Showing posts with label dicesoup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dicesoup. Show all posts

5/27/2015

DiceSoup: Calories

Many a year ago (like, three) I edited and sometimes wrote for an RPG website called DiceSoup. DiceSoup no longer publishes, and as far as I can tell there is no trace left of the articles. Last week I was notified (via the social network I will not mention) that folks were still looking for the articles. I can't repost all of them, but the ones I've written will begin to show up here like little mushrooms under the DiceSoup tag. Oh, look, here's one now!
Food (and Why Dragonslayers Don’t Need It)
The greater majority of game systems lack a complex system for starvation, and there’s a reason for that; compared to the other things characters typically do, eating just isn’t interesting. Would you watch Star Wars if every twenty minutes Luke Skywalker had to stop to scarf down a PB&J?
However, hunger and starvation do have their places in entertainment. Survival and post-apocalyptic stories both feature eating as a major goal- and make it interesting. The big difference is that in a survival situation, fighting for food is interesting: you can’t just walk into the local tavern and order up a steak and ale. Think of how important fighting for food is in the Hunger Games, Castaway, or Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet. In short: hunger is good for entertainment when it’s a main goal, not when the main goal is dragon-hunting or demon-fighting.
That being said, hunger does have its place in non-survival tabletop games too. A campaign focusing on group of heroes rebuilding a village after a natural disaster, frontiersmen settling a harsh wilderness, smugglers trapped on a starship adrift in space: all of these campaigns could use rules from the popular games we know and love, but could also benefit from a more complex rule than “eat every three days or be fatigued”. For those who are exciting about watching their characters wither away before their eyes, we present our take on starvation rules: Calories.

Calories
A character’s Max Calories are equal to four times their Constitution score. This represents both bulkier characters being able to store more food energy, and those with higher endurance who can keep pushing even when the fuel gage hits “E”. If you want starvation to present a larger problem to the players, you can have Max Calories start at three times their Constitution score, and conversely, you could use five times Constitution score for a game with less focus on the starvation aspects. Season to taste.
When a character is at Max Calories, they are fully energized. As a character goes about the day, some activities deplete the character’s Calories. Each activity is categorized into one of four types- High Energy, Medium Energy, Low Energy, or (Virtually) No Energy. High Energy activities are those that consume lots of calories (like running for extended periods of time, or chopping down a large tree). Low Energy represents less intense activities, like a few hours of foot travel or lifting a moderately heavy object only a few times. Medium Energy represents those activities in between. Some activities, like eating, require such a minor amount of calories that they are counted as No Energy. Each category of activity has a set number of d4’s that they reduce a player’s Calories by, which are given in the table below.
Catergory
Calorie Reduction
Examples
High Energy
3d4
Extended runs, mountain climbing, combat for heavily equipped characters
Medium Energy
2d4
Jogging, swimming, combat for most characters
Low Energy
1d4
Extended walking, hunting
(Virtually) No Energy
0
Gear maintenance, short walks, driving, picking locks

Characters also spend energy maintaining their internal bodily functions. At the end of each day, a character loses 2d4 Calories. This number increases to 3d4 Calories in cold environments, as the body burns more energy to keep warm.

Starving
A person can go for a while before a lack of food begins to catch up with them, and the same applies for our characters. A character takes no ill effects from calorie loss until they hit 16 or fewer calories. Any character with between 16 and 1 calories is considered Hungry, and takes a -1 on all physical rolls (from a lack of energy) and social rolls (people’s tempers shorten when they’re on an empty stomach).
Once a character a character hits zero, things really begin to go from bad to worse. A character at zero or less calories is considered Starving. Starving doesn’t immediately kill a character; rather, their Calories continue to drop into the negatives. Instead of rolling using the table above to determine Calories lost, a Starving character will only ever lose one Calorie at a time. If they hit -20, then the character has starved to death.
In addition, The penalties from being Hungry double to -2 to all physical and social rolls. Also, for every day a character spends at zero, they take a penalty from the Starving table below, rolling 1d6 and adding the number of consecutive days spent at Starving to get your result.
Roll
Result
1
Hunger begins to take its toll; take 2d6 nonlethal damage
2
Lose 1d4 Wisdom and Intelligence until the character gets above zero Calories
3
Permanently lose 1 Strength
4
Permanently lose 1 Dexterity
5
Permanently lose 1 Constitution
6
Character begins to hallucinate for 1d6 hours, and is unable to do anything but interact with the hallucinations
7
Permanently lose 1 Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution
8
Character hallucinates for 3d6 hours, and is unable to do anything but interact with the hallucinations
9
Character loses 1d4 from each physical stat
10
A character’s organs begin to fail; character takes 1d6 damage per hour, +1d6 for every previous hour
11
The character’s body begins to shut down. They enter into a coma for 1d6 days.
12
The character’s body has met its limit, and has nothing left to cannibalize. The character dies.

Food
In order to spend Calories, characters will first have to gain Calories by eating food. Food rich in calories (like a jar of peanut butter or a full meal) add 2d4 calories to the character. Regular foods (dead pigeon, apple) add 1d4. Particularly light meals (like a head of lettuce or some celery) might only add 1 calorie.



12/09/2013

DiceSoup: Controlled Anarchy

Here's a thing I wrote a while back for DiceSoup, so that explains the more formal format and the lack of naughty words.

