So one of my contributors, mbeacom, has his own blog now, and you should go visit it. It’s good.

In other news, I’ve been spending a lot of time prepping for my upcoming Dresden Files RPG game. A while back I talked about my hurdles prepping for Bulldogs!, which came largely from my unfamiliarity with FATE as a system. Well, I feel like this time around I’m a little better equipped to deal with those pitfalls. Part of it is pure experience, but part of it is also having gone through the character creation/city creation session with my players, rather than making pre-gens without having ever played the game.

See, I have an idea of what my players will find interesting now, so I’m prepping with that in mind. I’m also trying to avoid prepping as if this were D&D, which it’s not. In D&D, I’d prep individual encounters which, while it leads to a lot of fun and dynamic fights, can lead to a somewhat more linear game. In DFRPG, what I’m doing is statting up all of the NPCs that are likely to be encountered, and then coming up with a couple of situations that are currently in play in the city. Then I’ll dump my players into that and see what they do.

Also, I think I’ve got a pretty good opening sequence planned, which I won’t share because some of my players read this blog. But I’m excited, and I’ll likely talk about it after the fact.

Mbeacom comes back to us with a post about brevity and conciseness in regards to adventure design. It’s a good one; I’ve included some follow-up thoughts at the end.

One of the groups I currently run is taking a short break while I prepare for, and go on, a family vacation.  I had this planned for a while so I was able to make sure the narrative we were engaged in had tied up pretty nicely leading up to the break. There are several dangling strands for future adventure but nothing that is time constrained so as to make the break feel unnatural.  As far as my group of heroes is concerned, they’ve earned a nice chance to kick up their heels and let the locals gush over their hard fought successes.

But where to go next?  As I said, I’ve peppered seeds of adventure here and there but now I need plans for what those seeds may become.  Normally, I like to use published adventures as a framework, at least pulling some villains and motivations from them to lay at the feet of my players. Then letting the players show me what they feel needs attention. If they follow the hooks of the adventure, great, if not, that’s fine too. I like the potential for things to happen that I hadn’t thought of. It makes the story feel more organic and it’s a nice surprise to see where things will lead, rather than having all the spoilers in advance. For some reason though, this group has me a bit stumped. I’m relatively new to the group, having only DM’d them for a few months and not knowing any of them personally prior to the start of the campaign (props to Wizards Encounters program for giving me the opportunity to meet other local gamers).  They’re not a particularly vocal bunch but they definitely love playing the game.

It’s this background that I’ve been mulling over in my mind as I try to decide what tasty challenges to put on the gaming menu.  When I’m in a situation like this, I tend to reach out to the web for inspiration. I try to find an article or story or even a random comment that helps me put things into perspective.  In this case, it was a fantastic writeup by Chris Sims over at Critical Hits.  Chris is a guy I’m really starting to sync up with. His great perspectives and original ideas make him a solid source of inspiration.  Back in February, he wrote this story about game design.  That’s right, about GAME design, RPG design mostly.  However, in reading his thoughts and suggestions, I realized that they’re not exclusively relevant to the design of new games. They’re so fundamental and easily overlooked that they’re useful for almost ANY type of design or creative process.

In my case, I’m going to endeavor to use his tips to help me focus on my adventure design. This brings us to “The Nanopitch”.  Chris describes this as the single sentence one might write in an effort to get their idea in front of a decision maker at a company. What is it about your idea or product that makes it unique? Or, tell us about what your idea means and why it’s worthwhile.

Ideally, you want to couch your nanopitch in terminologies that everyone understands. If you use references to common cultural icons, you can sum up ideas and concepts in a very short bit of text. I think this is not only great advice, but it’s a great way to think about your campaign plans, or even more simply, your story designs. Heck, even a villain could benefit from having a nanopitch.

