PC Death is always a sticky subject. Borimir from LOTR is brought up as an example of character death driving the plot forward, but in a group setting, death just sometimes doesn’t jive. This is especially relevant to story games, where death is either a 5 minute break while you do another playbook up, or takes you out completely from the current story.
I know it’s been covered a bit on the podcast, but what are feelings on character death, both from our game runners, and from players? Is death the easy way out, or is it a harsh enough punishment? I’m hoping to get some of our non-talkative members to respond to this one, as I’m curious for as many opinions as possible.
Originally shared by Delos Adamski
Why would I kill you? That would only end your suffering.
By actively affording control over character creation to the other players, Apocalypse World encourages players to…
By actively affording control over character creation to the other players, Apocalypse World encourages players to explore levels of experience outside of their usual frame of reference and to approach the narrative from a position of collaborative improvisation.
+2 fire swords are very useful but not very interesting. I had some ideas for interesting magic weapons but was just inspired by the section title. Lets think of some magic items good/bad/cursed, weapons/items/traps that use suction. reserve monsters submissions for the Mandatory Fun Club
The shield of suck (1 armor, 1 weight)
Something useful: any weapon that strikes the shield will stick to it permanently.
something interesting: I mean permanently, it can never be removed and its weight is added to your load while you carry the shied.
something else interesting: you may end up stuck to the end of a much stronger/bigger creatures club. have fun with that.
The bag of sucking
something useful: if held open this small water skin will suck down an endless amount of liquid or gas. If let go the opening will naturally close in on itself.
something interesting: The bag is perpetually empty, its contents can never be returned. if held open in a confined space you might accidently suck up all the air.
The Cave Leech
something useful: allowing this horrible creature to attach to you will immediately draw out all poison/toxin as if you had drunk an anti-toxin.
something interesting: each time the cave leech is used it grows in size, weight and smell. It also makes disturbing slurping sounds while feeding. roll a d6 when making camp following a feeding, on a 1 the cave leach bursts
something else interesting: the cave leach is the natural prey of the cave scorpion and its secretions attract and excite them.
Mage, Wizard, spellcasters of all ranks share a common bond: the ability to reshape the world around them. With a few words in languages that shatter men’s minds, and movements that defy the limitations of mortal men, a magic user can turn their enemies to dust, restore the broken, and erase time itself in an instant!
Sadly, with all the magic that flys around at the table, the most humble but powerful of tools from the magic arsenal is left covered with dust, except for the occasional nibble by a beloved mule: The Ritual Move
Per p. 147 of the DungeonWorld Handbook, “Ritual effects are always possible…”, which gives the magician enormous power within the game world!
Army of Darkness at your doorstep? A simple dash of Ritual will send them home to mummy!
Pirates abandoned you on a deserted island? Mearly apply Ritual, and you’ll be giving them just desserts!
Compared to the list of spells for the Wizard, or to the invocations of the Mage, Ritual is a powerful ability that can and should be used liberally. Mechanically, it allows you to “avoid” a hard move by guaranteeing success, with the “downside” being that the GM will tell you what it will take, and that you must find a place of power in order to perform it. It exemplifies the flexibility of Dungeon World, allowing a mage to create small rituals such as creating a small flame to light a torch, to World-Shattering Epic Demon Summonings, in return for a little effort and time. Finally, a use for those illithid tongues and jars of ogre snot while everyone else catches a nap, or for making things just a little nicer around the home, and definitely impressing those rubes while you carouse at the inn.
Best of all, the only hard requirement is that it be performed in a place of power. “But Ferrell, that means I have to travel all the way out to an area” I hear you say. Ah, in 3.5 maybe this would be a supreme effort requiring rolling a million dice, but in Dungeon World? Easily located, right in your own backyard/dungeon. The fact that you are seeking a place of power should register with both the GM and the group, and while it may not be given to you on a silver platter, it should be close at hand. Though guarded, with some traps, a few monsters, and may require you to evict the current resident practitioner of witch-craft. Things you were going to do anyway, right? And who knows what rituals they may have ongoing that you can just walk right in and “borrow”.
Maybe though you want to try a more peaceful manner? Perhaps you can barter with your old master? Or speak with your local Druid/Ranger, for many places of power are lost in the wilderness! Get your party involved, because not only can you help yourself, you can help them! Sneaky thief shoes, fiery swords and the grace to charm the horns off a devil, all can be had! Yes friends, Ritual should always be in the back of your mind for when you want something that lasts longer than a fireball. Your friends, and those closer than friends, will always appreciate that longer lasting effect.
