Reverb Gamers #28 – House Rules

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #28: Do you have any house rules when you game? What are they, and why do you use them? If not, why not?

Often, but not always. I tweak rules as I feel is necessary for our fun or compatibility with the way we like to play. I usually have the same group, too, so I don’t need to worry about explaining house rules to new people, or making them for suitable for many groups. It can also be fun, sometimes, just to mess around with rules and see what the changes will do. Easier than making a whole system yourself, but can changes things significantly.

I changed a rule set a little, at first, then more and more until it became clearly inspired by the rule set but functioned differently enough it was a hack, not just house rules. This was for my hardcore sci-fi Wizard of Oz hack of Lady Blackbird. I made the whole system, setting, situation in four hours over two days; I had the idea and wanted to run it for our approaching game session. The initial houseruling was to match the theme of the game. So, the ways keys and secrets interacted changed. We added more tweaks during the game and by the end it was a separate hack. I’ll work on writing it up and posting it sometime. I’m trying to divorce the rules from the setting first, but we’ll see. Anyway, I’ll let you know.

Another example of house rules: I’ve added aspects to Savage Worlds. We like Savage Worlds, but we also like aspects. So, there you are. In D&D 3.5 I house ruled a lot too. I tried to get more versatility out of the classes, or bend them into my world a little more. I like fantasy worlds with only humans, too, so I often house rule other races away. In indie or short games like Lady Blackbird or Fiasco there’s little need for house rules, or they organically pop up during play. This happened in Prime Time Adventures, where we decided after a few sessions to go for a three-act structure, ending earlier than that if we could get things resolved by then; that is, not forcing more scenes if we felt we were done.

So, that’s it. I houserule and sometimes hack. I do this to suit our play style or vision for the game we want. This sometimes is purely about setting, rather than the mechanics. I sometimes just do it for fun. Houserules are one of the things I love about roleplaying games. Not everyone can mod a computer game, but anyone can make house rules.

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Reverb Gamers #27 – What Monster Would You Be?

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #27: If you were an Ent, what kind of Ent would you be? Or, what other NPC creature would you be? Why?

I thought at first this question was bizarre and very out of place with the other questions. Then my wife informed me it was a funny play on that common question of ‘if you were a tree, what type of tree would you be?’. Makes much more sense now. Thanks wife!

Anyway, I don’t know a lot about ents. I guess I would like to be an unusual one. Petrified ent or cactus ent or venus fly ent. Perhaps coral ent if that’s allowed. Also, like an ent that got wood chipped and is now a swarm of chips. It has splinter attack.

What other monsters? My wife played as a gargoyle once. Faulker was awesome. Oh, she also played as a dragon transmuted into a human. He was… angry.

I would like to play as a lich, or some other undying immortal. It’d be cool to watch civilisations rise and fall and be all jaded to everyday happenings. It’d be an interesting change of pace. I’d like to see what sort of challenges and foes I would face.

Also, gelatinous cube monk. For obvious awesome reasons.

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Reverb Gamers #26 – Most Memorable NPC

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #26: Who or what was the most memorable NPC you’ve ever encountered? Why?

I feel like this was pretty well covered in talking about the most memorable foe I’ve run and the list of weird NPCs I wrote about. So, what about the most memorable NPC encountered who was not a foe or weird? 

Well, this one from our Demonsea campaign did make their weird list, but he was actually more human than most. He was a shadow demon who was a bit of an outcast amongst demons. He wasn’t good, but he wasn’t really evil either. He fed on secrets. He inhabited her and eavesdropped on all she heard, saw, sensed. He needed secrets like people need food. He could get them through his senses, or he could gain every secret of an individual by killing and draining them. The demon could go for a while without secrets, but each time he used his shadow powers he weakened and eventually he would get ravenous.

It only happened once, but when it did he used a magical device to implode an entire college of Inquisitors (plus six rival demons within) plus much of the town around them. He didn’t kill them all by hand, but he did kill some people the PC knew (though not close friends) and drained enough to right himself and force himself to stop.

