That happened some time ago I ran a game after a long break. The system was Dragon Warriors, and the scenario ran was the first adventure from the Sleeping Gods book “The King Under the Forest.” The group was new, and I was having a hard time getting them to play in-character.

(It doesn’t help that one of the players was a longtime D&D player and he was looking at the bestiary while playing. None of my usual players would bother looking up any references while gaming.)

Something bothered about me about the whole experience. To cut the long story short, in the end I figure that the players were using their abilities score and skills to determine their course of actions. Not that it is a bad thing, and not that they did it all the time. Here’s an example to put it in perspective. One of the players tried to pick a fight with an inn-keeper. Before the fight broke out, some of the villagers brought the militia back. The players’ final decision to back off? They discuss stats, the probabilities of them winning the fight and how many villagers and village guards they could take on.

Now I guess there’s a lot of reasons why things went this way and how I could handle it. I just put the incident one side, and went on with the game, trying to take it easy. After all, there was a long hiatus after my last game, and this was my first time with a whole new group.

The game ended, and I discussed with one of the players over dinner, asking why he did the things he do. It turned out that he understood in-character playing (he does it while playing on an online text-based game), but not while in a pen and paper role-playing game. His reason was that it took him a longer time to think how to describe his actions in “real life”, while online he could edit his input.

That never occurred to me, honestly.

He went on to explain when in a RPG, he see it as a game. His next action is based on what will improve his character, and whether his stats could support that action. He compared it to Oblivion – your next action is what give your character the most improvement.

Our discussion went on for a while, with me explaining how I see the game as a way to presenting stories, using the game mechanics to “cooperatively tell the story” and him explaining his tactical point of view.

At the end of dinner, I summarized my long-winded explanation in one sentence as this “I guess what I am trying to say is I rather my players to make their decisions in context of the story, not in the game mechanics.”

Usually playing in-character (at a pen and paper session, at least) is to think as your character would, act as your character would, in reaction to the situation. This is all well and good, but it is taxing, and some players, like my friend, find it hard to do at a table-top setting. Instead of that, maybe I could try to encourage the player to act “in-style” with the story. I am not suggesting railroading, but rather that the players’ actions fit the mood, theme, atmosphere and the situation.

Or put it this way, if you pick a fight with an innkeeper, it would be because he has insulted your honor or you want to mug someone up to end up in the jail (for whatever purposes) or you want to be evil. Not because you find to kill him, gain some XP and loot his body…and because your fighting abilities way outclass his.

I think there is more payoff in this than flowery languages, props or dramatic gestures.

Training

From young wolf pups are prepared for the hunt by mock fights and play-biting. Tigers and lions likewise were trained by their mums; hence even orcs and goblins would need some sort of boot-camp to be combat ready, and it shows. An unorganized mob just don’t fight as well and coordinate with each other when compared to the Roman Legions.

The fighter of the party should be able, at a glance, to discern the training level of their opponents (after all, they should have some of those training!). Of course, animals are harder to gauge and if Mother Nature has done her job properly, all predators that take to the field are likely to be well prepared for it.

Why is the level of training important? Only those who have practiced together could pull of a complex tactic. It’s pretty much like the same as for football, soccer or a tennis double-play. Ordinary thugs who wander about the docks and having minimal amount of training shouldn’t suddenly pull off a complex shield wall; but if you are up against the Elite Lancers of the Duke Regent of Alterus, you better stay on our toes!

Approach

If a group has been fighting together for some times, there is likely to be some form of standard operating procedures; any horde raiding together are likely to form some effective form of attacking, retreating and defending, if they manage to survive their first battle! When planning encounters, or coming up with a random monster roll, it is a good idea to think about how they would approach the players party. Here are some ideas