Whether you’re a player or a DM, think about your game. Can you sum up why it’s great in a sentence or two? Can you make one sentence that encompasses what the story is about? Ok, so maybe campaigns can get more complex than a couple of sentences allow. Even so, I think it’s a great exercise to try to apply the concept of a nanopitch to certain aspects of our adventures. Perhaps each character could have a nanopitch. Perhaps each subplot or quest could benefit from this focused approach.  Just one simple concept of what it means or what motivation drives it forward.  Using this, I think it can help us design encounters, both combat and non-combat. Does the encounter serve the concept? Is it “necessary”? I think if we start to look at things this way, we can avoid some of the oddities of adventure design that tend to creep in. Those things that dilute the awesomeness of the story, or confuse the players as to what is really important.  And as I’ve learned from my experiences of running games, diluted awesomeness and confused players are very often a signal that your adventure design needs to be more focused.

So, as I sit here and ponder what unthinkable evils my players will have to overcome, I’m thinking of them with laserlike focus. I’m designing with greater consistency of theme and purpose.  I hope not to lose that 50,000ft view of the world, even as I dig deep into the wild antics of the skirmisher I plan to use in certain encounters.  I’m resolved to create a “core ethos” and stick to it, letting it guide my design decisions. Hopefully this will help over the long term as transition into Paragon tier. I really want my players to look back and feel like they made a journey, rather than just did “a bunch of stuff”.  Perhaps I should ask my players to make the nanopitch.  That could get really interesting.

This nanopitch idea reminds me a lot of something that exists in the Dresden Files RPG: the high concept aspect. Each player character has seven aspects–descriptive phrases that say something about who and what your character is–one if which is the high concept aspect. This aspect sums your character up in a few words to a sentence, boiling your character down into something short, punchy, and memorable. In fact, all named characters (NPCs included) have a high concept aspect, which helps to keep them differentiated in everybody’s minds. Applying a similar thing to D&D (or to other games) can help you come up with a cleaner, clearer vision of your game world and the cast of characters populating it.

I also want to touch on the idea presented at the very end of this post, the idea of letting your players give you the nanopitch. I love this idea. Again, DFRPG does this to some extent. The first session is City Creation (of which Character Creation is a part), and everyone’s involved. All of the players, in concert with the GM, create the game setting in concert, complete with NPCs, threats, and locations. New things can, of course, be introduced during the game, so the GM is not constrained by what is created in the first session, but it’s a great way to mine your group for ideas, and a great way to get them to tell you what they’re interested in seeing in the game. Chances are, if a player tells you that there’s a mob boss controlling the trafficking of supernatural drugs somewhere in the city, that player probably wants to do something about that problem at some point.

Again, the applications to D&D are intriguing. Setting aside the first session of a new campaign for character creation and setting creation takes a lot of the creative burden off of the DM, and gets the players immediately invested in the world (since they helped make it).

Another post from our friend mbeacom, in which he talks about soliciting player input in your campaigns.

I just read a great article over on Dungeon’s Master and I’d like to use it as a stepping off point for some thoughts and experiences I’ve had on the subject.  In this article Wimwick discusses the subject of player input, and in particular, how much should players have in building the story and even the campaign.

I think he rightly surmises that player input is both vital to the story, as well as incredibly helpful to the DM, a person who often struggles with the endeavor of putting together an intriguing interactive fiction that is hopefully enjoyed by all.  He starts with the tried and true; the player back story. Then he moves on to what I think is just as key to keeping things moving along; the Paragon Path.  Wimwick supports my belief that Paragon Path is more than a few extra class features and attack powers we can expect to get in the mid levels of the game. It’s something we can use to fuel our player progression and set us apart from (or bring us closer to) others in the group in a good way that advances the story while supporting creativity.

So, let’s take those solid building blocks and see if we can pepper in some more juicy bits that might benefit players, DMs, and more importantly, stories moving forward.

