Theme: Every action has a consequence

Mood: Dark, grim, depravity

Here is a short synopsis of the game:

-First, the game is called Dystopian Misfits. It is a cyberpunk game set in and around 2100.

-It uses the Consequence System.

-There will not be ‘magic’ of any kind, the closest thing to magic are some psychonetic augments.

-The electronic internet system is called The Syphon.

-Every character has two traits. A Cyber trait and a Punk trait. Ex- The cyber trait could be Hacker and the Punk

trait could be Criminal.

-Cyber traits range from Meatcan (a person who keeps replacing flesh for metal) to Syons (people who are

completely at home in the Syphon’s syreality and I don’t know if Syreality is a good term, it needs a

better ring to it).

-The Punk trait is what kind of anti-hero your character is. Addict, fence, bandit, deserter, traitor, spy, criminal,

outcast, visionary, rebel, mercenary, dissenter, smuggler, and misfit are all examples of Punk traits.

-Traits determine the types of augmentations your character may choose.

-There are four types of augmentation: Natural, Bionetic, cybernetic, and psychonetic.

-Natural augmentations are learned things that come without enhancement from technology. Someone may

be really good at drive cars without being syphoned into the car or with bionetically enhanced reflexes,

though it helps.

-Bionetic augmentations range from cultured sinew and hearts to the modification and addition of existing

fleshy bits. Think replicants from Bladerunner or the premise of The Island.

-Cybernetic augmentations range from metal plating and reinforcement to the replacement of limbs and

organs with metal counterparts. Think the razorgirl Molly from neuromancer.

-Psychonetic augmentations deal with the human mind. Tweaking and probing until people can do things

that their flesh and/or metal cannot do. Doing anything extreme that a body cannot normally handle falls

under psychonetic augmentations. Psychonetic augments also covers psychokinesis such as

telekinetics and telepathy.

-There would not be any more ‘magic’ than this, and it is not an extensive separate system.

-Skills will be rated from 1 to 8, the number indicating the number of dice in the dice pool. a 6,7,8 is a success.

-Score more successes than the GM to get a better result.

-The Skill list includes close combat skills (body, steel, vibro), ballistic combat skills (non-lethal, slug, charge),

physical skills like parkour, leap, climb, dodge, and swim; social skills like deceive, seduce, and barter;

knowledge skills like Sewer-smart, street-smart, et cetra; syphon skills like hack, program, wall, virtual, and port.

-There are no ‘base attributes’

-Skill caps are based on the number of augments your character has.

-There is one level of success, and multiple levels of failure and consequences.

-Characters have karma(tokens of some sort) to use to lower the effect of consequences.

-Characters gain karma(tokens) by increasing the effect of consequences.

-Advancement is given for completing challenges and each player besides the GM gets nominated for awards.

-Awards give points that lead to purchasing an enhancement.

-Enhancement gives skill points and an augment.

That is the basics. I’m done about a fifth of the game so far.

The Prophecy
We have our prophet, now we need our prophecy. The defining factor of the prophecy you as a GM have to decide is this: Is the prophecy true? Is the prophecy the divine (or demonic) revelation of the future, or is it a drug or insanity induced hallucination. Even better, is the prophecy a planned hoax to get the prophet something he wants, be it war, women, money, or fame and the prophet accidentally says something that turns out to be true. The validity of the prophecy decides the direct the players will take.

Where is the prophecy from? She might be reading it from an ancient text, hearing it in her head, or are ghosts telling her? This will help you form your prophecy. The words you choose will be different depending on where the prophecy is coming from and it will affect how the players gauge it. Roger the street preacher bellows, “Our savoir will come and kill Lord Samson.” That is different from: “Our most holy savoir will cometh forth from molten ground and with a mighty sweep of his sword he will execute the vile Lord Samson.”
Language makes the prophecy; Roger hears the word of the holiest messengers from the Lord of Earth’s Sons, and he makes it sound like that. Do some research and use some older language if the prophecy is found in a book. Heck, your prophet might be the magic talking book.

