Newbie friendly games - using probability

My last post was inspired by how my friend had a horrendous strike of unluckiness, which made his game nights less than fun. He is after all a seasoned gamer and while an experience like that might sour him on a game, it would not make him run screaming from the hobby. But, how about someone who never played a RPG before? Maybe it is actually more newbie friendly to use a game with a bell curve instead of a flat probability when introducing new people.

So would I use any of the games mentioned in my last post, or the systems mentioned in the comments to introduce a newbie?

The Fantasy Trip
This game has one big drawback, it's out of print. If you want to get it, you will have to search on eBay and be a bit lucky to get a complete set in nice condition. Luckily there are clones and derivatives out there. My favourite is Heroes & Other Worlds, which is an attempt to take some cues from B/X D&D and fuse it with TFT.

As most of you know, fantasy is the most popular setting for RPGs and TFT fits the bill. Also, there are only a few stats (one extra in HOW) and it's fairly easy to make a character in a short amount of time. Nothing weird, nothing fancy, just swords and sorcery.

GURPS
Even though it's not as visible as it used to be, this is still a game supported and published. Since it's a generic system it can be used for whatever setting, making it easy to run a game set in whatever setting you newbie favours. The flipside of the coin is that a adapting a generic game to a specific setting will take some work.

Character generation can be overwhelming, to say the least. Since there are so many options it's very easy to get analysis paralysis. Then, even if you as the GM do your homework, and you use a template system, the game is detailed enough to cover any eventuality. That can very easy bog down a game. But, it's extremely versatile.

Traveller
In my basement I have a big box with nothing but Traveller books. Science fiction is not a popular as fantasy, but considering how popular Star Trek or Firefly is, it's not exactly weird or exotic. There have been a ridiculous amount of stuff published for this game system, and many different editions of rules available.

Mongoose Publishing is a company that I would generally advice people to stay away from. They have a terrible track record of games with awful layout and abysmal quality control. But, their little black book of Traveller is really neat. It takes the classic Traveller and packages it in a very sweet package.

There is one thing that's less than ideal of Traveller for newbies. Since it uses a life path system where you take terms in different careers, and you can get thrown out of said careers on a bad dice roll, you never really know what kind of character you will get. As a mini game on it's own, it's quite fun. But, I imagine it could be less than ideal if you as a player had your eyes set on a specific kind of character with a specific set of skills.

Tunnels & Trolls
Everyone who looked at the text on the top of this page, or followed the blog, might know I have warm feelings for this game. It has some neat features, like a generic resolution and stunt mechanic. It also have a slightly comedic, or at least less than totally serious, attitude which I personally like.

If there's something this game does less well is probably the fact that it uses really big piles of dice, especially in later editions. Thus it can take some time to gather all the dice, roll, sum and subtract. It can be a bit slow.

HERO System
Everything I said about GURPS is valid for HERO, even more so. This is ridiculously adaptable. But, compared to TFT and GURPS which have a small set of stats, this game's character sheet can be intimidating. If I have to choose between GURPS and HERO, I'd choose the former, as it's as clunky to make a character, but it's more smooth in play.

Over the Edge
I have played this game system twice. Once was in the original setting, and once was a free adventure for Harn I found online and ran with the OtE system as I did not own Harn, and I did not really fancy it anyway.

In the original, and very weird, setting this system is just right. You have so much oddity to keep straight that the game system has to be very light and narrative. If it has a problem, it is probably the same as Fate. Both game system suffer from the fact you can make a Trait/Aspect out of anything, and that can make you stumble before you understand how it works in play.

It's a quite expressive system and I think the fact you can just ask a potential player to describe in a few words what they envision, and then put dice to that is a big win.

The D6 System
Most players of this system have probably used it for Star Wars. I have only played it once, and then it flowed very freely and the action was exciting. Since then I've read how the piles of dice can be cumbersome, and that there are some rules that are fiddly. The latter case would be the target numbers, that can be chosen from a range, but probably just works best if you just have a set interval of 5.

Conclusion
So would I use these games to introduce a newbie to rpgs? Well. I think the fact these games all use multiple dice, and thus probably have a more even spread of successes, yes that is a point in their favour.

