#15 - Full Force

1991 - The World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins.

The Braves player Lonnie Smith was forced to move on Home Base and charged at the Twins catcher Brian Harper. Although Smith was moving with extreme speed towards Harper, the Twins Catcher did not back down. A famous collision occurred and Smith was out, preventing a run and thus the Twins winning the game.

Later on, Smith and Harper were photographed shaking hands. They had reconnected, to ask each other if there were any injuries from the collision. Harper's team, the Twins, won the World Series that year. The Twins won all 7 home games.

I only recently learned this story. I myself was born in 1991. After the whole affair was over. But I was looking at the metaphor in my last essay and I didn't want to leave you all with a bad impression. More specifically I didn't want to indicate that the GM, or the players should be punitive in the game.

Nor should they be, outside of the game. What I wanted to focus on was sportsmanship.

Baseball is famous for sportsmanship. There are easy enough ways to see this. Players shaking hands, or when the whole team rushes out of the dugout to celebrate a win. Often times the winning and loosing team meetup on the field after the game. We may only see the players from the bleachers, but we trust they respect each other. We know that they appreciate the good show and effort from the other side.

In an RPG you may be at ends with the person across from you. You may be working with them. They may be your friend or a stranger, but you are not merely playing a game, you are participating in all the activities that go beyond the game.

If we were ball players, we are not merely on the field throwing pitches and catching balls. We are also there for the spectators. We are there for the home team, the away team, for teams not even on the field, and for the folks watching at home.

What poor ballplayers we would be, if we did not try our best, and expect the best from those around us?

That is the lesson I want to remember from Harper and Smith. They didn't give 50%. Nor was it 80% or only 90%. They did their best!

Not only that, even after, and one team was all but about to win, and another to loose, they continued to play. They continued to be good sports. 

Play for fun. For your fun, and the fun of the others on and off the field with you. Do your best and expect it from the home and away team.

#12 Breaking the Rules

In my previous article I wanted to impress upon players and narrators that the rules of a RPG have to help the game. If they are not helpful they should not be there. Here we get into shaving off the unhelpful bits of rules.

My most successful role-playing group shares the belief: "less is more" when it comes to the rules. These are the "Soviets," if you have been keeping up with my blog. We've played several different games now, with different rules and we like to see open space on character sheets, and rule packets under 10 pages.

The key appeal for not having rules is freedom. If we have not already decided that A will cause B, then when A occurs we can decide what is best to follow. We are free because we don't have to abide by what is written, then we can adjust the game as we progress. There is obvious value to that.

But lets discuss when we decide to go against the rules, and not simply leave something open for later. A great breaking of the rules is Destiny. If you recall, I mentioned in Essay #7 that destined events are interruptions to normal game play. Destined events are not part of the normal rally of choice and consequence. Destined events may very well also be outside of the rules.

As with Luke Skywalker and his proton torpedoes. I don't really think a die roll is necessary when he makes his final shot at the death star. He chose to trust in the force, and that should be a reason to ignore the rules.

Thinking further on Destiny, I want to encourage players to think of ways that they can also break the rules. Sometimes in games I play, I see players looking over their character sheets and they don't see a relevant skill for what they want to do. I'm not a fan of players deciding they want to use such an such a skill. I would rather the role-playing be seamless. Player decides on an action and tries to find a way to make it work.

If you are a player go ahead and announce your intention of doing something. Whatever your skills, the cooperation between you, your teammates, and the GM can find a way to make it happen.

If you want to toss you crumpled piece of paper into the recycling bin you don't need to have a "throwing" skill. Simply saying that is what you want to do is enough notice to everyone there that you will use whatever talents your character has to achieve that end. You could had it off to your teammate for the alley-oop. You could mock "throw" it by holding our your hand and "running" the motion of the paper flying through the air. Or you could just use telekinesis.

This may seem like a dumb example, but I will remind you, that role-playing games are make believe. If you want to hold your hand out the car window and fly, lets figure out a way to make that happen.

Of course I'm not suggesting that a character can flap their arms around and fly. But just as much as we can dream of taking to the skies, a character can explore ways to get up up and away. No telekenisis required.

For players and GMs, please don't limit yourselves by what the books say. Reward the creativity of your fellow players and of the narration. 

It will make sure anything is possible.

#11 - Making the Rules Work for You.

At the Con last weekend I spoke with a player in my upcoming RPG. It will be set in the Soviet Union and part of a series of games we've formed through compromise. I would say we've had success in designing our own rule sets for our unique adventures. Last year, we has the post apocalyptic "Fallout: Twin Cities" game, and more recently finished the Yukon Horror. These I play with some of my good friends from the "JB's Games" over there on the website. Both of those games and my Soviet one will have homemade rules. The character details in this adventure have been quite bare bones.

While discussing the rules at the Con, I tried to clarify my rules on "Perks," a way to give certain special abilities to heroes. My player, Erik, wanted his character to have a competitive athlete perk. Which would bolster his efforts for physical performance when he had someone to go up against. That sounded great and would be a good addition to the shared fiction. But, I wasn't sure what that would mean for the game. If you recall, our rules are sparse.

