4E's Greatest Strength and Greatest Weakness (and Greatest Strength)

I am of the firm belief that no problem in 4e[1] cannot be solved through judicious application of page 42. Page 42 of the DMG has the rules for stunts and I think a game sinks or swims by how these rules are used.

My personal take is that any time a player wants to do something cool, you can improvise a ruling for it using the stunt rules. By doing this, it means players can "break the rules" and do things that are not explicitly outlined in the existing powers, like leaping to grab a rope and use the swing to kick an enemy into a pit. In practice, this means I use a system of damage shifting that works roughly like this: I look at the player's action as an attack and decide where I'd rank it on the scale of

1. Dull, repeatable
2. Interesting, repeatable
3. Awesome, repeatable
4. Dull, Non-Repeatable
5. Interesting, Non-repeatable
6. Awesome, Non repeatable

Those numbers correspond to the columns for Damage Expressions on page 42, and for something that's straight damage, that's all I need, but what if it should do something else? Was the swing kick supposed to push the target back? Was the burning oil supposed to ignite?

In a situation like that, I just slide down the list based on how potent the effect is. For simple stuff that I might see in an at-will, like pushing the target a square or letting the PC move a little farther, or a small amount of ongoign damage I'll go down one step[2]. For more serious effects, I'll slide down a few more steps. Easy peasy.[3]

But this is where it gets rough, and where we get into my biggest frustration with 4e. So long as we stick with things we can easily visualize, where the consequences of the actions are reasonable and understandable, this all works great. Imagining an action that knocks someone down or lights them on fire is not hard, but many other effects are much harder to visualize. The idea of stunting an attack that might put the Dominated or Petrified status on someone is hard to wrap your brain around.

But the problem is, that's equally true of powers. The color of 4e attacks varies from loosely tied to the mechanical expression to completely baffling in its association. This encourages a habit of expressing things purely in terms of mechanics rather than color because the color will, simply put, not always make sense. That, in turn, discourages things like stunting because it's an entirely different language. Put most directly, there are two modes of play - applying mechanics and then describing their outcome, or describing action and then interpreting it with mechanics. A lot of times when people decry 4e as just a boardgame, it's this divide they're talking about.[4] I don't think that's a fair comparison, but awareness of this division is useful.

So, the problem with coming up with color to reflect more dramatic effects is a rough one, but this is where we also come back into 4e's strength. While it's not quite a science, there is definitely an art to when certain types of effects and conditions start occurring in play (both in terms of monster abilities and player abilities). Dominate, for example, it not terribly common at the heroic tier, but in higher level games you'll see more of it. This pattern is true for most effects, and this makes for a weird ebb and flow of play. On paper, these things aren't really level dependent, but by distributing them by level, 4E uses its mechanics to create is own type of flavor for the tiers of play.[5]

The upshot of this is that as players and GMs achieve greater mastery of the system, they also get a greater understanding of what are, effectively, the genre expectations of the tiers. A heroic tier monk who attempted to justify a paralyzing strike as a stunt would probably be considered inappropriate, but they same monk in the epic tier might be more in bounds.

Now, genre is definitely a bit of a bugaboo. Let's say that monk wants to jam his hands into a burning brazier sacred to Kord to make an attack with his fists wreathed in divine fire. In some games, that would be totally cool, while in others, the monk would be looking to take some fire damage for his trouble. Neither approach is incorrect, it's only a problem if this expectation is not communicated well.

That said, I do caution any DM looking to get his stunt on to keep an eye on the roles of the party member and be more flexible when a stunt reflects that role. Similarly, this is probably the area where power source is well worth keeping in mind. See, Martial characters and Strikers (especially martial strikers) have the easiest time stunting. Because they're physical and all their actions are easy to describe, they're easy to stunt. Characters with other power sources are dependent on their powers to do things, and as powers are purely a function of game logic, it's really necessary to develop a sense of what cool things the character could do that are in theme but not necessarily power use. This is easier for some classes than others - Druids are MADE to stunt, but Wizards can have a hard time of it because of the historical D&D model that their abilities are all Vancian spells - so it may be worth talking to individual players about how they see their character stunting. Even if this means coming up with a few "pre-made" stunts and setting up situations where the character can use them, it is entirely worth the effort of doing so if it means EVERYONE at your table is engaged and being awesome, not just the rogue or monk.