One of the six demons he killed was a sun demon he sort of loved, but could never touch or else he would die. He didn’t love her, so much, as he loved the sun itself. He had experienced thousands of years of people’s lives, vicariously. But he had never felt the touch of sun on his own skin. The sole secret he could never learn was how to free himself from a host.

The finale was in an ancient temple where demons could walk (and in fact were torn out of any host they possessed). They fought the rage demon that previously possessed the PC as it tried to steal her demon-touched baby as it was born on the demonic altar. The shadow demon tore itself from the PC’s body and sacrificed itself to save them all. It died in a blinding shaft of light, happy.

It was a simple idea: a demon who longs to be free, to be more like humans. But he really felt like a non-human, an alien trying to understand, and the relationship that built up was filled with emotion, followed by that bittersweet the finale. I think my wife, who played the demon’s host, would agree this was one of the most memorable. 

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Happy Australia Day 2012

Happy Australia Day!

I’m hosting a party today, so I don’t have anything new for you, but here are some Australia-related RPG posts from years past.

Link Hoard: Australia Day 2010

Australiana Apocalyptica

Enjoy. I’m off to have a barbecue, some drinks and listen to the Triple J Hottest 100.

 

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Reverb Gamers #25 – Most Asinine Thing

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #25: If you game enough, you’re bound to run into someone being an ass. What’s the most asinine thing someone’s done in a game with you? How did you react? Did that experience change the way you game?

I’ve had a pretty good run with gaming. Players have been great. It was a GM who has been the worst; usually he was great, but this one particular moment got to me and stuck with me.

I was a druid (I used to play them a lot!) and we were ambushed or attacked so I turned into a bird and flew up into the sky. I got shot with an arrow and good chunk of damage, but was still well above 0HP. I asked the GM “Am I still flying?”. He wasn’t listening to me properly, was talking over me to someone else. So I asked again, “Am I still airborne?”. He say, “Yeah”.

It came around to my turn and  he described how my druid-bird was spiralling in a nose-dive toward the ground, unable to fly. I was shocked and angered. “You said I was still flying!” I told him. “No, I said you were still airborne”. I fumed at that. I had asked him the correctly worded question, but he wasn’t listening. So then I asked again but he took my wording and gave me a useless answer; worse, an intentionally misleading one, ‘punishing’ me for asking the ‘wrong’ question.

Obviously, my character would know if they were flying or falling. In this particular instance, the GM did a terrible and unfaithful job of representing the world experienced through my character’s senses. I took much away from this experience. As a GM, you are the players’ and characters’ window onto the world. They can only know what you tell them. Don’t blind them then knock them down. Give them full reign and then give them real challenges.

Play honestly, describe things as the players sense them; don’t punish players for not knowing the ‘right’ questions to ask, or for wording them differently to how you would word them. In many cases the players shouldn’t even have to ask. You should let them know what their characters would know. If they ask you a question, give them as much detail as you can.

Vincent Baker says it best in the MC’s section of Apocalypse World:

Always be scrupulous, even generous, with the truth. Thee players depend on you to give them real information they can really use, about their characters’ surroundings, about what’s happening when and where. Same with the game’s rules: play with integrity and an open hand. The players are entitled to the full benefits of their moves, their rolls, their characters’ strengths and resources. Don’t chisel them, don’t weasel, don’t play gotcha. 

If you’re playing the game as the players’ adversary, your decision-making responsibilities and your rules-oversight constitute a conflict of interests. Play the game with the players, not against them.

I agree 100% with this. GMs: be honest with your players. Describe the world their characters live in. Let the fun and challenge come not from them trying to decipher your vagueness or lies, but from the story, the combat, the rules; the interacting and roleplaying together.

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Reverb Gamers #24 – Game Conventions

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #24: Have you ever been to a game convention? What was it like to be surrounded by so many other gamers? If not, would you like to go to one? Why or why not?