The game has only 3 types of character details, Attributes, Skills, and Perks. I was explaining to my fellow that I didn't want Perks to merely be an increase to the other two. If a Perk is a simple increase to another Attribute, it doesn't make that Perk special at all. So too if the Perk was too much like a Skill. For a few minutes I ran some ideas past Erik to think of other ways to convey his Perk. I wanted something qualitative, something more creative than the simple increases above.

But, Erik wasn't satisfied by any of this. Instead he reminded me that he needed the rules to work for him, and in this case he wanted a concrete reliable increase. He wanted something quantitative, something numerical.

Eventually, her persuaded me. Then, I made some notes for how his competitive athleticism will impact the game. Don't worry it will be a fixed quantitative boost.

The larger story here today is to illustrate why we have the rules here in the first place. As a child you might have pretended to have a tea party and in your young bustling imagination anything goes. Whatever sort of tea you wanted you had, every flavor of jam tasted great on plastic toast. In the shared fiction of a role-playing game it gets more contractual. Erik's character is a great athlete, this could stand on its own. But, when he goes up against another star runner Erik's hero will need a measurement of how fast he is. We have rules, character sheets, attributes, and skills to keep track of these things.

In a tea party everybody can be a princess. In an RPG it often necessary to know exactly what that means.

Some games have more rules than others. Some rule systems ignore different things. A hero's social class is not relevant in most D&D adventures for example. In some games being a Duke and not an Earl might have a big impact on the game. Rules can change the way a game plays out and the way the character's behave. Ultimately, leaving things in or out is up to you, and the other people you are playing with.

My quick advice is that if it is worth measuring it is worth a rules notation.

#8 - The Trouble with Sherlock

Mystery in role-playing games is almost impossible to pull off. Every time I've included a murder mystery or a puzzle with a single answer, the players always get stuck. This may seem odd to any fan of detective fiction. After all, If deduction is such a simple skill, why do intelligent players make bad conclusions? Sherlock Holmes' famous logic, is to remove the impossible answers until only one remains. That "last answer standing" is the truth. But, that has never worked for a role-playing game. Because, deduction requires a clue and previous knowledge.

The trouble with Sherlock, is that his deductions are short, easy to explain, and save the day. This arises when we realize that a deduction requires a known connection. I once read a story where Sherlock identified someone's line of work by looking at their right hand. The right hand was larger than their left, and so Sherlock said the man earned his money through labor. Sherlock concluded this because a man who works in labor would have a larger right hand. The man before Sherlock had a larger hand, and thus could be (and was) a laborer.

This is fine and all, for a story where the author can tell me something and have me believe it. But, as a person in the real world (and as a role-player) I don't know that. It isn't an established fact in my life that laborers have larger hands. I could believe it if I read it in a book, but it isn't something that I knew. I never learned before. That clue given to me in a role-playing game, would have led me to a different conclusion. I'd have gotten there, logically, because I have different previous knowledge. Players can't be expected to make a single deduction from the fact that a man has a larger right hand. It could / would mean that he is a laborer, but only if the player already knew that before. A larger could also mean that he has diabetes. A larger hand could mean he plays basketball. A larger hand could mean he types in a chair for a living.

We don't know everything, we can't. What we do know, is different from one player to the next. As players in a role-playing game we have as much influence in creating the world of fiction as the narrator. In a role-playing game with 4 players, that clue of the larger hand could lead to 4, or more, conclusions. Each player could have a guess on what it means. Each will believe that they have correctly deduced what the clue meant. They all applied the same logic, and all made a justified conclusion.

The bizarre part of that result, is that each of them will be right. The role-playing game exists only in shared imagination. Whatever the player is thinking IS the “real” answer. Telling them otherwise is unhelpful. To have a better mystery in your role-playing game, match your in game clues, with in game knowledge.

A player might suspect that detective smoke cigarettes, and that the cigarettes they found may be a clue for their slice of personal knowledge. But, it is much better if the heroes had already seen that detective smoke a cigarette. Do not think that this is heavy handed or obvious. We are carefully matching known in game facts with in game clues. If there is to be only one correct answer we need proof positive from the game itself. Relying on common sense, tropes, or guesswork will point the finger at the butler when it should have been the Gardner.

Also, say that it is proof positive. If the players make a good conclusion. They think they've identified the right suspect, please reward them with that certainty. Players have been confused before by a wild goose chase. Once I had cornered the right suspect who then tried to lay blame on another. This is believable, that the guilty party would throw off guilt, but it led the rest of us to spend 3 more hours on the case, when we had already solved it. Realistic perhaps, but not rewarding. It was punishing and frustrating.