1. Charge right in. Unless the monster in question is a dragon, tyrannosaurus rex, a grizzly bear or somehow insane (a horse driven to aggressive behavior because of parasites infesting its brain), most probably wouldn’t go charge into the fray unless it is really confident.
2. Sneak attack. Considering how many predators in our natural world rely on this and how devastatingly effective it  could be, GMs should let NPCs who has a reasonable amount of intelligence to plan an ambush rather than let them march straight into the blades (and blasting radius) of the PCs.
3. Divide and conquer. Another proven stratagem, and especially deadly when the opposition has magic in their hand. Many fantasy RPGs feature the so-called crowd control spells. Modern games benefit from smoke grenades, suppression fire and a distant sniper to instill fear and panic.
4. Flank. The Greek used it. The Romans too. Form a shield wall to engage the bulk of enemies, and let the cavalry flank them. The flank is a “sneak attack in battle” and whether it is effective or not depends on whether the rule carter for it (sneak attacks in D&D 3.5 for example). Even if the combat rules have no provision for flanking, the flank is one of the means to divide the PC party into smaller groups for cleaning up.
5. Combined arms. Hey, if the player party is good at this, maybe the GM should pick up some tips about that now and then too

Deciding on an approach is something that many GMs may do naturally. One additional thing is to let the PCs figure out their approach, with an Intelligence (or Cunning, for Dragon Age’s case). Of course, as the party reacts to the NPCs’ plans, the NPCs would definitely react.

Leadership

All armies have a general; if he is filled with battle-lust and engage the enemies in the field, then usually an aide or an advisor will hang back, observing the flow of battle. Likewise, for the NPCs, consider having archers, mages and other support personnel to play the role of the advisor. In a modern game, it could is even easier – a commander may even watch a battle using spying drones, and relate orders via a comm-link!

Leadership is important because the tide of a battle shifts constantly. The PCs may have found a way to neutralize the Wall of Fire spell that has split them into two halve, or the archers aren’t able to provide covering fire. The commander should order them to regroup and reassign targets and priority. While in RTS it is relatively easy to “focus fire”, in the midst of real combat it would even be harder.

To be fair, the commander may have to take a break from spell-casting or archery to issue an effective command. The GM may also want to make a Cunning/Intelligence/Leadership roll to see if he is able to communicate the order well. Factor in training as well – A well-drilled group reacts to rehearsed commands, have the discipline to break off whatever they are engaged in and knows the gravity of the situation. A group of thugs are likely to be completely absorbed in the heat of battle, unable to catch whatever unintelligible mess he is screaming (if they even have a leader in the first place).

Training and Reacting on the Fly

It is one thing to sit down and plan an ambush, it is another to change a detail of the plan while arrows rain over your head and blades clang against shield. If we break training level from 1 to 10, with 8 being the level of the legendary Roman Legions, we could have something like this:

1. Undisciplined, hard to control berserking behavior. Once battle-lust has taken over, directing them is impossible
3. Able to heed general advance and retreat commands. However any precise moment is impossible. Focus fire on the fly is a challenge (3d6 + Cunning vs. 13). Getting them to retreat, however, is damn easy.
5. Able to react to signals and pull of planned maneuvers. Always on the constant look-out for orders from the commander. Able to “mob” a specific character (“Take down that mage! TAKE DOWN THAT MAGE!”)
7. Able to complement each other in complex maneuvers; Have numerous drills for possible situations (neutralizing the mage, shielding a friend from an archer, covering for an ally and etc.). Can direct specific NPC to attack specific character though the instruction must be clear and verbose (“Kel, take down the mage with the blue hat by the window!”)
9. More than just training, this group has experience. They go for the most brutally effective means to reach their goals, and are drilled to react to most things. The commander is able to direct their allies to attack specific players with concise instruction (“Kel, the mage, 3 o’clock!”). They may even have sub-grouping of combined arms (a fighter and a rogue in a group, for example).
10. The GM is encouraged to be as tactically adept as he could with NPCs with this level of training.

Hopefully this article will provide more ideas to use “AI” to customize your NPCs’ behaviors in combat!

Should the GM Meta-game his NPCs in Combat?

The question can be boiled down to one thing – should NPCs be privy to “meta-game knowledge’ and use that to their advantage? For example, in CRPG such as Dragon Age and Final Fantasy, we all know to go for the healer first. Or the crowd control specialist, because they are easy to kill and a big nuisance if they are left alive. Yet the attacking goblins (or pack of wolves) does not know the characters’ spells. Perhaps they couldn’t even know who is the mage. Is it fair for the GM to target those valuable members of the party right off the bat?

