All Good Things…Break, Part III
On Saturday, March 11th, 2023, my D&D 5e game crashed and burned. A Total Party Kill. A wipe. There were tears. There red faces. There were raised voices. There was rage.
…the story continues from Part II: Fighting According to their Abilities
The Tactical Fight
So, let’s take a look at how things could’ve gone differently. Yes, I know I’m looking at this with the clarity of hindsight and knowledge the players didn’t have at the table (like Vhalak and those reinforcements on round three). But I’m also looking at this through the lens of someone who’s played and GMed for three and a half decades… this is what I saw missing:
1. Legwork
“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Legwork is defined as “work that involves much traveling to collect information, especially when such work is difficult but boring.” Its an old term from the Victorian press to describe an assignment that’s more walking around gathering information than actually writing copy. And to many players, its absolutely boring.
Recognizing this, several modern games ‘gamify’ legwork by making it a single roll or incorporate it into play through ‘flashback’ mechanics. There are copious articles out there warning GMs about making it too hard to find information the players need to succeed in their action scenes without much considering that information-gathering is absolutely a part of the story… far more roleplaying happens when players are conducting legwork than when they’re swinging swords or burning people alive with their spells.
In this specific case, doing legwork while in Wave Echo Cave would have given the party some valuable information they missed. The most obvious is the presence of Vhalak and his bugbears in the Collapsed Cavern nearby… if they’d had someone scouting, they would’ve known they were there and maybe taken them out first… or at least figured out a way to make sure they weren’t there to support the Black Spider. It might have also lead them to discover a side entrance into the Temple of Dumathoin and the door to the Priest’s Chamber, where the last surviving member of the Rockseeker family was being held prisoner…moving quietly enough, they might’ve been able to rescue him without even fighting the Black Spider! And, as mentioned before, listening at the door to the Temple of Dumathoin likely would’ve gleaned them some information on what was going on inside.
As Sun Tzu pointed out, knowing your enemy is absolutely essential. The more info the players have, even in a role playing game, the more the deck is stacked in their favor.
2. Proximity
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Edward Everett Hale
In the real world, military units are taught to fight together. Good role playing game rules tend to reflect this and D&D5e is no different. Controlling physical proximity, both of the enemy and of the PCs in the battle, is essential. A combatant cannot (generally) pass through a space occupied by an opponent. So when PCs are shoulder-to-shoulder, occupying space next to one another, the bad guys are limited as to who they can reach and attack without resorting to ranged weapons (more on that later). And, perhaps more importantly, PCs can physically touch one another. This is absolutely essential for some support spells and abilities, but for even non-casters, it’s essential for helping to keep your allies from dying when death saving throws go poorly.
If players allow a five-foot square between them, an enemy can squeeze in between them, but it puts that enemy at a disadvantage because he is now flanked… or, more correctly, it puts our heroes at Advantage. Not only can the monster be attacked by both PCs now, they have an easier time of it and, if one of them is a rogue, they can make use of their sneak attack ability to really ramp up the single-target damage.
Once players allow for a 10-foot distance, however, they’ve lost any advantage they might have had from proximity. This is particularly deadly when dealing with foes who might be individually weaker, but more numerous (as in this case). If enemies can surround a PC, each getting advantage on attacks and, critically, preventing other PCs from reaching them.
The more a group is spread out, the harder it is for them to aid one another should a problem arise for one. In this case, the group was spread all the way across the 60’ room. Bugbears and spiders alike were able to get in between PCs, at one point completely surrounding the druid/barbarian and firing off eight attacks with advantage!
Maintain proximity in combat. That’s the basis of the Roman Testudo formation, the Greek phalanx, the medieval pike square and the modern squad tactics.
3. Contingency Planning
“No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.”
Helmuth von Moltke, Militarische Werke
Contingency planning is, of course, creating a plan for when the first plan goes awry. It’s a basic concept of everything from military tactics to project planning, but it often gets overlooked in TTRPGs… or, worse yet, it’s done to such an extreme as to cause executive dysfunction and prevents the players from actually getting to what they’re planning for.
If the plan is ‘rush the enemy’ what’s the plan should that fail to get results? What happens if the cleric drops? Or if the group is attacked from the rear? What if the enemy has area attacks, like a fireball? Most contingency plans can be worked out ahead of time and used for every fight. Some need to be designed based on information you should’ve gotten through legwork. It’s an “arrogance check”… no matter how badass you think your character is, there should be some idea of what to do if they fail.
In this case, there wasn’t much of an initial plan, so a contingency plan likely wouldn’t have helped much, but it might’ve had the PCs in a better position to achieve victory in the first place. By securing an escape route should the battle go poorly, they would have checked out or blocked off access from Vhalak and his reinforcements. By having a plan for what to do should any one person go down, they might not have wasted action economy by rushing about the room to save one another.
In the end, contingency planning may not have brought the PCs victory, but it likely would’ve at least allowed them to survive contact with the Black Spider and his minions.
4. Using the Terrain
Bernard was right. The germ is nothing, the terrain is everything.
Louis Pasteur
This is a big one.
Too often when we talk about “terrain” we’re talking about outdoor features, like trees or large boulders or ravines or maybe a crumbling wall of a ruin. Terrain is just as important in a dungeon environment, perhaps moreso. Most encounters are keyed to a particular chamber or room and hallways are often relatively safe (it’s notable that the tunnels in Area 2 of Wave Echo Cave are certainly an exception). That tends to drive PCs to think of the room itself as the encounter location and the passageways around it as merely the means to access these encounters. Players, Dungeon Masters and even game designers often think of a dungeon in terms of a flow chart… important information is in the circles, the lines between them are just how they’re connected.
Terrain is about how to use the environment to control your opponent’s ability to access and attack you. That applies to dungeons and, in particular, to the passageways that often comprise a dungeon.
When dealing with a more numerous foe, as our PCs were in this encounter, hallways, stairs and doors are your best defenses. Wave Echo Cave has ten-foot wide corridors, meaning that two melee characters can stand abreast and block melee access to their ranged allies behind them. Using corners in passageways blocks line of sight, limiting the number of enemies that can themselves attack from range. This is particularly useful against casters.
The Black Spider was in a large chamber (room 19 in the diagram below) and, with his superior numbers and giant spider allies, would be best served fighting in that chamber. Our heroes, unfortunately, gave him a terrain advantage by rushing into the room. If, instead, they had positioned themselves in the hallway outside the chamber and sent a single PC, say their rogue to check the door, listen at the door, then throw the door open to draw the Black Spider and his bugbears into the hallway, they would’ve had a much easier time dealing with them.
If the PCs had chosen to take up position in the hallway between the Temple of Dumathoin (Area 19) and the Collapsed Cavern (Area 18) even just 10’ back from the entryway into the Temple, they could’ve forced the bugbears to round the corner to fight them. The giant spiders would’ve been mitigated entirely or forced to take position on the ceiling above the PCs. Now… there still would’ve been issues when Vhalak and her bugbears came rushing in from Area 18, but it would’ve been easier to shift our Wizard into the middle of the group and try to fight off foes from two directions. It might’ve still resulted in a TPK, but the chances of success would’ve been much higher.
And even better position would be just south of those stairs at the southern edge of our map. Bugbears would have to descend the staircase to get to the PCs, limited their ability to use range attacks and Vhalak’s reinforcing maneuver would’ve bottlenecked in the hallway, unable to advance until the Black Spider’s guards had been dealt with.
More importantly, though, if the hallway was considered as an option for bottlenecking the enemy, they likely would’ve checked down those stairs to the right and found Vhalak in Area 18 first, dealing with him before they fought the Black Spider, splitting these encounters into two separate and much more manageable fights.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t really an option for our heroes. Well, it was, but it wasn’t an option anyone was going to push for. Because our Circle of the Moon druid/barbarian wildshaped into large animals, he took up 10’ of space by himself. That means the other melee-focused character in the group, our monk/bard, wouldn’t have been able to use their abilities effectively with the druid taking up the whole width of the hallway. In a dungeon with standard, 5’ corridors, the ability of the group is even further hampered by this factor. In order for the monk to be effective, the druid/barbarian had to charge into the room, surrendering the terrain advantage to the Black Spider, Vhalak and the bugbears.
5. Spotlighting the Group
The cosmic spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates from within you.
Marianne Williamson
“Spotlighting” is a somewhat toxic concept in TTRPGs originally intended as advice to Dungeon Masters struggling to keep their players engaged at the table. It has since spread into a concept so strong that players are told they should expect a right to the spotlight regardless of what they do at the table. While there is certainly some merit in advice to the DM to make sure they’re not being biased with their time towards any one player at the expense of the others, its resulted in a sort of selfish concept of players too often competing with one another for attention and that moment to do the thing their character was designed to do in every encounter.