I have been a player in some spectacularly shitty games in my life, and one thing each of those games had in common is the GM never asked the players any questions. Oh, sure, the players were occasionally asked questions necessary to advance the plot (“The door is locked. What do you do?” or “The orc is attacking you. What do you do?”), but there were never any questions about the characters themselves. A good GM asks lots of questions about the characters and, further, he pays attention to the answers and incorporates them into the fiction.
Some games practically codify this behavior in their rulesets. In Monsterhearts, for example, the rules require you to spend almost the entire first session peppering the players with questions about their characters’ recent past, about their relationships with NPCs and other PCs, and their home life. As the MC (which is what the GM is called in Monsterhearts), you are to furiously scribble down notes about the answers to these questions, and then use those notes to build the world for future sessions. It’s an excellent process, and one that never really ends, since a good MC will continue to ask questions in future sessions, and further build on the answers. Ultimately, what you end up with is a world the players actually give a shit about, since so much of it came directly from them.
But what makes a good question? This may sound a bit counterintuitive, but I think the best questions are not open-ended ones. The best questions are very specific, are somewhat leading, or they make assumptions about the character’s past. Let’s have an example of what I mean:
The open-ended question would be phrased: “Tell me about what happened between you and Sarah last summer?”
The better version of this question would be phrased: “Last summer, you and Sarah went on a date. The date went very poorly. Why?”
An even better version goes like this: “Last summer, you and Sarah went on a date. It ended very badly, with you literally kicking Sarah out of your truck. What happened to cause you to have such a violent reaction?”
Let’s assess all three versions. The first question is a good one if your player is imaginative and quick on his feet. So long as he gives you something to work with, you can ask some follow-up questions to get to the really good stuff. Still, it’s not my favorite question, because it’s a little too open-ended and there is a risk your player will say something boring (consider, for example, if the player answered with something like “Last summer, Sarah and I worked at the same job and we became really good friends.” Dull, dull, dull).
The second version of the question is much better, because it pre-loads the drama. We know that Sarah and the PC went on a date, and that the date ended badly. Now, there is still a chance the player will answer with something boring, but it’s a much smaller chance, for sure.
The third one is the best, because it makes a very strong assumption about the character (in this example, that the character is capable of domestic violence), and the answer to this question, if it’s an honest one, can only be interesting. You don’t physically kick people out of your vehicle over something minor or boring. Some kind of bad shit definitely went down, and discovering what it was, and what its implications are for the story, is going to be a hell of a lot of fun. Astute readers will have also picked-up on the following benefit: the questions, particularly these stingingly specific ones, allow the GM to shape the story indirectly.
Now, your immediate reaction to this analysis might have been “But what if I don’t want my character to commit domestic violence? What if my character wouldn’t do that? Who says my character was even into Sarah in the first place?” This is an understandable reaction, because we have been taught by lesser roleplaying games that, while the GM controls the wider world, we are in charge of our characters. Questions that make assumptions about our characters seem to rob us of our agency. This may be a particularly acute problem for the types of players who bring six-page backstories about their character to the first session (A minor detour: never do this. You are the most insufferable sort of dick player if you arrive to the gaming table with a bunch of fucking backstory. No one cares. Ever.), but even more thoughtful players could feel this way, too.
My response to this concern is two-fold: 1) Don’t be so goddamn boring and 2) these characters had a life before we got our hands on them. The first part is pretty simple. When you actively disengage from the interesting things in the name of protecting your precious character, you are being a boring asshole. Consider the classic situation involving Bonds in Dungeon World. The Thief playbook says something like “Character X is running a con with me.” Sometimes, when Character X is named, their player objects with “My character would never do that!” and then they just ignore it. If you have ever done that in my DW game, you should know that I probably wanted to reach across the table and punch you. That particular Thief bond is giving your character a chance to be interesting, but you are completely shutting it down in the name of protecting your character’s integrity, which, I should mention, no one gives a fuck about. Maybe your character is involved in the con, but he doesn’t want to be? Maybe he is being blackmailed, or he’s a patsy? Who knows, but those possibilities are a hell of a lot more interesting than “My character wouldn’t do that.”
