Local Flavor: Creating Mood in a Sandbox

flavor

One of my goals as GM is to create a mood for the setting. Published adventures often help you out with this by providing descriptive/evocative passages to read aloud, but what if I'm running my own on-the-fly sandbox-style setting? Tables like this one for Sandbox Weddings can help, but they're not very general purpose, and you can only use it once or twice in an entire campaign.

I've been playing with some of the In a Wicked Age Oracles over at Abulafia and having a lot of fun. For the uninitiated, In a Wicked Age is a story game which provides Random Sentence Generators, or Oracles, as part of it's setup. The sentences are generally quite evocative, giving a full dose of mood along with quite a few potential adventure hooks.

So here's my idea for creating mood in your RPG setting:

1. Make a table of Oracles that apply to your game setting from here
2. When the PCs arrive in a new town/landmark/hex etc. choose an Oracle at random
3. Use the first sentence or two generated by the Oracle to create your mood element

Example for Polish Resistance

For an example, I chose the following Oracles for my Polish Resistance game, which I see as having a sort of Post-Apocolyptic/Noir/Occult mood:

1. Casblanca Oracle
2. Pulp Oracle- Weird Science
3. Noir Oracle- Down These Mean Streets
4. Pulp Oracle- I Love a Mystery
5. Modern Occult
6. Demon City Blues
7. Cascadian Folklore
8. Pulp Oracle- Rip-Roaring Twenties

Now let's roll up a few examples:

Scenario 1: Party enters a small village

• Roll: 5/A violent demon passes from host to host by touch.
• GM Says: You see a few villagers peering into the front door of a small farmhouse. A young man turns around, his face pale, and vomits on the ground.

Scenario 2: Party is walking along a long forest road

• Roll: 1/A Limousine, delivering a beautifully-dressed couple to a fashionable address.
• GM Says: A fancy horse-drawn carriage passes by. Through the window you glimpse a beautifully-dressed couple.

Scenario 3: Party enters a Large Town

• Roll: 2/A gyro-jet pistol, found at the scene of a crime.
• GM Says: You overhear two Polish Policemen talking "...and then we found this!" he says, brandishing a strange chrome pistol.

Scenario 4: Party checks into an Inn

• Roll: 7: Once a Great Lake, full of voices, now a hot Desert, where the spirits meet
• GM Says: From the window in your small third-story room you can see the outskirts on the East side of town, where the forest stops abruptly and the ground slopes down into a deep bowl. Not a single tree can be seen growing in that abrupt valley.

*Note that the first and third roll also present a potential adventure hook, without shoving it down the players' throats i.e. NPC X says "I'll give you 100GP if you solve the murder".

Polish Resistance: Session 4

Session four was experimental for me in two regards:

1. It was the first Google+ hangout game I've run/participated in
2. It was the first time I've DMed with such an extensive collection of random tables in order to create a sandbox-style setting

As far as the first point, it was successful, overall. We ran a session and had some fun. We started off with character creation--I think that took longer than it would have in a face-to-face game. Once the game got started, though, it flowed quite nicely.

In-Game Summary

Andre, after losing the rest of his party in the previous session, came riding into the village of Lipnik. There, he teamed up with Shmengy, a callous resistance fighter with a KIS submachine gun and a penchant for motorcycles and grenades.

They tracked down the barn where the German half-tracks Andre had been tracking stayed the previous night. They interviewed the farmer who's barn was commandeered, but didn't speak to his wife or search the barn.

They headed South on the tail of the half-tracks, only to be attacked by a pair of zombies. These were faster and tougher then the previous batch and had to be blown up or have limbs destroyed to neutralize. Andre caught his headless-zombie in a body-lock, then stuffed a grenade down it's gullet--blowing it to pieces but badly wounding himself in the process.

Shmengy manged to wrangle their two terrified horses and bring Andre back to town where a doctor was called. After a week of regular medical attention, Andre was back on his feet.

While he was bedridden, he sent a letter to his cousin, a German intelligence officer and double agent for the resistance. He asked about the zombies and asked her to send her response to Sandiomierz, hoping to be there in a month to hear her answer. Of course, the mail will only reach there if the Germans retake the city, so he will likely need to search out her response in Opatow.

During the healing time, Shmengy kept his eye out for a motorcycle+sidecar he could steal, but he was wary while working alone and didn't attack the few German convoys that did pass by.

By the time Andre was better, the zombie problem had become common knowledge and people in town were scared. The party recruited an NPC, one Jurek Szewc, who wanted to help with the now widely known zombie threat. He is a resistance weaponsmith and he carries a homemade KIS submachinegun.

So the party left of horseback and with a pack mule, in hope of picking up the now cold trail of the German convoy. They reached the village of Kurow, finding it much like Gojcow: deserted with a chemical smell in the town square. They found a female survivor who told of the Nazis killing everyone, then shoveling some chemical substance onto them. A pair of robed people approached the bodies, but she felt such an aura of fear that she hid and didn't observe anything else. The Germans left an hour later and that night the dead walked in Kurow.

