Game design and philosophy or how to obliterate your party in two easy steps: or My Life in Role Playing
When I started gaming in 1978 at University, the group was...eclectic to say the least. There were two power gamers, two wargamers, and four story tellers in the group. We started with AD&D then went to Chivalry and Sorcery, later Runequest (modified), Traveller, Space Opera, Aftermath/Morrow Project, and later, much later Cyberpunk 2020. I learned as a GM that dungeons had to have a “point” Just random holes and tunnels in the ground, filled with random monsters quickly led to questions of “Why” Why is that monster there? What purpose does it fulfill, and why is it still in the dungeon? What keeps monsters in the dungeon? The old trope of “magic” was quickly obliterated since the players wanted to know the spell. So I had to learn to both think quickly, and to come up with logical and more importantly consistent reasons for something to be there or happen.
Why is the dungeon filled with Orcs, hobgoblins, ochre cubes, green slimes, etc? Why are they not fighting each other, and when a parties torches or the sound of battle occur, why do not re-inforcements arrive? The trope of they are magically confined to parts of the dungeon required hours of justification. So, my dungeons, worlds, etc had to become for lack of a better word; “Smarter”
An example: Dragons and Trolls. In my AD&D, C&S and Runequest games, they were monsters even very high level parties tiptoed around. After all Grendel, a single troll terrorized all of Denmark in Beowulf. Smaug was unkillable practically. One game we had a new guy show up, and so the regular six players were going along, when the Blatant Beast (Pratt and DeCamp) showed up. Now the Blatant Beast was an ancient dragon who loved poetry, and so all who encountered him had to come up with a bit of poetry.
The players loved it, since the Blatant Beast was also a source of vital intelligence if you played it right. Well, the new guy with his 14th Level Ranger, decided to take a shot at the beast. I asked “Do you really want to do that?” Yes, was the answer, we can kill him and loot him. The other players tried to stop it, but our hero went ahead, the rest of the players just handed me their character sheets, with a great deal of “spicy language”, and started rolling up new characters, with many annoyed comments since the characters were all decently high level (10-12).
Our hero was puzzled by this, and I let him take the first blow, ruling that the beast was surprised. He hit and got a good one. Then I grabbed all of the 10 sided dice in front of me, and rolled, telling him he just took 1000 points of damage. He was outraged since dragons were wimps, a mere 50-100 hit point creatures that did at most 2-20 points of damage. He learned that Dragons could dish out an almost unimaginable level of damage, and take 800-1000 hit points of damage with massive armor.
Trolls were almost as bad. Plus trolls built bridges, and in some places they made sure that the road could cross that river, ravine, etc, and so the townspeople would get annoyed if you messed with their livelihood by mucking around with the troll. Plus they dished out massive damage, and could take massive damage. Think Grendel. Trolls were bad news, but they could be killed, just expect the party to spend the rest of the game healing up.
Traps in dungeons: Why is it there? How is it triggered? How does it reset? Can the occupants of the dungeon avoid it? What is the purpose of the trap? So if you have a sloping floor that drops the characters into a pit, how does it not drop orcs, goblins, and other creatures into the same pit? Paranoia was the rule, they could take an hour or more checking just ONE room for traps, secret doors, etc, it was exhausting.
My players forced me to improvise, overcome and adapt, so the traditional dungeon crawl was not used much, instead overland adventures, political dealing and betrayal, and such things were common. When a dungeon was used, there was a very logical reason for the dungeon to still exist, and players exercised caution.
Other days, I would have a hard worked, tightly plotted grand adventure, and as soon as we started, the players would head out and do something completely unplanned, and off script, so I was forced to improvise. I had to do that too often, so games were plotted as mere outlines, and I was always ready to move to something completely different. In one memorable evening, the players started out in the City State, ended up owning a bakery, getting into a brawl over a guy who wanted Strawberry tarts, and never did get to the planned adventure.
Traveller, Space Opera, and Cyberpunk the same. I had to answer the question WHY, and HOW too often. So in some ways the adventures were logical, but at the same time had a zany edge. The players did weird stuff at times, two players developed the Herpes Brothers to torment another player who was a bit of a stuffed shirt. Same with “atrocity Smith (My character), and War Crimes Eichmann (a buddies character, named so as to cause our stuffed shirt to twitch)” who were designed to be so over the top and unreal, and in one memorable night, we pushed the stuffed shirt player too far and he wiped out the whole party while we were sleeping and he was on watch. This was in a game of Aftermath. I was going through some really rough times, and Atrocity Smith was my character, he was not just chaotic, he was beyond chaotic.
Well that is enough to bore you, but how is your life in role playing?