Would I use one of the more generic ones, like D6 System, GURPS, HERO or OtE? No, probably not. I think fantasy is popular for a reason, and even though it's the game on the list I am least familiar with, I lean toward TFT/HOW.

You would maybe expect me to champion T&T, but I think that maybe for once I have to agree with those who think the names of the spells are less suitable. Also, the free flowing stunt system of SR are not very easy to handle even by seasoned gamers.

So, who knows. Maybe I get to try to use one of these systems to bring new gamers to the fold. Maybe I actually will try to use TFT/HOW! Today I started to read HOW and I really felt like I wanted to play it. We'll see.

The value of bell curves

A while back I started talking to some friends about starting up a regular game again. To fill some time, after realizing that it would need some discussion to find a game everyone agreed on, we picked a game we had played before as a starter. 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars was that game.

For those who have not played this game, I can summarize a key point of the rules system. All rolls are one 1d10, roll under but high is good, against a Trait. I guess you see what this means. Right. No bell curve.

We started to play and since it is very much driven by black humour and creative narration by the players, it worked quite fine with some cynicism and beer. But, after a few sessions a pattern started to emerge. One of my players rolled really shitty. Like some of us say, he storked it, repeatedly. The thing is, he rolled maybe 10 dice rolls a night and missed all but one. Even after changing dice, we are not superstitious, he kept rolling like that in session after session. It just was not fun any more. In the end the game was not just a chore, it was actively un-fun to roll dice for him.

Now, I guess you have all heard of games where the narrative is as much in the hands of the players as the GM? You would imagine that maybe that would alleviate the problem, maybe? The problem here is that 3:16 is just such a game. I as the GM could only limit the stiffness of the opposition, and the players still had to sit there and narrate the hell out of repeated failures. Kind of sucks after a while.

We decided to fade to black after a few missions, and now I had pitched a new game which all seemed to like. It was all down to the weird imagination of Ken Hite, since who can resist a game with both nazis and the Midgard Serpent? Savage Worlds it was.

I guess you see one thing that differs from 3:16? In Savage Worlds you roll multiple dice, and if you fail you can spend a token and roll again. Once again you roll multiple dice. Multiple dice, i.e. more chances to succeed, since you get to pick which to use.

That choice of game system was intentional.

As you probably know, there are more than one way to skin a cat. The cat I wanted to skin was player enjoyment. While I do not subscribe to the school of design that say encounters should be "balanced" and that the players are entitled to this or that, I do believe game system matters for how much fun you can have.Clearly linear probabilities do have some potential to screw up your game night.

Savage Worlds and Fate are two game systems that have decided to let you have all that wild and intense fun you get by rolling dice, but have also included some way to take the edge of Those Nights(tm). I think that is good game design for a game for modern adults, for whom game night is time you clawed back from all the necessities of family, work and other obligations. Narrative control is one thing, but getting to describe your failure yourself over and over again does not make it more fun. Maybe the first time. I think some game mechanic that works as a "safety net" should be in your mind when you design a game for my kind of gamer.

Are there other ways? Let's go back to those dice, and our subject line.

I know I am not the first one to notice that some games are really swingy, and D&D with its d20 based to hit roll is one of those. As those of us than own a AD&D 1st ed DMG know, there are more ways to roll dice, and one of them produce a bell curve. Such a probability distribution skews towards the middle, making it harder to get those extremes. On the other hand, it also makes it likelier to get above that first hump of lower target numbers. Is this possibly the way to increase player enjoyment? I will leave off dice pool systems, since I find the probabilities of those headache inducing, instead focusing on rolling multiple dice and adding them before comparing to a target number.

Strangely enough, there are few games I can think of where you roll multiple dice of a similar kind and add them, as a basic mechanic. Sure, it's used for damage, but more seldom for other things. Off the top of my head I can only remember five game systems that use this, and two of them are closely related.

• The Fantasy Trip (TFT) - roll 3d6
• GURPS - roll 3d6
• Traveller - roll 2d6
• Tunnels & Trolls (T&T) - roll 2d6 for Saving Rolls, in combat roll weapon dice and add stat bonus.
• HERO - roll 3d6

Maybe these games are actually kinder to gamers who just want to succeed once in a while?