The party stocked up on lamp oil and rations from the small, abandoned general store and prepared to continue South.

Polish Resistance: Character Creation II

When I picked a subset of Cyberpunk 2020 character creation rules for my Polish Resistance games, I missed out on an important rule: Friends & Enemies. There are three reasons I skipped this one:

1. It was part of the complex Life Events step which I considered extraneous. Anyway I prefer that characters start with minimal back-story so that the player can flesh out the character during play.
2. Generating a friend/enemy required 7 dice rolls for the various tables provided, and I was looking for a simplified rule-set.
3. I came from a DnD background where no such rule exists, so I saw it as extraneous.

However there are some good reasons to add Friends and Enemies to character creation:

1. In city-based settings, the city is too complex to come up with a detailed description of the cityscape. If the GM is going to give any depth to the city, he needs to focus on just the part of the city the characters know. A Relationship Map is a good way model the social aspects of this.
2. Having players create NPCs is a good way to encourage them to contribute to the setting in an active manner. Hopefully this mindset continues during play.
3. The focus on character relationships moves the game's goals from purely combat and treasure-based to other goals. For instance gaining power, influence, and a reputation. Perhaps that's why DnD's endgame is so elusive: if the whole focus is on treasure and XP from the beginning, it's hard to suddenly transition into a mode of finding followers, a castle, etc.
   

So without further ado:

Simplified Friends & Enemies Rule

Create 1d3-1 friends and 1d3-1 enemies for your character. Each NPC should come with a name, a short description, their relationship to the PC, and where they usually can be found.

Rules-Centric vs. World-Centric Gaming

For this post, I'd like to describe two different idealized styles of play for pen & pager RPGs. The styles are also not tied to any particular rule set, although some rule sets may tend to encourage one style over the other. These styles are idealized in that most actual games being run will contain some elements from each.

Rules-Centric
In a Rules-Centric game, the focus of play is on the game rules, both the general rules as well as any module-specific rules. Much like a board game, the rules lay down the parameters for the characters' interaction with the game world and players state their actions using the vocabulary of the rules, as opposed to the vocabulary of the game world.

World-Centric
In a World-Centric game, the focus is on the game world, while the rules are just a tool for supporting play in that world. The options for character action are as limitless as the game world allows and players state their actions in the language of the game world.

The Computer Game Test
A simple test to check where a games falls out on this spectrum is to answer the question "How easily can it be translated to a computer game?" If it is Rules-Centric, then the translation is simply a matter of writing a program to enforce the rules. If it is World-Centric then the translation will be impossible, since the limitless possibilities of the gaming world cannot practically be expressed to the computer.

ImmersionPerhaps the most important difference between these two play styles is how they effect immersion. Immersion is a subjective experience, however in my experience, World-Centric play tends to be much more immersive than Rules-Centric play. This for the simple reason that focusing on the game-world, rather than on the rules pulls you deeper into that world.

In my opinion, this is one of the major arguments for the continued existence of pen & paper RPG's in the computer-age. For all the graphics, algorithms, voice acting, etc., pen and paper RPG's still have the potential to provide a more immersive experience.

Rule Completeness
There is a trend in game design to produce endless supplements and encyclopedic rule-books covering every possible situation real or imagined. Since rules define the limits of the game world, Rules-Centric games have a much greater need for these additional rules, so that a greater range of situations can be covered. World-Centric games on the other hand, are not limited by their rule-set and the GM(possibly with the help of the players) can just make up a suitable mechanic when needed, so the need for supplements is much less acute.

Mapping to GNS
GNS is a well known theory of game styles based on what players want to get out of the game.

If we had to map these styles to the GNS model, I would say that the Rules-Centric style roughly corresponds to Gamism in that much like a traditional game, the rules define the limits of the game. In this sense, the Rules-Centric style sees an RPG as a highly complex board game.

The World-Centric style is also largely Gamist, but it is a very particular kind of Gamism: Immersionist Gamism. A World-Centric game is unlike traditional games in that the goal is not winning via the rules mechanics, rather on creating an immersive experience for the players. As such, the rules take on a secondary importance.

"It's very 'gamist', but also in its own way very immersive"

Non-Banal Magic in DnD

I've been thinking about Noism's excellent post about non-banal D&D. The gist is that many of DnD's rules and systematization make otherwise interesting concepts, like monsters and magic, mundane.

DnD magic is already said to be "Vancian". Nevertheless, while reading Vance's, Dying Earth and Eyes of the Overworld, I had a few ideas how to un-banalize DnD magic:

1) Spell Rarity
No one, or at least very few magic users, still have the knowledge required to come up with new spells. Magic spells are found in written form--players don't choose a new spell when they level, and their single initial spell is determined randomly by the DM.

Non-Banal Because: This means that the magic users will need to actively seek out new spells, often times from powerful magic users who guard their knowledge carefully. Similarly, magic users will have to guard their spells carefully. Ultimately makes spells a more valuable and exotic resource.