Next Time: Sample Prophecies

We have all heard of the game where the players are thrust with the responsibility to save the world. Prophecies have been used in fantasy, fiction, and reality. All have been used for different effects. Whether it has been the too well known prophesy at the beginning of Lord Of The Rings or the end of the world has been told many times by many different religious mediums and scientific theories, prophecies are in our everyday lives. Therefore, prophecies are great for games because of the powerful plot hooks they can be. There are different ways for both players and game masters to use prophecies in games, and I’ll go over just a few of the ways that they can be used and more than a few questions to ask yourself.

The Prophet
First and foremost, who is the prophet? What does he do for a living? Is she a soothsayer or a preacher that yells at people as they walk by him on the street or is she an unsuspecting academic who succumbs to a holy (unholy?) vision in their university? The type of prophet and how they come about their prophecy is very important to how the world and your players see the prophet. If the players are supposed to believe the prophet, then the prophet should be believable in your setting. In the Holy Land of a Crusades style game, street preachers line the inside walls and shout the words of god, they will be ignored by most. If you are in a heavy religions game where anyone who is anyone is in the Church of Rezzek, then having someone who is not of this church prophesy will make the prophet laughed at or deemed a blasphemer. You are the best judge to who your characters will listen to, believe, or ignore and go running back to later.

For the prophet that the players need to listen to, make the prophet involved with the players and the characters. If you make the setting with your players (like you should be) then make the prophet someone their characters have a good relationship with. Making the prophet with the players could be the best thing for the prophecy. Making Roger the street preacher who has a nervous tick, yet a voice that captures attentions that used to be a swordsman in the mercenary group the players crusaded with makes the players want their characters to listen to Roger. In comparison, making a prophet that the characters are supposed to ignore is also fun to do with the players. Ask them what traits a prophet would have that would make them leave him alone and just walk by without a glance. The other players in the game are the greatest influence for the prophet. They may make prophets themselves.

Next Time: The Prophecy

Golden Rule: Respect the space.

It would be unthinkable to go to your work/mother’s/girlfriend’s/fuck buddy’s space, damage things and leave your garbage and empty drinks everywhere; why would you do so at a gaming table? This applies to home games, games at a con or games run in a shared space, like a game store. Nothing is more frustrating than walking into a game at a con to find empty soda cans and candy wrappers on the table. I once was moving a kitchen chair and found something dark, sticky and disgusting (that I want to never know the origin of) wiped on the edge of a chair. I’ve encountered spills that were never soaked up; food on the floor, broken things left on the table…the list goes on and on. There are two simple rules to ensure no other gamer has to deal with similar occasions of “Scary Gamer Area”:

Rule #1: There shall be nothing at all left on the gaming table before you leave.

If everybody takes 30 seconds to remove garbage, put dishes away, pick up dice and tuck in chairs, the table will be spotless and the space clean enough for the next gaming group to come in/to please the person who would have to clean it otherwise.

Rule #2: If you spill something/make a mess, clean it up. If you do not know how or know where the cleaning supplies are kept, ask the host, GM or otherwise responsible body for assistance.

Trust me. Anyone in charge of these spaces would rather help you find cleaning supplies in a heartbeat than discover the mess 1 day/month/year later, when it’s 10 times harder to clean up. If you have teriyaki sauce/boogers on your finger, I would be delighted to dash to the bathroom and get a Kleenex instead of finding it under my chair.  I won’t even make fun of you. Promise.

I’d be hard pressed to find any gamer that would claim that would claim I ask too much of them. Not only would these rules make it nice for the gamers to follow you, but it prevents people from hesitating at letting gamers into their space. Just because it’s not dirty enough to bug you doesn’t mean it’s not dirty. Break the “dirty gamer” stereotype. Respect and clean the gaming area.