Next topic: Are these thus newbie friendly games?

Scenes and nuggets - the DGP way

Anyone remember the DGP "nuggets" system? It was back when GDW had handed over most of the development of their Traveller game to Joe Fugate and crew of DGP. They had been thinking on adventure design a bit. The result was that they designed adventures in the format of "nuggest", which were self contained scenes. I wrote about them once before in relation to campaign play of Battletech. Now I'm thinking of them again, for organizing your scenario in a more general sense.

Each nugget had some thing that would happen, some NPC you could talk to and a place to visit. The new thing was that DGP had sorted these in order, and told you which nugget had to go after the other. It was kind of like the solos, where you had forks in the road where you had to choose were to take the plot. I always thought these nuggets were a sweet idea, but I also never felt they worked as promised.

In Trail of Cthulhu the authors write about how to structure your adventure along a "spine" and then have branches off that tree. Core clues, those that are crucial for the mystery, are forming the spine of the adventure. I have not yet played much ToC, so I have no  solid opinion on how well that works. It doesn't read like it would work that well, but maybe it just puts into words what we have been doing all along. The thing is, this is what the nuggets DGP used reminds me of. I guess nobody is surprised that this idea was old.


Now I feel like pulling out some of those old Traveller books and taking a look at them with ToC in the back of my mind. For those who are interested in adventure design, it might be something worth studying. Identifying where you have choke points is very crucial if you want to make sure you don't limit your players, and maybe structuring your scenario in nuggets like that is a good way to find out the logical structure of your design? If you do that, you can then design where to break up the rails, and where to leave them in. I for one am going to take a look at those old nuggets again.

Upper Echelon gaming - Rebellion Era Traveller & Endgame D&D

Thinking back a bit upon my notes and impressions of Out of the Darkness, I realize that the issue I have with time lines for game settings might be one of perspective. Who are those written for? Who could make us of them, and how?

So, for me as a GM, when I start a game I do it in a local, clearly delineated, area according to the principle of starting small. But, that usually means the player characters are going to be local and small. Nothing wrong with that, especially if it's a rich world with a lot of detail. But, If you do that, those earth shattering events in the time line will go unnoticed, and more importantly, the players wont ever get involved.

Apparently, in order to make those events useful for your game, you need to get the players involved in those earth shattering events that shape your campaign. If we take the example of the Rebellion in the Traveller universe, most of the details we get in the official source books talk about the figure heads of the factions, and things like strategic evens like which worlds to defend when that other throne pretender comes knocking on the door.

How often do your players get to take those kinds of decisions?

As often as that, eh?

It seems like what you need to do is not to start small, as in that small farming community in the wilderlands, but big. Since it still makes sense not to overwhelm your players with information, I gather we here have a potential for trouble. How to do big in a small way?

The thing here, I think, is to thrust the players into the upper echelons of society. They need to be where it happens. If they are not the ones with a hand on the wheel when the flagship engages the enemy they at least needs to be able to look over the shoulder of the guy who has. Naturally, it could mean NPC doing cool stuff while the players look on, so care needs to be taken. Also, I'm not sure how to combine this with the free wheeling sandbox play held so high in some circles. Actually, I'd love to hear how people running those kinds of games handle these kind of problems.

What's my suggestion then?

For a campaign like the Rebellion in Traveller this is what I'd do.

1. Make all characters nobles. Set SOC at 10+1d4
2. Have a family and sibling generation system, to make sure inheritance and dynastic issues will crop up
3. Everyone should have a personal patron, so there are multiple and conflicting loyalties
4. Generate contacts during character generation. This I actually did when I last tried running Traveller
5. Don't mess around with starship economics, just give the characters a starship, ok?

I'n a fantasy campaign, this is the equivalence to the so called "D&D endgame". I think some of these points might be valid there to.

If you start it like that, then you have the pieces put in place to have the actions of the characters matter on a grand scale, and also social entanglement are bound to happen.

Next time I'll try to do it like that. Maybe it even works...