2) Learning Spell Difficulty
Anyone who wants to memorize a spell for the first time must roll a die to see if they succeed in an hour's time. Chance of success is a function of intelligence, spellcaster level, spell level. They can retry for as many hours as they want, but the chance of success is halved each time(rounding down).

Non-Banal Because: it gives magic more flexibility and less predictability

3) Memorization Limit
The number of spells that can be memorized at one time are the same as DND rules. Characters without spellcaster levels can only memorize a single first level spell. This number can be exceeded, with a chance of going insane.

Non-Banal Because: it gives magic more flexibility and less predictability. Allows players to take chances.

4) Spell Failure
Even once the spell is memorized, there is a chance of failure when using it. This chance is also a function of intelligence, spellcaster level, spell level.

Non-Banal Because: it gives magic less predictability. Spellcasters will be more careful about how they use their spells.

6) Some spells require components.

Non-Banal Because: these spells cost more than the user's time. They may have to seek components from far/dangerous places.

7) Allure of the Unknown
DM shouldn't introduce well-known spells, or when he does, rename them something exotic.

Non-Banal Because: magic is not a closed, well-understood system

Piquing Player Interest

The role of DM is not just that of referee, but to create an atmosphere which will draw the players into the game. This is especially important for DnD, which can often turn into a bland exercise in rules and die-rolls. Many a DM has found himself with an every-shrinking player-base as players get worn out or lose interest.

This is hard to to well and easy to do poorly. One of the major pitfalls in trying to create this atmosphere is for the DM to become a heavy-handed story teller, rather than letting the players dictate the course of the game. This often has the opposite effect than the one desired, making the game less engaging for players, rather than more.

So here are a few approaches to creating a game atmosphere which will draw players in:


Curiosity

The thirst for knowledge is a powerful emotion and all exploration-based adventures are built around it. Some methods of piquing curiosity are:

• Exotic setting to discover. Tekumel uses this approach
• Remote, legendary dungeon to explore, about which little fact is initially known
• Ever-deepening political web for characters to become enmeshed in
• Mystery to solve with strange, sometimes contradictory clues/leads
• Twists! X wasn't what you expected, though perhaps you should have suspected it. This keeps players guessing, although it needs to be done in moderation

Fear

Fear is another powerful emotion which is easily lost in the plethora of rules and die rolls. It can add a lot of interest and player commitment to an adventure, though you need to counter-balance it with promise of riches, reward, etc. Fear of the Unknown is a big factor in this:

• Unknown Monsters- this can mean creating your own monsters, or simply describing a monster rather than naming it, so that players don't immediately associate it with a list of statistics. Also, renaming existing monsters, possibly with randomly generated names
• Unknown Locations- don't give too much background information about a dungeon, just fearful, possibly contradictory hints
• Variety of Traps- keeps players on their toes
• Fog of War- don't map unexplored areas, don't show enemies who the player cannot see(even if they've started shooting arrows!)
• We're walking into a trap! To proceed, players must enter area where retreat is difficult, they can be easily flanked. Monsters take advantage of this regularly.
• Real Danger to characters- players know you are willing to kill their characters, though not unfairly. Reward caution.
• The Unknowable- the ultimate fear of the unknown, in the spirit of Lovecraft

Fun

It's still a game right? Isn't that what games are about? Having fun? This factor is perhaps the most variable, depending on your players. One players' fun is anther's tedium. In any case:

• Puzzle Solving- some players love a challenge to their cleverness/inginuity
• Mini-Games- there are all sorts of tables and rules to support this. A drinking contest, duelling, hunting, a joust
• Party Politics- the dynamics between characters, pitting them against one another with a conflict of interest--will they overcome it and work together or constantly plot against one another
• Player Choice- is a big factor in this, since it allows players to choose what interests them and for them to feel their decisions count. This can be done at the most basic level, allowing players to choose a scary adventure, a political one, one of knavery or heroism, overland vs. dungeon, to fight or to flee, to take risks or play it safe
• Inspiration- some players want to play adventures inspired by their favorite fiction or historical events. Superhero RPGs and many other specialty RPGs take this approach. Some people want their DnD Tolkienesque, while others want it Pulp Fantasy inspired

Player Skill

Here is a quote I liked from a recent post on Grognardia describing Ed Greenwood's Refereeing style in a game at OSRCon.

He didn't call for dice rolls a lot and, when he did, they were for things like saving throws or weapon damage. When we encountered a trap or a puzzle, we had to work them it for ourselves; we couldn't just "make a Spot check at DC 15" to find what we needed. The longer I am involved in old school gaming, the more convinced I am that that is the crux of the difference between older games and newer ones. For all the ways that Ed's refereeing might cause some grognards' skin to crawl, he is nevertheless, fundamentally, "one of us." He clearly gets that rolling dice should never be a substitute for individual cleverness and creative thinking.
I think this is spot-on. Games are much more fun when the player is the one playing, not their character's ability scores! For me anyway.