To be clear, that desire for an individual spotlight wasn’t really a core issue with this group. But what they failed to do was spotlight the group.
Spotlighting the group is the inverse of spotlighting the individual. Spotlighting the group is using your character’s abilities, proximity, planning and terrain to allow for the group as a whole to shine. This isn’t just the purview of support characters, though they certainly are at their best when spotlighting the group. This is when your character remains close to the other characters on the battlefield, so they’re not using action economy to use touch abilities on you. Its ensuring you’re in a good position for the rogue to get a backstab on a flanked enemy or to give the fighter advantage on his attack. Its using terrain to make sure you don’t get surrounded by the enemy and have the cleric waste precious spell spells healing you. It’s doing the legwork to ensure your party isn’t caught in a trap or unaware of enemy reinforcements nearby. It’s changing your tactics and approach so the group has the greatest possible advantage in every encounter.
Spotlighting the group is having your characters operate as a squad. And, ironically, it means that individual spotlight DM’s are admonished to grant and players are encouraged to demand will naturally fall on the player’s characters as their abilities come to the fore when it most benefits the group, rather than the individual character.
The story continues in Part IV: The Aftermath and Post-Mortems
All Good Things…Break, Part II
On Saturday, March 11th, 2023, my D&D 5e game crashed and burned. A Total Party Kill. A wipe. There were tears. There red faces. There were raised voices. There was rage.
…the story continues from Part I: So What Happened? and The Black Spider’s Victory.
Fighting According to their Abilities
Alright, so let’s take a moment to look at what went wrong at the table.
The players weren’t acting as a team. They had a Rogue/Fighter at the table with a Stealth of +7 and Investigation of +2, yet they weren’t sending him to scout open tunnels. They had a school of enchatment wizard with an Investigation of +6 and Perception of +4, but weren’t using her to listen at doors. No one was checking for traps. I can’t speak entirely to their motivations here because, in the end, none of this was discussed at the table. It was like they had an expectation that there was nothing they could be doing between encounters other than deciding whether to go left or go right. Maybe its a video game mentality, where your choices are limited to how many buttons the player has access to? Was it a lack of immersion in the world? Maybe it was D&D’s focus on listing actions available in combat made players feel they were restricted to just those actions?
Scouting down that side passage would have made them aware of Vhalak and the bugbears. Even if nothing else had changed, if they’d taken out that encounter first, they would’ve won against the Black Spider. Listening at the door to the Temple of Dumathoin would’ve let them know the Black Spider was in that room and they might’ve taken a moment to prepare.
Checking for traps wouldn’t have helped because there were no traps here, but its still always a wise approach. I suspect they were trying to rely on passive perception and the druid/barbarian’s ability to soak damage to deal with traps.
As an aside, never, ever use your hit point economy to defeat traps. Just because you’re able to soak the damage of a trap doesn’t mean you should. Use your rogues, people. They have a role outside of combat. All of the classes do.
Alright, so let’s move to the fight itself.
The school of enchantment wizard hung way back in rear of the fight. That’s what she was designed to do… she had Spell Sniper as a feat and a mix of defensive spells, damage dealing spells and a few enchantments. By staying in the hallway well away from the fight, she was playing as the character was designed to do: deal damage from a distance and stay protected behind Mage Armor and Shield should someone try to throw a javelin or shoot an arrow at her.
The monk stepped onto the battlefield and started taking out foes. Weirdly, she ended up being somewhat at the rear of the fight, between the wizard in the rear and the druid/barbarian as he got surrounded (more on that in a bit). She was doing what she was designed to do… attacking enemies and whittling down their numbers. When the party’s surrender was betrayed, she chose to fight… her weapons, after all, were her fists and feet and those hadn’t been taken away…
The assassin/fighter rushed the Black Spider. Taking out a single enemy quickly was what he was best at. The Black Spider had already cast web on the group, so our assassin/fighter identified him as the primary threat. And, maybe, if the leader was taken out, the bugbears might surrender themselves. But in doing so, he took himself well away from the rest of the party and left everyone else with space to be flanked. But he was doing what he was designed to… murder the bad guy.
The druid/barbarian rushed the room. To be fair, he had to if anyone else was going to get into the fight. As a Circle of the Moon druid, he could wildshape into CR 1 forms and he was choosing to wildshape into large animals… that means he took up four times as much space on the map as anyone else, so in order to allow other melee characters into a fight, he had to move out of the 10′ wide hallway they were in when the encounter started (a weakness of the wildshape not pointed out very clearly). The character was designed to be an obnoxiously powerful tank: between three forms (each with their own hit point total) and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage when raging, they effectively had six times as many hit points as anyone else. They couldn’t quite deal out the damage other barbarians could (their Dire Wolf form, for example, could only deal 2d6+3 damage on a hit) and had none of the spellcasting diversity that a druid could bring to the table… all they could do was absorb damage and that, they did extremely well. The character was designed to rush into a battle and get surrounded. And that’s what happened.
The grave domain cleric also rushed the bad guy, but tended to float around the battle a bit, mostly trying to keep other party members from falling down and getting them back up when they did go down. There’s a few points worth mentioning here. First, the player behind this character was the only one to lose a character during the first TPK… rolling a 1 on a death saving throw is brutal. Second, she was the only character with obvious tools to support the other PCs. Third… she was the only character NOT to take damage in the first half of the combat. When the surrender was betrayed by Vhalak, the grave domain cleric was the only one at full hit points. This character was designed to support other characters on the battlefield and to tank… with an AC of 18, they had the highest armor class in the group. Yet, they didn’t tank. I suspect it was because it was perceived that was the druid/barbarian’s role and the player didn’t want to step on their toes… even though their cleric was a much more effective tank because the character didn’t rely on hit point economy to survive.
The one wild card in the group was a dwarven sorcerer. We were two players down this session, so she was added in as a ‘guest star’ to the party. This wasn’t the first time she was at our table in such a role, but I mention this to make it clear that she hadn’t had time to integrate into the group’s tactical profile (which didn’t exist anyways). She was artillery, pure and simple. Fire Bolt, Toll the Dead, Word of Radiance, Chaos Bolt, Guiding Bolt, Inflict Wounds, Scorching Ray, Spiritual Weapon, Distant Spell, Twinned Spell… she was a monster at churning out damage… and barely got to use any of them in the fight. Because she went down pretty early on… and when the grave cleric used an action to bring her back up, she tried to rely on her AC 16 and backed away from some opponents, allowing them an attack of opportunity which… put her back down. It was her barrage of magic missiles that put down the Black Spider… but she wasn’t able to do much else because she got overwhelmed by the other enemies in the room.
So if everyone was doing what they were designed to do, why did they fail? Because, in the end, they weren’t working as a group. They weren’t using many of the abilities on their character sheets that weren’t necessarily a design focus. They weren’t contingency planning. They weren’t immersed in the world. They weren’t thinking.
“Above all a player must think. The game is designed to challenge the minds and imaginations of the players.”
E. Gary Gygax, B2 Keep on the Borderlands, 1979
The story continues in Part III: The Tactical Fight
All Good Things…Break, Part I
On Saturday, March 11th, 2023, my D&D 5e game crashed and burned. A Total Party Kill. A wipe. There were tears. There red faces. There were raised voices. There was rage.
Here’s that story.
So What Happened?
I had two folks at the table who were relatively new to TTRPGs in general and this was a return to D&D for me after about maybe 15 years or so. I’d been playing TTRPGs through that time, but I moved from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder and spent time with several other systems in between. D&D 4e was the first D&D game I’d skipped entirely. So it was a fairly momentous thing for me to get back to D&D after all this time. I decided to run the Lost Mine of Phandelver, Session 0 happened, characters were created, basic backstories designed and off we went!
Early on, we had a full party wipe. The whole of Cragmaw Hideout ended up attacking them in one overwhelming encounter. It could’ve been a Total Party Kill (TPK), but we talked it over and the players decided they wanted to try for a prison break scenario. It made sense… the goblins that captured them were established to take prisoners; the dwarf they were trying to rescue had originally been captured by them. So, narratively, it was feasible. The prison-break scenario was a success, revenge was taken on Yeemik for multilating the Artificer, the party escaped the Cragmaw Hideout and moved forward with the module.
In retrospect, I should’ve picked up then something was amiss.
Later on, we had another near TPK. The party’s assault on Cragmaw Castle didn’t go well either. Essentially, they ended up storming the keep from two different directions, gave up the element of surprise and brought the whole dungeon down on their heads. To their credit, they held their own for quite a bit, but there were just too many goblinoids and the party remained divided and split across the map: two were stuck outside the Castle, two just inside the front entrance and three were storming through the side entrance to try to reach the other two. The hour got later and later and, finally, I decided that King Grol would use his hostage, Gundren, to “invite” the PCs to flee. They did, though I think it was more because of how late the session ran than anything else.