I’ve been to CanCon in Canberra a few times and GenCon Oz. I didn’t play with anyone but it was great to have so many other gamers around. Everyone was having a great time and it was good to know we all had common interests. CanCon had more wargaming and cards that RPG stuff, so I wasn’t as interested. GenCon was great; I mostly went to some awesome seminars and listened to authors and game designers, scoped out some cool dice, accessories and games.

I was a bit hesitant to play any games with strangers, but the main reason I didn’t play was because our schedule was packed full of other awesome stuff. If I had the change again to attend a big con I would like to try to get involved in some gaming, for a real con experience.

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Reverb Gamers #23 – Total Party Kill

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #23: Have you ever experienced Total Party Kill (TPK), or been close to it? What effect did that have on you personally? On your group of players? Have you ever used retroactive continuity (retcon) to save yourself? Why or why not?

In the first session of a particular campaign I play part of our party was ambushed by gnolls dropping out of trees. I was a gnome wizard and there was a human cleric and human fighter. We fought fiercely but were all knocked to less than 0 HP. It was the first combat in the entire campaign. Our GM wondered allowed what should be done about it. He decided that rather than end the campaign before it started he would have us wake up, captured by the gnolls.

He hadn’t planned that but it turned out to be very effective and our party bonded over the incident, met an NPC who we then owed our lives to and started off into a very enjoyable campaign. It ended up being all about our characters and their relationships to NPCs we met when we came back into town.

If we had died and started up with new characters the whole campaign would have been very different. We weren’t that committed to our brand new PCs at the time, so the potential TPK didn’t have a lot of impact on us. Nevertheless, I’m glad the GM made the choice to avoid it.

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Reverb Gamers #22 – Worst. Game. Ever.

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #22: Describe the worst game you’ve ever played in. What made it so bad?
Did your fellow players help, or make it worse?

Happily enough I don’t remember any game so bad that I would clearly call it the worst. Even in the not-so-good games we still had fun. Those games where my characters died? Still fun. Games that only lasted a few sessions when we had a whole campaign in mind? Still fun. Nothing stands out to me as the worst game ever.

One comes to mind that wasn’t the worst game ever but certainly the slowest. Seven players and an inexperienced and easily distracted GM. He was on his laptop and that distracted him enough, I think, but he also was conversing with the players which slowed everything down and he sometimes forgot to GM. Most of the other players had only played one or two sessions before. Each turn (let alone round) took at least 10 minutes.

We were crazily overpowered and every character was bizarre. But we were a group of friends hanging out and chatting. It wasn’t a well-run game, but it was a lot of fun just being together and laughing at ourselves and the ridiculousness of the situation. Also, the overpowerediness did make us feel awesome, even as we laughed at it.

So, if that’s the worst game I’ve ever been a part of, I’m doing well :)

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Reverb Gamers #21 – Best GM Bribe

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #21: What’s the best bribe you’ve ever given (or received as) a GM? What did you get (give) for it?

I don’t recall ever giving or taking a GM bribe. It’s never occurred to me. 

I’m reasonable, so are my players. If we have any issues we discuss them. If people do something awesome I reward them in some way. If they want something, they ask and I tell them how they could get it. It works for us and we all have fun.

 

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Reverb Gamers #20 – Most Memorable Death

This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #20: What was the most memorable character death you’ve ever experienced? What makes it stick with you?

Only two of my characters have died. Both times the death seemed forced. Both times it involved the same person. Continue reading…

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WHAT YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF INTO

Pyres of Vam is run by Mockingbard and his alter-ego(maniac) Vam. It focuses on tabletop roleplaying but you'll find other things here too.

Mockingbard loves roleplaying, worldbuilding and stories. He posts setting ideas, session recaps, gamemastery tips and the like for fun, for himself and to get his creativity on.

Vam posts from the villain's point of view: debunking monster myths, providing adventure ideas for villains, and helping fellow villains and dastardly GMs deck out their lairs and complicate the lives of filthy adventurers.

We write this stuff because we like it :) Hopefully you'll find something you like here too.