Awhile back I did a post on 21 Surefire Ways to Loose Players. With this being Player Month here at Evil Machinations, I thought it time to do a post for the players. Even the most die-hard GMs will change sides of the table, even if it’s a pick-up game at a con. You’d think we’d make the perfect players, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, all too often GMs-turned-PCs are the most difficult players in a group. While orginially aimed at GMs, even players who’ve never sat behind the GM screen should enjoy this list as well.

[Photo courtesy of House of Sims via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0 license]

1. Repeatedly arrive extremely late to a game session without calling to let people know.
2. Repeatedly miss a game session after assuring the GM you’d be there.
3. Refuse to read the rules of the system you’re playing.
4. Hog the spotlight.
5. Give long lectures on how the game you run is better than this one.
6. Tell the GM what he’s doing wrong and offer frequent unsolicited advice on how to run the way you would.
7. Recite a Monty Python or Princess Bride quote for everything that happens during the game.
8. Insist on roleplaying every moment of a supply run.
9. Turn everything said into a sexual innuendo.
10. Make overt sexual advances to every eligable PC in the party.
11. Make overt sexual advances to every eligable player in the group.
12. Argue for every advantage you can squeeze out of the system, even if it takes an hour to win a +1 bonus.
13. Insist that the GM look up an obscure rule in the middle of combat.
14. Expect everything to go your way because the GM is your significant other.
15. Loudly and frequently complain about how your favorite rules system is better than the one the GM is currently using.
16. Insist that the group run your favorite system, especially if they don’t want to change.
17. Constantly brag about your über-character in another game and how she would wipe the floor in this game.
18. Refuse to get dice of your own and insist on borrowing someone else’s.
19. Continuously forget your character sheet so you can make up numbers on the fly.
20. Play while drunk (or high)–unless your entire group enjoys drinking to excess while gaming.
21. Deliberately and/or constantly ignore the rules of the host who’s house you’re playing in (such as putting your feet on the coffee table, not using a coaster, etc.)
22. Torment your host’s pet(s).
23. Play computer games while you’re roleplaying
24. Repeatedly charm members of your own party.
25. Repeatedly steal from members of your own party.
26. Insist on going off on your own on a regular basis.
27. Claim every useful bit of treasure as your own.

How about you? What have I forgotten that really raises your hackles? Please share!

Related Posts

• 21 Sure-Fire Ways to Loose Players
• Fred’s Missing *Again*?
• Handling Problem Players
• How to (Respectfully) Disagree with Your GM
• What’s My Motivation?

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27 Surefire Ways to Get Kicked Out of a Game is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Your GM picked out the adventure, did all of the background work, fleshed out the NPCs, balanced treasure and other rewards. Now it’s finally time to run the adventure, it’s up to the GM to find a way to motivate your character. Right?

[Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/philippeboukobza/ / CC BY 2.0]

Wrong.

True, the GM will most likely provide you a motivation for going on the adventure, but you can help by providing your own motivation for your character.

While “My character wouldn’t do that” can be a legitimate concern (I’m a “method actor”-style player, myself), it’s not helpful. If you try hard enough, there’s usually some way you can provide your character with a motivation to undertake the adventure.

Character History

Even if you don’t have a detailed backstory for your character, you can find a way to work something about this adventure into your character’s history. In fact, it’s probably easier to do it without a detailed history. But even if you’ve written down information for every month of your character’s life, you can still usually find a way to work a motivation for the adventure in there.

Perhaps you stumbled across this dungeon when you were growing up and always wondered what was down there that was so dangerous your parents wouldn’t let you explore it. Or your now-deceased mother had been an adventurer but had fled from this dungeon before exploring it thoroughly and you want to find out what could make a generally fearless woman flee in terror.

These are simply suggestions; you’ll do much better to find some reason yourself. The point is, that it doesn’t have to be a driving passion to provide motivation. Simple curiosity can be enough. Maybe the owner owes you some money and if you can’t get the money, you’re going to take payment in goods of equal value. Or perhaps you want to prove yourself a better adventurer than your mother who’s shadow you’ve been in since you started your career.

Character Relationships

That brings us to our next type of motivation: other people and the relationships your character has with them. It could be your favorite uncle asked you to check out the city sewers to find proof of the giant cybernetic rats and cockroaches he’s always said live down there. Maybe your familiar or a favorite pet wandered into the Mayor’s Mansion and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Or maybe, just maybe, your brother dared you to go into the spooky cave.

Again, the reasons don’t have to be deep of life-changing or part of The Big Picture. It can be petty concerns. The important thing is to have a reason that will motivate you to undertake the adventure. It could even be something simply as the party’s cleric said “Please” when he asked you to come along. Of course, if you want to have this adventure affect your character deeply, go for it.

