David Berg's RPG Journal

Dan went to China for three weeks, and now John is beginning his medical rotations.  No playing Delve has meant little inspiration for me to think and write about play.  Instead, I've been working on getting a usable file into the hands of the people at Dexcon who expressed interest.

I'm trying to present everything simply and graphically, without a lot to read through.  I'm doing my examples in comic book format (perhaps I'll post a few pages online, I think they're neat and folks might dig 'em).

It was working well until I got to character creation.  There are a lot of options to list, a lot of numbers and finicky rules to be clear on, and a lot of relevant observations and guidelines to offer. 

And, in the end, character creation is only as important as the players want it to be.  If you're content to be exactly average at everything, you have a vague idea of what it's like to grow up as a medieval farmer, and you can contribute color via roleplay, then you don't even need a character sheet to play Delve.  You just need scrap paper for bookkeeping, so you don't forget how many vials of acid you have or who owes you money, or what color aura the traitor had.

I also don't like doing the math and weighing the trade-offs in spending character points.  Not that I dislike it, it just isn't the fun part for me.  I wonder if it's optimal to have a number-crunching char-gen process in a game where there's no other number-crunching.  I like the results it produces, but maybe there's a more apt-feeling process...?  Ah well, unless someone wants to convince me that printed aesthetics of char-gen procedure are a key to delivering the play experience, I'm going to say "screw it" for now and just lay out those point cost tables.

Speaking of layout, Matt Snyder had a tremendously interesting blog series started on that subject.  Planting that link is my reminder to myself to go check it out.

7/02/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

No work the next day meant we could play late.  We got in a solid 4+ hours and managed to complete an entire scenario.

Having just come from a Burning Empires game, I had no time to prep, and drew up the scenario in a few minutes while waiting for Merlin to arrive.  I gave really short shrift to the card spread and tasks list, instead just forming a nice, multi-part, multi-step Evil Plot. 

Badguy brings corrupted roots from Nasty Place and buries them near three Objects.  The three people nearest the buried roots become afflicted with dreams and urges leading them to ritually sacrifice their neighbors near the three Objects, imbuing the Objects with a nasty power.  The power is "transport you to Orc lands".  If all three Objects are imbued at once, the whole town will get sucked into Orc lands -- this is Badguy's ultimate plot.

That was all I needed to ad-lib a decent set of people, events, and things to do.

Oh, and the goal of revealing the scenario's secret: the ritual of transferring Names from sacrificial victims to magical objects.

The session was fun, but had an old-school vibe for me, with a lot of GM "It would be cool if THIS happened now!" action.  My ad-lib had all the usual pros and cons: some nice dramatic moments and cool color, but some unexpected fallout that rendered some tasks perfunctory, others lethal, and others decision-free go-through-the-motions.  The final showdown consisted of me zapping 2 PCs with an immobilizer spell, leaving one left for a nice showdown with a monster; timing two remote sequences so that a teleport triggered in one place saved the characters in another place just as certain death approached; running a fight with only an approximate idea of what the monster's stats were, delivering one big-deal wound before the thing fell.  Dan and John had to be clever enough to realize the importance of remaining within the teleport area, and Merlin had to be clever enough to drop everything and reverse the teleport effect without delay, using Einarr for help.  But beyond that, it was pretty much just me and the dice managing the climax.  In fact, I'd already been working toward a similar climax, when Dan surprised me by not dodging the initial teleport; so, I just decided in my head that it could be reversed, and adapted my climax accordingly.

This GM approach still works for me, and produces certain cool things that no set of GM instructions could accomplish on its own.  Still, it demands a lot from the GM, gravitates toward disempowering the players, and is a good way to accidentally wind up giving the players something that's busted balance-wise.

Evil-Eraser Tool's Limits?

The players could have vanquished the scenario by stopping the sacrifices, digging up the roots, and tracking down and killing the Badguy.  Actually deactivating the Objects' powers was not essential, and not something I prepped.  It became obvious during play, though, that it was quite important, and when the players came up with a reasonably clever deactivation method, I judged that it would work.  This worked out very nicely for this session, but I fear I may have created a monster tool.

They take the herb associated with purity and purification (baby's breath), place it on any of the stone tablets that causes herbs to smoke, hold the smoke up in front of the sun or moon, and use one or more crystals to focus the light through the smoke and then onto the evilness they wish to erase.

It made sense that it would work on the Restindale soft spot, as it's the inverse of what was used to create the spot in the first place.  Now I've also allowed it to erase the runes/names given to 3 objects that needed to be named to "turn on", with the name-erasing turning them "off".  Which isn't un-logical, but isn't very specifically united.  I need to avoid a situation of "every time we see something evil we do this" -- I need a limit with a logic that can be learned.  For more fun experimenting, the "baby's breath purification" element might be the one to restrict.  Needing to use some limited resource instead of something you can find easily (baby's breath) might also be sufficient.

Limited "Heal"s are Handy

The players clearly value their limited supply of Minecoil goop, and it's a big deal when they have to use some of it.  They used it to save Merlin's leg; if they hadn't had it, it would have been much riskier for me to throw such a nasty monster at them.  Nast monsters and would-be-lethal wounds are fun.

6/29/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

After last session's visions, the PCs decided to go introduce themselves to the local imperial commander.  I played the commander as an older guy with a somewhat fatherly manner.  The conversation was friendly as the players tried to figure out how best to segue into their exorbitant demands for payment (they'd decided to ask for looting rights, horses, and 100 shillings).  The commander looked over their list of previous accomplishments and thought, "Wow, these guys are effective, I want to keep them alive and in business instead of wandering into that death trap at Hesengard, it sure would be nice if they'd tackle some smaller local problems instead!"  So he told them about a village with children disappearing down a well, and a trade route plagued by bandits, and argued that these were both urgent while Hesengard wasn't.

I had figured that the players had their hearts set on Hesengard, and would just respond with some bluster about their own prowess and how glorious it would be to finallt conquer Hesengard... but they surprised me and said, "Sure, okay, tell us the deal with the well and the bandits."

I had not prepared either scenario.  Oops. 

Merlin had to leave in an hour and a half, so I figured I'd churn out a short bandit encounter, consisting of a little bit of searching and stealth and positioning, followed by a fight. 

The PCs were brainstorming what kind of payment to ask for the bandit job, and Einarr said, "Bandits are no threat, we could clear them out for free!"  The players seized on this and decided to basically do this one gratis to impress and befriend the imperial commander.  That would nicely prepare them for their Hesengard payment requests.

We also had a nice bit of roleplaying as Merlin's character befriended the roughest thug among the roadhouse soldiers and recruited him to watch the party's stuff while they were away.

The short fight scenario was fun.  I basically gave the opponents similar armor to the PCs, but with one or two fewer ranks in weapon skill and agility, except for the big boss, who was one rank better than the PCs.  The guys strategized well, rolled well, and basically dominated the fight, taking lots of very minor injuries.  We knew we were racing the clock a bit, and the fast pace and abundance of action was a fun departure from our usual style. 

Loot Value

After victory, the players took all their opponents' gear, which I realized after the fact was a friggin' gold mine.  Killing 5 guys in chainmail effectively nets you 100 days' pay worth of goods.  I really need to figure out all the relevant limits on damage and use affecting re-sale value.

5/20/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Immersion warm-up worked well. First scene that was played through, I cranked up the color and description, and asked the players to describe how their characters appeared at this moment. Everyone got into it. Two things going in favor of this:
1) it had been a LONG time since they'd described their appearances
2) the impression they gave off was pertinent at this moment, a scene where they were recruiting
I'll have to try starting next session the same way and see if it's as much fun.

Great player-dictated content. Once they decided to tackle the biggest challenge on the map, they came up with all sorts of interesting ways to prepare for it, and all sorts of ideas for rewards they'd demand. Even though we finished the session without them having accomplished anything besides recon, they were still psyched about the problem to be solved and the rewards to be reaped.