This was my second red flag. I should’ve paid more attention to it and spent some time talking over what happened with the players. It didn’t even cross my mind to do so. In retrospect, I think I expected they would analyze for themselves what went wrong and use it as a lesson to work together better in future encounters. But that wasn’t how it was taken… it was more looked at as a mistake of one character than a bigger problem with how the players were interacting with one another and the world around them.
And, to be clear, the party was pretty much rolling through every other encounter in the module with very little difficulty. Stand-alone encounters, like dealing with the orcs of Wyvern Tor or even the encounter with Venomfang, they pretty much sailed through. The Redbrand Hideout went well, in part because they did some legwork around town in Phandalin and discovered the secret entrance to the dungeon, so they were able to slip in the side door and get straight to the meat of the dungeon. Even then, though, they were noisy enough to bring a couple of encounters together to fight and gave the wicked Glasstaff an opportunity to escape.
Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I think the reason they were sailing through stand-alone encounters was at least one character was built to overwhelm even a ‘deadly’ encounter designed according to the encounter builder “rules” (I use this term lightly). So when they had an isolated encounter to deal with, it wasn’t really even a challenge. The problem came when multiple encounters were close enough together to support one another should the party allow that to happen. Defeating a single dragon was easy… fighting a castle full of several separate goblinoid encounters coming together as one was difficult, if not impossible.
The obnoxious power of that one character is one of the things that made the rest of the group complacent. The fact that two of the near-wipes was because of a plan not being executed as planned is one of the other things that made the group complacent. Occam’s Razor isn’t always right, particularly when a complex and overlapping mishmash of issues lie at the root cause of a problem. In the end, the problem wasn’t so much the power level of one character or the plans failing, it was the lack of contingency planning in the first place. It was a lack of understanding of what each player and character brought to the table. And it was a complacency built upon a bedrock of assumption that D&D 5e was gaming on “easy mode.” There was an assumption, by myself included, that it was HARD to lose a character in this iteration of D&D. It was a lack of leadership at the table.
The Black Spider’s Victory
So when the characters finally found the location of Wave Echo Cave, they were mentally unprepared. They went into the dungeon as they had in the previous encounters… they might listen and might smell for things, but no one was checking for traps. No one was scouting ahead. They’d try looking for footprints, but on a stone floor most of what you’re going to get is either ‘things have traveled here’ or ‘things have not traveled here’. When given a choice between ‘left’ or ‘right’, they used the left-hand rule for traversing a maze. They did alright for the first couple of encounters… they fought some bugbears in the North Barracks. They took out a flameskull and some zombies. And then they went straight to the Temple of Dumathoin, where the BBEG of the whole module, the Black Spider himself, Nezznar awaited them with his giant spiders and bugbears. As with their previous encounters, they rushed into the room and into the fray.
Each character was fighting according to their abilities, but they weren’t fighting according to each others’ abilities. After briefly stumbling over a web spell, the group was quickly spread across the battlefield. The Circle of the Moon Druid/Barbarian rushed into the room, relying on his shapeshifting and resistance to most attacks to keep him alive (from a statistical standpoint, he had SIX TIMES as many hit points as anyone else at the table). The fighter/assassin and grave domain cleric rushed in to take out the Black Spider himself. The bard/monk and guest-starring sorcerer stayed near the door and the school of enchantment wizard was well behind everyone else in the hallway. Everyone was where they wanted to be, but no one was really where they needed to be.
To their credit, the encounter was going pretty okay, despite their lack of tactics. The Black Spider was unconscious pretty quickly. A few bugbears went down. It was a hard fight, but it seemed feasible. I knew things weren’t as rosy as they appeared, but I tend not to overly invest in guessing how an encounter is going to go… players have surprised me, even when I think they’re not thinking things through.
Then Vhalak, the doppelganger, showed up with reinforcements from their very unprotected rear.
See, when you first approach the massive stone doors that serve as the entrance to the Temple of Dumathoin, there’s also a passageway to the east. That passageway went unscouted. The group just wasn’t in that mindset. I don’t think scouting was even considered… on reviewing the recordings of the adventure, it certainly wasn’t voiced as an option. The module itself accounts for this… under Developments for the Temple of Dumathoin encounter, it states:
The creatures in area 18 can hear sounds of combat in this room. If they haven’t already been dealt with, they arrive after 3 rounds and act immediately after Nezznar’s giant spiders in the initiative count.
Lost Mine of Phandelver p. 50
That was Vhalak the doppleganger and his bugbear pals. An encounter that, by itself, was Deadly for 4th level characters.
Upon Vhalak’s arrival, the party was trapped and on the defensive. The wizard was able to flee them rushing up the hall at her, but it robbed her of valuable actions to get into the room and to the relative safety of being behind her companions. And even when she was out of range of the reinforcements, no one was in a position to support one another. The sorcerer fell, rose again with the help of the Cleric and fell again. The fighter/assassin went down. The druid/barbarian was overwhelmed by the spiders and bugbears surrounding him on all sides. Each bugbear was attacking with advantage and each was dealing out 2d8+2 points of damage each successful hit (their Brute ability is terrifying). One of the players ran the numbers after the fight and found that, statistically speaking, my rolling that night was not all that great… I was missing more than I should have. Even so, some very unfortunate critical hits landed and took characters down.
So Vhalak, appearing as a drow female, demanded surrender. The cleric, wizard and monk were the only ones standing, so they dropped their weapons. The spiders bound up those who were unconscious on the battlefield. To drive home just how serious she was, Vhalak murdered the bound sorcerer in front of the surviving PCs… that was a violation of their surrender in the eyes of the monk and they couldn’t let that stand. Combat was resumed as the cleric and wizard backed their friend.
I thought all was lost. But there was a moment, just then, I thought they might just steal victory from the hands of defeat. The bugbears and spider were gone, carting off the unconscious NPCs. They were in the next room, but far enough away that Vhalak was theoretically vulnerable. The enchantment school wizard, on her turn, chose to cast Hold Person on Vhalak. If it worked, the PCs would have two valuable prisoners of their own and no leadership among the goblinoids. They might just pull this off after all…
And Vhalak made her saving throw. By one point.
The characters fought valiantly, but they were overwhelmed. They were able to get Vhalak down to zero hit points, but being a doppelganger, they just reverted to their natural form with full hit points, per the polymorph spell. The remaining characters fell.
This time, there was no reason for the villains to spare the characters. The heroes had proven too troublesome and almost defeated them. The heroes were killed. The campaign was over.
The story continues in Part II: Fighting According to their Abilities
My Plot Doesn’t Matter
Preface: There is no ‘right’ way to do role playing games. There is no ‘best’ way to play. There is no ‘bad’ good fun. If its fun for you, it works for you. Having said that, here’s some thoughts on the best, right way to play to have the most good fun.
Preface the Second: In this article, I pull on some real experiences I’ve had at the gaming table. Some of them very recent. Some of them with my current Shadowrun group. Some of what I have to say is critical, both of myself and of folks at my table. Please know I still love you all and I’m honored by all of you, present and past groups. The reason I’m writing this is to encourage you to expect the sort of quality game I so desperately want to provide. I want to create art at the table. This is part of how I envision that.
Those points aside, this is how its done:
One of the struggles I have as a GM is overcoming the years of abuse players have suffered from other so-called GMs. You know the type… the folks who GM because they like being in control. Because they want to tell a story to a passive audience, but don’t have the focus or talent to write a novel. Or maybe its insecurity or even laziness… its harder and takes time to develop a setting and scenarios where player’s characters have agency. These are the sorts of GMs that will cheat at rolling dice to make the story unfold the way they imagine is ‘best’, limit the choices of players to fit into their ‘grand vision’ and slap down any player that dares meander too far from the rails they clumsily laid for their story to slog or whip along at whatever pace they’ve decided is appropriate.
To be fair, as much derision as I have for this type of GMing, some folks are good enough at it that I can sometimes overlook the lack of agency… or I can just create my own agency and let them get frustrated when I take things off the rails as a player. I suspect this is one of the reasons the games I play in tend to end after only a few sessions. I know I’m rough on GMs and I’m not sure I want to change that. I’m a demanding player.
I digress.