Old Traveller adventures - the emptiness of space

I recently bought the Mongoose edition of Traveller, as you might remember me mentioning before. It is a good game, and a fun read. Now I have brought som eof my other Traveller stuff out of storage as well, browsing it since the mind is full of Traveller anyway. You know what? I think I'm seeing a trend in these adventures.

A classic Traveller adventure is describing a locale, either a space ship or a planet. There is usually a task to be done, and some hindrances in the way.

Does that sound familiar? I noted another thing. Quite often the party is stuck in this research outpost, APC, starship, desert, jungle, whatever and need to use their tools to get out alive. More often than not there are rules for how to handle the environment and/or the technology at hand.

I'm missing something.

This setup there's the party, and this locale. That's it. Who the hell are you supposed to interact with?

If you look at classic D&D adventures, there are always NPCs. Remember Lareth? Remember the nutty lich in D2? Remember the zoo of factions in the Caves of Chaos? Space is empty in comparison.

I think I've found out why I so often fail at making science fiction games fun. Space just is too big, cold and empty.

A Traveller rule for general empowerment and player satisfaction

Even though I hate the idea of a "balanced" party, there are some value to having game system support for everyone getting involved. Today I noticed, reading my new shiny rulebook from Mongoose, that the latest incarnation of Traveller have a solution for that as well.

I guess everyone have heard it said, or something to that effect, the dread question of who wants to play that class nobody else wants. Usually the cleric. If we leave the question aside if the cleric is a bad/boring class or not, I think the phenomenon is till interesting. Apparently many think a party "needs" a thief/cleric/whatnot to be "balanced" or competitive.

So, why? What can be done about it? Should something be done?

Well. There have been many arguments about the folly of trying to balance the rpg experience for maximum "fun", and I think we are all kind of tired of that. So, just let us assume that the idea is here to stay and maybe there are something to be learned from it.

In Trail of Cthulhu the idea is that since it is a game about investigation, all the skills that can be used for investigation should be covered by the party. The way it is done is basically that the number of points available to by skills for is dependent on the amount of players. You will have enough points to cover all the skills, by design. That is one way of doing it, and it might make sense for a skill based system.

In Traveller, the Mongoose incarnation thereof, they have something that I feel might be of slightly greater utility. After character generation, you get a "skill package", which is a set of skills bundled by the kind of campaign you'll play. Everyone gets to pick a skill, then everyone gets a second one, and so on until all are picked. That way, if you are going to do a trader campaign the basic foundation is there.

Some might say that in a sandbox, no such thing should be allowed. Everything should be shaped by the players, and having a skill package thrust upon the players by a campaign theme is hearing the steam whistle in the distance. Personally I think one reason why I have not managed to get any of my Traveller games off the ground is that we have not been explicit enough about what kind of campaign we have wanted, and thus we have gotten mismatched expectations and player characters. Bringing it out into the open like that, maybe the players can pick a campaign theme? Maybe the referee does not have a say in it at all, if you are that adverse to GM led story gaming? I think that is stupid, but what the heck.

Apart from that idea of having everyone on the same page, can it be used for something else? Well, I know one reason many people hate random character generation is that they want to be competent. They will feel bored or lost if their character does not have a guaranteed time in the spot light. Maybe having such a Skill Package is a way to soften the harsh experience of a pure random generation of characters? Whatever happens, those weird stats you got wont handicap you that much, since you are sure to have at least one or two picks of "good" skills? I think it is an interesting option.

Now let's tackle the cleric issue.

If the reason it is felt that there has to be a cleric in the party, maybe that can be alleviated by something like Skill Packages? Maybe it will even stack with previously picked skills, making sure that the party not only have the skills needed, but also emphasize the abilities of those who already picked the "party support" skills. That way those would be sure to shine. In the case of a class based instead of a skill based system, it might be tougher to jam in additional abilities. If you don't want to soften up the walls between classes and just and the "needed" abilities outright, consider making the Skill Package be mundane and magical items to choose from! If they have charges, and limited charges to boot, the "pure" game will reassert itself when those charges have run out, and hopefully the players have adapted to their character abilities and can use those to best effect.