1 - In combat, at least.

2 - In this I also include some faux conditions like "Unbalanced" (getting hit again knocks you prone) or "Distracted" (grant someone else combat advantage)

3 - There's an argument that this makes players more powerful because it effectively grants them an array of extra encounter powers so long as they can think of awesome things to do. I am too pro-awesome too give this much weight. Also, there are some checks baked into this model - I'm willing to have damage go to 0, representing a zero step on that list, but no lower. That means if a player wants to kick an opponent back one square (dull, repeatable, 1 shift), then he can do it if he's willing to forgo damage, but if he wants to trip an opponent (dull, repeatable, 2 shift) then it's not an option unless he does something to make it cooler. In practice, this means that players can't really make up encounter power-equivalent effects based solely on their own actions, though a creative enough player might be able to effectively fake some at-wills. However, each time you do something it gets more boring, so coming up with "Repeatable, Awesome" is great, but actually repeating it it will make it interesting, then dull in short order.

4 - Ironically, this actually creates a lot of overlap between 4e and some of the more curious small press games, which also flow from mechanics to play rather than having mechanics used to interpret play, but that's neither here nor there.

5 - In my mind this is a callback to the way spell availability changed the nature of D&D over time. Certain spells (Teleportation, Fly, stuff like that) opened up the scope of play by changing the nature of things like overland travel, which in turn changed the flavor of games. 4e powers don't really reflect this (though rituals do , to some extent) but the game is still structured to try to capture that sense.

Puzzling Out Puzzles

You round the corner and see a square room, perhaps thirty feet by thirty feet. A great door on the opposite side of the room is bound in iron encrusted in runes that glow faintly. There's not apparent means to open it, but on the floor is an intricate pattern of glowing lines, with half a dozen short pillars of stone resting at the intersections that looks like this drawing

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Wait, what? It's an ancient elven...

It's a freaking puzzle. Because ancient elves hated doorknobs.

Hey, this was a hiding place for great secrets. They had to put in safeguards!

Safeguards that any idiot with enough patience could get past. Yeah, some geniuses. Seriously, can't we just skip past his and get back to the fun stuff?

Puzzles are tricky. As a GM they always seem like such a great idea. They introduce a challenge for the players and provide a nice challenge to fight scenes. They offer an opportunity to introduce depth to a setting without And Tolkien had one at the gates of Moria, so it's got to be good, right?

In practice, they never quite deliver. Either one of your players immediately sees the solution and they breeze past it (possibly leaving everyone but the puzzle guy feeling frustrated) or the puzzle stumps them, and they're stuck and frustrated until you drop a hint or one of them goes off and googles a solution. As something that can bring a game to a dead stop, it's just a bad idea.

The instinct is to just stop with puzzles altogether. That was certainly my solution for a long time, but there's a trick that let's you get all the good things out of a puzzle *without* the problems, and it's this: don't put puzzles in a place where they can stop play. Put them right out in the open where players can see them and poke at them while they still proceed with the adventure.

For purposes of this, a puzzle is any element of play which needs to be figured out to reveal something new. A well constructed puzzle has a 'trick' to it. Once you know the trick (or tricks) the answer becomes obvious, but without the trick, it's frustrating. Like a bird-eye view (or the right-hand trick) makes a maze easy to solve, or how a cipher becomes crystal clear once you have the key.

While this certainly includes most classic logic puzzles, that definition applies to a wide range of in play elements, including mysteries and clues as well as setting secrets. While their narrative may differ greatly, their structure is very similar, and the tricks that work for one can inform on another.

Take, for example, the murder mystery. It is a puzzle (who? why? How?) but rather than stop play, it _drives_ play. Players are aware of that puzzle and they work their way around it over the course of their investigation, prodding and probing until some new insight is revealed. Most GMs are comfortable with this model, but does it really translate to more traditional puzzle boxes and strange languages?

It turns out it does, and if you want a fantastic example of how to do so, take a look at some of the shows that have JJ Abrams' name on them[1]. The man's nuts for mysteries - maybe too nuts - but he provides a fantastic template for how to drop a mystery dead center in the middle of things without it stopping events. The difference (as with the murder mystery) is that the puzzles are created to drive play, not as mere one-offs in the course of a story.

