generation, Gehenna – thing wore some gamers out after awhile, but I still have fond memories of it . . . so much so that I bought the new World of Darkness rulebook and Vampire: The Requiem.

More on that in a second  . . .

But why the sudden rush of nostalgia.

Well, first off it is not nostalgia. It is the search for a better, or at least different, game than the iterations of D&D I’ve been playing regularly for the last bit. I love Pathfinder, and I love 4e – but the heart wants what the heart wants. And mine wants something different, something new, something I’ve yet to fully test out.

That has led me to 3 games:

- New World of Darkness – I am/was an avid fan of the The Masquerade, and as such swallowing The Requiem’s more toolkit approach has taken some getting used to. That said, I see opportunities for great, dark, gritty games. Also, considering Mage: The Awakening and Hunter: The Vigil . . .

- Savage Worlds - I am far too ignorant about this system. I’ve just recently started researching it a bit, and will likely be purchasing the Explorer’s Edition book soon. I’ve got hot ideas of running a Dark Sun campaign with this system.

- Mutants & Masterminds – One of my favorite gaming systems out there. I’ve never run with it my gaming friends though – it has always been online or one-shots with other people. Superhero games can be difficult to pull off in my experience, but this system is so vibrant it begs to be given another shot.

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Anyways, right now I am ‘preparing’ a Requiem game set in Detroit. I am about 50/50 on running a Masquerade campaign (Camarilla, Sabbat) using the new rules and just running a game that cleaves more to Requiem’s suggested content.

The decision has been difficult and I am going to pose it to my player’s on Thursday during our Pathfinder game. On one hand we all love the Caine story, the Camarilla vs. Sabbat action – but Requiem is very open to such playstyles too, though it loses important things like, oh, the Tremere clan . . .

Anyways, I am posting to warn those who read this blog (and its occasional updates) that my posts will be shying away from D&D for the foreseeable future to focus on these systems.

Hopefully this week I will detail my plans for Detroit by Night . . . .