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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Thoughts on: Fudging Rolls to improve your GMing?!

Essence: In my experience if rolls are fudged by GMs it happens in the favor of the players. But how about cheating to their disadvantage? Could that add to your game?

Details: Why do GMs roll attacks or damage behind a screen? I can think of only one reason: to fudge rolls.
Interestingly enough this is almost always done in the players favor. Mostly to prevent a character from dying.
As a player I hate that! If I get the impression that the GM is cheating to prevent that my character is killed I lose the interest in the encounter. And believe me, players tend to notice such things (a question about the current amount of HPs is like an announcement that the GM will be cheating anytime soon). Combat should be lethal and if my character cannot die why bother with combat at all? And since I do not like that rolls are fudged to my advantage as a player, I do not do it as a GM either.
If a combat turns out to be too hard, I either withhold enemies the characters might not have yet seen for that encounter, go along with every idea the players have to turn the combat to their advantage and if I cannot the players to rethink their tactics (e.g. by withdrawing) I cut the HP amount of the monsters as a last resort. Maybe it is not better than fudging dice but I hope it is more discreet.
In John Wick's 'Play Dirty' he speaks about cheating against the players favor in order to punish them. I do not like the notion but it got me started thinking if there are situations where it would add to the game if you cheated to players disadvantage.
What if you came up with a idea to make a combat more dramatic, create a awesome/funny scene or give a monster a unique taste but that would require a successful attack. How about a bull rush that would push a character at the edge of a cliff and while the melee continues there every blow has the risk of falling. Or what about monsters with very iconic attacks like a Medusa or a Rust Monster. Only if one of their distinct attacks hit do these monster stick out of the normal crowd of thugs. But does that justifies cheating?

As a note: Even if I have not gotten a lot else from 'Play Dirty' it at least made me think how I GM and I am more willing to give 'dirty' methods a try to improve the game.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Improve your GMing: Battle of Wills

Rating: 3 of 5 stars the first time used; 4 thereafter

Details:
The Battle of Wills is Justin Evans generic adaptation of the Duel of Wits mechanic in Luke Crane's Burning Wheel. It is a system to resolve social conflicts. The rules and free printable cards can be found on SinisterGame.
The quality/layout of the cards and of all other SinisterGame products (all free) is excellent.

Usage in the session: The characters needed to require an object from a white dragon. They could have waged combat but they tried to bargain for it (as hoped). Instead of running a skill challenged I decided to give the Battle of Wills a try.
We varied the rules given on SinisterGame a bit. I, as the GM, always chose my card first. Then did the party agree upon their strategy and upon a speaker who would make the skill check. They could choose either to just play a card or to do some roleplaying. If the went with the roleplaying I decided how good the arguments were and rewarded a bonus to the speakers skill check.
The other characters had the opportunity to do other things while the speaker brought forth his point. Maybe trying to determine how much the object was worth to the dragon or something similar. But they passed.

Impact on our session:
The system appealed to both, to the players who like roleplaying and to the strategists who discussed which skill to choose and who kept track of the cards already played in order to keep the chances of an automatic defeat low.
The drawback of using the system and the only reason why I did not give a rating of 4 stars is that the game flow had to be interrupted in order to explain the rules. The atmosphere did suffer a bit because of that.
But my players did enjoy the Battle of Wills and liked it better than a skill challenged. Reason enough for me to use the Battle of Wills again.

Advice: I went along with only three skills to choose from ('Intimidate', 'Bluff', and 'Diplomacy'), which all were based on charisma. Which was later criticized by a player since as a result only two characters became speakers for the group. It would have been better if I had chosen from a broader variety of skills, for example Insight (which is based on Wisdom) for 'Slippery Slop'.
Another things I still ponder on is whether I should give a automatic point if due to the combination of cards a player has an automatic defend. I do like the idea to grant a success if the card combination came up because of pure luck and not due to conscious decisions.
But if in such a situation a check is done, the chance of failure should be smaller than that of the opposed check that otherwise would have taken place. Maybe the opponents skill modifier associated with the card he did select would make a good DC.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Lesson Learned: XP as individual rewards? Really?

Essence: If a player/character does something awesome she/he should be rewarded, no question about it. But should that be in the form of XP?
In my opinion, no. If some players receive XP rewards more often than others it may lead to gaps between the character power level which will eventually frustrate the players with lower XP. I think rewards that do not have a permanent effect are better.

Details:
When I GMed 2nd Edition D&D I used to ask around the table which players earned special XP rewards at the end of each session. And it was never a problem since the XP to advance a level varied per class and the impact of difference in XP never was so apparent.
Therefore I used to do the same when we began playing 4th Edition. I tried to keep the XP at a minimum but then I faced the problem with players who could not attend.
I went along with the recommendation that players would gain the XP for the sessions they missed but only after they had attend a number of sessions equals to the numbers they had missed. That and the fact that players cannot get XP rewards when absent would have eventually lead to the situation that some players would have advanced a level while others still had to wait for several sessions. Which could be quit frustrating.
Thus did I raise all players to the same XP level and everyone gets the same XP for each session since then. It does not matter if they are missing or attempting. It is bad enough that someone did not make it, but he should not be punished.
Since I like giving rewards as motivation even during the game, I was looking for something that has only a short-term impact on the game in order to prevent gaps between character power levels.
The best thing I have found were rerolls. Even if the effect is limited the usage of a reroll can still be very satisfying for a player. Think of a daily power attack roll which did miss, which can also be very frustrating. Especially if it keeps on happening. And the other players wont feel left behind but will be rooting for the player that uses a reroll.
Currently I cannot see a reason why I should start giving out XP as individual rewards, again. I think even for Con games are rerolls better since the player can cash-in his reward while playing and he can keep up doing more awesome stuff.

Advice: If you introduce short term boosts to characters as a alternative to XP rewards you should consider restricting the usage of the boosts. If a player collects rewards and uses them all during one encounter that challenge might be fun for that player but all others probably wont enjoy it.
Therefore did I restrict the usage of rerolls to one per encounter and a player looses all but one after a extended rest.