The Player Trademark
I play in two alternating groups and DM for two others so I have lots of opportunities to try out different techniques.  One that I’ve been tinkering with, as well as been exposed to, is The Player Trademark.  It’s still in its infancy but I’d like to throw it out there to see if others are having success doing something similar or if it sparks an idea that might improve on it.  I’ve been trying to put together a few little eccentricities (as have some of my players) for the characters I play to give them flavor. After reading posts like Wimwick’s, I think there may be greater potential here.  I can see a possibility where a player Trademark would be a great vehicle for using story to give information to both the DM and the other players in the group.  

An example of this is my Ranger character.  He’s level 7 now and I’m considering the Battlefield Archer Paragon path.  That’s good information for my DM to have for planning adventures and we’ll eventually have the very discussion that Wimwick advocates. However, being the story loving type that I am, I would like to influence the story in more subtle ways as well.  I’m going to try to develop a Trademark that will give the DM even more flavor for developing any portions of narrative that lead to my eventual Paragon Path. Currently, I’ll call what I do a gimmick more than a trademark.  My Ranger has a habit of whispering the name of the enemy he attempts to kill in combat prior to rolling the d20. I’ll probably take this a step further and begin whispering the name to my bow, or perhaps to each arrow specifically, communing with it as an extension of myself. Perhaps I’ll come up with a post-combat ritual to add to this.  Doing this can be an interesting RP exercise as well as giving my DM a peek into what is important to me as a character, i.e. my bow and how I use it to dispatch my enemies.  Knowing this can add the extra oomph to how he plans my trajectory into the Battlefield Archer Paragon Path.  This extra depth allows me to impact the story such that I can help seed the DMs imagination in a way that is in keeping with who I view my character to be.

Player Relationships
Another interesting story seed is player relationships.  This is a pretty common thing to think about. Does the Paladin get frustrated by the Rogue or the Warlock? Does the Dwarf constantly bicker with the Elf in the party? Is the Warlord constantly “over” negotiating NPCs with his intimidate and diplomacy skills?  These are pretty standard tropes insofar as we understand them. However, thinking about this has made me realize there is more potential there for the thoughtful player and DM.  

Others may take this for granted but it struck me recently that these relationships should both be informed by player backstory as well as impact Paragon Path choices.  Our relationships with other PCs, NPCs and even villains, can be a great way to set our characters on certain adventure paths. Do we want our character to be someone who melds easily into society? Do we want them to be someone who struggles to maintain relationships? Do we perhaps antagonize certain types of characters or villains? Do we have things in common with them? How does the way we make these choices, and how we RP them, affect the ideas we have about our Paragon Path choice?  I’m not sure I have all the answer to this one, but I’m certain that with further thought, and potentially some feedback, there is great storyline potential here, especially as we try to link it to our chosen Paragon Path.

Player Weakness
Now this is one that I think has some great potential.  We all spend a lot of time building our characters strengths, powers, and capabilities.  However, inherent in those very designs is weakness.  In many ways, those weaknesses, those “holes” in our character optimization can be just as interesting as our actual abilities. Perhaps you’ve designed your character to be an expert in certain areas. This could very well mean your character is narratively deficient in others. Think about your skills.  What happens when you stack your design to have great scores in certain areas? Naturally, your scores in other opposing specialties will suffer.  This is more than just good game balance. This is a narrative opportunity.  Similarly, those nights where your dice are ice cold can present an opportunity to tell a story that is interesting and different from the nights where they are flaming hot.  This is a story challenge, and even failure can be exciting if you build a story around how it relates to your relationships and even your Paragon Path.  Just like failure needs to be interesting in a skill challenge, so too does failure need to be interesting when it comes to our characters’ abilities and endeavors.

In fact, I’ve recently had discussions regarding one of the games I play in where the DM makes success a bit too easy.  All those potential storylines that revolve around failure, or lifting yourself out of defeat become purely theoretical. Don’t get me wrong, I like to do awesome things as much as anyone (see my most recent guest post) but I also think that the greatest feats of awesome often begin life in the shadows of failure or near-defeat.