How do you do this? First and foremost, you put the puzzle right out in the open. Not only do the characters know it's there, but so do other people who also have an interest in the solution (or more precisely, what the solution reveals). Something as simple as a locked door becomes a plot when no one can open it, there's something behind it, and there's a small cast of characters invested in the fate of the door.

Second, you don't need a solution to resolve anything. Specifically, this means that the solution is not necessary to resolving whatever other plots are on hand. If a session or an arc ends with a puzzle unsolved, that's fine. Unsolved puzzles have the opportunity to *grow*, with hints and callbacks springing up in other places. If that door is never opened, it just means its all the more interesting if the players find another such door somewhere else, only this time it looks like they're on the other side.[2]

Lastly, don't be afraid to make puzzles that are too hard or too easy. Too hard just means that you can pay them out longer. Too easy means that they can help move the players on to the next thing with a sense of quick accomplishment. As long as you don't make a big deal out of either extreme, they both remain playable. It is only when this gets you flustered that it's going to throw things for a loop.

Puzzles really are a fantastic part of gaming. I know some people still love them for all their dungeon crawling goodness, and more power to them. But that's not the only way you can use them in your game. They have a lot to offer, if you'll just give them a try.


1 - If you haven't, check out Abrams' TEDtalk about The Mystery Box.

2 - Using elements like this to build organically can really give your setting that sense of continuity that excites fans of the most convoluted of programs. Callbacks are made of win.

Ipad Experience

So, to mark the completion of a metric ton of writing on Friday, I hit the Apple store to see if I could get lucky and snag a 3g Ipad. Turns out I could, and I've been running around with it for the past few days. It's a pretty spiffy device, and I figured I'd share my observations so far.

• I have wanted a tablet computer for 10 years or more at this point. Apple has done a lot of not-great stuff, but by actually opening this market up to devices that cost less than 2 or 3 thousand dollars, they have earned a lot of points in my book. Also, this totally looks like I always envisioned the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy looking (though in my mind the HHGTTG was the size of a Kindle).
  
  
• As other reviewers have noted, the battery on this thing is a beast. 12 hours of use, no problem. The downside is that it takes a long time to charge, so developing a habit of plugging it in at night is a good idea.
  
  
• The 3g seems to work like a charm. Coverage has been good, data flows nicely. The speed difference from wifi is noticeable, but not onerous. . I shelled out for the unlimited 30 days for $30 because the alternate plan (250MB for $15) doesn't hold up for me. 250mb is a trivial amount of data - for comparison, I've used 344 MB on my phone over the past 7 days. The $15 plan exists primarily for marketing purposes and as emergency connectivity, and possibly for people who will be in and around wifi 90% of the time.
  
  
• I also shelled out for larger storage capacity, going for the full 64 gigs. In retrospect, I think that may prove to be an unwise decision. The Ipad is a little half-assed at handling local content - it's real strength is as a conduit for remote content. Certainly, it's nice to be able to upload my gaming PDFs and a little music, but since I'm not actually uploading a ton of movies to this thing or treating it as an ipod, I'm not sure I'm really going to stretch its storage limits.
  
  
• That said, the gaming PDFs? Oh man. They're a delight to read. Goodreader is the best 99 cents I've spent yet.
  
  
• Similarly, what comic books are available (through the Marvel and Comix apps) are incredible. The convenience and readability has resulted in my dropping money for a few BOOM titles (Irredeemable and Unknown) purely out of curiosity and giving them a read. I think pricing needs to still be sorted out, and different titles are doing it in different ways. The smartest ones are offering collections/trades of old issues as cheaper bundles, and charging more for more recent titles. If they can find the right price to content ratio, then this will be a gold mine. However, the comics industry is so intensely trained to overcharge that I'm not entirely confident that they won't kill the goose, especially since this model would KILL the secondary market, which might have some pretty dire ramifications.
  
  
• I've been trying to use it for work, for note-taking and other things I might use a laptop for. So far, it's ok. The big limitation is the apps. Some apps are good at taking notes, some are good at organizing them, but I have yet to find one that's does both. That said, I expect the solution to that will present itself in time. The onscreen keyboard definitely seems up to the job, but it's less useful than bringing laptop to do the same work. However, it is also a less of a barrier between you and the other people, and when it come time to brainstorm and collaborate, the ipad excels, if only as a fantastic digital whiteboard.
  