Character Goals

This brings us to our last set of motivations: your character’s goals. Maybe you want to collect one of every type of potion in the world. Or maybe you need some  scrapings from the wall to to mix the exact shade of grey paint to finish your current project. See, even here you don’t need grandiose ideas — simple ones will do as long as it gets your character moving.

Of course,  you’ll want to clear your motivation with your GM. If he hears, for instance, that you think there may be potions for your collection, then he’ll most likely go out of his way to put one in there as a reward.  Maybe you just want to complete your rock collection and the last type of rock you need is said to exist in this lich-controlled forest. placed in there.

Brainstorming or “Mind-Mapping” can help you find a reason. You can get special software for that, but I find good ol’ pen and paper work great for the job. If you’re really stuck, you might try having the GM other person you trust over for a brainstorming party. If something doesn’t come to you immediately, keep trying until you come up with something you can play. You’ll find the game much more enjoyable.

Other Player Month Posts:

• How to (Respectfully) Disagree with Your GM

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What’s My Motivation? is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Here it is–the first post of our “Player Month”, designed to give advice to the players on how to make a game better. After all, the GM isn’t the only one playing and the players share some responsibility for making a game great.

At some point or another it will happen: your GM will make a call you don’t agree with. Do you just sit there and take it? After all, it’s the GM’s game and his word is law, right?

Well, yes and no. True, the GM decides the rules and has the final say on all matters. But that’s just it: the final say is final. That doesn’t mean you can’t have your input on making that final decision before it reaches the “final” part. There’s a big difference between a ruling and a final ruling. Depending on your GM, you can sometimes make your case and see if you can reach a compromise.

The trick here is that you need to make your cases respectfully. No shouting, no temper tantrums, no storming off. Here are some tips for successful resolution with your GM.

[Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylar/ / CC BY 2.0]

Figure out what you want

You need to do this before you talk to your GM. What do you want to come out of this discussion? What specific result are you looking for? It’s amazing how many players get into a “knee-jerk” reaction. They take issue with something the GM says or does, but they have no idea how they want that changed. If you have an idea of your ideal result, you can figure out a compromise much more easily.

Wait until after the session

You’re much more likely to get a positive result from a GM if you approach her after a game session, rather than during it. Bringing up an issue during the session takes up valuable play time. At best, it leaves other players with nothing to do; at worst, it opens the floor to a free-for-all argument as the other players try to put in their complaints. Not only does this make the GM feel like she’s begin ganged up on, it tends to make her dig her heels in and stick to her ruling.

Sometimes you can’t wait–for example, if your character’s about to die–and you have to deal with the issue during the session. You will, most likely, gain a better result if these cases are rare. That way, you’re more likely to get the “benefit of the doubt”, such as “Gee, he always talks to me after a session. It must be really important if he’s bringing it up now.”

Talk about specifics

When you do talk to your GM, you want to bring up a specific issue or ruling. If the GM doesn’t know exactly what’s bothering you, how can he fix it? Focusing on specifics also avoids the “Your game sucks” attitude, which is guaranteed to cause a GM to ignore anything you’ve got to say. Remember what you’re bringing up is your problem, not your GM’s.

A related point is to “marshal your argument” ahead of time. Why do you disagree with the ruling? What about it makes you unhappy or uncomfortable? Focus on how the ruling affects you and your character and cite specific examples. It’s most likely that the GM just didn’t foresee the problems you’re experiencing or didn’t see them as problems. You need to let him know why this is a problem.

Have alternative suggestions

This goes along with knowing what result you want. It’s much more likely a GM will listen and adjust things accordingly if you have some ideas on how to fix the problem. Even if she doesn’t seem to keen on changing things, having something specific to try out (“Can we try this next week and see if it works?”) is much more likely to bring a change in your favor than a “this is a problem with your game–fix it” attitude.

When you’re thinking of suggestions, take the game as a whole in to consideration. Think about how your idea(s) will affect game balance and the other players. Also consider the plot of the game as you know it so far and what you foresee happening in the future. This communicates to your GM that you’re not just looking for a result that makes you the center of the game or gives you an über-character.

Take the GM’s final word gracefully

Only your GM knows the whole game. It’s possible that the “bad” ruling needs to stand because of something that’s coming down the pipe. There’ve been many times during a game when I’ve had to say “There’s a reason, trust me.” After all, if you can’t trust your GM maybe it’s time to find a new group.

