The Artifact RPG

In a some games, not all characters are created equal. This can be a source of variety, giving the players the ability to play high power campaigns at times and low power campaigns at others. Each one can have it’s specific appeal. I find that when starting a new game players often like to try out the high power characters first and then slowly migrate to the more nuanced low power characters.

That works if the players pick all of one kind, either high or low. Sometimes it can even work if the group is split 50/50 between them. You can have the characters work as two teams, one defending the group and the other running the soft skills that are needed to solve a puzzle. Or the high power guys punch through a barrier to deliver the soft skill guys to carry out the main goal. But what happens when the group is truly not balanced? This usually happens when a very small fraction of the players (maybe only one) picks low power characters. Even if you do segment the plot to spotlight the characters, the small portion of low power characters will feel marginalized because they are ineffective throughout most of the game.

I have this problem at the moment. We made a group of PCs that were heavy hitters of a Raider, a Tank Pilot and a Train Operator. One player does have a Field Scientist which is a low power character, but none of the other characters cover the scientist’s skills so she can still be useful. Then another player joined the group with a preexisting character, a Scout. The problem is, a Scout is not very useful to this group. In a low power campaign a scout on a motorcycle is fast and is very useful for tracking. In this situation, the combination of the Raiders Delta and the Train make the scout’s motorcycle almost laughable.

The low power characters have to have a place throughout the game, not just a spotlight where they make one critical roll and then their purpose is complete. In the last game, I was able to get everyone out of their vehicles (willingly) because there was no direct danger to them, they were engaged in a puzzle. This works occasionally, but if all the games are like this, the high power characters will start to question why they have all this firepower if none of it will be useful. Characters have to be used in the way the players are expecting them to be used or they will get disgruntled.

The Protection Principle

One way of handling this is the protection principal as was mentioned before. One group of characters protects the other, but the protected group needs to be free to finish a job. This can work in either direction though, the low powered characters may have to protect the high powered characters so that they can stay high powered. In The Artifact, this could come in the form of vehicles having their computers hacked by an outside source with a Comm Officer protecting the vehicles.

In my case, the scout character is free to work while the others are busy piloting. By putting the characters that are busy in danger in a way that the Scout can help out with makes the player feel that their character is valuable. In this case the Train Operator’s train is the opening for the Scout to act. The inside of the train is large enough for the Scout to be able to use his skills and be valuable.

To have the protection principle work, there has to be a task which will take time to carry out. A group of characters can work through the task while the others defend them from distraction.

The Separate Paths Principle

Another way of handling a power disparity is to have two or more tasks that need to be accomplished each task is best handled by a skill set that is only available to some of the characters. This can be difficult to set up properly and can become boringly formulaic if not handled well. It also can make the player group feel less like a team if they don’t see their efforts as playing off each other. Lastly it can be a major disappointment if one group fails and blocks the other from succeeding.

That’s not to say this principle should never be tried. It can be exciting and a nuanced way of structuring a game. If the player’s separate paths reinforce each other, perhaps even allowing one group to occasionally bail the other out with a success, it can keep the group feeling like a team.

The Unprepared Principal

This is probably my signature method for challenging the player characters. I’ve often overused this principle to challenge the players so I need to back off from it a little.

This principle puts the PCs in a situation where the skills that they have are not well suited for the task at hand and they have to work around the problem. When done properly the challenge looks like the player’s skills and abilities will carry them through but at a certain point they become less or totally ineffective and a different set of skills that the characters do not have (or are not very good at) are needed to finish the task. This makes a situation that looked like a cakewalk suddenly much more challenging.

The reason I like this method (too much) is because it allows the players to be effective at what they are good at but then challenges them in ways they are not effective. Players can feel unstoppable one moment and hard pressed to complete a challenge the next. This often leads my players to generalize their characters and not specialize. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, dependent on your point of view. The main strength is it also allows everyone to contribute because no one is especially good at the task at hand, making the plot open to anyone to be the hero of the day.

Those are what I have in my bag of tricks, what do you use? What have you had a GM use on you?

If you’re like me, on occasion Friday sneaks up on you. I completely forgot to get a post ready for today but you know what, I’m okay with that. There’s a time honored tradition among GMs called “It’s the weekend already and I forgot to think of a game.” or something similar. Sometimes, we think that all of our games have to be these great masterpieces when, you know what? A lot of times the players just wanna roll some dice and get some XP. Last week we sat down to game, we didn’t know if we wanted to play The Artifact or Steampunkfitters. We settled on an Artifact game, the gang rolled up some characters and just for fun, the players asked me to decide what their characters classes should be. I picked a few characters type that I thought the players would enjoy but I tried to give them something a little different than their usual fare.

Then came making a game with those slightly unusual characters. I actually used an idea I wrote about here on the blog, so I guess I was pulling out one from the archives and not just coming up with something on the fly. I had to make the quest significantly simpler than I had at first intended because we spent some time making characters. In the end, I threw a little combat in there, at first just a warm up of a few E-Suits and then gave the players a real challenge of going up against a Demolisher. The starting characters were quite competent (really good rolls this time round) so I wasn’t too worried about them being able to handle the challenge. The “Treasure” ended up a fun reward too (see the earlier post for more).

What Went Right?

It was in general a fun game because the players know the setting and they were able to succeed in a bunch of tasks that they know are not easy. This gave them a feeling of accomplishment. The game was fast, I didn’t get bogged down in details which is my Achilles heel. The science stuff was all technobabble anyway and so I handled it all with character skill rolls which they were equipped for (One of the characters was a Field Scientist).

If There Was To Be a Point

The point I think I’m going for here is, other than an interesting treasure, there wasn’t any kind of twist in the game. There were no tricks and that was fine. I’m not going to win any award for the game writing but the players still had fun. Two of the characters are now insane but the players are fine with that. So the formula if there was one, would be a quick game with a little bit of challenge.