Maybe I'm kicking in open doors, but I felt there was a tool to be used in general in that little paragraph in the latest incarnation of the rpg workhorse, Traveller. New uses for old tools, eh?

Traveller - the game I thought I had quit

Traveller is one of the icons in the hobby. For me the acronym LBB always meant Little Black Books, and referred to the three volumes of Classic Traveller from 1977. I have never seen the OD&D books in real life, so I maybe they look more brown than I think, but for me they have always looked more cream or khaki coloured, but I guess LBB looks better than LCB or LKB does.

I have a quite decent collection of Traveller books, from all the eras of the game. The first one I owned was MegaTraveller, and while I agree with James Maliszewski that the name is daft, I still have a lot of fondness for that edition. But, after having tried to start playing Traveller for multiple times, I have never managed to make it work. More often than not, science fiction fails for me. It is as if I can't present it the way I want, and my players don't seem to grasp what I'm aiming for. My last attempt turned into "accountants in space", and was a real bore for everyone.


So, guess what? I decided to put my collection, quite a few kilos of it, in storage and forget about Traveller. Until I started to listen to Happy Jacks RPG Podcast.


Listening to Stu discuss how he set up his game, and the players to talk about how their characters emerged through the life path system of character generation, made me interested again. The edition in print right now is the one published by Mongoose Publishing. I guess nobody have managed to miss MGP? The company have sailed up as a power houses of the hobby, with lot of licences and some interesting core system like RuneQuest and Traveller.


When Noble Knight Games had their latest sale, I succumbed to temptation. I bought another edition of Traveller, that game I had given up upon!


So, how does it compare?


Well, very favourably actually! It seem to have all the good things from the LBB, and then some. Let me take one example where the have gone beyond the original in a good way. One thing I never liked with the LBB, and find very grating when people talk about Traveller as an engine for any kind of science fiction game, is the fact that the career choices in LBB are very limited. All except one, are military careers! I don't know about you, but I have read quite a lot of sf books where there are more scientist or scoundrels than military men. 


MGT, as I dub it, have done like MT and included a more general set of careers. Sure, you have your army, naval and scout careers, but also things like Entertainer and Nobles. 


Some things are slightly less brutal that LBB, and you can no longer die during character creation and if you fail a Survival roll you get to roll a mishap. Another really cool addition is the roll every term for an Event, which can give you some extra background and skills. That and the rule that any event and mishap can generate a connection between two PCs and give both a skill is just inspired. 


So far I have not looked that closely at the starship combat system, nor the trading system. Both seem to change somewhat between editions and especially the former never really seem to come out right.


But the life path system to generate character is great fun. It has inspired many games after it, and for good reasons. It usually deliver something memorable. I did try to roll them bones, and this is what the life path system spat out:


UPP      Rank: Dilettante 1 - Wastrel; Diplomat 0 - Intern
63424c/0-1-1-2-1+2  Age: 24


admin 0
advocate 1
carouse 1
comms 0
computer 0
diplomacy 1
flyer(any) 1
investigate 0
persuade 0
streetwise 0


Managed to charm his way into high society and managed to get on Ally and one Rival. Learned to Fly and weaseled his way into an internship in the diplomatic corps. Due to his limited intelligence and enormous arrogance, he was involved in a mishap which cost him one eye and made his abysmal dexterity even worse. Was kicked out of the corps and now is about to step out into the world with only his name and 6 shares of a Yacht. (I added the die modifiers after the stats for people who recognize the system to see how they did that part).


What do you say? I'd absolutely love to play this miserable twit! Just imagine a noble so stupid, so ignorant and in general without a clue. I think the Connections rule which might tie him to another character, probably due to his flying skill, will be his way to survive. Unless of course the other players would not join hands to strangle him! Imagine the fun in playing such a worthless character, but with influence, family and a starship. 


Some things Traveller do deliver...

Battletech: The Dragon holds the line! (and a few thoughts avbout Traveller)

A few days ago we assembled to commanders at my place and fought a Battletech scenario. BT is old school to me, whatever rules you use. My boxed set if the 2nd ed.