The second part of my response, that these characters had a life before we got ahold of them, is a little more nuanced, and somewhat philosophical. Basically, the idea is that you only have control over your character during a small slice of his life. Anything that happened before you got your hands on him can be filled-in by the GM and the other players, so long as everyone is being true to the spirit of the setting. The questions the GM asks you might make your character seem very unsympathetic, but all he has done is make your character more interesting at the outset, and it’s on you to redeem the character through play (if that’s what you want to do).
To summarize: ask lots of questions. The more specific and front-loaded, the better. Use the answers to ask even more questions, and then build on all these answers. Your game world will be ten times more interesting to the players, and everyone will agree you are a rockstar GM.
Grant Howitt tells us how not to suck with such choice phrases as: “You are the Health and Safety Inspector of…
Grant Howitt tells us how not to suck with such choice phrases as: “You are the Health and Safety Inspector of roleplaying games, and you need to stop talking, because you are sucking the fun out of the game.”
Something I find insufferable about the roleplaying game community is the widely-held belief that a game is beyond…
Something I find insufferable about the roleplaying game community is the widely-held belief that a game is beyond criticism so long as someone is having fun with it.
This article has been around for a bit, but it’s a good one. In it, Grant Howitt makes the case that there are, in fact, bad games, and that they should be judged as such, and that doing so is not an attack on the people who play such games, but is rather an attempt to create a critical framework through which we can improve the hobby. His argument is structured around three of the most commonly-deployed fallacies, including the infamous “There are no bad games, only bad GMs.”
Druids are people too… and animals… and sometimes other things
Druids are people too… and animals… and sometimes other things
The druid is one of the best and most interesting starting classes in dungeon world. Its probably very useful in other systems but DW’s focus on narration really empowers you to use your Imagination.
Your not limited to Bear form for combat and bird form for scouting. I’ve seen Giant flying centipedes, mice, wolves, badgers, possums, tiny lizards, scorpions, orca whales, sharks, crawfish, toads, trout, and once we relaxed the definition of “spirits” and had a whisky druid. I’ve also really enjoyed some of the “tells” that went beyond cat eyes.
A lot of people get worried when making a druid because they don’t want to pick an “inappropriate” domain. I have never found this to be a problem. Even if you pick a water domain and the adventure happens in a desert it can still be awesome. Imagine the shock on those desert slaver’s faces when a man leaps of a camel and a shark crashes down on them. yes, you don’t want to stay in that form for very long but in the world of fantasy a giant squid is still a threat on land. One of our druids decided to put out a fire in an underground dungeon by transforming into a giant fish and smothering it, awesome. I made a druid who focused on underground dwellers, mostly crawly insects, knowing the adventure would take place entirely in a city.
The druids greatest strength is probably the ability to bypass movement obstacles. when you can be a spider,bird, tiny mouse, burrowing mole or a dolphin then you can go wherever you want. of course you may have to go by yourself but that is part of adventuring (please see earlier rant).
another interesting talent is simply the ability to change shape and mass. The bandit leader demands you send someone to negotiate alone? turn into a tiny mouse and hop into his pocket. when they try to betray your friend they will get a great surprise. My first druid was part of a small party that was getting owned by a massive chuul (giant lobster) and could not pierce its armor. I changed into a tiny lizard and climbed into one of its few wounds. once inside its exoskeleton I changed back into a man in an effort to rip off the plate. my character died but the plan worked and an impossible fight was won.
apparently your clothes, gear and loot are incorporated into your form as well which could be useful in smuggling. You might try overloading yourself and then turning into a small bird. you might still be technically overloaded but does that mean you can’t fly? or a friend carry you? I would love to see someone fly over a group of enemies, transform to drop an acid flash/shoot an arrow, then transform again before reaching the ground
You still use your character’s stats in animal form but they give you new capabilities. if your strength is 10then you suck at STR rolls but in the form of a Kodiak bear the GM might let you make the roll to dislodge a giant bolder that the STR 18 barbarian couldn’t budge.
All in all the druid class gives you an awesome toolset for doing amazing things. actions like “I turn into (insert large predator here) and strike the goblin” or “I turn into (insert bird here) and scout the area” are just the most obvious and actually the least interesting. Play the Druid when you want to do impressive things in interesting ways.
Custom Move: Belly of the Beast
When you shape shift into a larger or more lethal form inside the anatomy of a monster roll + CON.