The fact that Hesengard Keep is a big deal and old legend to so many folks has imbued it with a lot of excitement for the players. Other adventurers covet it. Other adventurers have died attempting it. Accounts vary on the kind of threat it poses. It's a key strategic point for the empire. The curse goes back decades or centuries, and there's lots of history here. Their attempts to use their powers on the place gave them POV visions from the initial victims, teasing with uncertain meaning. Dan tried something really interesting, chewing vision roots WHILE focusing his power on the Keep, hoping for a sort of lucid dream. I opted instead to give him a hint at how to get in, couched in personal terms (vision of his parents naming him + glowing door-knockers = hint that you must name knockers to open door).

They came up with the idea of getting honorary imperial ranks! Just a few days after Al and I agreed that would be a cool thing to offer them!

They decided they might need some extra fighters, which I hadn't expected, and this led to the coolest part of the session, as they auditioned 3 of Seacrest's men to be their apprentice. It was really cool seeing what qualities they valued. They dismissed the stealthy archer for being too practical and danger-averse, and barely chose the agressive, eager kid over the stoic, rule-abiding pro.

This kid Einarr gives me a perfect tool to poke at inter-character dynamics, asking questions like who's the leader and who to protect most in a fight. Einarr's naivete also gives the players great opportunities to show off their expertise by correcting him, admonishing him, giving him orders, etc.

Have to resist using Einarr to hint at potential solutions the players miss, an old habit of mine from school days... Running Delve, I tend to have enough on my mind that I forget any NPCs that aren't key to a scene... especially when OTHER NPCs are in play... poor Thor SuvSven effectively disappeared once the Firewalkers showed up.

Questions:
- Can a plant-reading power work on anything derived from plants? John wanted it to work on a poison... I said no, under the logic that he can't read wooden chairs either... but where to draw the line?
- Can you prophetic-dream about a supernatural thing more than once? If so, PCs can track a demon as it moves around by having dreams that point to its new locations...

5/11/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

We began this session by handling character advancement. 

( Combat Maneuvers, ad-lib vs balance, point cost logic )


There aren't a wide array of skills that matter in Delve, so I really should be able to list them all, finalize some costs, and be done with it.  Just not as high on my priority list as other parts of the game...

Constructing a mega-plot

Having established a connection between the Knowledge Eater, the Crimson Scythe, the reappearing Rodokandris ghoul, the Wizard of Werville, and the four guys in Earl Duyker's employ, I've given the players a lot of threads to pick at.  Before this session, I sat on the train thinking about how they'd connect, and I came up with something good.  Shortly, I'm going to go write up some backstory, cuz it'll be fun and it'll inform my future decisions on who's where doing what, and why.  This is the sort of thing I used to do to kick off a campaign... and those campaigns always consisted of me leading the players around to the next thing I had in mind for them to do, showing them the next cool thing I wanted to reveal.

This time, something feels different.  The Impostor demon isn't the source of every problem in the campaign, and defeating it won't end the game.  I hadn't planned on even making it easy for the PCs to find the thing... but then Merlin had an encounter with it, and, being a smart guy, John fed him some vision roots... so now they know where it is.  Of course, it doesn't have to stay there...

Cursed PCs

The Impostor controls humans.  Pres-session, I hadn't settled between possession vs abduct+clone+replace.  But a cool scene idea came to mind, and the last possessed guy killed himself, and then the Impostor got into Merlin.  And a few hours later, it took over and had him attack Earl Duyker, just to screw with the PCs and mess up their relationships.

I had in mind all along that Merlin could easily be cured.  They just needed to use up one more goop bubble and draw another healing rune on him.  But they had the brilliant idea of using the "protection from ___" breastplate instead.  They tried protecting him from curses first.  I thought about it.  Was he cursed?  By some definitions yes, by others no.  I decided that curses generally worked differently from this, and since "command" was a better match, I'd just go with that.  And indeed, they tried protecting him from commands, and it worked.

Unfortunately, the curse is now the sort of urgent "you must deal with this" situation I try to avoid... especially bad because I gave Merlin absolutely no warning that this could happen from approaching a suicide.  But he doesn't want to have to live in a breastplate forever, so now they're heading for the Impostor ASAP.  We'll see if anyone resents this or if it's just pure awesome motivation...

Which association per rune?

It turned out that Dan didn't want to draw the "command" rune, because he'd previously drawn that same rune on the breastplate to get protection from fire.  Crap.  Well, now it does both.  Magical items with settable properties pose that quandary -- which of teach rune's various concepts, forces, effects, animals, etc. do they apply to?  Does a given item just affect effects?  Just animals?  Some animals and some effects?  All animals and all effects?  The more it covers, the more the PCs can come up with clever ways to use it in new situations, which rocks.  But it's also harder for the GM to create an item and have a handle on how badass it is.

How many card spreads?

Earl Duyker has a cursed, demonic amulet around his neck, and a cursed, demonic statue on his desk, and some agents of the Impostor in his house plotting to help the Impostor possess him.

So, if the PCs do a card reading outside his manor... what do they get?  Should the deck have some way of telling them "multiple problems"?  Should I pick one at random?  Should I create a spread that describes the entire situation as best I can?

Separate problem:
Let's say the PCs get the chance to do separate card readings for the amulet, the statue, and the agents.  If I'm going to be prepared for this, I should prep 3 spreads.  And for each card position in each spread, I have to actually have to make some decisions to inform which card I should select.  That is a lot of prep work.

...or at least that's what I was thinking while prepping.  Now I remember that the cards read the "magical problem" of a general area.  So I just need to decide what's up with the agents, necklace and statue, roughly... and then the card work will be quite manageable.  Again, I am reminded: don't drop magic stuff into the game without forethought (or at least fairly immediate afterthought).

4/29/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Awesome session.  The players entered the big showdown with the Knowledge Eater, I was all set to have a crazy battle of soft spot rune effects vs nothingness devouring one cardinal direction at a time, nervous about how it'd come off...  And then Merlin decided to look at the Crimson Scythe's True Name in the soft spot. 

Trying to figure out what would happen, I put "runes here are automatically active" together with "this was part of how the Scythe was summoned" and "this soft spot basically is a bound demon"... and figured that this was a big deal.  So the Knowledge Eater backed off; and, seeing that, Merlin went for the gusto, leading the PCs in a chant of the Scythe's True Name.  So they basically summoned a demon into the midst of another demon.  And, it made sense to me that this binding was only big enough for one of them.  So, massive drama and upheaval, chant goes off with a bang, the Knowledge Eater is shredded by the Scythe, the soft spot spits out the PCs and vanishes, leaving only the Scythe and the binding container the Knowledge Eater had been hiding.  The PCs know Scythe wants to be freed and banished, so the conflict is over.  They celebrate, burn the container, and Restindale is normal, remembered, and demon-free at last.

Takeaway: when in doubt about how magical principles and effects interact with each other, "strongly" gets you neat places.  As long as the PCs can't simply duplicate the interaction later, give 'em good bang for their association/convergence buck.  This is why soft spots are great... you can do some cool and useful stuff inside, but they're incredibly chaotic and dangerous.


Magic items should stick to the point

I wanted to show the PCs "make smoke" quickly in the place they were exploring, so I decided, "Those tablets you found have herb residue on them."  Putting the right herbs on the right tablets caused smoke to pour out.

Unfortunately, I also added some color of "the rune corresponding to the herb lights up on the back of the tablet".  Which was sweet while they were hurrying to pick herbs, but then they tried using the tablets as detectors/sorters... which was okay at first... but then they started viewing them that way primarily, and almost forgot about the smoke-making... and the detector thing kinda duplicated their perception powers, making those less special and cool.  Gehn.


Fruitful metaphysics

Simply knowing some secret things about the magical properties of the gameworld is a great help to:
1) thinking up a good scenario, task, clue, asset or reward
2) filling in blanks or color with ad-lib

Simply having "starlight = good for magics/demons" and "sunlight/moonlight = bad for magics/demons" in my memory banks allowed me to look at the cards I drew for creating the Restindale Soft Spot scenario and go, "Ah, the nasty device that uses stars for evil is a smoke machine that filters and focuses starlight.  The starlight grew the soft spot.  And if the PCs were to use the smoke on sunlight instead, it would shrink the soft spot."