Final thoughts

As always, watch your manner and your tone as you bring anything up with your GM. Remember your Ps and Qs and common-sense advice (focus on the problem, not the person; use “I” language; remember who owns the problem, etc.).

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How to (Respectfully) Disagree With Your GM is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Problem players are a perennial subject on GMing blogs. But problems can go both ways. Here are some GM behaviors guaranteed to cause friction in your group. Please feel free to add more.

1. Force your PCs into a predetermined plot line and refuse to let them deviate from it.
2. View the players as opponents to be beaten.
3. Don’t listen to player suggestions. Get angry is someone even tries to talk to you about improving the game.
4. Spend a lot of time looking up rules during combat, especially to find that +1 modifier you know it there to give the NPCs an edge against the PCs.
5. Argue with your players. Tell them they’re not allowed to do certain actions.
6. Permit your players to argue with each other. Allow these arguments to consume large amounts of each game session.
7. Be obviously unprepared. Spend copious amounts of time shuffling papers trying to find the next page of the adventure.
8. Don’t keep an eye on the magic items your group has. Allow them to surprise you with a game-breakingly over-powered item you forgot you let them create.
9. Destroy, loose, or pick-pocket every helpful or impressive magic item the party ever gains.
10. Be very easy going and permissive one game session and hard-nosed rules-stickler the next.
11. Arbitrarily change the rules from one game session to the next.
12. Allow yourself to be bullied into decisions you don’t like by the players.
13. Regularly show up late to game session without an explanation. After all, you’re the GM; they have to wait for you.
14. Frequently cancel game sessions at the last minute.
15. Show obvious favoritism to certain players in your group — SO’s, best friends, etc…
16. Make all adventures as lethal as possible.
17. Don’t take the party’s abilities into account when designing encounters.
18. Regularly fudge die results in the NPCs favor. Make it obvious to the players.
19. Use an NPC to solve every major challenge. Don’t let the PCs do anything important.
20. Forget how many opponents the PCs are fighting. Increase that number midway through combat. Berate any player who tries to correct you.
21. Don’t allow your players to make changes to the game world. Make sure their actions have no permanent affect on the setting.

Do you have any more GMing pet peeves? Please tell us in the comments below.

21 Sure-Fire Ways to Lose Players is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

We all get them: the incessant rules lawyer who challenges your every call; the “loopholer” who will exploit everything not nailed down in the rules to gain that extra +1 advantage; the player who takes everything that happens to their character as an attack on themselves…

Dealing with problem players is never easy. Here’s a collection of resources to help you when you’ve got no idea where to turn:

• [Ask RPG] D&D 4e: Need Luck-type Rewards: Using in-game rewards to curb problem behavior.
• Dealing with a Player Who Wants It All: Dealing with a spotlight-stealing player.
• Dealing with Disruptive Players: A forum discussion. About half way down the page is a good checklist of things to do when dealing with a problem player.
• Dealing with Problem Players: Why GMs tend to make poor players.
• Dealing with RP Attention Hogs: How to deal with players who want all the spotlight.
• DM Advice for Difficult Players?: Dealing with a rules-lawyer.
• Friday Chat: Dealing with Aggressive/Jerk Players: Just what the title says. Be sure to read the comments for further ideas on how to deal with these players.
• Group Therapy with Dice: Identifying problem players.
• Happy Jacks RPG Podcast — Season 01 Episode 02: A podcast about dealing with players.
• How Do You Deal with Die Fudgers?: Tips for dealing with players who cheat on their die rolls.
• How to Deal with Competitive Players: Dealing with players who just has to “win”.
• How to Kick Out a Player and Respect Yourself in the Morning: A step-by-step guide for removing disruptive players from your game.
• The Next Level #13: Solving a Disruptive Player: Ideas for dealing with a disruptive player without booting them out.
• Problem Players of a Different Sort: Dealing with “Console Drones”, inattentive players and players who bring their personal issues into the game.

Handling Problem Players is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Last week, I asked for your opinions on what you liked best about being a GM and what you liked least. A couple of you responded and here are your answers:

The Best Things:

• From Sean Holland: “… there is nothing better than seeing the world come alive through the players’ eyes and actions. It makes all the work worthwhile.”
• From ATerribleIdea: “Seeing a player gnaw their fingernail until it bleeds in a tense scene.”

The Worst Things:

• From Sean Holland: “… having your inspiration vanish is miserable.”
• From ATerribleIdea: “Defusing actual hostility.”

Thanks guys for your input!

What Do You Like Best and Least About Being a GM/DM? is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Player Contributions was one of my earliest posts to this blog. I’ve learned so much about blogging since then, I’ve decided to update it.

What are player contributions?