My primary focus in GMing is to encourage the players’ creativity by facilitating the stories of their characters. I can’t put enough emphasis on this. The games I run are about the players’ stories. They’re about the younger brother of a famous adventurer trying to make his own mark in the world. The street urchin struggling with the knowledge that he is a construct built to assassinate an immortal villain trying to destroy the multiverse. A vampire who grapples with the fact that he made his own sister into a ghoul to save her life, but her will has deteriorated so much by his tainted blood that she unnaturally worships him. A hermit who must learn to work with others to defeat the evil queen, a deposed nobleman who’s brothers sacrificed themselves before his very eyes so he could live, a street urchin that was secretly the scion of a wicked royal family who has to raise armies to fight against her own mad son. These are the stories I had the honor to be a part of helping come to fruition.
The worlds I spend hours and hours on are just a setting I provide for these stories to occur in. The time I spend on adventures and missions and developing NPCs is spent to create a framework around which the players can weave their characters’ stories. All the statistics and numbers on paper (virtual or otherwise) are there to help create that story, to take it in directions neither the player nor myself might have expected. That’s why I spend so much time on building the setting and the NPCs in it… because I don’t necessarily know where the players are going to take things and I have to present a world built on some degree of verisimilitude to be prepared for that. All of that is in service to the players at my table.
Unfortunately, a lot of players have been gaslit by poor GMs over years and decades to believe that their stories don’t matter or, at most, should be subordinate to my “grand scheme.” That the purpose of a role playing game is to go hear the GMs story/plot and maybe get to participate in varying degrees and to hear the conclusion of the story the GM is telling (some games even go so far as to call us “Storytellers”). This inexorably leads to that bane of all role playing games: metagaming. This is where the player makes choices for their character that are meant to facilitate a perception of the game or the Game Master, rather than progress the story of the character. Metagaming is, at its heart, cheating. On rare occasions in RPGs, metagaming is necessary, but that rare necessity too often gets used as an excuse to metagame throughout.
This manifests in a few different ways. I’ll list a few here, but I won’t claim this to be even remotely a comprehensive list:
- Waiting for Plot: Rather than have their character act with the available information they have, the player decides not to ‘interfere’ in what’s going on and lets events in the game proceed without engaging their agency. They believe the GM is going to make Things happen, so they’re waiting for the Things.
Example: While exploring the ancient underground ruins that were sealed off for centuries, the adventuring party comes across a group of six animated skeletons. They do not attack. One skeleton leaves. The party waits. And waits. And waits… and then the skeletons’ boss/creator finally shows up and obliterates the party because this is Earthdawn and Horrors are not meant to be fought (shortest campaign I ever ran). - Not Rocking the Boat: Rather than react to other players’ characters in a way that makes sense for their character, the player chooses instead to go along with the majority or not have their character speak up in a situation they otherwise would. Player character conflict is some of the richest, most interesting parts of the game, but so many players have been taught its poor gaming or, worse, outright wrong to have a character disagree with the group.
Example: The party’s elf adopts a goblin shaman after a particularly good series of rolls and RP lead the goblin to convert into worshipping him instead of the rat corpse on a stick he used to worship. The elf carries his new worshipper around in his backback, where he periodically sticks his head out of and orders the party members to bow down to the elf, particularly when they’re being uppity to him. The party’s dwarf shrugs it off and doesn’t react, despite his family being wiped out by goblinoids and the party goes from bland adventure to adventure never dealing with or even really recognizing what the elf has done (this is the opposite of what happened in this game… the players took agency and a rather big fight erupted… not every character survived that night). - Not providing feedback: When a GM sets the PC’s stories as primary to a game, they’re likely going to ask for feedback, either formally or informally. Ignoring that or, worse, depreciating the value of that feedback undermines the GM’s ability to facilitate your character’s story. Even if your GM doesn’t ask for downtime actions or journals or holds out-of-character post mortems, offer up some feedback when you have it! Drop them a Private Message, give them a call, whatever it takes… let the GM know how they’re doing by you, what you enjoyed and what you didn’t. And, if things aren’t going the way you want them to, talk to them!
Example: Your gaming group hangs out after the game for an hour or so talking about what happened, theorizing out of character and discussing where they want things to go. You, however, always pack up and leave as soon as the in-character part ends. You later wonder why everyone else has story leads to follow and develop while you do not. - Overmathing: This is related to Min/Maxing a character (which isn’t necessarily a Bad Thing)… Overmathing is more about focusing overmuch on a character’s statistics and not enough on the roleplay of the character. If your character’s high strength is just about extra damage in combat, you’re really, really missing out on the story elements of that stat… how do physically strong people tend to interact with the world? How does it impact their relationships or how they perceive others? How does it affect their social groups (yes, physically strong people often form their own cliques based on their pursuit of strength). This also applies to skills or lack thereof… for example, your character doesn’t have any points in Swimming, chances are they’re a little afraid of water, even if they don’t have a Phobia disadvantage on paper.
Example: This happens most obviously with charismatic characters… “I want the guard to go away.” Clatter. “I rolled a 20.” Wait for the GM to describe the guard going away. Yawn. - Undermathing: Conversely, your characters’ story is told partially through the success or failure of your stats and how they roll. Undermathing is where you either don’t build a character that fits the story you’re trying to tell or you ignore how the dice roll in the development of your character’s story. For example, you create a character that claims to love Opera, but doesn’t have a Knowledge or Hobby skill allocated to reflect that. Or maybe he was raised on the streets, but doesn’t have any abilities that reflect the harshness of that reality (like Unarmed combat to reflect _some_ experience with getting into fist fights). The main problem here is that you’ve spent so much energy building a character that you think will be useful to the GM’s plot that you’ve forgotten to design a character worth telling a story about.
Example: The party is deep in the forest fleeing from the forces of Big Evil Daddy. Your elven ranger spent the first two hundred years of his life living in the elven glades. You didn’t allocate a single point to your game’s version of Survival (Forest). You look to the GM, explaining your background and hoping that’s enough reason to justify a default roll of some sort… it isn’t. A wild boar kills you and the forest feasts on your corpse. - Not doing your research: I could plumb this one for a whole series of articles, but the basic idea here is that you create a character, maybe under direction of the GM, and then don’t bother learning anything else about the rules, setting or world you’re playing in. You rely on the GM for all of this information because, in the end, what information they tell you is what’s important to their plot, right? This has far-ranging implications well beyond just reading a rule book… if your character is a magician, you should know the magic system, including the fluff, perhaps even better than the GM. If your character is charismatic, do some real-world research on how charismatic people win friends and influence enemies. If you have some ranks in Knowledge (Yakuza), do some research on how the Yakuza operates in the real world. You don’t have to do a doctoral dissertation, but become the subject-matter expert in your group of gamers. Even if you don’t get to use much of this research, you’re a better person for having learned something new, so win-win!
Example: “A woman’s proper place is being subservient to a man, that’s the way its always been and always will be,” says your Drow rogue raised in the Underdark. - Forcing a round peg into a square hole: Sometimes, the character you came up with just doesn’t work in the collective story that’s being told. Instead of doing what the character would do, you decide to muzzle it and carry on, struggling to fit, maybe getting bored or frustrated or just kinda zoning out, your character becoming something of a cardboard cut-out. You’re so afraid of disappointing the GM’s story, you play a character you come to hate and let yourself become trapped. Worse, you keep it quiet until the game is over, revealing how you’ve been feeling only afterwards (if you’re reading this and wondering: yes, I’m thinking about you.. and yes, I still love playing with you… so stop doing this).
Example: I am Chiroptera Guy. I am the evening. My parents were murdered by Joseph Brisk in a back alley and I still remember my mother’s pearls scattering across the greasy puddles as she died in front of me. I joined a hero group with Sally Brighteyes, the Lovebears (Lovebear Stare!) and the Velveteen Rabbit. I’m constantly frustrated by the other characters’ attempts to talk Gargle-Mel out of capturing the blue forest gnomes, but I go along with it because the GM has plans for me and made it my character’s destiny that I help them. I’m bored, I’m frustrated and my character often comes across as an ass because I’m constantly berating them for not dealing out some vigilante justice from time to time. I’m miserable, but I’m doing what I think my GM wants me to do because that’s what players do. - Making yourself submissive to the GM: This is kind of catch-all category and really sums up a lot of what’s above. GMs, as a whole, tend to be fairly dominant personalities. You have to be, to believe you have the talent and ability to create setting, engineer scenarios and help provide entertainment for your closest and craziest friends or complete strangers! And the Bad GMs, they expect you to be submissive to them, their goals and their plot. Me? I expect to be challenged by my players. Throw a wrench into the works! Do the unexpected! Think and act! Keep me on my toes and push me past the point that I’d planned for. I don’t need you to dominate me, but neither do I want to dominate you (at least not at the gaming table…) Challenge me!
Example: I think the GM wants us to walk into the room filled with statues that look exactly like us… even though its an obvious trap and we can accomplish our goals without going in, I walk right in anyways.