Along the border of the Steiner and Kurita empires, worlds have started to rebel, not respecting the deal by Theodore Kurita and ComStar. (this is before the clans. I did say old school, didn't I?). One such planet is Zyclone 3, where the samurai mechwarriors get their orders from the local warlord, that coming down from the mountains are two lances of Steiner mechs. They are spearheading a push toward the industrial centres in the lowlands. "We are redeploying to meet this thread, but you have to Hold the Line until reinforcement arrive and we can defend these vital resources!" Let the battle commence.

I played the Kurita guys, and had one lance of veterans in medium mechs. The Steiners had one light lance and one heavy lance. They were regulars, and the light lance mostly so. Naturally, the first thing that happens in that the heavy mechs stumble and fall while crossing a river! Some giggles in the light lance when that happened. Then I got my LRM and autocannons up on two hills with good visibility on a majority of the battlefield. Missiles started to rain as soon as the Steiners came into view. Two batteries of LRM 15, firing each round for four rounds. Just picture it!

In the end I managed to blow up two enemies, and shoot off the leg one another. It looked like a victory and the other player yielded. This was so fun that I at once started to think about doing a campaign. Naturally that makes you start to think about stories, free form developments and sandboxes. Again.

There are different rules for Battletech campaigns, and some of them have tried to handle the fact that you might want to play in a story line, but also to be the master of your own fate. I have read some of those and been thinking that maybe they can be used got a RPG campaign?

In a BT campaign you use something called tracks, which specify not which troops show up, but their relative size and strength. Also, the terrain is stated in a general case and the outcome can lead you to another track depending on what happened.

If you want to try to game a more controlled story, I don't see why you couldn't use something similar. In Traveller adventures, at least those from DGP, utilized something called nuggets. A nugget was a few resources for an encounter, and it had a dependency tree, i.e. it was connected to nuggets that had to happen before that one, and nuggets you could go into depending on the outcome. I think I'm going to go back and reread some of those old Traveller adventures and see how it worked.

So, what do you do in this game?

I realized today, when I was looking at my collection, that there are a few of these games which don't answer that well the question in the title of this post.

Everyone who have followed the Steve Jackson Games line Transhuman Space, knows that one of the more questions about that game is "what do you do in this game"? While there are things to do, and they are even presented in the core setting book, it still seem to baffle people. Considering I myself have asked the question even after reading the book, I think they failed at presenting it like they should have. Now, imagine some other games and how they have handled that problem.

From 1981 to 1996 would Call of Cthluhu be a game where you often spend time doing things your character could barely afford, for reasons which only made sense to the player. At least that's the way it might sound when a fan of Delta Green gets going. Even though that many years and editions indicate that the problem might not be that serious, there is a disconnect between what makes sense to most CoC investigators and their players. Trail of Cthulhu solves it by introducing psychological traits, Drives, that suddenly put the reason for adventuring down on the character sheet.

How about a game like Pendragon? It has game mechanics for Glory, which makes it advantageous to behave like an Arthurian knight. I guess the theme of the game is advertised enough in the book as well.

My problem child, the game I have never managed to work for me, Traveller is another interesting piece. In that game there are three classic paths to walk, or travel if you'd permit me saying so. They are the path of the merchant, the mercenary and the sleuth. For me the biggest problem have always been that it's a big universe and the path is not as easy to discern in starlight as I had imagined. I seem to wander.

Of these four games, two can be considered oldies. But, I'd suggest that that matters little since if we compare CoC and Traveller to D&D and T&T we will find that in the latter it's easy to find out what you do. Explore, loot, kill and level up. Lather, rinse and repeat. Compare that to DragonQuest and you once again have a game that while it's very similar to D&D/T&T again it more open and less focused.  At least it seems that way from my reading it.

It could maybe be argued that games with a strong, focused setting (like Pendragon) have an easier time answering the question. Let's dodge THS and ponder Stormbringer/Elric! and Fading Suns. What do you do in Stormbringer? Planewalk and be the chess piece of the gods? I see, hand me the dice. No. Then there's Fading Suns, which have a central mystery and a structured society to play in. It should be easy, just find out why the suns are fading! Well, except that there are quite few examples of how that is done, since the reason have never been published!