The Amber Diceless RPG introduced me to player contributions. The idea is simple:

You get added points for your character if you agree to do something helpful for the GM every game session.

The exact details are left up to the GM and player to work out. Amber Diceless suggests things such as character journals, campaign logs, character portraits, etc. as player contributions. In that system, you get more points to build your character if you commit to a contribution for every game session.

It works great in theory

I tried using character/player contributions as written in the Amber rules, but soon met a major snag — getting players to follow through. Usually, I’d get enthusiastic contributions for 3-4 game sessions, then nothing. I tried giving giving out “luck” penalties — i.e. the player’s character would have strokes of bad luck for that game session — to those who didn’t live up to their agreement, but that seemed too punitive. Especially since most “non-contributors” weren’t being lazy– they simply found they didn’t have time to keep up with the obligation. Real Life™ would inevitably intrude.

The Fix

Finally, I came up with an idea that worked.  Instead of giving extra character creation points at the outset, I would hand out a small amount of experience points each game session I received a contribution. That way, no one would have to feel guilty if their child got the flu the previous week, or if term papers were due, or such. Also, if a player who normally didn’t turn in anything got a sudden burst of inspiration, she could make a single contribution, without having to take on a long-term commitment she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Types of player contributions

What kinds of things make good character contributions? That really varies from game to game. What would be the most helpful to you as a GM? Some types of contributions that work well in my game include:

• Written, detailed character backgrounds
• Completed character questionaires
• Character journals — the events of the campaign seen through the PCs eyes.
• Campaign notes — the events of the game objectively
• Character portraits
• Maps or “landscapes” of important regions of the campaign world
• Creating game props
• In-game newspapers or “scream sheets” (for you Cyberpunks out there )
• Keeping the inventory of party loot and making copies available to GM and all players

On the extreme end, I once had a player turn in the equivalent of a Master’s Thesis on Gehenna lore (for a classic World of Darkness game), complete with fictitious bibliography and properly-formatted footnotes. Basically, I’ll give points for anything that takes some of the GM’s workload off my shoulders

How do contributions help?

Character Backgrounds: Most of my games are very character-driven. Character backgrounds really do matter and will have an effect on the game world as a whole, so the more I know about PC, the more I can tie him into the game. To help a player develop his character’s background, I generally hand out a character questionnaire to each player at the beginning of a new campaign. Players can either fill that out or write something of their own design.

Character Portraits: Yes, I do accept written descriptions or references to book covers or movie characters as PC portraits. I don’t think this contribution should be limited to those who can draw.

Character Journals and Game Session Notes: Character journals and game session notes are definitely my favorite contributions to receive. I tend to run “off the cuff” –  frequently, my game notes for a particular session are a list of NPC names and possible locations. I make up most of the details during the game session and I find that if I stop to take notes, I lose the flow of the game. So having someone else in the group writing this stuff down for me is a huge help. That way, I don’t run into a problem of Bill But-You-Said-Last-Week-His-Name-Is-Fred, the baker. As far as character journals go, each player can specify if his journal exists in-game (where another character may be able to find and read it) or out of it (just between the player and the GM).

These are just some examples. Anything you and the player can agree on as being helpful to either you or the game as a whole can make great player contributions. Of course, I’m the final arbitrator about what constitutes an helpful contribution. But in all cases, I have one overarching rule — a character can only get experience for one contribution each game session.

How much to award?

Generally, you want to make the award small enough so the PCs don’t jump power levels faster than you can keep up with them. On the other hand, you want them to be large enough to provide a real incentive.

How small is small?

In for games with low experience point values, such as Amber, World of Darkness, In Nomine, etc. where the PCs might get an average of 1-3 points per session, I hand out one experience point per contribution per game session. I require all written contributions be at least one page long. On rare occasion, I might give out two for something that the player worked really hard at (see the academic dissertation above).

For D&D and other games that use experience points in the hundreds to thousands scale, I usually award 100 – 200 experience points, depending on how useful and detailed the contribution is. That amount works great for low levels (all the D&D games I’ve run for the last 20 years have been low-level). But one of my readers, trashcondor,  pointed out to me — at higher levels, it’s way too small an amount to be worth anything. Trashcondor suggested, instead, that I give out a bonus amount of 20% of each session’s experience points. I’m going to try this in my D&D games from now on.

Give player contributions a try. You may find — as I do — that they really help make GMing a game easier. If you’ve got specific examples of contributions used in any of your games, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. What did the player do and what kind of reward did you give them? Share your thoughts and ideas!

Player Contributions, Take Two is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

[Inkwell Ideas has posted a blog readers survey. Please take a few minutes to fill it out; it helps us blog authors know a little more about the kinds of things you like to see in RPG blogs.]