Controlled Anarchy: Power to the Players


If traditional games were a nation, The UN would be on them like butter on toast. The distribution of creative control is a tyrannical system: nearly all of the game world’s creative control rests in the hands of the greedy, clawed hands of the ruthless GM.

Okay, so it’s not that dramatic. But traditional games are certainly designed to give the most control to the GMs. Players have control over their characters (through character creation, backstory, and in-game decisions) as well as the immediate environment their characters can affect (whether it be by moving it, killing it, or magical force bolts at it). This system of power can be fun, but it gets really fun when we allow some of that creative power to trickle down to the players. When players create something, they are more likely to interact with it, and therefore be more interested in the game. This in turn makes your job easier, which makes a better game over all! In short:

empowered players = happy players = interested players = happy GM = enjoyable game

Giving players power doesn’t mean tearing the role of GM down. This can be done by handing out little “power nuggets” to players, using many different techniques. So turn on your Rage Against the Machine, ‘cause we’re about to tear down this tyrannical establishment and stick it to the man. Let’s have some anarchy!

Disclaimer: These techniques require trust in your players. One reason why many traditional games limit the control the players have over the world at large is the desire to maintain a challenge. The thought is, if players have world control, they’ll just poof in a treasure chest full of vorpral swords or do some other game breaking action. This has the same effect as “god modes” in video games: it’s a blast for the first fight, sort of fun for the second, and then by the time the third fight comes around, you’re missing the challenge.

Like all problems, this can be solved with communication. Explain your expectations to the players. Tell Grabak the Barbarian you’d prefer if he didn’t create an army of Gundams to use. Then trust your players to respect your expectations. Don’t say no unless it’s hurting the game experience. If they toe the line, explain how and why their actions are hurting the game (they may not even be aware), and ask them not to do so. The worst case scenario is you have to say “No, sorry, you can’t do that.” You’ve got nothing to lose.

Apocalypse World Rules: Disclaim Decision-Making
Nobody would know how to empower players better than the story game community. If you haven’t already MCed (the game’s term for Gamemasters) Vincent Baker’s  story game Apocalypse World, do yourself a favor and do so. That game’s structure for GMing has been a great influence on my own style. One of the game’s MC guidelines is of particular use to us here: occasionally disclaim decision-making. In Apocalypse World, this means that sometimes when a player asks, “Are there chandeliers in the Great Hall?” you should respond with “Are there? You tell me.”
This gives the player a creative input into the game beyond what they usually have. Of course, a player could abuse this, but we’re going to trust them not to, because the results are awesome. If a player asks if there are any chandeliers in the Great Hall, it's probably because they're about to do some sweet shit with it. Let them have it.  Let’s do a comparison:

Option 1: Decision-making disclaimed
Player: “Are there chandeliers in the Great Hall?”
GM: “Are there? You tell me.”
Player: “Uh, okay, yes, there are. Can I jump onto one from the balcony, swing across, and then interrupt the king’s speech by skewering him with my rapier from above?”
GM: “Sure.”

Option 2: Lame
Player: “Are there chandeliers in the Great Hall?”
GM: “Nope.”
Player: “Huh, okay. I guess I’ll just shot him with my bow.”

I hope I don’t have to explain which of these the better option is. This technique can be used for anything: environments (like above), social interactions (“Is he lying? You tell me.”), historical clarifications (“He might have an illegitimate heir, what do you think?”), and more. Disclaiming decision-making works best when it’s used relatively sparingly and used in ways that give the PCs toys to play with.


Player-Drawn Maps
If you play a game that using miniatures and maps for battle, allowing your players to draw out battle-maps is one of the easiest ways to give players a taste of the sweet, sweet nectar of creative control. Briefly explain the general contents of the map (“It’s a town square,”) and any features that are needed (“so there'll need to be buildings, and there’s probably like a fountain or something too”), then give the players the markers and sit back: prepare your notes, get a drink, nod off, or whatever you like. Meanwhile, the players will create for you an interesting map. In all the times I’ve done this, I’ve never been disappointed with a blank map.

 In fact, most often, players are going to include something extra to give them an advantage. And that’s totally okay. If a player creates a terrain feature, they are nearly certain to interact with it. It’s far more interesting for Grabak to push down rotten trees on top of the goblins than for him to walk up to the and whack them with repeatedly with his greatsword.

Player Controlled Monsters
Dave tipped me on to the awesomeness of this one in a custom critical hit charm for magic against zombies (Dave’s secretly a gaming anarchist too, he just doesn’t know it yet). One of the results on the magic hit table allowed the caster to take control of a zombie, and basically use it as a puppet. When I read that, I was instant enamored. Fewer monsters for the GM to control, more fun for the players to have. This can be done in-game, like Dave’s example above, or out-game, where you just hand the players sheets for the monsters. This doesn’t have to be an all or nothing, either. You could say that goblins are indecisive and bad tacticians, so one turn the players will control them, and another turn the GM will.

Let’s Start a Revolution
These are, of course, just a few methods to break down the tyrannical distribution of power in traditional games. As you use these, others will develop, and soon you’ll have full blown anarchy on your hands! (Okay, hopefully not. But you will have fun, enriched gaming.) Do you use any techniques like these to play with the power distribution in your game? If so, let the world know! Leave a comment below describing how you stick it to the man!