I need to consider ways to give this to GMs in either or both of two forms:
1) easy-reference workhorse principles
2) searchable specific facts (either in appendix or as part of pre-made adventures)


Designing specific magics

- Lord Seacrest was best buddies with the PCs. 
- Then the Knowledge Eater ate the memory of the PCs, and Seacrest saw them and had no idea who they were, and spoke to them as strangers. 
- Then the PCs killed the Knowledge Eater, and then Seacrest remembered them.  But how did he remember the interaction he had with them when he hadn't remembered them?  Did he remember it as if he himself had been acting crazy?  Or as if the PCs' identities had been obscured?  This resulted in some tricky ad-lib for me, as I portrayed Seacrest just being vague and confused.  This is the kind of info I'd like to give to anyone who runs this scenario.  I'm not sure of the best way to organize that... whether in a description of Magical Effect: Knowledge Theft, or Spell: Knowledge Theft, or Monster: Knowledge Eater.


Losing a superstar

The Knowledge eater was so great, I'm sad it's gone.  I wonder if I could have turned it into a large-scale, long-duration threat.  Ah well.

This late in the game and I'm still working to establish that Big Bad by pulling together bits of things that matter to the PCs.  I think I'll nail it eventually.  Usual pros and cons of prep vs not prep apply...


Keywords / Ritual phrases?

My memory is a little fuzzy, so forgive absent details.  At one point Dan asked me how heavy something was.  I asked, "Do you pick it up?"  It was something he was afraid might be magical or dangerous, so he said, "No!"

This comes up a lot: a player asks for info, and it isn't clear what the character is doing to obtain that info.  So sometimes the GM incorrectly assumes what the character is doing, and other times the GM asks a question that gives away a concern the player hadn't thought of, etc.  In this group, we're all good at avoiding such problems, but hey, maybe our informal system could benefit from a little standardization... and maybe I could pass that on to others.  It was with this in the back of my mind that a particularly apt response occurred to me:

"How do you determine that?"

That's the perfect GM response to any player query.

4/20/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

I ended last session with the arrival of Ryvenskorkevilthrixathalas, The Crimson Scythe, unstable, fragmented, spacetime-puncturing demon who'd already trashed the PCs once.

So, before getting in-character for this session, the players did a ton of planning.  This strategizing was much more fun at the beginning of play, as a prelude to a session, than my past experiences breaking the flow of the fiction to strategize.

They wound up concocting this plan: draw a fire rune on a movable object (Dan's sword), project the rune with a crystal (resulting in a beam of fire), cover the monster in something visible (flour) and/or flammable (oil), and hit something explosive (barrels in storage room containing oil, wine, and flour) with the fire blast with the demon in range.

This forced me to do a lot of adjudicating.  Does the crystal project any depiction of a rune, or only a magical depiction drawn in the goop taken from the hide of the monster Minecoil?  How many runes can you draw with one bubble of Minecoil goop?  How sticky and flammable are oil and flour?  How explosive are they when blasted with fire while in containers?

The physics of granary fires and mill explosions were a matter of group agreement, and I have no interest in creating a GURPS-style book or ten to cover all these real-world contingencies.  "Plausible to the players" is good enough.  For stuff like goop usage and projected rune range, however, I really needed to make some balance-relevant decisions and track them.  I actually screwed up once, telling the players that they could only draw one rune per goop bubble, when I'd previously allowed them two per.  We argued a bit on this, as I was suspicious of them just trying to milk their precious goop reserves, but when they all agreed on it I conceded that my memory must have been at fault.  I trust Merlin on these things -- he cares more about internal consistency than John and has a better memory than Dan.

Anyway, if I put Minecoil in a book, I'll need to spell out how many runes his bubbles are good for; and if I put Minecoil-creation rules in a book, I'll need to instruct GMs to do likewise.  I'm thinking it might be wise to construct an all-purpose "resource" table, depicting the particulars of whatever resources the characters wind up with.  A sufficiently portable format could cover how much meat you get in a day of hunting as well as how many kill shots you can pour from your vial of acid.


Garbled communication: nice hook

Despite it being badass and having tried to kill them twice, the players were only too eager to run after the demon in hopes of talking to it when it started spouting intriguing gibberish.

I wrote a rhyme for the thing to repeat, describing how it was brought into the world and how to let it escape from the world.  Then I broke it into bits, reversed the bits' order, and repeated the result in a loop, starting in the middle.  Just enough sense came through that the players gathered that the demon had a master it didn't have fond feelings for.  That was enough to motivate them to track it (after they'd wounded it and driven it off with fire blasts), approach it, and decipher its rant. 

They then made a deal with it where they promised to free it, and gave it some of their blood in exchange for its True Name!  Sweet.  Now I have True Names on the table for future use... 


We know this!

There's something very functional about picking up pieces of knowledge that aren't vital at the time... but then it's vital later, and wow, awesome that we know it!  It feels more like clever puzzle-piecing than simple memory & repetition if it was less of a big deal the previous time.  So, a good thing for GMs to do: grant tangential knowledge in scenario 1; then, when building scenario 2, make that knowledge a key to victory! (This point wasn't specific to this session, but it's come up since, and will again when they need True Names to enter Hesengard Keep...)

4/6/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Signaling Benefits

Yet another instance of the need to attach clear signals to hooks arose. Something I intended as a catalyst for later discovery (augury powders) was mistaken for a solution to the current predicament.

This makes total sense from the players' POV. Investigate a forgotten city, crawl into a weird dimension, steal some keys, crawl back out, find that the keys have transformed into powders... it seems like the powders ought to help you solve the city mission somehow. I don't think I ought to combat that initial impression; but I do need to make it easier for the players to conclusively determine "we aren't simply missing how this helps us".

It comes back to "what this is good for" signals. It's good to convey that, at least roughly... "this helps you determine magical patterns by describing their constituent runes' properties" probably isn't necessary, but "this helps you analyze spells" is.


Cards as Chaos Dimension

Lacking a real rationale for how the characters ought to progress through Tveimurheim, I just put the cards in order, and each time they left a space, I looked up the next card to make up the next space. Having an end in sight allowed me to pace the coming of the Knowledge Eater just right, forcing the players to risk it all in order to get to Room 12, containing the real key to the mission.


Riddles

I don't have it in front of me, but it went something like "with you, I hold your shape; without you, I collapse". This doubled as a hint on how to get out. The correct answer (getting Dan's leg back): clothing. The way out: get naked and you'll drift up. The players figured these out pretty quickly and it was pretty satisfying. Takeaway: nothing wrong with easy puzzles.


Campaign arc of discovery

First there were perception powers. Then there were more informed perception powers, with more data. Then there were card spreads. Then there were situations (magic doors, Orc rituals) that associated the powers with each other and with the cards. Then there were individual runes. Then there were series of runes. Then there was a tablet mapping runes to the types of things that cards and perception powers covered. Now there's dust for info on series of runes.

The sequence has been pretty key to maintaining the voyage of discovery. Starting with dust and tablet might allow you to get to one cool thing (pattern analysis) faster, but as long as the process of working up to dust & tablet is cool, this campaign might be a good blueprint.

Throwing a GM a bunch of options and letting them pick randomly seems clearly suboptimal. Maybe lay these out for the GM in sequence and let them pick where along the sequence they wish to begin...?


Thematically-Apt Enemies

In a game where you progress in part by becoming famous, a monster that devours the world's memory of you does in fact rock in play. The Knowledge Eater might be a near-required demon for any Delve campaign.

The process of going through places the PCs had been, talking to people they knew, and not being recognized, was just great.  Especially since they'd seen this effect take an entire town off the map; they knew this was serious, and potentially permanent.  They also had an idea how to fix it: Room 12 in Tveimurheim had given them a bottle containing the memory of the vanished town.  They're now on a mission to share that memory with as many people as possible, hoping to shrink the "soft spot" that's overtaken the town.  And, they're considering going back into Tveimurheim in search of a bottle of their own memory.  Of course, now the Knowledge Eater is waiting for them...