That last one is the big one, I think. When I run a game, I always look like I have a plan. Most times, I do. Often I do not. But always, always, always, that plan is not what’s important. Players try to guess what I want them to do because they think that’s how they’ll succeed… it isn’t. One of the worst things you can do in games I’m GMing is trying to guess what I want you to do with your character because, in all honesty, I don’t know. Its not that I don’t care… its because I DO care that I don’t try to come up with my own conception of what I think you should do or how to do things.
I admittedly take this to extremes when doing scenario design.
A lot of published scenarios, particularly in recent decades, have explicit expectations of what players will do in a sequential order. This is the railroad… its easy to write and publish, because it doesn’t require much thought or explanation. The players will take a quest from A, go fight B, then steal C, combine it with D and finally confront the E in his throne room and, dice willing, win the day (some games even get rid of the dice altogether and winning the day is a foregone conclusion). As long as you do things in the right order, the scenario chugs along the rails like the train it was designed to be. Indeed, the players might not even be all that necessary to a scenario like this… you can just sit and read through the story and tell everyone how it ends!
Obviously, this isn’t how I design scenarios. Even in episodic games, like the Shadowrun campaign I’m currently running, I don’t think in terms of how the PCs will succeed. So its more like A wants to hire the PCs to defeat E. E is carrying out their nefarious plans, which involve sending out minion B to find and defeat opposition, while protecting C and finding D for themselves so it can’t be combined with C. If the PCs refuse A’s offer, things proceed apace without them. Maybe E succeeds in their nefariousism, maybe they don’t. If the PCs accept the offer, they have to figure out for themselves how they’re going to stop the nefariousness. They’re going to have to figure out how to conduct a heist on a busy highway deep in a gang’s territory or how to protect a mysterious businessman without letting on that they’re protecting him or rally a kingdom against its Queen who’s turned corrupt out of desperation in trying to figure out how to save the world.
Or… not. PCs circumventing parts of the scenario or deciding not to do it altogether are perfectly acceptable courses of action. The game might end. That’s okay, let it conclude. The game might take a different course… that’s fine too… with the right mix of creative people, its still going to be a lot of fun. Maybe that traditional ‘heroic journey’ campaign I’d planned for suddenly becomes a Pirate’s Game when the PCs decide to keep the enchanted ship for themselves! I’ve had to end sessions early because players came up with a way to completely circumvent a plot element (recently, in fact!). Some players have genuinely apologized to me for ‘messing up my plans’. I couldn’t figure out how to tell them I was thrilled and excited by what they’d done. I was so happy and here they were, apologizing for it.
Because the point of tabletop roleplaying games is to play a role in a story. Your story. The collective story of the players at the table. The story of the rich kid and his bodyguard. The story of the shapeshifting twins with a destiny. The story of the outcast finding a place to belong. And, somewhere down the list, the plot I’ve come up with to facilitate that story. But if your story doesn’t mesh with that plot, find another plot. Or create another character. That’s the beauty of the sandbox.
I know others have denied you agency. I know some games have told you you can’t have agency where there’s dice. I know some GMs have belittled you for trying to tell your own story. Hell, some of you have BEEN those GMs, so you expect to be submissive when playing in the games of other GMs.
I’m here to say you can expect more. Demand more. Demand it of me!
I am, truly, here to serve.
So let’s tell your story. Together.
Gaming Philosophy: On the Economy of Story
So a good friend of mine made the following post on social media concerning his org LARP of choice:
Still glad to see that the really cool shit still happens to the very few who can make it to the events. And the rest of us can just read about it on Facebook.
One person chimes in with what looks to be an earnestly helpful response (I suspect they’re a Storyteller of some sort, either at the local or national level):
I have been taking many steps, for (game genre) obviously, for people to never be able to say I cannot get involved in national plots.
What’s up?
Note: This isn’t me saying you’re wrong. It’s me genuinely asking how I can help you if you want it.
I don’t think I’ve met the person who posted this, but this guy is a gem. Whoever’s in charge here, listen to him and do what it takes to keep him on board. He’s good folk. He knows how to respond when a player is venting about an issue (at least in this case…. to be fair, he could be horrible otherwise, but in this context, he’s awesome).
So you’ve got a couple of ‘this is the way it has to be’ responses that aren’t really negative, but aren’t all that positive either… more a defense of the status quo. A ‘suck it up, this is the best way’ sorta perspective. I’m picking this response as a summation of this approach:
Events are also held at lots of places to give different people a chance to go. They can’t hold national events all of the time at each chapter. Even if they did, people that have the spare time and money to go can hit all of them and then it’s back to that main point. Having these events all over is about the best that can be done. If you have suggestions, I am sure the staff is listening.
As a corollary, there’s the capitalistic approach to defending the status quo… if you’re paying extra, you should get extra in-game rewards (bear with me, I’ll define ‘rewards’ shortly):
I mean, the people going to the events *are* shelling out a lot of cash and time to go to them. It’s only fair that they be given a good show for it.
and
I just legit don’t see the point of conventions if you’re not gonna have special stuff happen there.
and
I think that it is more disappointing if you do shell out the money and go for one of these Cons, which is kinda going above and beyond; however, you do not get to at least bear witness to something kinda badass.
Then there’s the outright dismissive, negative and cruel responses, apparently intended to silence dissent rather than examine the issue being raised.
So….what i gather is some cool stuff happened and you couldn’t go so you’re going to whine about it?
and rewording the initial complaint into something that’s easier to argue with (while still being cruel and dismissive):
For the folks who might see this and not understand it’s clearly PTSD from experiencing (previous LARP in the area, name redacted)…
and your usual round of pseudo-intellectual strawmanning:
Fun additional fact:
Enjoying yourself doesn’t have to equate to game/character advantage.
Sometimes you can just enjoy yourself.
and
Come to a game that’s just like your home game; but fly or drive 9+ hours!
And at least one person commiserating with the initial post and re-translating it because folks weren’t (intentionally or not) getting the point…
I think the main complaint is that the only way to see the end of all of these big things (especially in werewolf where they tend to end in big ass epic fights) we do is to Shell out money, take time off, time away from families, to go to these events and that’s simply not feasible for some people, even those that want to extremely badly.
And then there’s folks who understand what’s going on, seen it themselves and are making snarky comments because they don’t believe that it’ll ever change:
Soooooo no change then.
That snark, by the way, that’s my response. Which garnered a response from a defender of the status quo:
…everything that has happened as far as getting positions and things like that has happened at local level or when people try to get involved on the larger than local scene even online. It’s actively encouraged. Conventions have cool things that happen there but hey have them all over. If they go to someone’s local game and do it, then people will bitch that that game is getting favoritism. So what is the solution to that then? Don’t have anything larger than local? Or only do it online. Then people will complain that they have other things they need to do outside of game so now *thats* not fair. I mean with all of the National games being held all over the place, they have made it as accessible as possible.
I respect the author of this here and he responded to my snarky comment with much more depth than it deserved, so I’m writing out my response here. In part because its easier to write potentially long ramblings in my blog, in part because I’m going to delve a little into my own philosophy of gaming and in part because I want to preserve the initial discussion (or parts of it, at least) in ways that social media doesn’t always allow for.
One quick comment before I delve into this: I’m not playing in the LARP the initial poster is referencing. But I did play for a year or so in a cousin LARP to that one. Both LARPs are part of the same Org and I left that Org a year or two ago. So I may be assuming some things I shouldn’t… but I suspect I’m not.
Rewards in LARP
So every game has rewards for play. In some games, the reward is getting to play in a final game against someone else who succeeded the same way and… you get a cup. Or a ring. Or a multi-million dollar sneaker advertising contract. Some games the reward is the challenge… there’s a win scenario, but you have to compete within a certain set of rules to reach the ‘end’ of the game and satisfy the victory conditions.
The reward in LARP isn’t any of those.
Well, it shouldn’t be (though often that’s part of it… the folks who proclaim ‘there is no winning in LARP’ are often the most competitive of LARPers). If you want to play in that sort of game, one that has a win scenario, play something designed for such a thing.
The economy of a LARP is story… how much story content you get to participate in. Positions for characters, special mystical items, increased contacts, increased resources, even XP awarded and spent on character advancement are all methods towards this reward, not rewards themselves. This is what the initial poster is calling “the really cool shit.”
The more story you have access to, the higher your story income.
And there’s two sources of reward income here… character actions and player actions.
Minting Story
So put it in economic terms, Story is the currency of LARP. Story is “minted” in two major ways:
- Players Playing: Players on the field generate story. Even if they show up in character, hang out with their faction and do very little, they’re generating some story (even if its just something like ‘Wow, Clan Ventrue has a lot of members here, we need to take them down a peg’). Characters working towards goals, maintaining contacts and allies, interacting with the world and so on generate story in their wake.