Where am I heading with this? Well. I think one reason why it's harder to make some games sing is that you will have to create the reason for adventuring, and the buy-in, yourself. I never tried to do that for Traveller, and maybe that's why it didn't work for me. Maybe there is a lesson here for game designers as well as GMs. If you don't include a clear hook in game, the game should contain some clear advice on how to make it work for you, or at least point out there need to build upon what's been given. I think there are a few interesting conversations to be had about games designed from that point of view.

A comment about my Traveller experience

I've realized that maybe I should not have tried to be so subtle. The medium isn't good for subtleties. So, what I felt might need clarification about my former post about Traveller is that it was consciously written with a subjective view of things.

Naturally not everyone will be feeling bored after reading through the Traveller trading rules, and thinking about Accounting! It was my way of showing how my disenfranchised mental process went along. I'm aware that some people like accounting. My problem was more along the line, why did I get enthusiastic about this in the first place?

Something else have occured to me as I've been thinking about the relation between expectation, rules, actual play and the social space that gaming is. Gregor Huttons elegant game 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars is another game where issues like this might affect the game. Taking a look at that game, it looks like it's all about rolling a d10 under your FA and then you killed some aliens. Lather, rinse and repeat. It's not a very exciting game when presented like that. Still, it can be very cool. I think I've gathered as much from reading what Gregor himself posted on The Forge, that if they players are not getting in the spirit of the game that is all you'll get. Roll d10, roll damage and why is this supposed to be worthy of awards? Buy in, baby. From everyone, GM included. If only we could make it happen by writing it in the rule book...

More thoughts about rules and play

I have been listening to the podcast Theory From the Closet lately. In it, Clyde interviews Mike Holmes and Mike Mearls in two episodes. I have forgotten why I downloaded just those, but in tandem they turned out to be very interesting indeed.

Clyde and Mike Holmes were talking about reward mechanisms in play, and Mike said some things that stuck in my mind. He mentioned that these days he prefers to design without the idea of a reward mechanism, since playing the game should ideally be rewarding in itself. Instead he felt that the best way to entice players, which is one thing reward mechanisms are used for, is to have a cool mechanic that players want to use. Players wont get to collect gold and treasure, the characters will. Simple, yet so poignant.

The other interview brought up the concept of skills challenges. Those who have seen me post on the subject of D&D 4th ed knows that I'm no fan, and that I feel Mike Mearls is barking up the wrong tree. But, having listened to the man, I realize that the man might have different views than me, but he has good reasons and some design ideals I even share!

They might be clunky, and look severely out of place, but Mearls explained that skill challenges were thought of a way to make skills have consequences, and to make a framework where you could use that skill check to mean something, depending on circumstance. Add to that the design intent to let people be more creative than just rolling if they have the skill asked for, is a nice idea. Critics of skill systems would of course say that without any skills at all that would be even easier. While I belive that to be true, to some extent, I also know that having a framwork will make it easier to make a ruling.

Now imagine we combine these two thoughts. Just imagine we have a mechanic which is so cool everyone really want to use it. Let's imagine us having a situation where playing the game is the reward. Maybe this situation is set up with science fiction trappings, and you have a very complete but elegant system to interact with. Suddenly you might find yourself Across the Bright Face, rolling skills and enjoying it.

The question is of course what to do when that situation don't feel like something so cool you want to be there. Without going for too deep into jargon, I think I found myself having a clash of rules as simulation, rules as pure game and then me envisioning immersion in a secondary world. All of that usually wont fit in the same box at the same time. I think I'm onto something why I don't have fun with Traveller.

Traveller - boring and still excellent

A few days back, I found a whole box of science fiction rpgs in my basement. I opened it up, and when I looked inside I realized that there was no point in me bringing them all up to the apartment. In fact, I realized that my extensive Traveller collection was of no interest to me. Well, you see, I love to read about that game. It's also a game which I love to think about. But, it's a game which just bores me when I try to play it, and sometimes even when I read it. Still, it's an excellent game!

So. Why doesn't it work for me? I think I might finally have understood why.