I need more demons that generate cool situations like this.  (I've heard this is a strength of Dread: tFBoP, which I still mean to check out at some point.)


After-the-fact rationale for apparent demon

In fact, I wanted to show the players that the Knowledge Eater wants the town to stay forgotten, and their efforts to rekindle its memory are working, and the demon's pissed.  But I hadn't thought this through, and ad-libbed a humanoid apparition accosting them and attacking them... which is now forcing me to think of an explanation for how that came about... is this guy the demon's master, the demon's minion, or something else?

The way the game's unfolded since has given me some ideas, and now I think I can forge a coherent whole here.  In terms of passing my process along to others, though, I can't think of a better offer than "try to achieve X, Y, and Z... how? just be clever."  So, planning and forethought still seems like the way to go in terms of design.  Although some sort of help for the prep-averse would be nice...

3/25/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

SCENARIO LINKS

I did almost zero prep. I knew it was time to give them leads to new missions, so I looked at the Pyramid of Secrets sheet I wrote up at the very beginning of the game. I saw Tveimurheim, the "soft spot" in reality where the PCs could go to muck around with magic, and learn stuff that would normally be expensive to learn in normal reality. At least, that was the original plan. I'm not sure if giving them the "rosetta stone" of correspondence info renders that superfluous.

Since the players came up with a great way to get in good with Earl Duyker, I knew I had to provide some opportunities to do missions that he cared about. Okay... a soft spot ate his revenue stream. Why hasn't this been corrected? The monster that created the soft spot is a knowledge-eater, meaning no one remembers the town that was once there. (I wound up having to ad-lib whether written records of the town survived. I picked "yes" on instinct. We'll see how that plays out...)

I had also previously established something supernatural about Duyker (no aura). Combining that with my desire to begin establishing "large-scale menace", I decided "inflitration". Some sentient, strategic demon has replaced some of his guards with doppelgangers, and given him some demonic items, one on his person, another a creepy statue in his office. I need to concoct the demon's mast plan right quick!

It also seemed only fair that the imperial outpost up here in the north, far from the PCs' starting point, would have some new jobs for hire. So I looked at my Pyramid of Secrets sheet again, said, "Well, the Cursed raiding party with the ghoul would be newsworthy," and dropped that in.

The Secret of the ghoul was that it would spout verbal commands the PCs would want to learn, but only when compelled by the Barrier piece from Ethelthorp. This was on my mind when the PCs decided to also hit up Lord Seacrest for missions, so I had him mention "metal growing in a fairy clearing" to bring alodite (last seen in Ethelthorp) back into the picture.

Finally, the PCs went and had visions about all the weird shit they'd seen recently. All the stuff relating to the wizard in the Kidium mine, I assigned to Werville (having previously established that a wizard had been there years ago). A few things I assigned to places far away, which continues to illustrate to me how the "vision guides you to a location where the dream-object came from" logic might need improvement. Maybe there are feedback options, and "last place it was before here" is one of them?

I'm glad I'm writing all this now before I forget. I'll have to go look at John's notes to see where all the dreams pointed. Some visual organizational tool is probably called for here. (Reminder: NPC list for full campaign!)

Somehow the results of all this satisfied me less than the batch of leads I came up with for the Boston playtest. I think the big difference is the "here's what you stand to gain" teaser. Still need to find an elegant way to insert that into to course of finding and poking the supernatural...


TOO MUCH ACCOUNTING

By the time we were done accruing leads, Dan was more than ready to go adventuring. Alas, we'd established that the PCs had 2 weeks to kill while waiting for their armor to be finished, so John wanted to track all the useful stuff he was going to do during that time. This drove Dan nuts. The only real solution would have been to say, "Okay, we'll work out what you accomplished some other time. For now, let's move ahead." Of course, that only works until something in the mission comes up that forces you to answer whether you still have a shovel in your bag or not... which is why we tend not to do it.

Dan also pointed out that John can't really be faulted for his constant looting and selling of loot, because the PCs are all poor enough that any metal they find is of significant value to them. Dan suggested I track weight for everything so John won't pile unrealistic amounts into his bag, but I'd rather save myself the effort and do what I've always done, instructing the players to think about what will and won't fit when they look at their equipment lists. Really, what I need is a super-fast way to calculate "here's how much cash the armorer of a small keep will pay you for the blade of a halberd".

"Internal cause is king" can be a bitch.


WARPED REALITY

The PCs dived into the soft spot. I know how I want these places to work: dream-like, with metaphorical logic, like Alice in Wonderland but with some touch of danger or nastiness. However, ad-lib was insufficient to translate that concept into description. This has the potential to be really cool if I do it right, but doing it right is a whole new design challenge.


DISAGREEMENT ON WHAT HAPPENED IN GAME

"The sword was facing your ear!"

"No it wasn't!"

John told me he was drawing a rune on his sword. Knowing this could be catastrophic, but not wanting to give away info that John's character didn't have, I asked, "Can you describe this so I can visualize it?" John went and picked up one of his boffer swords, and traced on it with his finger. I watched, looked at the angle, and saw that the traced area was facing his face, but not directly. It looked like it lined up with his right ear.

"Okay," I said, "as soon as you finish, a blast of blackness shoots out and takes off your right ear." John was outraged, and claimed he'd been pointing the sword away from himself. Later, he claimed he has bad spatial perception skills, and had simply been holding it differently than he intended for his character. If he'd said "I'm facing it away from me," that's all I would have required. But he didn't say it, and I saw something different, and John's been prone to arguing for advantage before, so I saw this protest as biased revisionist history rather than mere clarification.

The worst part is the interruption of immersion, where we argue about what happened, going from an "as it is said, so it is" mode of interaction to a much shakier provisional mode. I think the rule of thumb here should be "act in good faith, assume good faith from others, all clarifications are accepted and play continues". It's just hard to do that when someone interrupts the flow and you've seen reason to doubt their motives.

3/16/09 -- me GMing for John, Merlin and Dan at John's place

Great chunk of player planning, deciding on best ways to (a) turn the hide of their defeated monster into cool armor and (b) get in good with Earl Duyker via their triumph. Allowing this guy they hate to take credit for their victory is really a great commitment to milking this NPC for all he's worth and killing him eventually.

I began introducing Al's magical puzzles via a resettable breastplate, which offers protection from the damage type of whatever rune they trace on it using the corresponding plant. I gave them 4 runes.

I also gave them the "rosetta stone" of Al's big table of magical meanings in preparation for giving them the ability to ask questions soon.

This scenario really was perfect for this purpose, being the ex-lair of a powerfull wizard.

They also fought a monster I'd come up with a great aesthetic for, but I hadn't designed any weaknesses. They hacked away in futility until they were close enough to dead that they had to run away -- this would have been a perfect encounter to produce "takeaways to use next time". Ah well, maybe I'll shoehorn in some evidence in the place where it had been locked up before they let it out.

I'll update this post with real English shortly. For now, some notes to serve as a palceholder in case anyone comes here to offer response:

3/21/09 2pm-7pm w/ a few short breaks
demo char-gen
demo segue from one scenarion to another
scenario

Players: Emily, Zeke, Wei-Yi, Teddy

Prep: referring to questionnaires while constructing Tasks was a good call.

Char-gen:
- "near-contradicitons" worked, but I need to spell out the instructions MUCH more clearly
- elaborate descriptions of Background skills were good for some players -- for those who care, these need to be really tight and thorough, especially the goods/services rates/values

Physical gesture (hand on forehead) to denote "out of game" speech.
- this was used mostly for metagame commentary, but some players also used for ALL OOC speech, including environmental questions to the GM
- when it was about "what's going on now?", it struck me as weird
- when it was about "what did we see earlier, that didn't get played through?" it struck me as good

Immersion: it seemed that the combo of the following was quite sufficient:
- ITG/UFA distinction made explicit via whatever method (e.g. hand on forehead)
- thought put into character personality
- description of character looks
- description of character attire (perhaps I should move this info to be next to "looks" for simultaneous reference)

Perception Powers half-filled with freebies + card spread = cool toy for new players.
- other design goals aside, this is a sufficiently unique & functional thing to advertise & offer at cons
- scenarios come off like puzzles
- strong correlation between Solution and image on corresponding card helps provide "we solved it!" satisfaction
- in this rushed-through scenario, threats & fights served mostly to pace the discovery of info -- their role of adding drama seemed easily-filled and non-touchy

Scenario design: when in doubt about how to get players necessary info, make it free.