It’s been said before but it’s worth repeating. Simplicity and a little head thumping can be very satisfying.

So when it comes to doing it wrong, I was having trouble with Play by Post games. I could not wrap my head around how the game should be run. Pacing that you come to expect in a face to face game is non-existant. Involvement by players can be spotty because they start out wanting to play but life throws a curve ball and they disappear. System mechanics that have always worked intuitively in a face to face setting completely fall apart. I wasn’t able to find a handy dandy guide to fix my PBP woes but I stumbled on some answers, one of my players gave me some more and the rest got stitched together by some of the PBP players on RPG.net.

So what’s the result?

#1 Slow it down

It sounds obvious but your play style has to fundamentally change to accommodate the pace. Be prepared to write more than you would just say. GMs have a little more experience with describing scenes at some length so it may not be a problem for the GM. Players on the other hand can be short and to the point because they’re used to having to state what they want to do quickly which is not a consideration in this situation.

#2 Players get to narrate more

This is really vital to a good game. The players have to have the freedom to narrate their own plot elements. As long as it doesn’t contradict what has already been stated, doesn’t take away another player’s agency  (including the GM’s over NPCs) and is reasonable, it should be allowed.

#3 Forget about initiative

With the time scales involved and the possibility that a player could suddenly be unavailable can bring an initiative order to a screeching halt. In PBP initiative order is who posts first.

#4 Take it easy on rolling dice

Rolling dice is slightly problematic. Players should just assume they should roll for their actions even if they’re confident of passing. Nothing brings PBP to a screeching halt like a player saying “I’m going to hit him”. Then the GM saying “okay roll” and the player not posting for the next two days.

#5 Have a post frequency

At the beginning of the game have everyone agree to check and post in a certain length of time. Usually a once a day is good. If a player slows down the game, give them a friendly warning. If it keeps happening, let them know you’re going to have to proceed without them.

#6 Use a static defense difficulty

This one’s going to play havoc with a lot of systems but it makes sense when you think about it. A static value is assigned to defense, now a player can roll and know if he hit the NPC without waiting for the GM to roll. He can then figure out damage in one post instead of three or four.

#7 Let the players know the stats

Be more open about stats and rolls, this way they can apply the rules themselves instead of waiting on the GM’s ruling. This greatly speeds play if you have players that are willing to heft some of the burden of the rules.

#8 Color code

Color code your IC and OOC conversation. I use dark blue for OOC conversation and regular black for IC discussion.

What other methods do you use? I’m finding that Steampunkfitters rule system fits these criteria very nicely.

Player: I’m going to light my torch.

GM: You look for your torch and realize that it’s missing.

Player: What? You can’t do that!

GM: You just got sucked up in a tornado.

Player: So?

GM: And then were dumped into a river with raging rapids.

Player: So?

GM: Don’t you think something could fall out of your pack?

Player: No way, I always tie my pack up securely. That’s not fair.

There are certain things that traditional RPGs just don’t handle very well. One of those things is losing equipment. Even the smallest coin seems like it should be safe no matter what happens because it’s written on the player’s character sheet.

Now usually it would be bad form for a GM to arbitrarily declare that a player just suddenly doesn’t have something. For one, it impacts the player’s agency. They feel like their influence on the game is reduced and even if they understand why the story is benefited by loosing an item, it still seems wrong.

What if the GM has a great story that would be based on an item being lost and the players trying to retrieve it? What if the item is effecting game balance and it really needs to go away? What’s a GM to do?

The Bargain

The nice thing about being a GM is that you can make your own rules when you need to. You don’t want to disregard rules, but players don’t usually mind a new rule especially if they think it benefits them.

One way to structure a rule to have a player lose something is to have it happen because of player agency. You will allow the player to choose to lose an item. It’s just that you don’t have to present it that way.

Player: Arg! I missed my roll by 1! The dice hate me!

GM: I’ll give you a plus one to that roll but it means you’ll suffer a disadvantage. (Trying not to grin too broadly)

Player: Wait, what does that mean?

GM: You’ll have to find out. It means you’ll pass your roll though.

Now the success of this bargain depends on how important that roll is. The player knows that an open ended bargain with the GM is trouble but if they really want success they may bite at your bait.

The next important step is to really give them a nice reward for choosing to go with your bargain. Narrate how passing that roll ended up being important to the group. This way when you spring the result of your bargain on them they’ll remember their success and say “Well at least it was worth it, I did save the group.”

If the goal is that you just want an item to go away, it may even make sense to say that it was damaged when the character used the bonus to their roll and that’s what made the bonus possible. Maybe they swung extra hard and the sword broke, they fired too long and the barrel of their gun melted, they passed their defense roll because the attack hit the item and destroyed it or whatever works with the situation. Be creative with the situation, this is an open ended opportunity to make something memorable happen.

Experienced or paranoid players may need a bit of reassurance to take the bait. They know that things can go wrong when they aren’t defended by the normal rules of the game. Don’t be dishonest about it, try to let them know the stakes without giving away the game. If they reject your first offer, sweeten the pot a little. Give them something else, like a situation that goes really well for them in a fight. If this second attempt fails, it’s likely that player is just spooked by the idea and will not take it.

One way to fix that situation is to show why they’d want to take the bargain with a different player. Offer a similar bargain to someone else, play up how useful taking the bargain was and give them a reasonable disadvantage later on. It doesn’t have to be losing an item, in fact it may help to come up with several different somewhat serious impacts that the player that took the bargain could have to deal with. They have to be reasonable though or no player will ever take the bargain again.

How would you deal with this situation? Have you ever needed to have a player lose something? Would your players take up a bargain like that? Let us know in the comments.