]]> http://www.thismoderndeath.com/2009/07/27/gamer-mom-part-one-basic-table-basic-table-etiquette/feed/ 0 http://www.thismoderndeath.com/2009/07/22/how-to-better-your-role-playing-drawing-your-sword/ http://www.thismoderndeath.com/2009/07/22/how-to-better-your-role-playing-drawing-your-sword/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:59:23 +0000 Alea_Iacta_Est http://www.thismoderndeath.com/?p=207 By William Patrick

You are in a dark cavern and a monster rises up ahead of you, looming over your petty stature. You reach for your sword and draw it from your sheath. This is the threshold between combat and everything else. Once you draw your sword, there will be blood, and it may be yours.

For new gamers who haven’t found their role-playing groove yet, even experienced gamers who want to add some more flare to their role-playing, you can always learn how to better your role-playing skills. Maybe you don’t want to use a funny accent, play your character in first person, or dress up as your character, but you could always add a bit more description to your actions. What better action is there than drawing your sword? It doesn’t have to be your sword; it could be your rifle, bow, bolas, or your extendable claws. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to be writing about weapons with a hilt and a blade.

Let’s consider your weapon. What type of sword are you using? Knights wield broadswords, soldiers in the far-flung future carry laser swords, zombie slayers always have a katana, and street thugs probably have a knife somewhere. Choosing your weapon reflects a lot about your character. Claymores are vicious and imposing, rapiers are quick and cunning, and wakizashis are exotic and mysterious. If you are a Victorian musketeer and you wield a bastard sword, which explains that in addition to your swashbuckling swagger and wit you are both heavy-handed and adaptable. The musketeer might draw his sword with gusto and a flourish of his cape, before leveling it and gripping it with both hands.

Now that you have picked a sword for your character, create the description of your weapon. Decide what your blade is made of, and where it is made. Has the sword been used for years or was it forged and polished yesterday? Determine the little details of the hilt, including the cross-guard, grip, and pommel. There may be something distinguishing about your blade, such as the poison glistening on the point or the fire which clothes the blade when it is drawn from its sheath. Is the scabbard made of wood, leather, bronze, or steel? Does the sword scrape harshly against the scabbard or slide out with no more noise than a whisper? There are many questions that you can ask yourself to make your sword unique to you.

The next time your GM starts a combat and demands that initiative should be rolled, your first action will be drawing your sword. Begin your turn with your character wrapping his nimble fingers around the worn leather grip and wrenching his broadsword free from the scabbard. The iron blade chimes when it is drawn from the bronze sheath and he raises it above his head and brings it bear in front of him, point leveled at his foe.

In fantasy books and movies heroes rarely get hit based on the skill of their opponents but rather on their own failure to block at a critical time. Thinking about this and listening to Ryan Macklin’s Master Plan podcast on tangibility in mechanics led me to the idea of having the players be the only ones able to initiate an attack. Only when a player fails to successfully hit his opponent can that opponent strike back. To keep the game from over balancing the player’s opponent should automatically hit the player with an attack of it’s own of equal power (i.e. a Daily power if attacked with a Daily power). Another balancing factor is that whenever a player or an NPC draws an Opportunity Attack that attack will automatically succeed.

Using this option will both speed up combats in your game but also make each roll of the d20 more exciting as the players watch to see if they will hit or be hit. This also makes the players feel more in control of the combat because it is their roll that determines their fate not the roll of the DM. Movement tactics will become much more important and the decision to take a hit to get better position will be that much more important.

As you can see it does not take much to take normal combat and speed it up. Let me know how this works at your table.

- J.B. Mannon

For instance, in one campaign I ran, one character got a note that was incriminating for an NPC. The player hated the fact that the rest of the group gave up the note. Now I had typed the note and dyed the paper with coffee and crumpled it up. It looked cool and it was cheap and fast I think I spent 10 minutes working on it. I remember the players crowding around the page when I handed it to them. The fact that they traded something that was not much, but the value of this little clue became much larger. I then made that part of the bigger plot. So props can change the direction of a campaign. So keep that in mind.