Likewise, should non-intelligent or untrained group of mobs fight with the precision of a master tactican? Usually, the good tactics are go for the weakest link, disable the strongest attacker as soon as possible, focus fire on one target till it drops and try to obtain first strike. In fact, the last one is so prevailing that I have been in a game that the NPCs do not advance, just standing there firing their ranged weapons till the PCs got bored and charge.

Tactically sound all these things might be, it is realistic that all NPCs across the entire landscape use the same tactics, just because they are controlled by the same GM? Would a bunch of town militia fight as effectively as trained adventurers?

Why AI for Mobs

There are a few reasons to come up with some guidelines for each group of NPCs to run in combat. The two important ones to me are:

1. So that combat can be fun and exciting
2. The GM does not overpower the PCs too easily

Realism could be a far third.

Let’s turn the attention to reason #1. Let consider the case if you play as a ruthlessly efficient GM, and in the first or second round of combat you manage to down the mage or the cleric. So what should he do for the remainder of the combat? And if by some stroke of luck, your favored target survives, your horde are effectively ignoring the rest of the party. Do they feel any risk in combat?

The second reason is that most modules give NPCs who are stronger or the same level as the PCs, and usually the GM already have an over-powering odds. If the GM plays ruthlessly, the players may be overwhelmed too quickly and become frustrated. Also, a player only has one PC, but the GM has numerous NPCs to throw at them. There is always chance for the GM to steamroll the players later on. If not this session, then the next.

Do take note that I am not advocating making every fight a walk-over. Far from that be. Bored players aren’t having fun at all. This is an important, delicate point in game design and balance. Too easy, and the players are bored. Too hard, and it is frustrating. Case in point, have you ever tried to play against a Chess AI at Grandmaster level and got trashed within 10 moves? (Pardon me if you are a Chess Grandmaster or frequently pound the AI into the dirt, it’s just an illustration).

The idea here is to avoid one-shot kill. In Diablo 2, there are many one-shot bosses and creepers and most people hate them. The Fire Enchanted and Lightning Enchanted unique champions come to mind. And Corpse Explosion in Hell difficulty. One-shot kills are not fun. You have no chance to survive…So the idea is while you can trample over the players and take down one party member by round 1 or 2, maybe you should reconsider so everyone could have some fun.

Guidelines for NPCs

Here are some guidelines I have devised on my own. Unlike a scripted AI, a GM can be flexible. A lot of the ideas here follow “movie logic”, not real life logic. So, if I am a monster, I would:

1. Attack closest enemy
2. Attack the closet enemy threatening me. No matter how enticing another target may be, unless instructed, the dude in spiky armor with a large knife in his blade who is just next to me is more threatening than anything else
3. If I am otherwise unengaged, attack any ranged attacker who is targeting my ally.
4. If unoccupied, I will help a surrounded friend.
5. Last touch: the one who hurt me last or tried to attack me most recently gets my attention
6. Field of view: I would only consider targets which I can see, follow by those I can hear.
7. If a foe is otherwise distracted, and no one is attacking him, and I am not preoccupied, I will attack him
8. Seize advantage: if an adjacent foe is hurt, and I am unoccupied, he will be my target.
9. If I have been trained to fight with my partner, I will stick with him.
10. Rule of three: If three allies of mine are attacking a target, I would move on to someone else because I would just get in the way.

A lot of these guidelines consider the NPC from the his viewpoint. Am I being attacked? If so, my attacker is my priority. It is not easy trying to aim a bow at someone while dodging an axeman hell-bent on taking your head off. Likewise, enemy rogues may like to surprise mages who are casting spells and they are soft, juicy targets – but only if they are not otherwise being threaten.

An alternative to having AI for your mobs is to model crowd control and taunting rules in combat. D&D 4E combat allows the player to influence NPCs’ behaviour with the use of marks, and to protect their allies with shifting abilities. Hence, the responsibilities of keeping monsters away from their weaker friends rest in the hand of the players.

There are many other ways to use rules but I believe giving NPC mobs “movie-logic” behaviour is a rules light way to go, and I do feel that the concept of ‘aggro’ can be artificial at times. In the heat of battle, it is already hard  stay alive, much less calculate threat and re-prioritize targets. Of course, if the NPC force has a leader or a commander, then it would be a different story all together.

Commander AI and What are the Crunch?