Looking at two things, it will become clear why I think I've found out why Traveller wont make me tick. If you have any of the adventures for Traveller published by GDW, take one of them out and look at it. Chances are that in the booklet in front of you, there are descriptions of a vehicle of some kind. There's a very high probability it's a spaceship. Since it's a science fiction game, there will be space ships. Nothing odd. Then there are probably a list of personnel of that spaceship, and some text describing the capabilites of said vehicle and where in the Third Imperium it can be found and what it might be doing there. Maybe it migh even be a tracked terrain vehicle, and it is in one place and has to be driven to another place. You start to feel excited about this adventure yet?

Then, secondly, let's take a look at the rules of the game. We can skim most of it, but look a bit closer on those bits about space combat and trading goods in space. The space combat system is different in every edition I've read. Nobody seem to like the rules of their predecessors. One thing seem to be common through all of them, though. None of them say much about what happen to the people involved, i.e. it's fairly abstract and board gamey. Looking at the rules for trade, and keeping the rules about the cost of running a spaceship in mind, we see the same trend there. I get the feeling I see a complex field like economy rendered into simpler rotes you can follow, and while it might look like filing your tax return it is called a game. Are you excited about this kind of thing?

So. My problem is that I have played Traveller, and realized it wasn't having much fun. I guess the easy way to handle that would be to just stop doing that unfun thing and leave it be. Naturally, I had to figure out why it wasn't fun, since I wanted it to be so. Playing something else would not let me get rid of the lingering ache that it could have been fun, if I only did it right!

My two examples above of things which rubbed me the wrong way always looked insular to me, but now I think I see a commonality. Playing the rules is what are supposed to make it fun!

The adventure where I'm not seeing interesting tensions between NPCs with goals and ambitions, or plots and stories waiting to be unfolded, are to be used in a different way than I expect them to. This is confirmed when I look at those other issues. When I see chores which looks like homework, some other gamer will see something else. Probably interesting abstract shapes to be manipulated and combined according to specific set of rules in order to create new shapes and forms which in themselves have beauty, but also as an aesthetic act in itself. Playing the rules is what are supposed to make it fun!

Maybe my big problem with Traveller is that it seem to lack some sex, melodrama, sweat and emotion. I'm not saying it can't be brought to the game! It sure can. The thing is, I know that I've met people who think the great fun with a fantasy game (like, say D&D) is to move their character like a chess piece and optimize its potential and utilize its resources in order to gain tokens which show the success of that process. Like, killing things effectively with a minimum of resources to gain as much XP and gold as possible. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that. But, what I am saying is that while nothing ever stopped me from doing that while as the same time engaging in immersion and talking in funny voices and taking decisions which were sub-optimal since they were based on "in character" emotions and impressions. I don't need rules telling me it is ok to do that. But, for some reason it is just not happening as easy in Traveller. In fact, I think the rules are in some places (like the trading and spaceship economics) written in a way which makes me think it never struck the designers as a possibility that you would want to do that. While being fairly bare bones, the rules of Traveller 1977 makes me think of the straight jacket school of design I associate with D&D 4th ed! Sketchy and everything nailed down at the same time.

I still think Traveller is an excellent game. For example, I think the life-path character generation is a stroke of genius! Great fun for a gamer without a group of her own, and also a marvellous way to build a back story for your in game persona. Also, the idea that you start the game as skilled and mature is a novel and great idea. There are so many things I like about this game. But, that adventure Across the Bright Face, brought home to me that the game was designed with a different perspective than mine. There are nobody to interact with during the whole adventure except the other player characters. The game can very easy be a long string of skill rolls to untangle the group from external threats you encounter during the trek. Maybe you even have to figure out as a player some novel use of skills and equipment to solve problems, but it is still a string of skill rolls. It's the ultimate victory of "rollplay" over "roleplay". Now, it has been said that you can make any game sing with the right players and attitude, but I must confess I don't understand what I need to bring to the table to make this game work. It's definitely not just gathering a bunch of "story gamers" and start gaming. For some reason the game just bends my effort into its own path and I find myself where I don't want to be.

While the situation probably isn't unsolvable, my box of science fiction rpgs will stay in the basement. Rifts, TORG, Fading Suns just work for me, but Traveller will collect dust a while longer.