Well what can you do as props? Maps that you hand draw or do as printouts. Notes, Journal pages, ID’s, Passcards. The list is endless, you just need to think about the things the players will interact with in a physical manner. If they mess with something then think of how you might make a prop out of it. For those really ambitious these types of things can be the memories that people have from the game. Some things to do get a ton of cool looking fonts from hand writing to graffiti to wingbats. Those can help to add little bits if you have the time learn to use a graphics program as well. They are invaluable skills and if you post them others can get some use out of everything you create as well. Get a laminater and use it for badges. Get a big collection of head shots of people. Those are useful even if you just need to grab one for an NPC.

So now you see there is something about props that is cool and makes the game better. Plus you don’t have to be a guy sitting is his parents basement to do it. Though those guys do have the time to make great props.

By  Zendead

I feel that if you are going to add more difficulties to your SCs then it is only fair to balance that with rewards equal to the potential for damage. Again, this balance of carrot and stick is similar to how combat feels. Players know going into combat that at the end of it they are going to have a nice XP boost and probably some treasure to share out. If your players know that they will be receiving similar rewards from a SC they will involve themselves just as much as they would in a combat.

Just because the players deserve an equal reward in SCs does not however mean that you need to hand out the same rewards. Experience points are always a good way to go and you should hand out the XP that the DMG suggests at the end of a SC but it hardly makes sense to hand out gold for successfully discovering that the evil cultists hideout. A better alternative is to give the PCs some special bonus that will help them in the next combat.

The simplest bonus you could give your players is a +1 or +2 to combat rolls. A small bonus like this is good for low DC SCs. For more difficult SCs you may want to give your players a one encounter special Power. An example of a good one encounter special Power might be to give a party the At-will Power to deal 1d6 fire damage on top of their normal melee attack as they were given containers of liquid fire by a merchant who wants them to stop the thieves who stole from him. Another example of a special Power might be an Encounter Power that will cause any undead the player touches to immediately disappear owing to an amulet of power that a priest gave them to help end the undead threat.

The rewards you hand out for completing a SC should reflect both the goal of the SC and the PCs actions during the SC. Who noticed what the PCs were doing while they were trying to accomplish their goal and might be willing to lend a helping hand? What knowledge did they obtain while doing the SC that would help them prepare for what lay ahead? Give the PCs things that will help in the short term and help them win the encounters that will lead to long-term rewards.

This is the end of my Skill Challenge posts for now. My next article will be on adding tension and speed to your combats by making them more like Skill Challenges.

-J.B. Mannon

To give SCs the same level of importance that a fight would have you need to borrow some things that a fight does to and for the PCs. The first thing is to assign consequences when a player fails a roll in the SC. The consequence should in some way reflect what the PC was trying to do when they failed their roll. The most obvious thing to do is to damage the PC like an enemy in combat and if the PC was trying to beat information out of a contact or trying to disarm a trap then damaging them would make sense.

Other methods will be needed to cover other consequences however. For instance a PC might try and get the same informant drunk but end up drunk himself. If that is the case then you could still use HP loss but it would be far more interesting to put a condition like a poison on him until the end of the next combat to represent how sorely hungover the character is.

Another idea might be to slowly increase the DC of the SC to represent how the PCs actions are making their job more difficult. An example might be that the PCs are asking nosy questions around town and the townsfolk are getting suspicious or as the PCs are working their way through a dungeon they are making too much noise and putting the denizens on their guard.

You may also use fines, bribes and other monetary and wealth based consequences. These financial consequences are best dangled in front of players as a way to remove failed skill tests from a given SC. At most I would offer only one such opportunity per SC. A good amount to ask for is the players level plus the starting DC of the SC times the number of failed skill tests up to that point. If your players really want to pass a given SC then offer them the removal of all failed tests in exchange for a prized or valuable item but don’t do so often.

If you use these suggestions in your game to add combat like weight to Skill Challenges you should also read my next post on adding rewards.

-J.B. Mannon