  
• And speaking of apps, you can see the evolution of the apps as they go. Most of the first generation apps are in need of UI fixes because they were based on a best guess about how the Ipad would work, but they're getting those fixes quickly. There are still plenty of iphone apps that clearly SHOULD exist on the Ipad, but they're just not there yet.
  
  
• And yes, I know the app store is closed and evil and stuff, but compared to it, the Android store mildly sucks, the Blackberry store is like punching myself in the face, and maintaining apps on a truly open device, like the Nokia n series is like dental surgery. I am tolerating closed and questionable in favor of "works"
  
  
• I'm still carrying my kindle. For straight reading it remains superior, but it remains to be seen if the difference is so great as to support the need for a second device. The reality is that since the ipad can't fit in my pocket, it's going in a bag, and if I already have a bag, I probably have room for the kindle.[1]
  
  
• I also got a bluetooth keyboard and have been pretty happy with it. It's not quite as nice as a laptop for writing, but it works pretty well if you just intend to write. Doing anything more complicated than that is actually a bit of a pain - keyboard and touchscreen is far more awkward to me than keyboard and mouse, especially when you have to worry about knocking over the touchscreen. That said, it's actually kind of fun to use it in a NON-writing configuration - typing into the keyboard with the device off to the side. I wouldn't do anything long that way, but it's kind of novel.
  
  
• The apple case has worked fine for me, and because it's not obvious, I mention that I think that flappy bit is supposed to get tucked under your ipad. Strangely, it is often more comfortable to hold it in my hand with the case in display mode, effectively making the grip portion much bigger. Doing so opens up the hand and makes the weight of the device much less noticeable.
  
  
• I have yet to be too impressed with any of the games, except maybe Plants vs. Zombies. I'm delighted that Small World is there, but it requires a second player and the interface is occasionally weird.
  
  
• Todo and calorie counting apps are still fighting it out to see who the heck is actually going to be useful for less than $20.
  
  
• Tweetdeck is visually fantastic, but I'm sticking with twitteriffic because it actually has all the listed functionality. In a rev or two, I'll probably switch.
  
  
• Yes the RPG potential is huge. No, it's not even faintly there yet.
  
  
• The mail client is not as good as the gmail web interface, but *is* good enough that it has made yahoo mail useful again.
  
  
• Using the Ipad for a while has made me realize a few things about the rest of the market, most importantly about Android. If an android tablet can really offer strong Google integration, especially with docs, that's going to be HUGE. The Ipad excels at handling material that's in the cloud, so to speak, and you can see people fumbling their way to figuring out what that should look like. This is finally the device for which a google office suite is something other than a novelty or a statement of rebellion (or cheapness). The bad news is Android doesn't get a free pass. I dig my Droid, but it's got to be better than it is now to play in this space.

When the ipad was announced, I was on the verge of replacing my netbook (a first gen HP with terrible battery life, a half-broken charger and a too-small hard drive) for portable writing purposes. I put off doing so in the hopes that the ipad could serve that purpose. So far it seems to be, but to be honest it has yet to really be put through the paces. Novelty is distracting, and it puts a bit of a rosy glow over things. I still love my Ipad, and I expect I'll continue to love it for things like watching netflix, reading comics and doodling, but will it hold up for real work? I look forward to finding out.

1 - And a Towel

Getting Things Dungeon

David Allen has a lot to teach you about running a good adventure.

If you don't know who that is, that may seem a little weird. If you do, then it probably sounds a lot weird. Allen is a productivity specialist best known for creating the "getting Things Done" methodology. I'm a big fan of his stuff, though I am not as disciplined a practitioner as I feel I should be, but that's neither here nor there.

One of the central tenets of Getting Things Done (GTD) is using well designed todo lists. There are a few elements to this but the one I want to bring into focus is well-designed list items. The idea is simple: when we usually make a list if things to do we tend to list the problem to solve ('pants'), or write something that's too big to be useful like 'Clean Garage'. Instead, you want to focus on the next action - you want to write down a task that you can explicitly *do* rather than something vague. The idea is that if cleaning the garage actually requires you do a lot of things - get trash bags, rent a dumpster or get your shop vac back from phil, for example - then "Clean Garage" is a lot less useful than "Call Phil about shop vac" or "Research where to rent a dumpster."