Of course, I have not touched on the effect and presence of leaders in so far. I would look into that next time.  One last thing – these “AI” are not rules, just some possible behaviors for NPC. Hence there no rules for taunts, distractions and so on.

Until Green Ronin comes up with the various steel and metal used to forge weapons in the game, assume the enchanted weapons does base damage as usual. Generious GMs can give damage bonuses based on the material (for example, Iron -1, Grey Iron +0, Steel +1 and so on).

As the PnP system uses a curve instead of a linear system from the CRPG, I halved all stat bonuses by 2, always rounding up (lest some items become useless)

Daggers

Beastman’s Dagger: +1d3 backstab damage
Crow Dagger: +1d6 backstab damage
Darkspawn Dagger: Requires minimum dexterity +1, reduces AR by 1 for this hit
Enchanted Dagger: +2 Attack
Fang: +6 Attack
Gift of the Grey: +1 Stunt Point
Noble’s Dagger: +1 electricity damage
The Rose Thorn: +1 Dexterity, restores 1 HP every 2 round, +1 damage, +1 Stunt Point, +2d6 backstab damage
Thorn of the Gods: +1 damage, reduces AR by 3 for this hit
Thorn of the Dead Gods: +1 damage, reduces AR by 1 for this hit
Varathorn’s Dar’Misu: reduces AR by 2 for this hit, +3 Attack

Shortswords/Longswords

If a name of an item below doesn’t have the word ‘longsword’, whether it is a shortsword or a longsword is up to the GM to decide.

Darkspawn Longsword: Minimum Dexterity +1, reduces AR by 1 for current hit
Dwyn’s Sword: Messy Kills (GM describes death in the most gory manner possible?), +1 to resist rolls vs. spells
Cousland Sword: +1 Damage, +2 Attack, Warrior/Rogue only
Fine Dwarven Blade: +1 Attack
Imperial Edge: +1 damage, +1 Stunt Point, +3 Attack
Keening Blade: Reduce AR by 2 for this hit, +3 Attack, +2 cold damage, Warrior only
King Mairc’s Blade: AR 1 against cold damage, restoratve spells grant +1 Health per die rolled, Warrior only
Oathkeepr: Reduces AR by 2 for this hit, restorative spells grant +1 Health per die rolled
Saw Sword: +1 damage, 1 additional SP if dragon dice is odd
The Green Blade: AR 1 against natural damage, +2 damage against beasts
Topsider’s Honor: AR 2 against natural damage, +1 damage against spirits

For example, here are how four wolves are described

Wolf #1: One-eyed
Wolf #2: Large
Wolf #3: Smallest
Wolf #4: Scarred

“The one-eyed wolf lunges at you” sound better than “Wolf A lunges at you”. The description helps the players to remember who have attacked them, and which opponent has been wounded, and so on and so forth.

Customizing humanoids could include facial expressions, different style of weapons (long sword vs. serrated blade vs. broken off two-handed sword; all works according to the same rules for sanity’s sake) and other accessories, which can include scarfs, armor plates, spiked shoulder plates and eye-patches.

Of course, this technique falls apart when the number of opponents approaches 10. However, in the heat of a melee, it is hard to really remember who’ve just tried to backstab you a moment again. Truth to be told, I would rather have less but more powerful mobs than to have a horde.

Talents, Focus and Equipment

The rules basically extend the game by adding a new talent – the Poison talent, and the Poison ability focus. The focus is a Cunning based skill, and as in the game, it requires at least the Focus to use poison (without accidentally harming yourself). Poison typically works best on edged weapons, and unlike the CRPG, you can apply it on bolts and arrows.

Components for crafting poisons should be rare to come by – no price is listed (yet), and if the players are foraging, a Cunning roll against a difficulty of 11 should be made (if the character is in an environment where such things could grow) to locate the crafting component needed. A downtime of one day minimal is needed for a single flask of poison, which is good for 3 doses. Poison expires within a minute – exposure to air quickly cause them to lose their effectiveness.

Deathroot Extract

Equipment: Deathroot, Flask
Requires: Cunning 1, Novice Poison talent, Poison focus

Attack deals +1 Spirit damage, and you can use 4 Stunt Points to stun the target for 1 round.