10+: the monster comes apart as you rip your way out.
7-9: same as 10 and you roll last breath
6-: roll last breath: if you survive your still in a bad spot.
How to Transform Your Friends and Family Members Into Roleplayers
How to Transform Your Friends and Family Members Into Roleplayers
When I go home for the holidays, I don’t like to sit around being bored. My family knows if I’m going to be there, we’re playing games, goddamnit, and that’s all there is to it. As such, board games and card games have been staples of my family gatherings for years. And not crap ones, either. We’re talking the good stuff: German/Euro games like Settlers, Pandemic, Bohnanza, and so forth.
Roleplaying games, however, have always been a little trickier. In earlier years, the complexity of the more traditional games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, precluded them becoming a part of my family’s gamer language. It was always easier to just grab Carcassonne or Agricola from the game closet and be done with it.
Recently, however, the explosion of high-quality indie and story games has given me an opening. These games tend to be more rules-light, and often deal with subjects that are more universally understood than elves and dragons and shit, making them more accessible to non-geeks. And accessibility is particularly critical for introducing civilians to the hobby. We’re already asking quite a lot of new players by having them pretend to be someone else and to engage in some creative thinking and improv. You don’t want to increase the cognitive load by forcing them to also wrap their heads around a bunch of numbers and rules.
Still, accessible as they are, there are some story games which are better than others for introducing people to the hobby and making role-players out of them. Each of the following has some particulars to recommend it, but they almost all share the quality of being more like a party game rather than a roleplaying game, which helps a lot when introducing them to new people. Please note: this post assumes some familiarity with the listed games. If you want to know more about them, they can each be Googled (or even Duck Duck Go’d) easily.
The Final Girl This is, hands-down, the best introductory game for people who have never before played a roleplaying game. For starters, its slasher movie theme is easily understood. But where it really shines is how ably it teaches you to role-play. Each of the characters is purposely shallow (which is genre-appropriate for slasher flicks), and they only have one goal in terms of the role-play: to establish one of three types of relationship with other characters (either Frienship, Rivalry, or Screwing), which leads to a mechanical reward that helps keep the character alive. And because you don’t commit to a single character, and because the characters are literally disposable, there isn’t as much pressure to be ‘good.’ You don’t owe the character anything, except to have some fun with him/her. The end result is terrific. Everyone is having a good time camping it up, describing characters meeting their grisly fates, and rooting for the character they hope to be the final girl. But, importantly, and for our purposes, they are making the connection between the role-play (establishing Relationships) and the mechanical reward.
Fiasco This one is a little tougher, as the characters are a bit more complex than the ones found in The Final Girl, and you have to make a deeper investment in them. Still, it has a lot to recommend it when it comes to introducing new people to the hobby. For starters, the mere act of choosing a playset and then going around the table and choosing elements from the various lists contained within is a lot of fun. That fun is reinforced once you start having the pre-game conversation about what it all means. The whole set-up process is wonderfully collaborative, and it goes a long way to getting everyone invested in the story that is about to be told. The game, having set the group up to tell a terrific story, then has the decency to get out of the way by keeping the mechanical framework as light as possible. This one has always been a big hit with my non-gamer friends.
Dungeon World Despite what I said above about ‘elves and dragons and shit,’ I’m still going to include Dungeon World. The game is just so much damn fun. Maybe we add a caveat: use Dungeon World to introduce the hobby to your friends who are already geeks in some other way (video games, board games, etc.). Maybe they have been hearing about 5E and they want to give roleplaying games a chance. Do them (and yourself) a favor: skip Dungeons & Dragons and go straight here.
Lasers & Feelings This was a recommendation from Daniel Lewis, and I can see the logic behind it. The game is pretty light, both thematically and mechanically, but still incredibly satisfying. And because the tone is downright comic, it has that ‘party game’ quality I mentioned earlier. A great choice (and only one page of rules!).
Inspectres Another funny game that has that ‘party game’ feel. A little more complex than Lasers & Feelings or The Final Girl, but still light enough for almost anyone to get into. This is also a great game to get traddy players into story games, as it incorporates the idea of giving players most of the narrative authority, while still having a GM around to call balls and fouls.
Those are my thoughts. Any other recommendations? Has anyone else ever tried to introduce roleplaying games to their non-gamer friends and family? If so, how did it go?