What are the best and worst things about being a GM?

For me, the best thing is watching my players take my game and run with it. Nothing gives me more enjoyment then watching a mini-game session spontaneously break out. Frequently at a party, during the break of a different game session, or even at restaurant, my players will slip into character and start making plans or holding a gab-fest. All it takes is for someone to say “Dude!” (the favorite phrase of one of the PCs) and they’re off and running.  That’s when I know my game’s come alive and the players really enjoying it.

The worst thing is when I run out of inspiration or I just can’t get my own head into the game. Some days and some games are like that — no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get interested in what I’m doing.  Those are the days and games that fall flat. If I’m not completely engaged in the game, I know my players won’t be, either.

How about you?

What do you love about being a GM and what do you hate about it? Leave a comment and I’ll address this topic again later this week with your answers.

Question: What’s the best and worst thing about being a GM? is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

I’ve said it before — everyone has situations that come up where they have to miss a session or two, sometimes at the last minute. After all, real-life issues have to take precidence over game ones. But as a GM, what do you do when Liza the Ranger gets called into work at the last minute?

In my experience, I’ve found you’ve got several options:

1. Have the GM run the character. This is the most commonly used solution I’ve seen. It’s generally fair, as long as the GM doesn’t take the opportunity to run the character they way he would like to see it run, rather than the way the player does. This option works better in games that are heavily action-oriented, rather than role-playing oriented.
2. Have another player run the character. Use this only when the absent player agrees to it. I’ve seen too many sessions have to be “rerun” because the returning player doesn’t like the way her character was played in her absence. Sometimes the missing player will ask a specific player to play her character for her — this is generally a good solution.
3. The character is absent too. This is the solution I choose whenever possible. All of my players are adults with multiple real-life demands. I try to set up my games so that the characters can “step out” for a session to attend to personal matters from time to time. If a PC needs to attend to something alone, I try to have the player do this on a day they can’t be at the game. Before the next game session, I try to touch base with the missing player so we can work out (at least briefly) what his character as doing during the absence. Sometimes, though, you just can’t take this option — like when your PCs are in the middle of a dungeon.
4. The character is present, but “out of commission”. The character could be drugged, knocked unconscious, engaged in a psionic battle, trapped (mentally) in an alternate dimension…there’s a wide range of possibilities. Again, only use this one with the player’s permission. This can be a good alternative to number 3, above. I tend to take this option if a player starts missing games or showing up late on a regular basis, especially if they do it without giving a reason.
5. Run a “what if” or “it’s all a dream” game session. This can be a lot of fun, if all the players present understand that what happens in this game session will not be part of the “official” game. My players have even done this when I couldn’t be there. Another player takes over the role of GM and runs my game for me, based on what they think is going on.
6. Conduct a series of “one-on-ones”. Take each player who can make it aside for awhile and run a one-on-one session with them. The session could be something the PC’s been wanting to do for a while or could be a scene from the PC’s past. I’ll occasionally do this when I’ve got less than half my players, but people still want to play. Players not currently involved with me generally shoot the breeze with each other (frequently in character), play card or board games, etc.
7. Take the opportunity to run a “one-shot”. I’ll frequently toss a convention scenario I’m working on or other such short adventure  with pre-gen characters in my game bag and use that if I’ve got too many “no shows” but the rest of the players want to play something.
8. Run a henchmen one-shot. Have everyone play one of their assistants, henchmen, ghouls, hired hands, bodyguards, etc. in a one-shot scenario.

It’s helpful to have a set policy about what to do with missing players’ characters. Do you run if one or more player is missing? How many players have to be missing before you cancel the game? Discuss this with your players when you first begin the campaign and settle on a basic guideline you all can live with. Generally, I’ll run if I have at least half my players. If I have less than half, we’ll either cancel that session or do #5, 6, 7, or 8 above.

The important thing is for the GM and players to come to a mutually-agreeable solution. Try to set a policy and stick to it as much as possible. That way, it’s fair for everyone and your players will know what to expect when real-life encroaches and they just can’t be there.

Gaming with Ghosts: When Good Players Can’t Be There is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Every player has days they can’t make a game. Sometimes, a great conjunction of events happens and a player has to miss a session at the very last minute. It happens to all of us.

These aren’t the players I’m referring to.

It can be one of the most frustrating things about a running a game: having players who are chronic no-shows. My ex-husband and his brother are players like this. My ex was once 8 hours late to a game (without calling) and couldn’t figure out why everyone was mad at him. I usually found out that his brother wasn’t going to make a game when my father-in-law announced it on the way in the door for the game session itself.