Think about your character’s weakness. Perhaps it’s a Barbarian who is weak at ranged combat. Perhaps it’s a Cleric who was built around healing but has little damage potential. Perhaps its a character designed for combat but who suffers in RP situations.  These are all great hooks that can be influenced by backstory and further used to make our Paragon Path choices all the more interesting and potent.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across as it relates to Wimwick’s post is that he’s more right than he realizes.  Backstory is huge. Paragon Path is huge.  So much so, that we need to continue to expand on both as well as what they mean for the future and how they relate to our past.

If you have any thoughts on getting the most out of your backstory and Paragon Path, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Frequent commenter mbeacom gives us is first guest post today. Those of you who’ve followed recent comments might know where this post is going, but I encourage you to read it anyway. Mbeacom does a great job explaining his own little house rule, and backs it up with a lot of, well, awesome stuff!

Marcelo Dior wrote a wonderful column last month on speeding up combat in 4E. It took the bold position of questioning whether or not speeding up 4th edition combat is really as vital as internet message boards would have you believe. It really got me thinking, and based on Marcelo’s well reasoned treatment of the subject, I’d wager it did the same for a lot you.

So I asked myself, “Do I need to speed up combat?”. A year ago, you’d have heard me give a resounding, “YES!”. I was still youthful in my experience as a DM in 4E, having spent most of my time running far simpler versions of the game decades ago. I was a strong proponent of gridless combat and theater of the mind. I avowed collaborative storytelling and eschewed what I understood at the time to be a heavily mechanical design shift underpinning all of 4E’s combat. To put it simply, I thought combat took too long. And, embarrassingly, I endeavored to recreate the combat of previous editions in my 4E game.

A year and several gaming groups later, I’ve come to different conclusions. My understanding of the workings of 4E and its “underpinnings” has changed markedly over that timeframe (much thanks to Brian Engard and this great site in helping with this). I’ve seen all sorts of gamers chew on the rules and spit out wildly different results. I’ve learned that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder but so too is “speedy combat” in the eye of the gaming group. While one group might grind to a halt at the 45 minute mark, another would burst into the second hour full of energy. I started to put things together and came to some conclusions. These conclusions have lead me to make changes to my own games. In this article, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share one of them with you.

The most successful initiative I’ve tried over the multiple gaming groups I’ve run 4E for has been what I call, “The AWESOME card”. It was derived as a response to something I noticed happening at every table I ran for and played at in the 4E era. Players would flip through their character sheet scouring over their juicy powers and feats. The funny thing is, they would do this in an almost unspoken effort to find something that wasn’t there. I could see the looks on their faces almost as if to say, “Hmmm, this looks good, but not quite right”, or “Oooh, I like that one but I better save it for later”. To this, I wanted to shout out, “NO! your character sheet doesn’t have the answer!” “Just do something AWESOME!” That’s when it hit me. What SHOULD they do? Did the awesomeness potential of the character begin and end during the process of choosing powers? I certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. So I decided if they couldn’t find that “perfect” power on their character sheet, I’d help them make one up on the fly. And when they did so, I’d reward the effort with a power card of my own, something that says, “You did something creative and entertaining and we all enjoyed it!” I’d give them and “AWESOME! Card”.

Lead By Example

My first step towards insinuating this new “mechanic” into my game was to demonstrate what was possible. As a DM, I started really describing the actions of the enemies. I’d tumble around opportunity attacks and one enemy might leap on the shoulders of another as they both got combat advantage positioning before falling prone in a heap on the floor. My players were initially stumped as as I bent the rules to the breaking point and played up the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies they faced. But it didn’t take long for the craftiest of my players to return the favor. He asked if he could “try” something and my eyes lit up. I was prepared to say yes to my own execution at that point. His idea was great. It was well within the “exception” based rule system of 4E and when he was finished, everyone was impressed. Immediately, they were looking over at his character sheet for something they had missed. We had all visualized an action that was significantly more interesting than “State power, role dice, announce damage”. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, that’s exactly what needs to be done, but in general, flavoring things up can be a lot more fun.