Venom

Equipment: Venom Extract, Flask
Requires: Cunning 1, Poison novice talent, Poison focus

Attack deals +1 Spirit damage, and you can use 4 Stunt Points to reduce target’s Speed by 2 and Initiative by 2.

Concentrated Deathroot Extract

Equipment: Deathroot, Flask, Distillation Agent
Requires: Cunning 2, Novice Poison talent, Poison focus

Attack deals +2 Spirit damage, and you can use 3 Stunt Points to stunt the target for 1 round.

Concentrated Venom

Equipment: Venom Extract, Flask, Distillation Agent
Requires: Cunning 2, Novice Poison talent, Poison focus

Attack deals +2 Spirit damage, and you can use 3 Stunt points to reduce target’s Speed by 2 and Initiative by 2.

Crow Poison

Equipment:  Toxin Extract, Deathroot, Distillation Agent, Flask
Requires: Cunning 3, Journeyman Poison talent, Poison focus

Attack deals +3 Spirit damage, and you can use 2 Stunt points to stun target for 1 round.

Table Chatter vs. Just Chattering

I used to have the idea “Well, if you just want to talk, hang out at the local Starbucks!” but after some years of playing board games, I realize that the chatter one have at a game is different from one have at coffee. When we are at a game we just don’t talk about ourselves. We talk about the situation at home. It reminds us of a scene from a movie, or some other games. Now and then someone drops a joke and we all laugh. And Mouse Guard reminds me that those are periods to enjoy too.

Thinking back, there was one incident that stands out, and I still got the chuckles when I think about it. In a homebew science-fic game (which might remind one as a classless D20 modern), I break out a grid map and some water-soluble marker to draw the walls, obstacles and terrain. One of the gamers is an artist and he insisted on adding ‘decals’ to the map – blood splutters, bullet holes and such. The one that makes me break into a smile even now is the scene began with the group smashing their car through the walls of a building to break up a group of camping enemies, and the artist drew the crashed car on the map (and pools of blood), despite my protests. But it was fun. Everyone laughed. The immersion was broken for a while but this is the sort of tales you would want to tell other game-masters (like now!).

Table Chattering being Part of the Game Experience

A friend once asked me, “Why do you still play board games when you are so into computer games?”. I play Lord of the Rings Online as my multi-player fix, and offline there is Dragon Age, Torchlight, Knights of the Old Republic Series, Majesty 2 and many other games to keep me entertained. However, board games give me interaction with other people, it’s smaller in scale and the time spent is more personal. Likewise, there are jokes, taunts, moment of suspense and in some ways, it is more fun. Truth to be told though, if it is some form of competitive board game where you are not supposed tot alk,  I think I would give it a wide berth.

Likewise, the gist of group RPGs, meeting face to face, is the interaction too. There are value to online play, but one thing that makes role-playing fun is being able to be with people, make jokes, seeing them entertained (as the GM), being entertained (by the plans of the players) and trading jests. Indeed, sometime game-mastering can be a thankless job, but when the group makes up with it for friendly table-chatter, it is in a sense its own type of reward.

I think back to my last Nobilis game, and it was then I realize that fun and engaging table chatter (about the game, not about any donkey topics) is a common ground for a fufiling session. I was playing a rules-lite, wing it on the fly game. Next to me was a group of people playing Pathfinder. All I had was a hand-drawn sketch of the area, with torn cardboard cards to represent position. The other group was going out with the tactical battle-mat, miniatures and GM-screen. I used my judgement to decide damage. They rolled dice. Yet we both share one thing – the players and GM both engage in table chatter. Players speculate the worst; the GMs grinned. The GMs pulled an unexpected twist, the players groaned in unison. It doesn’t matter what rule-sets, winging it, RPGA or what-not. If you are not having fun at the table, you are not having a good game.

So what about Role-Playing?

A lingering question is ‘So, what about being in-character and atmosphere?’. Is that a lofty ideal? Is it fun? I think there is no point in making the players miserable if making them to RP is hard, or they are just not in the mood. Likewise, like a well-placed exclamation mark or an underline, in-character role-playing may be best saved for the parts where it is important. At any rate, I guess if the in-character speech is suitable, I will let table chatter pass.