- Deus Ex Machina: Game Masters (I hate the term ‘Storytellers’ for reasons that’ll become apparent shortly) also generate story. This can be relatively light and open, for example creating a setting with proverbial buttons to push and gears that spin for players to interact with and build story upon. Or it can be relatively heavy-handed and closed, a true ‘God From the Machine’, with major events that occur for players to spectate at, often without any real ability to alter the stories generated in any significant way. Most Deus Ex Machina falls somewhere along that spectrum.
Generally, stories created and maintained by players tend to last longer and are usually much more fulfilling than stories minted by Game Masters. And different types of roleplay lend themselves better to one mint or the other. In video games, Deus Ex Machina is all but required. In a LARP, however, with the setting’s movers and shakers performed by players, Deus Ex Machina tends to get in the way of each player telling a good story.
Its worth mentioning here that not all story is minted equally. There is both quantity and quality to consider. Some players want to be involved, even if its superficially, in every story they can touch while others are happier with access to fewer, but deeper, stories. There’s nothing wrong with either approach… or both!
Earning Story
Once Story is minted, it enters the reward economics of the game field as players unlock access. There are a variety of means by which access to story becomes available. Something as simple as choosing a faction or race can unlock access to story (“Welcome, new Get of Fenris… here is what’s going on in Get territory!”). Interacting with other players can unlock access, as can poking at the buttons and gears in the setting or just attending game, being present. Your character holding a position gives them wider access to story, as does higher attributes or more powerful powers (once your character dies, their access to story is rather abruptly gone). And, unfortunately, becoming friends with your GM can also get you access to story, particularly those dreaded heavy-handed stories so many GMs are so very proud of.
And, depending on the game, you can pay “real world” resources for access to story.
A Balanced Economy
The ideal for a LARP is that everyone has equal potential access to quantity and quality of story based on the actions of the characters. Attending games regularly, playing smart, staying involved are all important to maintaining that balance as a player. GMs need to ensure the setting has enough buttons and gears to entertain folks or at least until the players start making their own buttons and gears. Ideally for a LARP, every aspect of the setting should involve a player in some capacity, so story generation becomes a mostly player-driven thing.
The most important thing about a balanced reward economy is that characters have more or less equal access to story. Over time, you’ll see a variety of players have a variety of different roles in the story, with their characters’ significance waxing and waning. Because access to story is based primarily on the actions of characters, you’ll see different players from game to game or even session to session becoming prominent.
Mind you can never actually have a perfectly balanced reward economy. Its important as a goal, something to aim for, but in the end, you will have some things from outside of game that just end up impacting access to story. For example, if George can only make one out of every four LARP sessions, chances are his character will never be King because he’s often making excuses as to why he can’t be present.
That’s understandable and unavoidable. Its the avoidable unfair access to story rewards we need to be wary of.
The Skewed Economy
Unfortunately, a Balanced Economy is often not the goal of gamerunners, particularly when they feel their primary role is to Tell a Story, rather than facilitate, referee and adjudicate the players’ stories (this is why I despise the term ‘Storyteller’ for a Game Master).
In a skewed story reward economy, players have more or less access to the story. Maybe a particular player attends every session, so the Storyteller drops a hint to his character that’s meant to lead the game towards a story the Storyteller has minted. Or a player has figured out what buttons to push on another Storyteller, so they keep pushing that button to make story candy fall out into their hand. Or, as in the case of the situation the original poster is illuminating, the prevailing opinion is that large conventions are where the Organization Storyteller takes opportunity to advance the over-arching story they’ve designed for the organization.
Because a skewed economy relies on specific actions of players, you’ll often see the same players having greater rewards and, hence, greater access to story. Perhaps they have the resources to travel often, so they get access to org-wide positions over and over again, regardless of what character they’re playing. Or they’ve figured out how to press the right buttons on the Storytellers to get access to story locally. Or they’ve formed an out-of-character group of friends that allows them to repeatedly collectively push out others from access to story. Or, y’know, all of the above.
How to Maintain a Balanced Reward Economy
People who fly across country to attend an event have an expectation that they are deserving of greater access to story. That just by expending real-world resources (in time, money, etc) and showing up, they have earned reward.
Folks who create large groups of allies based on the personalities of the players, rather than the characters, believe themselves superior or more intelligent than others on the field, something that’s reinforced by the other people that regularly band together with them. And woe, woe to the voice that points this out… because that voice is trying to separate friends from one another!
Players who’ve figured out how to press buttons of specific Storytellers to get access to story also often feel they’re just better at LARPing than others. That they deserve the attention they’re getting from that specific Storyteller. Taken far enough, they even come to resent Storytellers who aren’t giving them special attention or allowing buttons to be pushed, preferring to ignore one Storyteller in favor of another.
So what do you do?
There’s some advice often given to fiction authors that’s very, very relevant to Game Masters for LARPs, particularly large Org LARPs:
Kill your darlings.
I know you’re attached to the god-like NPC you designed (or maybe you didn’t even design it, you just make up stats as necessary so they can do what you want them to for your story). You think that Org Story arc you created is awesome and can’t wait to make yourself up as this legendary NPC for the scene you’ve been planning for months. You’re eager to stand in the spotlight and revel as the players (particularly those that ‘get you’ and you’ve included from the beginning) shower accolades on you.
Don’t do it. Get out of the spotlight.
If you want a spotlight, audition for the local amateur theatre. By making the game about your story instead of the players, you’re skewing the reward economy and creating resentment like the original post at the top of this article. If players have an expectation of you as the awarder of story, it generates unrealistic exceptions about how the players (not the characters) get access to those rewards (like merely showing up to a convention LARP).
Stop being a story thief.
Let the players earn their way to being the god-like NPC. If you’re running at the Org level, let the players generate the larger-than-local stories for the characters. As a Game Master you shouldn’t be earning story rewards! You’ve already got access to all the stories… you don’t need to create more for yourself!
Letting go of that control and making the game (and reward system) about the characters on the field has a cascading effect on the reward economy.
Pressing Storyteller buttons no longer has a significant affect on story access. Since players have greater involvement in what characters are accessing the story, there are a LOT more buttons that need pushing and, bonus!, those buttons will often need pushing in-character. If Storytellers aren’t Telling Stories, players can’t get unfair access from them.
Large groups of players aren’t as effective at fencing in access to story any more. Because any character on the field may have greater or lesser access to story, it tends to break up the power blocks to one degree or another. The LARP becomes less about groups of players competing (or one group dominating) and more about characters and their stories. If any character can carve out its own story on the field, that increases the interactions between characters and increases the potential access to story for everyone.
Convention Org LARPs are no longer about what cool thing the Storytellers want to give out to characters (who are invariably played by the same players who can show up to these events consistently), its about what the characters want to do and how they interact. Org LARPs at conventions become about characters networking with other characters across the country, advancing their storylines, deciding things for themselves and generating story for themselves and others in the LARP.
Perhaps most importantly, when you remove Storytellers as gatekeepers of story access and surrender that to your players, you get rid of a lot of the legitimately hurt feelings of folks who feel left in the dust because Storytellers are handing out story access for “Out of Character” reasons.
Storytellers, make LARP about the characters.
Unmake it about you.
Rejecting the Economic Revolution
There will be players, particularly those who have greater access to story under the current system who will be confused and angry by a Storyteller refusing to give them rails to run on or give them story rewards for traveling to an event. They legitimately don’t see the point of conventions if the Storytellers aren’t going to make special things happen there… they’ve pressed their button and want their reward from the Machine-God who gives out story.
I’m not sure how to bring these folks about. In my years playing and running LARPs, I was spoiled in my formative years by players who not only didn’t expect Storytellers to dole out story, they actively resented the idea of Storytellers interfering with their stories. The Storyteller created a rich and engaging setting, with plenty of ways for characters to interact and even compete, but in the end, the LARP was about the players’ stories, not the Storytellers’.
When I did eventually come to join a group of LARPers who militantly believed Storytellers should be telling stories, I’ve very rarely seen success in getting them to view LARP a different way from at they know. I’ve tried and mostly failed. And, honestly, I’ve seen other Storytellers do it better than me. even if it was for the briefest glimmers of time.
I strongly suspect, though, if more storytellers worked towards this goal, the quality of LARPs would increase. Players would have less reason to be upset that Storytellers were unfairly awarding story to certain players. You’d see more egalitarian participation in stories of various types because you’re spreading out the source of stories. Players caught up in unfair reward cycles would either become more engaged in story creation or drop the game in a huff… which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, because those are the people who’re willing to ‘game the system’ to get more story.