This comes back to planning adventures because that advice applies to the situations you create for your players. The next action is as important to keeping an adventure hanging together as it is to getting things done.

Nothing grinds a game to a halt like players having no idea what to do next. Gaming is full of habits and traditions (notably, dungeons and railroading) that persist because they provide an easy solution to the problem by limiting choices so severely that there's no paralysis. Things go the the next step (as conceived by the GM or the Adventure designer) because there's nowhere else for them to go.

At first blush this seems like there's already a solution to the problem that works fine with GTD, but the important thing is to remember WHO is acting here. Forcing the choice is a solution to the GM's problems, not the player's. The players are taking that path because they've got no other options, not because it solves anything that they want to solve.

So, if you've got a somewhat more freeform game, what can you do to get that same kind of certainty without forcing it on your players? That's where thinking about next actions starts becoming useful. The same kind of thinking that breaks down a task (like cleaning the garage) can break down a plot into the actual tasks that need to be accomplished, and thinking about things in those terms can help open up your sense of where a plot needs to go. It's uncommon for there to be only one task that must be done first - certainly some actions have dependancies, but there are usually multiple possible starting points.

So lets suppose that you, as a GM, take a look at one of your plots and break it down into an array of possible actions, what now? You don't want to just force your players to do them, or you might as well have skipped this whole step and just shoved them in a dungeon.[1] No, the trick is that you need to make sure your players *understand* that these options exist. This might require something as blatant as discussing things outright with your players, or it might simply require a few hints. Either way, you want to make sure that whenever your players find themselves at a point in the game where they might wonder what to do next, make their options clear in very specific, actionable terms.

Similarly, if you find your players turning over a problem that seems to suggest obvious action to you, stop and consider that you may be skipping over a few next actions which are less obvious to your players than to you. Rephrase the problem in terms of the actions it requires and see if that shakes anything loose.

There's a lot more to GTD than just next actions, and while it's not all game applicable (I'm not sure what "Inbox Zero" is in game terms) you might be surprised how many of them are.



1 - It's a subtle distinctions, but dungeons can be slightly better or MUCH better than straight railroading. Some dungeons demand you go through pretty much every room, and in that case it's a railroad that gives you a little freedom in choosing the order you do things. But some are designed with the expectation that the characters will, in the pursuit of their goal or goals, not be entirely explored. These latter ones are rare, but they're pretty cool. The problem, of course, is that even if the objective of the game doesn't require clearing out the dungeon, players will often do so anyway because that's the only way to get treasure and XP, which rather defeats the whole purpose of it.

Slacking

I apparently used all my smart juice in yesterday's discussion of piracy, so go check that out, it was actually pretty awesome Today I have work deadline and writing deadline breathing down my neck, so I'm shutting off the internet for the day to grind it out. The good news is if I get everything done in time, I can go to an apple store to see if all the 3g ipads are sold out already.

Wish me luck, and have a great weekend.

How to Tell A Random Story

There has been some growing awareness of the power of mechanizing setting that I've been really happy to see. One of the best examples of this is in the form of encounter tables - yes, the classic old D&D trope that was responsible of bugbears appearing in empty rooms. The problem is that the classic form of this is fairly formless - most of the classic lists tend to have everything and the kitchen sink, but the technology has improved since then. Things like the oracles from In a Wicked Age, the Playsets in Fiasco, the character creation system for Reign and half the stuff over at Abulafia are all fantastic and useful. This is good gaming technology.

One trick that's been through a lot of versions is the iterative random list (or more properly, lists). You make a roll on list #1 and based on that, roll on table #2 or #3, and based on that roll you then do something else and so on, until you've built a whole series of events. This is probably most easily recognizable at the model used for lifepath character creation from games like Traveler and Cyberpunk 2020. This is a great trick for character creation, because the same set of tables will be re-ued multiple times. Unfortunately, it's not as useful for adventure creation[1] because a single pass through the tables ends up wasting ninety-odd percent of the material. The amount of effort that goes into making iterative tables is just too much for the return.