Unfortunately, I’ve only found one cure for it — boot them from that game and don’t accept them into another. I don’t like to be mean. I understand real life — I’m a single parent, I work, take care of a house and deal with a chronic and sometimes dehibilitating illness. I try very hard to warn the GMs of any game I’m going to be in that I may have to “no-show” at the last minute for health reasons. But I try very hard to call and let the GM know as soon as I can. Most of my players are IT people and are frequently on-call. I have one great player who hasn’t been able to make it to character-building sessions for my new game because he’s been pulling 10 hour days at work dealing with server issues. I can work with this.

But the chronic “I just don’t feel like coming” or the person who habitually turns up 1+ hours late with no call and no explanation infuriates me. It’s rude. It’s unfair the GM who’s usually put in a lot of work for each character in the game and is basing that game on the fact that certain PC’s are going to be there. It’s unfair to the other players, especially if the MIA player is a crucial character for an upcoming encounter or situation. In my opinion, it’s a sign of supreme selfishness.

I make allowences for real life; I don’t make allowances for selfish indifference.

Fred’s Missing *Again*? is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Randall, in his blog RetroRollplaying, wrote a post about the idea of doing away with “to hit” rolls. His post was inspired by a post at Eleven Foot Pole titled No Roll to Hit: Rationale. Both Randall’s and Eleven Foot Pole’s posts focus on “to hit” rolls in 4e D&D, but I’m going to comment on dice rolling in gaming generally

I have the worst dice luck in the world — just ask any player or GM I’ve ever played with. The DM of the main D&D (3.5) campaign  I play instituted point-buy for creating character stats after watching me roll 6 (or was it 8…can’t remember) sets of stats with no score over 10 in any of them…and that’s using the 4d6 method. I ran a Vampire game with a Sabbat pack that missed every single attack role — usually botching in the process.

So as you can imagine, I’m a big fan of dice-less games. I run Amber Diceless and my Storyteller games tend to run very “dice light”. In fact, my World of Darkness players used to tease me that the one game they forgot dice would be the one game they actually needed to use them! However, there are certain games I feel need to be played with dice and AD&D tops the list. Maybe it’s tradition. But a D&D game just doesn’t feel complete without lots of dice rolls.

Especially in combat. Yes, it’s disappointing to miss. Yes, it’s frustrating to come up with a great idea for an attack, then roll a 2. Yes, it can be boring and lonely watching all the other players dealing damage when your dice won’t even let you connect. Believe me, I know. I’ve gone through many combats in my gaming career (both as GM and player) where I missed every single roll.

But guess what? I wasn’t bored. Just because I missed (even all the time) didn’t mean I wasn’t involved in the combat. I respectfully disagree with Eleven Foot Pole’s statement that:

Having waited a full round of initiative and then achieving nothing is functionally identical to skipping your turn.

Sure, it is… if all you’re doing is waiting until “your turn”. Players focused on getting “their turn” miss the point of having a party. If all you have to contribute to the game is points of damage, why are you there, instead of an NPC? This isn’t intended as a snide remark, but a genuine question. What can your character give that goes beyond damage points? An important thing to remember is that role playing doesn’t stop when you start rolling dice. Okay, how did you miss? Why did you miss? Can something be salvaged from your attempt to try next turn? Did your miss unexpectedly aid one of your teammates? Missing as frequently as I do, I’ve learned to think beyond the numbers.

Granted, the responsibility for some of this falls on the already overburdened shoulders of the GM/DM. Players will be able to think beyond the numbers better if the GM gives them something more than numbers to think about. Sure, things are going to get really boring if, as a GM, all you say is, “You miss.” But if as a GM, you say “Your stroke goes past his shoulder as he reflexively jumps back. As a former soldier [if the PC is],  you can tell this was a skilled counter-move — you’re definitely fighting a highly-trained opponent.” Here, the PCs blow may not have done any damage, but they’ve learned something about their enemy, something that may or may not become important later, depending on what you decide to do with it.

If you want to make every action a PC takes be useful, I have an alternate idea: rather than making every attack hit, make every attack worth something, even if the PC misses. For example, the first PC misses, but in doing so, he causes his opponent to duck into the swing of another PC’s sword. Okay, the second PC gets to inflict the damage, but the first PC also contributed to that damage. If you can stress damaging and overcoming an opponent as a team effort, the entire party can be brought into the action on every turn and not just when they happen to hit.