NPCs: as GM, my range of of voices works great for new players. (I should give tips to GM on how much color is needed per NPC. My old list is overly thorough.)

Hooks: telling them "what this special object is good for" and then making them wait/look for that situation rocks.
- this time, I didn't have to think up HOW "this prism works on books of monster lore" would be conveyed in a non-contrived-seeming manner, something I'm still nervous about

Option to choose where to go next: everyone agrees that if players found out that all choices led to same senario, and GM just slightly altered it to include their choices, the choice wuldn't feel meaningful.
- just like my home group, they chose the option with the most concrete reward -- Lord Oakcrest just personally told you that he'll like you if you solve Carrindale

Attribute tests: list number of dice on character sheet next to attributes
- when to roll dice? I did it in this session to heighten "what's gonna happen?" experience (can we dodge spikes randomly shooting out of walls while we try to bash box free from ceiling?)

Physical game bits: Zeke suggested doing spreads via magnetic board & mag-tape on cards

3/1/09 -- me GMing for Dan, John and Merlin at Dan's place

Last week, Dan told me that all the phases of my scenarios were fun, the problem was just that we'd have one session of low-drama info-gathering, and then another session of high-drama fighting and rushing. Having things build up and climax during a single session would be more satisfying. This made sense to me, and we both bemoaned the fact that we only get 3 hrs at a time to play, and 6 hrs would fix everything.

Well, yesterday proved that theory correct.

We nailed the "thoughtful planning followed by frantic implementation" formula that has been a source of fun in other games in years past.  The players started with a little info, gathered some more, got in trouble, ran away, formed a plan, came back, and executed the plan well enough to win the day.  We finished the session with the PCs bringing the monster's head to the center of town, hyping themselves, and then going to relax and wash off in the nearby river (cue arrival of groupies).

Designed Scenario Aspects

Having an idea of the monster's mission and how it went about it was extremely helpful.  It allowed me to focus on the fiction in the moment without taxing my brain by simultaneously troubleshooting stuff for consistency.

Having an idea of the keys to victory was also helpful.  As with the monster's doings, I drew and interpreted cards from my tarot-ish deck for this.

Having a Clue-Task flow chart of Clue A -> Task B -> Clue C -> Task D and Clue W -> Task X -> Clue Y -> Task Z also allowed me to get by without the more time-consuming prep process of drawing some maps and labeling their contents.  The flow chart was constructed largely by referring to the monster's mission, victory keys, and general physical properties of the situation (it's in a cave).

Having two connected tracks on the flow chart, such that Task D led back to Clue W with an extra dose of certainty and urgency, enabled me to "slow play" the hints without worrying that the players would ultimately flounder.

Having the tarot spread ready for the players was a huge help.  It was both a springboard for them to try stuff, a reference point for when they got stuck, and a satisfying reinforcement of "we are going the right way" or "yes, we should try that last idea we had."  They did the reading early and left the spread on the table for the full session.  Maybe some "do readings early!" reminder in the eventual game text would be wise...

Worth noting: the players were inclined to focus on different aspects of the cards depending on tehir positions in the spread.  The default seems to be to focus on the human figure, but in the "key to" positions, the players took more note of actions, elements, and objects.

Ad-libbed Scenario Aspects

The reason ad-lib was necessary is that too many of the Clues in my Clue-Task tracks were non-obvious in terms of how they propelled the players from one Task to the next.  For pacing reasons, it might be wise for me to make the first Clue in each track very non-obvious, the third Clue very obvious, and the second Clue in-between...

When the players interpreted a Clue in a way other than how I had decided it would work, I ad-libbed how their attempt told them about the correct answer.  My ad-libs performed their function well enough, but this was yet another example of mediocre color and non-vetted functionality in Delve magic from my ad-lib.

( Example: Fire Glyph )

Puzzle-Solving as Major Play Activity

Sometimes adventuring and seeing wierd new stuff just hands you a series of obvious pieces and shows you clearly how they fit together.  Cumulative understanding becomes a fun augmentation to whatever else is going on in play, much like the way curiosity augments missions.

Other times, you need to wrack your memory, scour your notes, read the cards, form theories, draw connections, debate, and run experiments to correctly put together a puzzle that cannot be ignored. 

It's a weird feature of Delve that a game not primarily concerned with win/lose nevertheless provides some real challenges.  You can, of course, opt out and just charge ignorantly into danger... but that is more likely to get you killed.  What I need to strengthen here is the option to engage with the fiction (go somewhere, talk to soemone) to get more information in a way that choosing that option is non-trivial (costs, obstacles, time pressure, etc.).  Something like burning a gold piece to get a hint from god, except not lame.

2/4/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Rewards: Character Social Status & Connections

They all enjoyed having tales sung about them, and chiming in with their own additions, and belittling some of their competitors... but it didn't really motivate anything. It was a cool scene, then it was over, and it was kind of "back to "what next?""

It might help to make the payoffs concrete: write "name: Lord Seacrest; relationship: ally" on the chracter sheet. And then change "ally" to "trusted ally" later on, etc.

The key for these achievements to actually function as rewards is: what can you do with a given connection or status level?  When handing out social rewards, I need to envision hooks, e.g. some cool thing you're now allowed or invited to do.  It might be wise to just offer these right away instead of hoping the players will dig for them.

Tracking Character Goals

Talking about personal missions was great for helping them form goals, and great for me writing down those goals so they'll be remembered, and so I can provide opportunities for realization.

Merlin and John were easily able to interface their long-term goals with the current goings-on to create fun short-term goals. Dan had more trouble. Having enjoyed a bit of fame on the order of "you saved that one place, and there's a story about it, which is known to a few people who are into such stories", he was clear that he wanted to move up to something grander. I reminded him that Delve isn't the sort of game where you can really expect to become world-famous during play, and Dan said he was fine with that. Still, he found himself at a loss for a suitable in-game project.

John's bid for close connection with a power structure and Merlin's bid for upsetting the status quo hierarchy fit nicely together, but I'm worried that Dan's going to be harder to please in the course of John and Merlin's pursuits. On the other hand, Dan seems to enjoy (and in fact default to) starting with no goals and then latching onto appealing stuff when it comes his way. So, it's back to "opportunities, opportunities, opportunities".

And, the best kind of opportunity is basically a ready-to-follow mission hook. Casual NPC mentions of "maybe you could do something like this someday" are less play-driving.

Establishing expectations:
John was all over my idea of being given newly-cleared land to own and tax, and letting a steward run the place. He also was inspired by the tale of some adventurers making Meogard usable and the selling it for a fortune; he dreams of doing the same with Hesengard, which I described as likewise valuable. Now that John knows a few nobles, he wants to know a few rich merchants, on the theory that if the PCs come into wealth and power, they'll want someone to help them manage and profit from it while they're out adventuring. I'll need to figure out what the realistic limits on such schemes are so I can alert John to them ASAP, before he gets his heart set on becoming a millionaire.

Color Reference

The specific color bits on the character sheets aren't used much. Proper structure probably looks like:

1) Establish incentives to contribute color (points, etc.).
2) List general character traits to inspire ad-lib.
3) Provide examples for easy reference for when creative wells run dry and trait list isn't enough.

1/28/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

I was sick, sore-throated and low-energy.  Sitting there going, "Uhhkay, eventually... you get there... and, yeah, it's like you thought, there's no orcs," really made me realize how much I normally do to keep things exciting.  My style of scene description is heavy on mood, and the details I narrate are primarily included to help realize the mood.  But no amount of detail can make up for the right tone of voice when I'm trying to build an atmosphere.  Croaking through a sinus infection just kills it.

