Order of Battle

Though I've used sentient enemies before, I'm always leery because of the way they push me, as their proxy, to be in opposition to the players.  It's why I use a lot of animals, insects and weird creepy things that have their own systems of logic.

I want to use intelligent, organized factions more in dungeons, though.  So I want to think out how they might react to incursions ahead of time, so they will have plans and goals that are seperate from me, the DM, before players even encounter them.

First, if you know of any good posts or articles please let me know.  Second I was thinking a good approach might be to think of questions before they need answering the way Jeff's 20 questions for a campaign does.  So here are some questions:

• Where are guards posted?
• Who are these guards-- how loyal, capable, experienced?
• How do guards react to noise?
• How do guards react to smoke or strange lights or smells?
• In other words, when will they leave their posts?
• Is there a way for them to communicate with each other, other than just shouting?
• If reinforcements are sent, how long does it take them to reach different locations?
• Is there a general plan of defense or perhaps, evacuation?
• Is the goal to investigate, eradicate, or imprison interlopers?
• Who are they expecting trouble from?
• What kind of battle tactics will they use-- are they straight up fanatics?  Will they attempt to kill mages first?  Will they target any missile users?  Use shield walls?
• Who is ultimately in charge?
• How will that person be affected by battle results?  In other words will they be afraid, outraged, or impressed if players have killed guards?
• How long does it take, if even possible, for guards lost to battle to be replaced?
• How flexible are they, how willing to adjust tactics?  In other words, will they learn and adapt to losing battles to pcs?

That's all I can think of now.  Other things you know I should be thinking about because of experience, or things you wonder about yourself?

Rorschach Proposals

Before reading further, what would you think if you were a player in my game and recieved this:

_









How do you interpret that?

I'm interested in the divide between Player and DM creativity.  Hill Cantons has had some interesting posts along these line lately.

Last night I was talking with a player as we walked to another player's birthday party.  I mentioned the idea of letting Birthday Boy create the magic-user organization that was going to offer him membership.  My question was, would that be cool or seem like homework.  My player suggested I put weird symbols in the offer as a sort of middle ground.  I thought that was pretty genius because 1) the player's attempt at deciphering the cryptic message might give me clues as to what he would enjoy (or not) in a Mages Guild without breaking the suspension of disbelief by realizing I have none of this hashed out for my world yet.  2) Barrataria's vague symbol effect would be in play-- meaning I myself would have time to figure these things out as the campaign advances and revise as needed.

I realized that the symbols I would pick would be shaped by my conception of what boons/costs a MU organization might offer, so I rolled randomly for the 6 symbols in the note.  Then I rolled randoomly for their position in the note.  I'd be curious what you thought they might mean when you first read them.

One-Page Factions

I got to thinking you might share factions with other DMs much the way you share dungeons.  I envisioned something like an illustrated family tree with brief, abstracted notes on the members.  So I whipped up a draft:

The lines are meant to provide space to record traits and poker personality information.  The meter in the corner is meant to record the party's reputation with this faction as per rorschachhamster's suggestion.  Put them all together and you might use it like this (partially filled out):

A few problems: a faction like a guild or abbey will be very large and so these would only be the most powerful members or the lowest rung that low level characters are most likely to run into.  Second, after reading about medieval monasteries for about an hour this morning, I realize that working out these traits and relationships is a piece of cake for me as a DM, what I really need help with is abstracting the heirarchy and roles within these various historical organizations.  So, this is sort of a solution in search of a problem.  I suppose it might still be useful for DM record keeping.

I think I mentioned wanting an abstracted village long ago, add to that a convent/monastery, mages guild, thieves guild, etc.  I think I'm going to have to make them myself.

Relationship Record Cards

Here are some 4' x 6' cards to keep track of who's interacting with who in your steamy world of fantasy intrigue.  Here is a pdf.  I realize I was sort of muddling power or decision making structures with personal relationships in my last post (and sure, they are related).  I've made two types of cards the first has a typical pyramid hierarchy like you might expect in a guild or church:

This next one:

 is meant to record things like vendors in a market place, or maybe the players at court, groups of people scheming and interacting but not necessarily in a hierarchy.  Here's the back to record the names of the people involved.  You would probably want individual records for folks if pcs start interacting with them, but this is just meant to be a key to the diagram on the front:

And here is a crude example of how you might use one of these:

I've used playing card suits as per this post.  I drew a few relationships in certain directions and some going both ways. These can mean whatever makes sense to you.  Maybe 6 owes money to the guildmaster.  Maybe 8 and 10 like getting together to debate while 7 is extorting money from some out-of-guild entity, maybe without permission. 

My guess is that, as DMs, you probably would only need these as you generate, we humans seem to be wired to remember this kind of stuff fairly well.  But, these cards could be useful for your players trying to unravel the various power relationships in your world.  And if you want players to engage your world socially, giving them some of these would help send that message to them.

Faction Frameworks

So, following yesterday's post, what does a DM do if you want to develop some factions?  I think the best way to do this would be to develop each individual npc in the faction and see how the relationships result in a faction social dynamic.  Bottom up.

But, perhaps you suddenly need several factions because the party travelled unexpectedly to a city you haven't fleshed out.  Or maybe you just want to try and generate some factions the other way, top down. What to do?

I was toying with the idea of using chess pieces as a generative device.  And you might still do this, the faction has members that are rooks, bishops, and knights and their abilities/relationships are somehow related to what those pieces can do on the board.  But I'm not really a chess player (gasp).  And the factions that were coming out of that framework were fairly simple and hierarchical.