You’re basically letting people mint their own coins.
If I haven’t convinced you yet, ask yourself three important questions:
- Think of your five favorite memories from LARPs you’ve played in (not as Storyteller/Game Master, but as player). These should be stories you’ve retold with your friends, particularly if you’v retold the story to people who weren’t even involved. Write them down.Now put a minus one (-1) next to those about fighting a big bad or passively participating in a story the Storyteller was telling. Put a plus one (+1) next to the stories that were mainly interactions with other players, stories you created collectively. Maybe that rivalry with another pack’s Alpha or the Prince you finally took down in a social coup.Add things up. I’m going to guess you’ll have more positives than negatives. Many of you will end up with +5.
- Now let’s do the reverse: write down five of your most negative moments in LARPs you’ve played in. Times that you really wondered if this was the hobby for you or you were frustrated enough to vaguebook about it or whatever.Those that were about an unfair Storyteller or being left out because players who got rewarded for out-of-character reasons (including auctions using real-world money that sold off in-game items for use on the field), put a minus one next to. Those negative experiences that were the result of a player’s character doing something on the field, put a plus one next to.Add things up… I suspect you’ll end up with a negative number here.
- Finally, write down the five characters you remember most from past LARPs. Don’t do the LARP you’re currently in (if you’re in one), but LARPs you’ve played in in the past. We’re looking primarily for character names here, but for player characters, its okay to write down a player name and a note as to which character it was.For each character played by a player, put a +1 next to it. For each character played by a Storyteller, -1.Again, I strongly suspect you’ll come up with a positive number here.
My point here is that, particularly in a LARP, your grand Storyteller stories don’t really matter. The memories will be created more between players than by your grand-standing about your magnum opus.
But What About Conventions?!
So, players, what’s the point of going to conventions if its not to watch the Storytellers play out something cool?
Well, the same point as going to any other convention… seeing people, interacting in person with people you wouldn’t normally, socializing with the larger organization, making larger-than-local stories happen yourself!
This isn’t rocket science, folks.
A Personal Example
So I’m going to give an example I ran into myself in a game related to the LARP the original poster is talking about.
I played a character that rather quickly became prominent in his ‘race’, so had greater access to story, particularly the larger-than-local story that dominated the LARP at a national level. The problem was that, despite greater access, only a few people could interact with this story. These were primarily people who could travel to large events and, therefore, received more story rewards. When people outside that group tried to interact, they generally lost their characters as god-like NPCs killed them for their impertinence. Unfortunately, this Org story tended to favor certain races while other races were made out to be foolish or stupid. The race I was in was one of the ones made out to be foolish.
Myself and other prominent leaders of this race requested a meeting with the Org ST and members of the Org leadership. Among the issues discussed was a request by the players to bring the larger-than-local story to a rapid conclusion so that we could get back to, well, not being the foolish rubes our species was made out to be. The request was met with a certain amount of derision… to paraphrase, the main response was ‘If we end this Org story, we’d have to end the Chronicle!’
I was struck, in that moment, that the Org leadership was more about the story they wanted to tell than the story the players were generating. I stayed for a couple more months to see if any changes resulted from this big meeting and when they didn’t dropped the LARP altogether. In the end, I wasn’t willing to play in one of the foolish races so the org leadership could tell the story they wanted to tell. The very idea that they NOT have a huge, over-arching story that we mostly spectated on during major events was a completely alien concept.
The idea that the Chronicle was all about the Org Story wasn’t the only reason I quit, but it was a very prominent one.
Summary
My take on the problem being brought up by the initial poster is that there’s an unfairness in how the reward economy functions in his LARP of choice (to be fair, its extremely common across the board). The main source of Story is from the Storytellers and at national events, many players who pay to attend expect greater access to that source of Story by dint of their presence. They don’t see anything wrong with players who don’t have the resources not getting the rewards, in part because they see rewards as based primarily on the actions of players, not the actions of characters. And, of course, in part because they’re the beneficiaries of the unfair system, so they’re not willing to see the problems for those who aren’t benefiting.
One major way to mitigate this inherent unfairness is for Storytellers to stop telling stories and instead focus on facilitating the stories of the various characters on the field. If the ‘really cool shit’ at games, even convention games, is all player-generated, there’s a LOT less room for players to feel like they’re being unfairly disadvantaged because they can’t travel as much as other players can.
Disclaimer
Look, I’m not trying to tell you there’s only one way to LARP.
I am saying that, like most forms of entertainment, there’s higher quality and lower quality. There’s award-winning drama and then there’s reality television. Both are things people enjoy, but they’re of varying quality. I firmly believe we should strive towards the highest quality experience we can deliver. And I absolutely believe that the lighter the hand of the Storyteller, the more we make LARP about the stories players want to tell, the higher the quality the experience!
GM’s Hotseat, Part II
Haven’t read Part I? Click here.
Q. Tell me about Druid law?
Druidic law is perhaps best described by contrasting it with Imperial Law (the legal code that most former member states of the Empire, including Dracia, tend to rely upon).
Druidic law is memorized and considered too important and sacred to write down, while Imperial law often isn’t considered valid until it has been written, codified and studied. That tradition has begun to change in the last few decades, particularly as druids begin to spread forth from their traditional stronghold among the Gaels and interact with the larger, often more literary, world.
This also means that Imperial Law relies more heavily on written precedent, where Druidic Law allows more room for interpretation by the individual judge. There are no lawyers in Druidic Law… everyone is expected to state their case plainly, witnesses are called and questioned by the judge and a decision is rendered based on what the druid knows (which often varies based on the individual bias of the Druid). In Imperial Law, law codes are often labyrinthine and make use of formal language that a layman usually does not understand, so barristers are all but required in arguing a case. A judge under the Imperial system may interrogate witnesses, but they are charged only to make a decision based on what has come out during trial and case precedent, not based upon their personal biases towards the law or those involved.
Druidic Law tends to rely more heavily on civil fines, payable by the guilty party (or their family) to the defendant (or their family), rather than rely on corrective punishment. The concept of the State needing justice over a criminal is somewhat alien to them… Druidic law is focused more on clan and familial associations than it is on the rights of a State or Monarch. Executions are exceeding rare under Druidic Law: even in cases of murder, the convicted murderer (or his Clan) must pay a wergild to the victim’s immediate family and an honor price to his family to ensure there would be no retribution. Of course, in times of war, this system gets a bit murky at best… no one expects a soldier to pay for killing someone on the battlefield, though a losing Clan Chief may expect to pay an honor price for every member of another Clan that was killed in the conflict.
Another important difference is that Kings, even High Kings, are not above the law and cannot create law. They may act as judges in their realms, particularly over their direct subordinates, but only the Druids are keepers of the law and may alter the legal code (and even then, it is a major undertaking… druidic law is generally considered by conservative druids to be broad enough to not require significant alteration over time). The Imperial legal codes, by contrast, are based on formal edicts from successive Emperors, Kings and, in States that give subordinate rulers such latitude, powerful landed nobles. In most regions, the jurists are an extension of the Monarch’s or State’s will and are charged with enforcing it. In Druidic Law, the law is separate from the rulership and the jurists are the Druids as the spiritual elite. That said, some Imperial nations do rely on the clergy of Aridnus in a similar manner. Druids tend to thing such exceptions are the result of ancient Druidic influence while worshipers of Aridnus tend to think the Druids borrowed the idea from them.
Druidic Law also tends to rely more heavily on surety than Imperial law does. Basically, most legal contracts had to be witnessed by at least one surety called a Naidm for each side who promises to ensure the contractor fulfills their side of the bargain and is willing to pay if the contractor is not. When there is no Naidm or that system is ineffective, a Druid can rule that the defaulter’s family or Clan must act as surety and work to recover the debt. While Imperial nations have a concept of surety, particularly within merchant guilds, it relies much more heavily on punishing debtors unable to pay their debts (which often results in their being forced into indentured servitude).
That said, Druids also understand that when they are called to be jurists, they must do so under the laws of the region or nation they are in. They work to be impartial and unbiased, though their focus on Clan/Family and Surety tends to trump the belief that the State has a stake in how a criminal is treated.
Q. Random encounters are a common mechanism for most GMs. But not all random encounters are truly random. How do you handle random encounters:
- It’s truly random and no prep is made prior to game.
- I prepare several random encounters but which of those are encountered is random.
- I prepare specific random encounters but when they are encountered is random.
- Some other arrangement (please describe).
A little from column 1 and 2. Basically, if I know the group is traveling, I’ll roll some random encounters ahead of time to prevent myself from having to do it during the game. But if they go beyond that or take a different route than I was expecting, I’ll do it on the fly. Right now, I’m using encounter tables from other games as my basis, but I’m hoping to set up my own random encounter tables soon to rely on.