Progression of Badness aka Steps of Doom

Laying this out beforehand really worked well.

When there's some key action upcoming, that'll resolve the scenario for better or worse, I sometimes worry about contrivance if I throw in some danger to spice it up.  I don't want the players' brains going, "Okay, the GM had to make it exciting, we'll roll with it."

As they approached the cave, where the remaining orcs had decided to snipe from the woods and then run away, I was worried about anticlimax.  But then I just looked at my list of the 7 steps of doom for the scenario, added up the number of Tasks the PCs had done, and figured we'd be at step 6 or 7.  I chose 6 because it seemed more manageable:  "The beholder-thing is awake and is now wrecking the cave to free the grell."  So, we got worsening rumblings and quakes, and Roderick ventured into the cave far enough to see the beholder-thing wrecking shit and coming after him.

Roderick made it through the seal at the last second before Jan barred it.  Sweet.

Putting 2 and 2 together

I made the players look at the Curiosity Sheet for the cave once at the beginning of the adventure, and a second time later on, when they were trying to form a strategy.  I tried to make sure they were aware of the list of questions, which included "what are those holder-like things for?"

When they found the giant axe, no one asked about whether it would fit the holders.  I was worried.

When they approached the cave, and I described it for the final time (yea big, seal here, holders here), the light went on for Merlin.  "How far apart?  Does it look like the axe would fit?"

Whew!

Keeping necessary factoids in players' awareness will be a key part of designing the presentation of this game.

Soliciting questions about the scenario

I asked people to pass the sheet around and add to it.  Dan read it, passed it.  John read it, passed it.  Merlin read it, stared blankly.  John said, "Was there really anything else?  I guess I want to know what the orcs were doing..."  Dan then grabbed the sheet and added 5 great questions to it.  These included a question about the odd marble structures in the cave, which was great, because it was that much cooler later when the axe turned out to be made of the same stuff.

So, yeah, yet another incentive to try to keep certain things in players' heads.

"Progress" + "Fast pace" vs "Immersion"

When you're trying to "get somewhere" in 3 hours and there's a bevy of tasks to perform and decisions to make, it's damn hard to delve deeply into the color of a given moment or scene. 

High-color, deep-immersion-oriented play really needs to be patient.  I don't think the standard (to date) PC activity pattern of Delve play really lends itself to that.

"Displeased When:"

The PCs crawled down into a sloping tunnel, and D.G. noticed that his list of "displeased when" situations included "down in holes". It was great seeing a rare streak of fear in his otherwise bold and reckless character.

1/21/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

There was some stuff I intended to do in the very first scenario, in terms of involving the PCs more heavily in their environment.  It wound up being hard to do this in a way I liked, for the same reason I didn't do it pre-play: the players don't care yet, so making the characters care is pure metagaming.  Fine in other games, but not here.

What's needed is opportunity, opportunity, and more opportunity.  I've known that all along, but I haven't been focusing on it.  In this session, I finally focused on opportunity for setting investment, and it paid off big time.

"Life Goal, Path, Destination" -> "Life Goal, Mission, Next Step"

During character creation, 17 sessions and 11 months ago, I had the players define Life Goals and Paths, with Destinations intended to follow once play created some context.  The Life Goals and Paths were meant to provide the GM with some info about what kinds of fictional developments the players would find rewarding.  They came up with:

John - Life Goal: protect men from evil - Path of Power
Dan - Life Goal: achieve political power - Path of Power
Merlin - Life Goal: become a feared chieftain - Path of Renown

I thought about these when formulating my pyramid of Secrets, but didn't refer to them much between sessions, and never when constructing scenarios.  "Get more powerful" just kinda comes with the territory of earning points to boost your skills, earning money to buy armor, and acquiring magical secrets; and "get famous" comes with saving towns and reporting it to the empire.

One thing I noticed, though, over the course of play, was that the players had trouble remembering what they'd accomplished.  Some of the "rewards" hadn't been that rewarding, and other rewards provided opportunities that the players had missed because they didn't have their "eyes on the prize".

So, at the beginning of this session, we discussed long-term, setting-based rewards.  I guided it with an eye toward (a) getting info I could use for prep and (b) forming a list of reminders I could wave at the players whenever they had "what do we do next?" conferences.  This took a while.  Dan started out with a goal of "being that guy who's instantly feared when he walks into a room", and we had to flesh that out a bit so I could figure out how that might come to be.  John wanted to be a vizier, so we had to make sure he'd still be an adventurer at the same time.  Eventually we came up with:

John - Life Goal: Become trusted expert adviser to powerful ruler, who values his unique (magic-related) skills and supports him in bettering them
Dan - Life Goal: Become very famous, with a reputation as both badass and dangerous -- feared by evildoers and looked up to by others
Merlin - Life Goal: Lead a popular uprising to replace some part of the existing power structure

It was interesting to see how much these had changed since play began.  I'll need to remind myself to check for updates at some point...  The next step was to ask the players about their current missions.  How are you working toward being connected, famous, and revolt-fomenting?

John - Mission: Meet barons
Dan - Mission: Spread tales of brave deeds
Merlin - Mission: Forge connections with the downtrodden

Finally, I had them announce their next steps, given the PCs' circumstances at the current moment of play.

John - Next Step: Meet local lord
Dan - Next Step: Do next brave thing
Merlin - Next Step: Meet the families of the girls we rescued

This was more or less what we'd been doing all along, but the fact that the players clarified why and which parts they cared about produced tangible results in the following session (see below).

At the end of the session, I had them update their Next Steps.  Dan's "do next brave thing" was unchanged, John's "get in good w/ Seacrest" was a logical follow-up to having met local noble Lord Seacrest, but Merlin totally floundered.  He talked about still being in the phase of just meeting folks and making a name for himself, getting me worried about how much initiative he's going to throw at his goals.  Fortunately, John  had plenty of ideas, and Merlin latched onto a few, which I wrote down: "find Earl Duyker's enemies, uncover local power structure including unofficial village leaders."

Contextual Rewards

I think this is the "Positioning" Character Component according to Forge theory, but I'm not sure.  Anyway:

As we began playing, I asked everyone whether they wanted to play through their interactions in the town they'd just come to, or simply list off what bases they'd cover and jump ahead to their departure two days later.  John announced that he'd rather jump into "the missions", and went on to say that in general he's "not into the roleplaying and interactions part".  So I started summarizing their reception in town, and how it turned out one of the girls they'd rescued was the daughter of a local noble, and suddenly John launched right into cordial speech to the lady.  We then proceeded to have a number of fun, immersive scenes in the village, as the players forged the beginnings of various friendships an enmities with some locals.

I blame the preceding conversation about Goals.  It reminded me what facets of the situation to play up, and it reminded them to integrate my leads with their goals.

Rewards for Color Contributions

Many of these were actually the players roleplaying their characters' personal goals, specifically telling tales of their deeds to enhance their reputations.  The class disparity was a huge source of color: the PCs couldn't enter the manor house until they bathed, and once they did, I described their modest meal and beds... which John and Merlin realized were the best of their lives!

"Connections to Form" List

Back at the beginning of the game, I made a list of relationships I'd like to get the PCs into.  If you'd asked me, I would have said that forging these would set the stage for more satisfying play, so the sooner the better.  Unfortunately, I've actually wound up not pursuing these very hard.  Some of the opportunities I've laid out haven't been picked up, and others have been picked up but then set aside (having an enemy in Delsiford is irrelevant when you're done with Delsiford).  The list:

Enemy, Older Sibling, Authority, Employer, Followers, Resource spot, Competitor, Pet project

In this session, I had already planned to introduce them to a noble, but it worked out so well when I did that I feel stupid for not having done it sooner.  Perhaps the Life Goals and Missions will remind me in the future.

I think the "Interest" niche in my scenario-creation process is a good slot for these connection opportunities.  I also think tying them together in a relationship map might help keep certain dynamics relevant even as PCs travel a bit.