Less is more when it comes to good mysteries in role-playing games. Try creating a handful of potential suspects and just a few clues. Center these few clues, around a larger clue. Make sure the clues are consistent with each other. For example: We have witnessed the Private Eye smoke, there are cigarettes left behind at the scene of the crime, and tobacco smell was left on the victim. These clues circle the correct suspect, even if we don't gather all of them, we have a good place to ask the right questions. If all three are found, the players should be able to cut out all the wrong answers. If the players get stuck, introduce new action, have shots ring out, to bring their attention back to clues they ignored.

With a few clue found, let the players think of creative ways to test their hypothesis. Then give them clear proof that their theory was right or wrong. Agree with your players after they've argued it among themselves, and chosen the right answer. In the end, if your mystery has only one answer, everybody should agree on the order of events.

#5 - Beware of Mary-Sue

Before I begin I will admit there is significant debate over what is and is not a Mary Sue. About who is and who is not, and about how best to explain it. Let me jump over all that and specify a kind of Mary Sue; perhaps the worst kind, an unbelievable character.

Fiction isn't meant to correspond to reality. It is only by our willingness to believe what is happening that a story proceeds. We take the events of Harry Potter on faith. It “happened” because the author, Joanne K. Rowling, said so. Like a train, the story chugs along, and impossible things occur one after another. We believe these, we suspend disbelief and trust in her, and our own imagination.

This trust is broken by the introduction of something unbelievable. If, for example, Santa Claus showed up in a Harry Potter book. Santa Claus pulls his reindeer, Rudolf, out of his magic sack and threw it in front of a curse to save Dumbledore. If this happened, we would have some questions. We might believe in Santa Claus. We might enjoy reading Harry Potter, but there is something unbelievable about Santa making an appearance at Hogwarts.

The greatest problem with this kind of unbelievable people and occurrences is that it is easy to do. It really isn't that hard to think of our fictional heroes as larger than life, or even godlike. But, we can't put these impossible people into a story they are mismatched for.

Consider with me the worlds smartest woman. Done, we have imagined her. Now imagine a movie where the world's smartest woman falls in love with the pastry chef down the street. There is some mismatch here, this pairing begs too many questions. A romance movie where a woman falls in love with a neighbor is believable, and has been done before. But, it doesn't require and is hampered by larger than life detail. What does she see in the chef? how did they meet in a meaningful way? Why do we believe she is the smartest woman in the world? More importantly, how does it serve the fiction to be the smartest?

We might ignore these things in a different story, the same way we might ignore the detail that Santa always wears red. But, this detail in the romance is out of place. Characters need context. Fiction can be anything, but that doesn't mean it should. We may want to make our heroes gods. But godly characters need god like responsibilities.

To reinforce this idea, that an extraordinary character needs to be in an extraordinary story; lets imagine a commonly accused Mary Sue, Superman. Superman is clearly impossible, he is purposefully perfect. One of his more unbelievable cohorts is Jimmy Olson.

Superman can bend steel, can out-run a rocket, heck, he can fly! Jimmy takes pictures for a newspaper. There is a problem with this pairing. Jimmy Olson is described as “Superman's Pal,” but the idea that Superman would elect to take Jimmy on an adventure with him is ridiculous. Jimmy isn't prepared to accomplish even 1% of the things Superman can. Jimmy should get killed in any issue when the man of Steel decides to confront armed gun men with his pal in tow. If jimmy Olson survives every encounter with horrible monsters, and giant robots, we beg some questions. How is he so lucky? When does he do his job? How does he get home after being flown to the top of a building for his own safety?

If I wanted to put Superman in a story with Jimmy Olson, I should focus on the mismatch. Superman doesn't schedule interviews for the daily planet, and Jimmy doesn't lift cars. But if Jimmy was interviewing Superman while Superman was saving lives we have a better pairing. It is unrealistic to believe Superman would fight crime with Jimmy. If Jimmy is an innocent bystander however, while Superman is being super, we keep the believably.

Jimmy takes pictures of Superman for the weekly edition, but suddenly a bomb goes off! Superman needs to rush to the city's aid, and Jimmy needs to score a scoop. At the scene of the explosion, armed gunmen attempt to fire on Superman but he is bullet-proof. Jimmy hides behind a brick wall trying to get a closer look. A thug spots Jimmy and aims to kill. Superman flies in and stands in the line of fire! Jimmy yells out thanks, Superman smiles as he rips the assault rifle out of the bad guy's hand, before snapping it in two! Suddenly, Jimmy calls out, Superman look sharp! as a bus-load of school kids hurtles into the fray.

Superman is impossible, Jimmy is not. But so long as Superman sticks to doing the impossible and Jimmy sticks to doing the ordinary, balance remains. I will categorically deny that Superman is a Mary Sue so long as he stays in a “super” story. Let Clark Kent write the editorials.

The last thing I want to mention is about that World's smartest smartest woman from earlier. We can believe there in her, and we can believe that she will fall in love with anybody if its in the right story.

That is where I leave it to you. Tell me, why did the world's smartest woman fall in love with the pastry chef down the street? Providing some context, and essentials for your details is being aware of Mary Sue.