If the players are not allowed to engage in OOC table chatter about the game, what are they going to do their downtime, anyway?

Roleplaying

Level 1 Sorcerer Reversed Spells

Wyrmbreath

As Dragonbreath, but unleash a blast of icy cold air with Speed 10 but doing 1d6 + 8 damage. If the GM is feeling generous, this can be used for some utility purposes (putting out fire, creating chill water and so on).

Ghost Image

Creates an image that is obviously false, but can be made to move around, though complex movement are impossible (no swinging of arms for a human person). Useful when you need to conjure floating daggers in front of potential usurpers.

Pain Touch

Does 2 points of HP damage to a person touched by the caster, or in other way in contact within 2m (such as through a weapon). This allows the target to make a Magic Defence roll. Armour does not protect against the damage.

Lunar Eclipse

Create a shade of darkness that plunge the surrounding area (5m in radius) into dimness. It is not completely dark (if it was dim before, then it is), but only those with darkvision could see clearly.

Portal

The original Portal spell is originally 2 spell in one (Close Portal and Open Portal)!

Strengthen

Grants the target (within 10m) +1 Attack and +1 damage in combat.

Level 2 Sorcerer Reversed Spells

Hide Aura (expired when dispelled)

Dampen the Sorcerer’s innate magical aura, making him more difficult to be detected as a Sorcerer. The aura can be extend by 2m in a sphere for every 1 extra MP used. It can also be cast on a magical item to prevent its true nature to be known. If a Sorcerer or any other magic-using profession attempt to use a spell to detect auras, treat the Hide Aura spell as a specialised Magic Wall. Magic cast within a Hide Aura, if its level is equal or lower than the MP invested in it, would not be picked up by any magic users.

Mana Lash

As Inflict Wound, but cause the opponent to lose 4 points of Mana instead of 5 points of HP.

Veil Against Unnatural Eyes (Spell Expiry Roll)

Range: 5m
Area of Effect: 2m

Creates an area that is blocked from spells such as Peer and Scry.

Lure Undead

As Hold off the Dead, but this time it lures the undead towards the target, but if they fail their magical defence. This can be tactically useful in some instance, for unless the undead is intelligent, it would just move in easiest method to the caster. Even if there is a pit in front of it.

Wither

This clears a patch of vegetation equal 2m in radius within a range of 15m of the Sorcerer. Trees, weeds, undergrowth and bushes would just wither away, as if water is being siphoned out of them directly and crumble into dust. This spell has no effect on human and other living creatures. Good for removing thick cover quickly.

Warrior’s Luck

Instead of adding -2 to an attacking creature’s hit roll, the Sorcerer gains a +2 on all hit-rolls.  The Sorcerer may cast this spell and attack immediately.

Not all Social Conflicts Should be Scaled

That said, sometimes a one-roll social roll should be used when suitable. Just as it could get tedious to have 10 rolls to climb up a 10m wall, having to roll so many times just to get a discount, or to persuade a guard to look the other way is overkill. This disclaimer being made, let’s move on to…

How to get a stubborn ox to move

Weapons of the Gods introduces a system of relationships into social conflicts. A character has relationships with other characters and factions, and each type of relationship has ways of improving and degrading. For example, in Chinese culture honouring one’s parents is important, so if a character’s parents is drawn into a social conflict, it becomes more complicated. The character may stands his ground to ignore what his elderly grey mother wants, but their relationship will suffer, which may have other consequences. A simple example would be if an inn-keeper’s grandmother is around, and you need to stay at the inn despite it being full, you can try to appeal to his grandmother’s sympathy so that the grandmother would convince the innkeeper to go beyond the call of duty (and the lure of gold). This can be easily slapped into existing games as a modifier, stunt or an Aspect.

Weapons of the Gods’ social mechanics introduce many type of relationships. Father and son, siblings, friends, lieges and vassals and so on. Such a system could be adapted to other games. Dwarves, for example, could place emphasis on their clan (take a Babylon 5 example – how Delenn managed to convince her clan that she is allowed to marry a non-Minbari); if you get his clan to pressure a Dwarven smith to produce the weapons for your armies, he is more likely to comply.