But despite that, the method has some real appeal. There's a natural pacing to iterative rolling that lets you start at the beginning, end at the end and still have a mightily randomized middle. And, thankfully, there's a trick for getting that kind of effect with a much simpler table.


The trick is to use a table which is longer than the die you're using. If you're rolling a d6, use a table with 10 elements, for example, with the climax as #10. Roll the d6 to determine the encounter, and then cross that encounter off when it's complete, and skip over it for subsequent rolls. Thus, for example, if you roll a 5, the event at #5 gets crossed off and #6 is the new #5, and #7 is now the new #6. with each successive encounter it become more and more likely events will come to the climax, but that can't happen until there have already been several encounters.

To illustrate, you can use this sort of ablative table to model a classic dungeon without ever busting out a dungeon map.

1. The Guardhouse
2. Hobgoblin Barricade
3. The Old Brewery
4. The Black Lake
5. Old Dwarven Armory
6. The Spiderweb
7. The Abandoned Library
8. The Twisting Staircase
9. The Sleeping Minotaur
10+. Illusionist's Throne Room

So, you roll a d6 to see what the first room is, and let's say it's a 4, so we open with the black lake. We settle that out, and we scratch out the Black Lake. The list now effectively looks like:

1. The Guardhouse
2. Hobgoblin Barricade
3. The Old Brewery
XXXXXXXXXXX
4. Old Dwarven Armory
5. The Spiderweb
6. The Abandoned Library
7. The Twisting Staircase
8. The Sleeping Minotaur
9+. Illusionist's Throne Room

It's a pretty simple trick, but depending upon what kind of story or plot you want to represent, it lets you put it in a can, so to speak, without needing to bust too much hump over making a proper lot out of things. Just roll with the dice (har har) and take their direction as inspiration.


1 - Except at a very high, abstract level, as in the Dungeon Master's Design Kit, which I love.

Good Things in the Wild

Enough good things happening out there that I figured I'd call a few of them out.

If you're a small press game designer who would love to have access to Adobe CS5 but stymied by the price tag, consider applying for the Terrible Grant. One small game company will get a copy of the software, free and clear. This is, not to put to fine a point on it, an awesome thing.

Dresden Files RPG preorders have been going well. We've hit the 1000 preorder mark for Your Story and were nearly there (have maybe even cleared it) for Our World. Calling back to Fred's extensive breakdown of the costs of doing business, that's a good number to have hit.

David Hill's Maschine Zeit has been rocking the Kickstarter process. His goal was $650, and he's cleared $2000 at this point. He's already agreed to do a supplement in response to all the support, and if things clear $2500 by Friday, he'll bring all contributors in on another (as yet unnamed) product. This is a badass looking game, and if you're curious, I totally suggest getting in now, if only to get the pdf when it's $10, rather than the $15 it'll be post kickstart. Plus - cute little kid next to poster of space-horror!

Happy Birthday Robot has also rocked its Kickstart goals, so Daniel is trying to find ways to turn that success into books for schools.

Elizabeth Shoemaker has put up preorders for the revised edition of It's Complicated. If you're unfamiliar, It's Complicated was a neat little game that I would best summarize as being designed to play out large knots of complicated relationships. The mechanics are simple, but the situation generation setup, based around the physical act of drawing lines to represent connections, then using the points where those lines cross as points of play, it clever, novel and just neat. However, the initial game was definitely a little bit bare bones - lots of promise, but not necessarily a lot of direction with what to do with these clever ideas. The revised edition fleshes the game out and answers some of those questions, so I'm excited enough about it to have already bought it as book and PDF.

The Shared World Bestiary and Shared Word Writing Camp exist to make me wish that I was younger or that my kid was older.

Joe Konrath has released his ebook, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Konrath, if you don't know, is a successful author who has found more success releasing his older titles as ebooks and generally really testing the ebook waters. He blogs about it regularly, and is a fantastic resource for looking at where publishing may be going. it may or may not be the case that the role of the author is changing, but if it is, there's a good chance it's changing in this direction. The ebook is only 3 bucks and totally worth it.

Five Minute Marvels, encouraging you and your kid to draw a little every day, was just one of those things that made me go "Awwww".