This session's connections:

I handed them a low-ranking noble to like (Seacrest), and a high-ranking noble to hate (Duyker), and established that the nice guy holds some sway with the hated guy.  This got the wheels turning in their heads quickly! 

This session was also the perfect time for Elericus (whose life had been in the PCs' hands for a while recently) to invite the PCs into the brotherhood. 

As I thought that through, and remembered that Elericus had sicced Delsiford's mafia on the PCs, I decided it would make sense for Elericus to help eliminate the mafia to hide his involvement.  So, he's offered to use his connections to start bringing them down.

Finally, as I was playing Elericus's trauma over the recent monster-fighting, John interpreted his insomnia as the same thing that I'd afflicted the PCs with back when I was trying to get them to chew roots.  So, Roderick gave Elericus roots, and Elericus had a vision that revealed just how nasty the grell really is.

Reminders: card readings, root visions, perception powers

I need a better way of reminding the players that these are always on the table.  Perhaps the character sheet...

I just co-created and published an RPG with Jason Petrasko, Alexander Cherry, and Guerruntz. Out There is a game that churns out TV-style dramatic investigations. I had a "possibly paranormal" vibe in mind when I came up with the idea, but that's merely one option for what can be done with it.  The game can be purchased here using PayPal, and right now the price is only $1.

The game was created for entry in a contest, and went from idea to product in 21 days.  We weren't able to playtest it much, so I'm very curious to see how it works out for the folks who try it.

Anyone who writes in to let me know your impressions gets twelve gold stars!  Or, write about it somewhere other than my blog, and drop me a note here directing me to your comments on the Forge, Story Games, RPGnet, your blog, or wherever else you said your piece.

Thanks,
-David

P.S. ( For anyone who found this game by reading my blog, rather than vice versa, here's more info about the game )

12/09/08 -- me GMing for John, Merlin and Dan at John's place

"Speed & Focus" dial

First time playing with the Speed & Detail paper dial I made. Showing it at the beginning seemed to make the players aware of their options, and John and Dan each used it once in the session. That's about how often they say to me "let's FFW" or some such, so I'm not sure if it made a difference or not. I could probably test it better by absolutely sticking to the level of Speed & Detail indicated, and forcing them to move the indicator when I went too slow or too fast. But in tonight's session, which was very heavy on the danger, there were plenty of pointed questions for me to answer, and when that's happening, that communication pretty much dictates the pace.

Reward Quandary

John brilliantly solved my puzzle of which herbs to put on which dials to get the seal to work, but didn't seem too stoked about it because the immediate impact wasn't a big deal (semi-open magic door is now MORE open) and the ultimate payoff was completely unknown.

The series of fights in collapsing caves really got everyone excited, reinforcing the fact that play benefits from drama. Oddly, John kind of sabotaged the adrenaline flow by looting the bodies in detail. We all kind of wanted to say, "You grab what you have time for as we're dashing away! Figure it out later!" but he really wanted to know what the options were, and make the right choice about whether to take boots or breastplates or swords.

After a bunch of daring and cleverness, the players pulled off a big accomplishment -- they killed 7 of the Cursed, wounded their monstrous pet, and saved the 15 virgins they were about to sacrifice. We stopped play with them stumbling into town to deliver the rescued girls and claim the thanks and adoration of the villagers, which seemed like a pretty solid payoff for Dan and Merlin. John, though, was frustrated by how all this striving and prevailing had failed to make his character more capable and powerful.

I mentioned that now was a good time to hand out character points for skill advancement, and that got everyone started talking about pumping their stats, fighting skills, and maybe stealth and climbing. John asked me if he could really get anything out of pumping his character's big stats, Herbalism and Healing, any further. I had to say no -- Healing rolls have been few and far between, as no one's been on the brink of death, so it's been a kind of yes/no deal, where knowing what to do and having the supplies is all there is, and a rank 1 is as good as a rank 5. Likewise with a fuzzily-defined knowledge "skill" like Herbalism. The skill system does a poor job of signalling "this isn't D&D!", so no matter how many times I tell John that, he's still looking for familiar sources of "progress".

Making them so damn poor that every piece of metal they find screams "valuable!" at them is also a pointer in the wrong direction. Although only John seems truly obsessed with getting enough wealth and gear to buy metal armor. I wonder if that'll always be a goal until PCs have the best gear they could hope for, or whether better Secret-trails would distract the players from all that.

After the session, I had to bring up that they'd just solved Door #2, and that the last time I asked them, their keenest interest had been in solving Door #1, so now, what had they achieved? "Oh!" Dan said. "We could go open Door #1 now!!"

John grumbled. "So? We'd have to go all the way back there to something we've already seen. It'd be better if doing this cave mission got us somewhere new." This is another testament to the importance of leading the players to form firm goals to pursue. If their goals are vague, achieving them isn't as functional a payoff.

Basically, all this just drives home what I've been thinking recently -- that the key for Delve scenario design is to pose distinct questions and offer ways to answer those questions that announce themselves as such. "We want X, X requires Y, Z claims to offer Y, so we'll go do Z," is way better than, "We want X... and Z might be related... let's see what we can find in Z."

The lack of an easy-to-identify Reward mechanism is vexing me. Perception Abilities are nicely apt, but it's really hard to incrementally advance those. Each new sense you gain is a field of 12 new symbols to learn and map. Making them non-redundant from character to character, once each character has 2 powers, that's a total of 72 meanings for me to generate and track! Ack!

As for using the Perception powers, now that it's occurred to folks to experiment, we're starting to edge toward "use them all the time to gather data", which I fear will render them bland and grating. It hasn't happened yet... but I still wonder if reintroducing some cost for use might be wise.

For them to count as a payoff, I need to ask more questions that Perception Abilities are uniquely suited to answer.

Voluntary "Involuntary Responses"

My "you all take one point of Shock" rule for seeing the Queen Grell was great. Exactly what I hoped for -- players worked in portrayals at their own comfort level, covering the range from traumatized to unflinching.

Maneuver Checks

Combatants' opposed attempts to control positioning -- this is a brilliant thing to incorporate into resolution of realistic combats.

Big Argument Over Weird Situation

There's a general rule I use that gives bonuses to fighting a "non-threat". If you have a sword, you get bonuses to hit and defend against someone with bare fists. Where exactly does the bonus to defend come from, though? What does that assume, and did it apply to the case that arose in play?

Dan's character was trying to splash acid on an Orc that was trying to stab him. The Orc didn't know about the acid, and charged right at him to gut him. Dan's roll to hit was not sufficient to hit using the "non-threat" rules, but John made a vehement argument that splashing the Orc should actually be easy.

We even modeled this -- Dan actually flung a cup of water at me, while I swung a boffer sword at him. He basically dove at me, flung it, then skidded past, which was cool, cuz it helped us all visualize what happened in-game.

In the end, this just reinforced for me that no rule of thumb or realistic mechanic can take the place of case-by-case "what would happen here?" judgment calls. Whenever we can't agree on "what would happen" it's messy, rules or no. In this case, the agreement would have been easier if I'd just said, "what you say sounds sensible, fuck the 'Non-Threat State' condition," but I didn't want to cave to player wheedling for advantage, and I wanted to give the rules a shot to do my job for me. Oh well.

12/03/08 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Major Secret Spawning

It's a good thing I wasn't too attached to my pre-campaign prep. If I'd spent more time on it than I did, that time would have been wasted. The door in Elericus's basement is now effectively a Major Secret. Very useful? Check: a portal to various places. Requires lots of sub-quests & components to master? Check: plants and numbers and animals and orders of operations all matter, and the players will learn that in bits and pieces.

So, now I've determined the Minor Secret for the current quest is "knowledge of how plants effect the door knobs". The players won't need to "solve" the scenario to learn that, so I'm curious to see what they do once they learn it.

They're Not Sure What They're Looking For

I've successfully given the players many interesting options of things to do. The interest, though, isn't very pointed -- it's mostly, "Well, we have to do something, and at least with imperial missions we'll make money, defend humanity, and destroy evil." As opposed to, "We want knowledge and power, and we think this particular quest will give us X in furtherance of that."