There may be a scholar who refused to translate a tome. Money don’t move him; he doesn’t need anything. However, he may have a rivalry with another scholar in the same town, and by dropping hints that you would go over to him may move things to your favour. Or he may have a mentor – you can go to the mentor, invoke an old favour (assuming he does owe you one) and add pressure on the scholar. However, relationships doesn’t work for you all the time. The scholar’s religious affiliation may prohibit him to touch a forbidden tome (perhaps you need to convince his religious leaders that reading a pagan tome is ‘for the greater good’). He may have promised his romantic love a trip and does not want to spend the time. Including all these factors would make social conflict more than just a single roll.

Upping the Stakes

Tapping into a NPC’s relationships with his friends, families and enemies to get him to act the way you want can be overkilled if all you want is to have a sword at 25% discount (or even just to get him to give it away for free). The suggestion is to only involve those factors for plot significant arcs, and for something to be significant, it must be something worth fighting for.  In the above example, it is assumed that the tome contains a powerful ritual to bind a demon. One can easily up the stake more. Examples include: persuading an entire village to flee before a band of goblin invaders come (in real life many won’t leave their homes despite impending disasters), getting an alliance of small city states to send armies against a threat, or even asking another nation into an alliance.

By extending the scale of the conflict, you get to involve more players. One player could be on a diplomatic mission to secure an army, while the other will try to get an informant to part with information about the foe. Each of them influence each other. Succeed at securing an army, and the informant may be cowed into giving the information. Get the information first, and the allies may be more willing to send out their warriors. Other acts would sway things in your favour. Sneaking into the enemy’s camp, and returning with one of their leaders’ head could become a forceful factor in a negotiation!  This allows combat characters to lend aid in a social conflict, be it his impressive battle records, history of being fair to others, his religious affiliation, providing some piece of obscure lore or even defeating the other party’s champion in a duel. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang debated with the scholars and sages of the Kingdom of Wu prior to the Battle of Chibi. He then incited Zhou Yu by saying that Cao Cao desired his wife (which didn’t happen in history).

An Example of a Large Scale Social Conflict

The political arena is often the best stage for a large scale social conflict, though a war with shifting allegiances is one too. This example contains massive spoiler from the Chinese manhua The Ravages of Time (mentioned earlier and elsewhere in my blog). Though the storyline is that of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the comic changes the details significantly. The situation is thus: Cao Cao has met defeat at the hand of Zhang Xiu and is surrounded. Meanwhile, to exploit his weakness, numerous foes begin to march on Cao Cao’s base, Xuchang and those includes Liu Biao, Lu Bu and Yuan Shu, plus Liu Yong, a scion of the Han Imperial Family (no, not Liu Bei; he was recently defeated by Lu Bu, got his ass kicked to the small city elsewhere in Xuzhou).

With Cao Cao isolated at Danyang, defeated by Zhang Xiu, and four armies approaching, what is he to do?  Troops have been stationed south to fight off Liu Biao, and an assassin finished off Liu Yong, but there’s still Lu Bu (who is smarter than how the original novel protrayed him) and Yuan Shu. One of Cao Cao’s best advisors, Xun Yun, managed to get them to fight each other. But how?

Sometimes ago, when Lu Bu was defeated by Li Si and other (shortly after killing Dong Zhou), he fled to Chenliu, and tried to take Puyang from Cao Cao, and failed. He then sought refuge from Liu Bei. Liu Bei kindly gave him a small city to dwell in, Xiaopei. However, when Liu Bei was away once fighting Yuan Shu (by the Emperor’s decreed, which was of course manipulated by Cao Cao), a group of bandits and displaced soliders invaded Xuzhou. Now, it was Zhang Fei who secretly liased with them (he’s not stupid in the comics too), as to lure Lu Bu to attack and be ambushed. However, Lu Bu knew of it and his advisor Chen Gong, paid another large sum of money to buy those brigands over, and in the end it was Lu Bu who succeeded in kicking Zhang Fei out from the city (but it’s more complex than that). Finally, Lu Bu absorbed those brigands as part of his army.

