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When I first played Mass Effect, I wasn’t expecting much. I got it at a bargain from Steam, and heard that it is more of a shooter than a RPG. However, when I start the game up, and was wandering throughout the Normandy, I observe that the game was designed to be cinematic. Further on, I realized one thing: Shephard, be him/her a paragon or renegade, kicks ass, commands respect and in a whole, makes it feel great to be a galaxy-saving hero. Nope, it doesn’t feel great all the time to be saving the galaxy, which is why the effect of Mass Effect is so different.

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Mouse Guard is a lot of things, and isn’t a lot of things…one thing for sure is that it has taught me how to appreciate RPGs in ways I didn’t notice. I always was worried about in-character presentations and the ‘mood’ of the game, yet Mouse Guard points out one thing. Part of the experience is the table chatter, and there’s whole lot of fun in that too.

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When it comes to physical conflicts, scaling them upward is a no-brainer. We have tests of speed and strength, then followed by a duel between two combatants. Scale that upwards and we have mass combat, and move it up by another notch, we have mass battles and wars. Less said in RPGs are how social conflicts can be scaled upwards. When we think of social conflicts, we think of haggling, persuasion and seduction. However, those belongs to the scale of one-shot physical tests, handled akin to some form of social arm-wrestling. Perhaps to add more nuances to social conflicts, we have to scale it upwards. So here are some suggestions.

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I finally picked up D&D 4th Edition (just the Player’s Handbook) and as I flipped through it, an interesting thought comes my mind. Every class has a well-defined role during combat, be it healing, blostering others, crowd controls (through shifting and pulling), debuffing (marks, combat advantages), area of effect damages and a scissor-paper-rock system (the types of Defenses – Armour, Will and Reflex). It looks like the designers took a page or two out from Game Design Patterns.

This got me wondering though. Who is responsible for building effective characters. This question, however, can be broken down. What do you mean by effective? And in what situation?

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When is the last time you have a 100% in character role-playing session? Is that a myth, like the unicorns or the GM who makes profit from doing professional GameMastering? In more than a decade of game-mastering, I can count with one hand the number of sessions which can be described as “immersive and in-character”. It’s not just the out-of-character jokes; it’s more than that. I always find that most of my friends are usually playing caricatures of the archetype they have chosen or an extreme on the spectrum.

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Back in the time of yore, when one must colour his own D20 and Elf is a class in D&D, the assumed motivation for entering a dungeon is gold, treasure and magical power. More than 20 years later, this assumption has changed slightly, but it is still mostly centred on gold, magical items and experience points. Why not add something to this mix? Social status and recognition.

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It is one of the greatest volcano ever seemed. Its eruption, which took place about five hundred years ago, wiped out an entire chain of islands and countless ports and settlements. In the wake of the storm of ashes and lava, is a large volcano towering above the pale blue sea. Over years, its crater collected water and became a lake. As the volcano extends high beyond the clouds, the water is numbingly cold.

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Another 10 more ideas for dungeons, and this bring us up to a total of 70.

1. Garbage Dump. A place where the city dwellers deposit all their wastes, unwanted items and unwanted people as well.
2. Giant Roaches Nest. I don’t think this one needs further elaboration. Home of giant cockroaches!
3. Stacked Standing Stones. Think Stonehenge. Think of those stones stacked like a house of cards.
4. Old Canal Systems. This city used to rely on canals for transportation, but the city has fallen into ruins, but the canal remains, and now acts as roads to reach one part of the ruins to another.
5. Timestopped Crumbling Castle. This is a castle in the process of falling apart, as if an earthquake has struck it, but all its falling pieces have been frozen in time. Let’s hope the adventurers don’t do anything to deactivate the timestop
6. Inside a giant plant where insects have taken up residence and small gnome-like creatures are harvesting ’seeds’ from within
7. A deserted army camp, filled with zombies soldiers who still believe that they are alive
8. Mangrove with crocodile-infested water, islands which move the currents and the threat of diseases.
9. In an alternate reality where wizards become better fighters and fighters become better wizards
10. A ruined castle with invisible floors and walls. It looks partially ruined but actually it is whole; but would the adventurers care to walk on invisible floors?

Over at the RPG Bloggers Network there is a lively discussion on experience points and the rewarding of it therefore. One interesting debate is going on about the murdering of villians and why do it and why not (the article points out that recurring villains are hard to introduce and it’s not necessary the fault of XP system why players want to kill them)

My point of view? The experience points mechanic is the most potent of all Meta Plot. Yes, the experience points system is a Meta Plot too. How so? For it also influences how your players think in game. Remember the Meta Plot being able to guide players’ decisions, restrict their actions and so on? The experience points mechanic is a double whammy – for besides just guiding players’ decision, it also rewards them immediately with tangible stuff for their characters.

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We have look at setting the scope of the Meta Plot, and explore how we can fill it in. The question remains though – how do we fill in the Meta Plot? I try to offer some suggestions, along with examples. Before beginning on that, there’s one thing to keep in mind. What is the goal of this particular meta-plot you are writing?

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