I agree with Eleven Foot’s concern over introducing new players. I think we do need to take the extra step to help new players learn to be good players. Especially if a brand-new player is entering a group of experienced players. But I disagree that allowing a player to hit every single time is a good way to do that. I think it sends the player the wrong information about how RPGs work. Sure, you’ve eliminated the “to hit” for your game, but what’s going to happen to that player when they join someone else’s game? Or play at convention? They’re going to be in for a shock and probably even worse frustration if they don’t know that misses are part of RPGs in general.

Now don’t get me wrong — I’m a big one for changing a system to suit your style of play. If you want to play without “to hit” roles, more power to you! But if we’re talking about bringing new players into the hobby, or making automatic hits the default standard, I think we need to take a closer look at why we want to eliminate hit rolls and find another way to solve those problems.

“…and you miss!”: Roleplaying and Rollplaying in Combat is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

I’m taking a break from Meadowbrook for a few days; I don’t want this blog to become “all Meadowbrook all the time”. I’m considering starting another blog devoted to world-building that would chronicle my development of Meadowbrook and it’s surrounding world; if this is something that would interest you, please leave me a comment. Now, onto your regularly scheduled post.

For years, I’ve used information as a commodity in my games. I generally run “limited information” campaigns, where I try not to give the players any more knowledge about the situation and/or world than their characters would know. This isn’t about “cheating”; I have excellent group of players who are well-skilled at separating character knowledge from player knowledge and playing accordingly. What I’ve found, though, is that when player knowledge matches character knowledge, the players can relax more. They don’t feel like they have to police themselves to stop and think Hey, would my character actually know this? before they take action.

An useful outcome of this is that information becomes its own reward. Especially when it comes to a PCs individual goals. For example: if the party does a favor for a prince, as a reward he may be able to tell them the location of the tower belonging to the evil wizard that killed their team member.  You don’t always have to give out money, treasure, spells, or what-not to your PCs. Information can be just as valuable and won’t ratchet up your PCs experience level or ability to obliterate your bad guys; this can help you keep the PCs from rising in power earlier than you’re ready for them to.

You can make choices about how secretive and hard to gain information is in your game. Do all party members know everything any other member knows? How closely do they guard their own backgrounds from the rest of their party? This can vary between one GM to the next. I’ve known many GMs who don’t like the PCs to keep secrets from one another; they feel it causes divisiveness among character who are supposed to work as a team. I err on the restrictive side: more often than not, I tightly control information in my games. I usually set up their character’s background with her player separately, then let the player decide how much information to give the others.

During the game itself, I generally give information out based on PC had access. If one or two of the PCs wander ahead and overhear a conversation between a vampire and her childe, for example, I usually take them aside or write a note (if it’s short) to describe what they hear. I then leave it up to the players to reveal the information as the characters see fit. If, on the other hand, I know that the scouting PC is going to go and immediately relate what he overheard, then I’ll go ahead and describe the conversation to the whole group, so neither the player nor the GM has to repeat themselves, particularly if the conversation is long or complicated. So it’s purely situational — think “Will the other PCs also hear this or will they know about it in the ten to fifteen minutes?” If so, it’s a lot easier to tell the whole group what transpires.

Sometimes even players will get into the limited information act. I once ran an Amber game where two of the PCs decided to marry and all of the players kept it secret for a couple of weeks, real time. They didn’t want me to find out about it beforehand so I wouldn’t have time to plan something to go wrong with the wedding. Other GMs might hate being in the dark about any aspect of their game, but I loved it.

Some games lead themselves to secrecy better than others. Amber and Vampire have secrecy as a core concept and I rigidly control the flow of information in those games. I tend to be more free with information in a D&D game, for example, but I still allow the players to determine how much of their character’s knowledge they share. It all depends on your style and preference.

What Your Players Don’t Need to Know is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

There’s a continuum about character backgrounds. I use detailed character backgrounds in my games; in fact, I warn players that I reserve the right to fill in any character history they don’t. Other GMs don’t bother with backgrounds at all — a sentence or two at the top of the character sheet. It really depends on the individual GM’s game style.

I can’t even begin to building campaign until I know the PCs involved; for me, the PCs are the campaign. Player-written character backgrounds provide me with a wealth of ideas I would have never come up with on my own. I give my players free reign to create NPCs in their background, with the caveat that all NPCs need to approved by me. This takes some of the background work off of my shoulders; I can use the PCs backgrounds to help flesh out the population of my city/world/setting. Frequently, I find I can substitute someone from a PCs background for one listed in the adventure, thereby helping to get at least one PC more invested in the current story.