That latter would be way better.

Now that they've acquired plenty of Roots of Visions, I'm hoping they'll try to dream about the stuff that interests them. Unfortunately, due to the memorable (and slightly off-target) circumstances of the root mechanic's introduction, they've associated the dreams with, "Make nightmares go away when you see evil things." As Dan pointed out to me, they aren't currently pursuing this cave because it's where the eyeball-monster came from. They don't care where the eyeball monster came from.

The dream merely put the cave on their radar, and subsequent conversations piqued their interest.

I think translating "where to go to find more info" as "where it came from" has been an error on my part. If I can equate the dreams more generally with "useful clues", and then follow through on that, the system might work better. For example, when someone dreams about Elericus's door, I'd better be ready with an interesting vision that suggests an appealing quest to a location where there'll be a real, door-related payoff.

Fact Sheets for the Players

Everyone liked my demo sheet for Elericus's door, with boxes and columns for listing what their powers gleaned from it, what they knew about how to use it, related items and curiosities, etc.

I think I should also make a sheet for listing Object of Dream and then Result of Dream, so everyone has an easy reference of where to go to find info on what.

One thing I meant to do but forgot was to create Perception Powers columns on the character sheets, so they could fill in stuff like "red = angry, yellow = protective" etc.

They Finally Started Experimenting With Their Powers

I'd been thinking they'd do this as soon as the powers manifested. Nope. But in this session, John said, "I want to start perceiving the signs for plants whose uses I already know, so I can compare that when I look at unfamiliar plants." Boom, Merlin followed up and started doing the same. The two of them rigged up an ingenious scheme where Roderick (John) used his ability to read body language to guess if Elericus was lying while Jan (Merlin) read Elericus's aura as he answered various questions.

FFW Through Research

I didn't have the fact sheets ready, and I didn't have answers on hand for every perception they tried. Rather than give me time to figure it out, they all said, "you go figure it out; let's move on with our mission."

Same for casually interrogating Elericus: while roleplaying the conversations would have been fun, they all agreed they would rather just know what they learned in the end, and spend their play time seeking dangerous magic caves. Ah well, that's probably to be expected when sticking them on a raft for 7 days with a self-proclaimed magical insider.

Perhaps a takeaway here is:
When new knowledge arrives at the end of a fight with a monster, play through the discovery and savor it! When it arrives after leisurely experimentation or banter, on the other hand, then it's just the facts, please.

( Color Sticks Around, Travel Food Equation )

I've been involved in this thread on the Forge about a game called Dead of Night , which has highlighted some interesting differences from my accustomed play.  In the thread, everyone (GM and players alike) relies heavily on a shared vision of what a game session is supposed to produce, based on common, familiar references.  Creepy Horror Movies, the place we all live, etc.  Having these as a foundation makes it easy for the players and GM to just play their characters -- they know what sorts of things the characters should do, and what sorts of situations should arise, without having to consult anything or discuss at length.

I've endeavored to create the same level of agreement in Delve, but I've been missing that element of familiarity.  My players and I have never shopped, hunted, travelled, corresponded, or looked for work in medieval Europe.

As for character motive, "just do what you would do" is easy enough, but doesn't really apply to facing down danger.  "Play yourself, but less risk averse" isn't really "play yourself" at all.

I have a nagging instinct that says, "Of course play is easy when you're going for emulation.  None of that applies when you simulate an untidy reality and play characters who are rationally responsive first and foremost."

Still, it begs the question: what exactly is a session (or series of a few) supposed to produce?  Not just in terms of "what happened" factually, but in terms of what that was like.  Sometimes I want to answer, "it should be like real life", and other times I think, "but real life isn't a game."

Even "real life with the boring parts edited out" can come in distinct flavors.  Indiana Jones and X-Files were my first two thoughts for references, but it's pretty clear that neither is suited to serve as a guiding principle the way Cinema Horror does in Dead of Night.

A Delve scenario can resemble an X-Files episode in many ways, but I'm wary of trying to make Delve "a game that does X-Files".  I mean, if my goal were to make a game that does X-Files, I'd be giving the players tons of knowledge the characters didn't have, demanding that they act like Mulder and Scully, and constantly rearranging the facts of the world to provide for situation resolution every session.

I just don't see how play can produce both a realistic simulation and a concise dramatic structure at once.  I dunno, maybe that's a good Holy Grail to aim for...

11/05/08 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place

Despite writing down all sorts of attributes like "impatient", "impulsive", and "hates negotiations" on their character sheets, John, Dan and Merlin insisted on spending the first 36 minutes of play discussing how best to contact or kill the creepy wizard who was waiting in a city where they'd offended the mafia, and how best to acquire passage to the lands beyond.

I tried to help them clarify the options ("Guys, first make a damn decision on whether you'd rather kill him or try to use him as a resource!"), but ultimately there wasn't much I could do.  The situation was complex, the players cared about choosing wisely.  So they did what anyone would do in such a situation: they were really, really thorough.

At least their planning was testament to the fact that the game's fiction has indeed come alive for them, which is a big success for me.

Color Checkboxes

I think lumping "record your own contributions" in with "inspire yourself to contribute" on the character sheets may have been a bad call.  Dan and Merlin only look at the sheet when they're looking to check off boxes after the fact, and John looks at the sheet constantly for ways to check off boxes during play.

Some of the stuff that John's giving himself points for is kind of iffy.  "Over-explains things" is just a habit of John's, and I don't really feel that every time he does it in character is a notable color contribution.

The awards for color still work best when they're communicated, but I still have trouble squeezing in time for that.  I asked Dan and Merlin to do it together while John and I were discussing something in secret, but apparently two wasn't enough.

Once I get to the next scenario, I'm going to use my breakdown of Tasks as an excuse for semi-regular breaks.  I'm not sure when's the best break time in the clue->task->clue->task cycle. 
1) Maybe right as it becomes clear what the next task is going to be, but before the players have a chance to start tackling it?  "You see a monster gurading the tomb!  Okay, time for a quick break." 
2) Or maybe right after a task, but before the next clue is found?  "It drops dead!  Before you see what's written on the tomb, time for a quick break!" 
3) Or maybe right after a clue is found?  "The tomb is inscribed with that same symbol you saw on the creepy blacksmith's apron!  Okay, before you think about what that implies, time for a quick break!"

As for inspiration for color, I think I need to remind them, "read over the list" right before the start of ITG play, not right before the start of rehashing, recapping, and OOC planning.

Character Appearance

I keep forgetting what they look like.  If they brought it up more, that would be a nice way to add vividness to the gameworld.  Must remember to add that to their inspiration lists on their sheets.

Metaphysics of Magic

I'd been reading the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, which really hammered into my head some magical principles I've long been aware of.  So I threw a binding oath, an attempted circle of containment, how to eat a monster, and an energy-gathering ritual into the session, with pretty little preparation.

It was good in that I feel I provided them clues they'll later use to start doing their own magics.  My only fear is, as always, staying consistent, and unforseen loopholes.  I think this game really just needs to include a "here are all the details of all the ways in which magic operates" for GM reference.

Death

My players want more combat, so I plan to give it to them.  The more often they risk death, though, the more likely that someone will die.

In my initial conception of Delve, this was fine.  Character abilities were fairly expendable/interchangeable, and personalities were all close enough to the players' own as to be replaceable as well.  In fact, I wanted a PC to die, just to prove nothing was rigged, and to up the tension for future encounters.

However, in developing as sources of color, the characters have taken on memorable details that would be a shame to lose.  Alaric's masochism, Jan's accent, and Roderick's red hair have been through a lot in this game.

The perception abilities also would be a significant loss.  I'm not sure how weird it would be to introduce Dan's new character with "he has the same affinity and has seen the same amount of supernatural shit as Dan's last character".  If there are only 3 types of perceptions in the world, that's fine; if there are 10 or 13, maybe not.

GM's Character Sheet

It was really handy for me to have this.  Having their levels of Luck, Barrier Rot and weaknesses right in front of me made it easy to kick in subtle manifestations during play.