Q. What are potential applications of the “Weirdness Magnet” disadvantage? I understand that the cow level thing had something to do with it, but for example could it come into play during combat with some unexplained phenomenon while fighting?
Yep. Basically, it can come into play anywhere. It might be something completely weird and random, like running across the world’s only talking dog, or it might come into play by ‘ramping up’ the weirdness of encounters or even adventures from time to time (such as the village full of cows). Basically, its an excuse for me to get goofy and/or strange from time to time. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should discard anything as ‘oh, that’s just Weirdness Magnet again’. Some of the weird can and likely will tie into what’s going on in the campaign as a whole, either on the personal level, the group level or the wider world level.
Q. Sometimes during play a specific dice roll, either to the betterment or detriment of the party, may interfere with the story the GM is telling. How do you handle this situation:
- The roll of the dice is final and I go with it.
- I will occasionally reroll a dice roll, but the second result is final.
- A success is a success, and a failure is a failure, but I may redefine the specifics of success or failure to better serve the story.
- The story is paramount. If I have to, I will change a die roll, keeping in mind that I do so in the best interest of the story.
New choice: 5. The story is paramount. The roll of the dice is final and I go with it.
Basically, I disagree with the premise of the question. I do not see the dice as a detractor from the story, but as an integral part of it. To me, success and failure are an important part of storytelling and random determination is absolutely essential to the progress of the story. Sometimes, random rolls will result in a particular encounter or adventure moving in directions I did expect which, honestly, I love. It may make what I was hoping be an epic encounter become simple as a few well-placed crits end things fast and it may make what I figured would be a throw-away encounter a difficult and trying experience. Both have happened in this game:
Early on, while still in the arena, there was a Minotaur who wanted a piece of Padraig. I’d intended that to be a hard fight. Daniel, however, got a solid hit on the guy’s face early in the fight, cut off his nose and put him down fast. Not the story I was expecting, but it was awesome. It enhanced Padraig’s story as the badass warrior he’d built his character to be. I loved it.
A second example that comes to mind was a bit more recent: Cymry was shot in the throat during an encounter with random bandits. Though not a crit, the damage was high enough to put her down in one hit. Padraig got hit in the ankle and it put him prone and unable to move. What I’d intended to be just a random encounter with some bandits along the road ended up being a life-and-death struggle.
Neither encounter was really what I’d intended, but because of the randomness of the dice, they ended up being memorable events. Those are two solid examples of why I vastly prefer using dice to help tell the story rather than mediate over something (though I will mediate sometimes, particularly if its late and people are falling asleep!).
(I also don’t think of it as ‘the story the GM is telling’ I view it as ‘the story and stories the GM is facilitating’)
Q. Is it possible to find someone to train me in “Zen Archery” in this world? If so is there anything I can do to make that person easier to find?
Yes. Start inquiring with professional archers for living people who might be legendary in their field. They do exist in Feyworld, but might be really tricky to find. Think of it in terms of finding a Kung Fu Master to learn from in an Eastern game.
Q. Can I get a list of the titles for this area and their medieval equivalents?
Yes! I’ll add this to the wiki soon, but here’s the basic run-down of some terms for nobility and a smattering of other Dracian terms you’ll run into:
- Bȃn: The equivalent of a Baron. They rule over a Banat, the equivalent of a Barony, and usually owe obligation to a Pârcălab, though some few owe fealty to a Voievod and a rising number of Vrăjitors (the Queen’s wizards) are being made Bȃn who owe fealty directly to her. Generally, a Bȃn is the lowest noble that has a territory beyond his own estate, village or town and can claim hereditary rulership over their Banat.
- Cintorín: Cemetary
- Domn: The equivalent of a Lord. These are the least of the nobles and generally do not hold territory beyond their own estate, village or town. Often, these are second or third sons of a Bȃn who rules a territory and their own holdings may not be hereditary.
- Erőd: Fort (usually as part of a place name)
- Hram: Temple; this is usually an administrative center for a particular Church with a Bishop or Metropolitan in residence.
- Kolostor: Monastery; this is usually a rural structure intended for isolated contemplation of the deity’s goals. Kolostors are usually smaller in population and usually subordinate to a nearby Opátstva (Abbey).
- Kovárna: Smithy
- Menšie: Smaller/Lesser (used in place names)
- Nemocnice: Hospital; almost always a monastic religious establishment intended to help heal the sick or provide comfort to the dying.
- Opátstva: Abbey; these are monasteries that have authority over other monasteries, typically with an Opát (Abbot) as its community leader.
- Pârcălab: The equivalent of a Count. They rule over a Comitat, equivalent to a County, and usually owe obligation to a Voievod, though there are a few that owe fealty directly to the Queen, but are not considered important enough to qualify as a Voievod.
- Pevnost: Fortress (usually used in place names)
- Pokladna: Treasury; often a religious repository for the Temple of Minos
- Starý: Old (used in place names)
- Svätyne: Shrine; a small religious place, usually significant to a particularly holy event, which worshipers or pilgrims may pause at to pray. They are sometimes manned and maintained by an individual priest or a handful of priests, but some have no direct caretakers.
- Torony: Tower (usually used in place names)
- Tvrz: Stronghold (used in place names)
- Vár: Castle; used in place names; larger than a Věž
- Věž: Keep; used in place names; smaller than a Vár
- Voievod: The equivalent of a Duke or Earl. They rule over a Vojvodina, equivalent to a Duchy or Shire, and owe obligation directly to the monarch. There are ten Voievods in Dracia and serve as the Queen’s advisory council.
- Völgy: Vale or Valley, usually used in place names
- Vrăjitor: Unofficial title used in reference to the Queen’s wizards; literal translation is ‘Charmer’
There are likely more, but this’ll get you started.
Q. What’s your least favorite rule in GURPS?
GURPS Magic. Just about all of it. Feyworld was originally written using the Dangerous Journey: Mythus rules set, which had over 1400 spells and a really detailed magic system based heavily on real-world theories of how magic works. GURPS Magic just doesn’t have the right ‘feel’ to it… it is far, far too clinical, far too focused on what might be useful in an adventure, rather than reflecting how magic might actually work in a setting where it exists. GURPS Magic is a magic system created by engineers trying to replicate D&D, not a unique system in an of itself and does not possess the verisimilitude that the rest of the rules have.
That said, I’m stuck with it until a new campaign starts, if ever. We’re far too far down the rabbit hole for me to make substantive changes now without really disrupting the spellcasters in the game.
Q. What do you enjoy most about the GM experience in this game?
You guys, my players. The creativity at the table is awesome and you guys are gelling well as players. I particularly like when you do something I don’t expect or take the story in directions I wasn’t expecting. In the end, that’s my crack cocaine in GMing in any game and you guys don’t disappoint,.
Q. When preparing encounters for a game session, whether the encounters be combats, mysteries, or RP, do you consider the capabilities of the party? More than one answer may be true.
- I design the encounters to fit the story, and intentionally try not to consider how the players will resolve them.
- When designing encounters, I consider the capabilities, skills, and playstyle of the characters/players.
- When designing encounters, I may design an encounter to provide specific characters an opportunity to shine, in order to give everyone (at different times) the opportunity to be in the limelight.
- When designing encounters, I try for a variety of different encounter styles to encourage participation in different ways.
More 1 than anything else. I might have a few ideas on how an encounter might be resolved, maybe even a secret weakness that may come out, but in general, I try to design encounters that make sense in the setting irrespective of the makeup of the party. Now, to a point, there is some consideration of capabilities, skills and particularly the playstyle of the players, but in general its not the primary consideration.
Q. What has been your favorite moment so far in GMing this campaign?
Honestly, I have no idea how to pick one. My favorite moments tend to be watching y’all roleplay or RPing an NPC with you. That said, really, whenever I’m surprised I’m giddy as hell. I think one of the earliest surprises was when Padraig not only decided to rob the arena while Kzerna burned, but decided to set fire to it as he left, quite literally burning the bridge behind you guys as you left. That’s not my only favorite moment, but its an example.
Q. Is the bizarre out of season weather in Dracia right now connected to the general fuckery of the Ivory Queen or is part of a larger global story that we’ll be introduced to later on?
Real answer: Its cold, but not unnaturally so. Think of it as a cold March/April. That isn’t to say there isn’t a larger reason for it, but its not supernaturally cold.
Fun answer: Its actually a direct result of your flatulence at the gaming table. The more you fart, the colder it gets in game. Particularly Bobby. I’m predicting an ice age.
…in other words… wait and see!!
The Chronicles of the Chronicles of Feyworld 