After he completed his epic turn, I looked to the next person in initiative order and said, “Well, what are YOU going to do?” And to this day, we’ve never looked back. Recently, one of my players informed me, he doesn’t even look at his list of powers anymore, except to try to find some mechanics that make sense for what he wants to do.
I said to him, “GREAT!”

Reinforce The Awesomeness of The Players

Ok, so you’ve shown your players what “awesome” looks like and they’ve even tried it themselves. Isn’t that enough? Sadly, I wish it were so. Unfortunately, with 4E combat being very tactical with powers that make life so easy by telling you essentially what 6 actions are available to a character, it’s easy to fall back into old less-exciting habits. That’s where the AWESOME! Cards come in. Each time one of my players does something really creative, clever, or simply entertaining to the group, I hand him or her an “Awesome” card. It’s essentially just a reformatted homebrew power card that says some funny things and gives a reward. A few examples of the rewards are that perhaps you get to reroll a missed attack, regain a healing surge, recharge an encounter power, or even roll a special giant D30 that I keep around for fun.

These concrete mechanical rewards make the creativity feel that much more awesome. Players feel a sense of achievement more frequently through the course of the combat. This breaks up the work and reward cycle that comes from working hard to achieve a goal. If they work for 1 hour to achieve a goal (defeating the enemy, surviving, escaping), things can get stale because this one singular goal takes a long time to achieve and no single action stands out as making the achievement possible. Then when they finally achieve it, it can feel almost anticlimactic. However, if there are smaller intermediate goals that can be achieved, it removes the sense of slowdown one can get as combat draws toward the hour mark. The bite sized bits of greatness keep things surging forward and keep everyone entertained as each player tries to find some fun thing to do rather than decide which power would be the most effective at that time. The players worry about their characters and what they would actually do, rather calculating the most DPR possible. Now, if you LOVE calculating DPR or dropping mind numbing Novas, that’s great, there’s no “right” way to play D&D. But I’m of the mind that 5 people calculating DPR is generally not going to be as entertaining to watch over an extended period. (although Novas can be pretty amazing) Now, if you want to calculate DPR as well as do amazingly creative things, then I’m all for it. That’s what I would describe as “winning” D&D.

Other benefits

The last thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started using AWESOME! cards with all my groups is that the players’ interaction with the game world seems to be more under their control. What does that mean exactly? To be honest, it’s hard to explain. These awesome cards work much like an Action Point, in that you choose to use it when you feel it would be most beneficial or interesting. This gives the players more agency; more depth in how they can control the game they get to play. And, in the case of the re-roll awesome card, it keeps the dice rolling. Nothing I’ve seen has greater impact than getting that high die roll when you’re really in a crunch. Nothing is more devastating than when you get just the opposite. With a re-roll card in your pocket, you can more frequently experience the best of both worlds. You can fail spectacularly and still have a shot at saving your hide. You have more chances for those elusive crits. In the end, it just gives you that much more reason to do something fun, entertaining, and NOT predetermined by a character generator.

So this brings us back to the initial question posed by Marcelo. DO we need to speed up 4E combat? I think the answer is a resounding . . . not necessarily. Combat really only needs to be sped up if it’s too slow. It’s only too slow if it lasts longer than your players interest and it will mostly likely only last longer than your players interest if something isn’t happening during combat to pique that interest. Well, I’m here to assert that finding ways (one is via in-game rewards) to incent players to entertain themselves and each other through their characters actions. A side benefit of this is that it takes a lot of load off the Dungeon Master as entertainer. It also helps make the game more fun for him or her, as well as everyone at the table. And, isn’t that it’s all about?