Sometimes I can even tie NPCs from one character’s background to those of another PC. This makes a connection between those two PCs, right off the bat. These connections don’t have to be friends, or even like each other. Having an NPC from one character hate the NPC from another character has led to some great role-playing in past games. Even better is when I can actually use the same NPC for at least one additional PC. Locations are something else I mine character backgrounds for. Usually, the player has given me some idea of what that location is like, even if it’s just “small farming town”. Businesses, towns, homes, farms from character backgrounds have all become integral to various campaigns I’ve run.

I always have players give me written copies of their background. That way I can go back and look up details I may have missed the first time through. If a player is having a hard time coming up with anything for a background, I sit down with the player and walk her through a series of questions. I’ve found character questionnaires can really help a player get “unstuck”.

Even really basic stuff like “how old is your character” or “what color is his hair” can trigger ideas for the player. Every player I’ve ever dealt with has at least an idea about what his character looks like, including clothing. If a player seems really stuck, I’ll ask questions about that: “why are your character’s colors red and blue?”, “why would she wear that hat?”, etc. And if a player is really, really, stuck for ideas or is looking for a challenge (I’ve had players who said “surprise me”), I’m more than happy to take over. But in that case, I warn them they’re going to be stuck with whatever I give them.

Usually, a PC only needs their background tweaked; in that case, I’ll make my revisions and hand the player a copy. Maybe I swap out the town in their background for one that already exists, or maybe I change their childhood friend to an NPC already in the game — I try to keep as much of the player’s work as possible.

Next post: character questionnaires

Character Backgrounds is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle

Said while making snacks for the group …
Dave [player]: Hey, can I have experience points for baking cookies?
GM: Sure, Dave can have 200 experience points; Billee [his character] can’t.

[12 Aug 2009 Note: There's an updated version of this post at Player contributions, Take Two.]

I first ran across the idea of player/character contributions when I started running the Amber Diceless RPG. The idea is simple: you get more points to build your character if you agree to do something helpful for the GM every game session. The exact details are left up to the GM and player to work out. I tried it as written in the rules, but soon met a major snag — getting players to follow through. Usually, I’d get enthusiastic contributions for 3-4 game sessions, then nothing. I tried giving giving out “luck” penalties — i.e. the player’s character would have strokes of bad luck for that game session — to those who didn’t live up to their agreement, but that seemed too punitive. Especially since most “non-contributors” just found they simply didn’t have time to keep up with it. Real Life™ would intrude.

Finally, I came upon an idea that worked. I honestly don’t remember if someone else gave me the idea or if I thought of it on my own. Instead of giving extra character creation points at the outset, I would hand out a small amount of experience points each game session I received a contribution. That way, no one would have to feel guilty if their child got the flu the previous week or if term papers were due, etc. Also, if a player who normally didn’t turn in anything got a sudden burst of inspiration, she could make a single contribution, without having to take on a long-term commitment she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

What kinds of things make good character contributions? Most of my games are very character-driven. Character backgrounds really do matter and will have an effect on the game as a whole. So the more I know about someone’s character, the better I can include them in the game. I generally hand out an optional character questionnaire to each player at the beginning of a new campaign. Filling that out and returning it to me is a favorite contribution for my players. Character portraits also count and, yes, I do accept references to book covers or movies as character portraits, as well as written descriptions; I don’t think this contribution should be limited to just those who can draw. As far as character journals go, each player can specify if his journal exists in-game (where another character may be able to find and read it) or out of it (just between the player and the GM).

Character journals and game session notes are definitely my favorite contributions to receive. I run “off the cuff”; frequently, my game notes for a particular session are a list of NPC names and possible locations. I make up most of the details during the game session and I find that if I stop to take notes, I lose the flow of the game. So having someone else in the group writing this stuff down for me is a huge help. That way, I don’t run into a problem of Bill But-You-Said-Last-Week-His-Name-Is-Fred, the baker.

I’ve also given out experience points for writing in-game newspaper articles, making topographical maps of an area or architectural drawings of important buildings, mapping genealogies of a country’s royal family, creating game “props” (such as a treasure map), … even writing an in-game academic dissertation complete with fictional bibliography and proper footnotes, penned by one of the PCs.

Basically, I’ll give out small amounts of experience for anything that is pertinent to the game and helps decrease my workload. How small? In Amber, World of Darkness, etc. games, I hand out one experience point per game session. On rare occasion, I might give out two for something that the player worked really hard at (see the academic dissertation above). For a AD&D game, I usually award 100 – 200 experience points, depending on how useful and detailed the contribution is. But in all cases, I have one overarching rule — a character can only get experience for one contribution each game session.

Of course, I’m the final arbitrator about what constitutes an helpful contribution and how much experience a PC gets.

Player Contributions is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2009 by Cherie Arbuckle