Okay, let’s return to how Xun Yun managed to get Lu Bu and Yuan Shu to fight each other. Xun Yun arrived on a diplmatic mission to Xuzhou and confered on him the General of the Left. He hinted that the people of Xuzhou loved Liu Bei, and Lu Bu’s rule may not be welcomed (working on Lu Bu’s relationship with his citizens), then confer a title which make his occupation of Xuzhou official (hence improving relationship with Cao Cao). At the same time, Xun Yun’s nephew, Xun You, went to meet Yuan Shu and said Lu Bu was coming to attack him. The latter, of course, did not believe – after all, weren’t they going after Cao Cao?

So here’s the final move in this social conflict. Xun Yun was the one who ultimately arranged the brigands to invade Xu Zhou, and joined Lu Bu. On his orders, the brigands took up Lu Bu’s banners and impersonated as his soldiers, attacked Yuan Shu. With this, Yuan Shu believed Xun You, and fought with Lu Bu, leaving Cao Cao safe. Liu Biao, seeing that he was alone in the whole affair, called off the attack. If you could, try to imagine the whole situation as a map with each character/faction as a circle, with lines linked to each other. That could be akin to a tactical map for physical combat.

Hopefully this will give more ideas for social conflicts; next time, I will try to come up with some Fate 3.0 mechanics and rules to formalize this.

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?

Effectiveness in which Situation?

Let define the situation first. Obviously, let start with the most common conflict, and sometimes the only one which matter to a goody number of players – combat. Of course, with the advent of MMOs, where the only type of conflicts is combat (social conflicts are usually govern by the person’s skills not the character’s stats), some players transiting from computer-based MMos to table-top may only concentrate on combat-effective builds.

This leads to a classification of skills such as ‘combat’ and ‘utility’. In fact, this term probably starts with World of Warcraft (which I have never played), appeared in Lord of the Rings Online (which I do play) and I suppose many others, then finally into D&D 4th Edition. Whether table-top RPGs should rely heavily on elements from more rigid form of computer RPGs is another article and a debate-worth topic itself, so we leave that for another time.

Of course, on a table-top session, there are other situations where a character can be considered effective. Fate 3.0 in Spirit of the Century brings in some formal rules for social conflicts, as does Weapons of the God. Then there is also survival situation, such as wilderness survival, traps detection. Featuring less in fantasy games, but more in horror (especially Call of Cthlhu) are knowledge situation, where scholarship, history, lore and ancient languages plays a big part in escaping with just your live or being devoured by an ancient evil of awfulness. Another rare species of conflict is mass warfare, and the game which feature it most recently is A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.

I believe D&D 4th edition tried its best to have the best of both worlds for every class – powers and such addresses many combat situations, while the skills system address that of survival, social and knowledge. So in this case, the game rules have taken upon itself to create effective characters.

Leaving it to the Skill Systems

Many games are not class-based, and the burden of enforcing effective characters lie in the hand of skills. Many of those games employ some mechanisms to ensure that characters are effective.  Unknown Armies introduces default skills and bring the player’s attention to them. A Song of Ice and Fire Role-Playing have templates, and in highlighted section points out some skills which would influence the player’s effectiveness….in combat.

Is it all about Combat?

In the beginning of this article, we see there are many type of situations characters can run into during table-top play. Yet something is quite amiss here when more than half of a game’s material is devoted to combat. Usually, combat is the most exciting part of the game; however, as proven by some other computer games (such as Phoenix Wright), social and legal conflicts are be just as intense.

Why does combat gets so much treatment, while social conflicts, wilderness survival challenges and so on are resolved in just one roll? Perhaps it’s not the system or classes which should enforce character effectiveness. It’s the GM, after all. But when game materials do not suggest how the GM could craft effective social, survival, exploration, political and intrigue conflicts, how could a GM come to devise one that would encourage players to just dump skill points into skills which they deem to be ‘effective’, such as Weapon Use,  Dodge and most important of all, anything that may influence Initiative?

Granted, there’s nothing wrong with a heavy-combat focus. Most of the dramatics happen there. Yet that’s only one way, a very thoroughly explored road. There are many other avenues  which haven’t been tread on yet, and I think some computer games are ahead of its time.  The ending of one of the Wing Commander games, whether if you win or lose, depends on how you talk through it. If that’s possible in a rigid computer game,  I think even for table-top games, exploring social, political, mass warfare and other form of conflicts are even more worthwhile pursuits.

So how can this be done? I hope to come up with something and when I do, I will share with you guys.