When I started gaming in 1978 at University, the group was...eclectic to say the least. There were two power gamers, two wargamers, and four story tellers in the group. We started with AD&D then went to Chivalry and Sorcery, later Runequest (modified), Traveller, Space Opera, Aftermath/Morrow Project, and later, much later Cyberpunk 2020. I learned as a GM that dungeons had to have a “point” Just random holes and tunnels in the ground, filled with random monsters quickly led to questions of “Why” Why is that monster there? What purpose does it fulfill, and why is it still in the dungeon? What keeps monsters in the dungeon? The old trope of “magic” was quickly obliterated since the players wanted to know the spell. So I had to learn to both think quickly, and to come up with logical and more importantly consistent reasons for something to be there or happen.
Why is the dungeon filled with Orcs, hobgoblins, ochre cubes, green slimes, etc? Why are they not fighting each other, and when a parties torches or the sound of battle occur, why do not re-inforcements arrive? The trope of they are magically confined to parts of the dungeon required hours of justification. So, my dungeons, worlds, etc had to become for lack of a better word; “Smarter”
An example: Dragons and Trolls. In my AD&D, C&S and Runequest games, they were monsters even very high level parties tiptoed around. After all Grendel, a single troll terrorized all of Denmark in Beowulf. Smaug was unkillable practically. One game we had a new guy show up, and so the regular six players were going along, when the Blatant Beast (Pratt and DeCamp) showed up. Now the Blatant Beast was an ancient dragon who loved poetry, and so all who encountered him had to come up with a bit of poetry.
The players loved it, since the Blatant Beast was also a source of vital intelligence if you played it right. Well, the new guy with his 14th Level Ranger, decided to take a shot at the beast. I asked “Do you really want to do that?” Yes, was the answer, we can kill him and loot him. The other players tried to stop it, but our hero went ahead, the rest of the players just handed me their character sheets, with a great deal of “spicy language”, and started rolling up new characters, with many annoyed comments since the characters were all decently high level (10-12).
Our hero was puzzled by this, and I let him take the first blow, ruling that the beast was surprised. He hit and got a good one. Then I grabbed all of the 10 sided dice in front of me, and rolled, telling him he just took 1000 points of damage. He was outraged since dragons were wimps, a mere 50-100 hit point creatures that did at most 2-20 points of damage. He learned that Dragons could dish out an almost unimaginable level of damage, and take 800-1000 hit points of damage with massive armor.
Trolls were almost as bad. Plus trolls built bridges, and in some places they made sure that the road could cross that river, ravine, etc, and so the townspeople would get annoyed if you messed with their livelihood by mucking around with the troll. Plus they dished out massive damage, and could take massive damage. Think Grendel. Trolls were bad news, but they could be killed, just expect the party to spend the rest of the game healing up.
Traps in dungeons: Why is it there? How is it triggered? How does it reset? Can the occupants of the dungeon avoid it? What is the purpose of the trap? So if you have a sloping floor that drops the characters into a pit, how does it not drop orcs, goblins, and other creatures into the same pit? Paranoia was the rule, they could take an hour or more checking just ONE room for traps, secret doors, etc, it was exhausting.
My players forced me to improvise, overcome and adapt, so the traditional dungeon crawl was not used much, instead overland adventures, political dealing and betrayal, and such things were common. When a dungeon was used, there was a very logical reason for the dungeon to still exist, and players exercised caution.
Other days, I would have a hard worked, tightly plotted grand adventure, and as soon as we started, the players would head out and do something completely unplanned, and off script, so I was forced to improvise. I had to do that too often, so games were plotted as mere outlines, and I was always ready to move to something completely different. In one memorable evening, the players started out in the City State, ended up owning a bakery, getting into a brawl over a guy who wanted Strawberry tarts, and never did get to the planned adventure.
Traveller, Space Opera, and Cyberpunk the same. I had to answer the question WHY, and HOW too often. So in some ways the adventures were logical, but at the same time had a zany edge. The players did weird stuff at times, two players developed the Herpes Brothers to torment another player who was a bit of a stuffed shirt. Same with “atrocity Smith (My character), and War Crimes Eichmann (a buddies character, named so as to cause our stuffed shirt to twitch)” who were designed to be so over the top and unreal, and in one memorable night, we pushed the stuffed shirt player too far and he wiped out the whole party while we were sleeping and he was on watch. This was in a game of Aftermath. I was going through some really rough times, and Atrocity Smith was my character, he was not just chaotic, he was beyond chaotic.
Well that is enough to bore you, but how is your life in role playing?
only addition is that still playing a lot of RPGs but sadly not nearly enough Traveller.