Now, guild structures and militias may actually be fairly simple and hierarchical.  But, by faction I'm thinking rather broadly. And also thinking of interpersonal relationships more than power structure (maybe the King is in love with one of the Pawns).

So what would yield a more complex, familiar structure that we could use to help here?  How about this as a faction structure:

Look familiar?  Or how about this?

The first are the positions in baseball, the second hockey.  Some of you (Christian, ze Bulette) seem pretty enthusiastic about professional sports.  I figure a DM could take a sport they're familiar with and use that to build a faction or social web in-game fairly quickly.  What is interesting is that they don't tend to form pyramids with one person in charge.  The baseball grid looks like it has a triumvirate of influential people, the hockey grid, a pair pulling the strings.

Maybe you could think of what pcs are trying to do as plays: gaining guild membership requires you talk to A then B then C, your out!  Or, you have to get by the goalie first.

You might even get more specific: "Okay, the Fighters Guild is like the 1978 Whoevers, this guy they're threatening is the pitcher, looks really impressive, but if the keep the pressure on he's totally going to choke."

Poker Personalities

Trollsmyth did a few posts recently about how if you want your players to do social interactions in-game you need rules that will push them that way.

I think people commenting on those posts were resistant to the idea that you need any rules to roleplay at all, that it can just happen on top of anything.  That's a post for another day, but I thought I might offer an example of rules that would push players to do more social interactions in-game.

What was really enlightening about Trollsmyth's posts for me, was not that rules shape behavior--that system matters-- but that the rules often shape behavior indirectly.  In other words, if you want players to interact socially you can't just give them XP to do so, it won't work well.  Instead, we need to break down what we mean by "interacting socially" and try to implement rules that will promote, or afford, that behavior.

With the caveat that I've never played any of the World of Darkness games and am very happy with the exploration of old school D&D, I think when people talk about social interactions they mean:

1. learning about npcs and their desires through conversation
2. utilizing information learned from npcs to make things happen
3. investigating npc-npc relationships
4. building a web of npcs to interact with and gain information from
5. joining guilds/factions and climbing up through their hierarchies
6. utilizing guild/faction affiliations to make things happen

Phew, that's a lot of stuff.  But I think we can do this.  

I love using simple materials we all have around the house and have experience with, so we'll use playing cards. I think Zak may have mentioned NPC reactions with cards briefly, but I've been intrigued with the idea since I heard a game used cards to resolve pc/npc interactions (was it Shadowrun?). Last caveat, I know this is a simplistic view of humans and their motivations but we have to start somewhere and hopefully complexity will emerge from the simple system.

Okay, the players want to enter somewhere but Bob the guard is tasked with keeping people out. What to do, what to do? Here's what you do:

Draw 5 cards, 1 up and 4 down.

The first card is public knowledge, the next three are private knowledge and the last card is a deeply held secret.

To get what they want from Bob the players will have to either threaten him, bribe him or convince him with a rational argument.

What is Bob susceptible to you ask? The suits tell the tale:

• ♦: Wealth, power and advantages dealing with acclaim, fame and prestige.
• ♥: Love, lust and approaches to life dealing with the appetites-- but also nostalgia, security, and comfort
• ♣: Threats of violence and harm, fear, dread
• ♠: Reason, rational arguments involving laws, systems, explanations, and examples.

Let's follow peoples' expectations and say low cards are weaker. So, with a two of hearts, it appears Bob is really vulnerable to some aspect of that realm.  Players can determine this by briefly observing him or interacting with him.  Maybe he's a ladies man, checking out every female that walks by.

If players start following him around or asking questions of people that know him, the DM will flip over those private cards.  Maybe one card for each lead investigated. These investigations reveal:

So, after a little poking around it seems Bob is susceptible to rational convincing, but because the 9♠ is the same suit, like a flush, it strengthens his resolve here. The 7♦ offers some possibility of bribing him but it will be more difficult than utilizing his weakness in hearts.

The hole card, that last secret, should be difficult to find. Traditionally it is the npc's diary, maybe they talk to themselves when they believe they are alone, or talk in their sleep.  And in fantasy games these could be discovered through magic or mental powers such as ESP.

The 2♠ probably puts the nail in any attempts at reasoning with Bob.  Perhaps he is affable and listens politely (the appearance of weakness with the discovery of the 3♠), but is just too dumb to understand the players' arguments.  But the knowledge of all his traits does not undermine the idea that he is susceptible to persuasion through hearts.

So, knowing this what do players do?  What is the mechanism for resolving the outcome of interactions?  Two things spring to mind:  First, you could convert player stats to card equivalents.  I think subtracting 5 might work: a pc with an 8 charisma might just be able to personally seduce Bob (8-5 =3♥).  Strength could apply to ♣, Intelligence to ♠.

But what about the guild and faction interactions in our list above?  That's the second thing: give members of organizations certain leverages as they advance through the ranks.   Cutpurses in the Thieves Guild might have access to 3♥, 3♣, and 3♦.  A Mages Guild member accessing their archives might wield a 10♠ in examples and anecdotes.

I think this would push players to investigate people rather than places (discover npc cards), use what they learn to interact with them, get involved in organizations (to have access to powers greater than their stats and personal wealth allow), and continue interacting with npcs even when the short term events are finished (Bob may be useful to apply pressure to another pc in the future, or in advancement in some organization).

I also think the abstraction of the four suits leaves a lot of wiggle room for creative players.  Maybe players think to influence Bob by bringing around one of his old war buddies, this would fall under ♥s as well.

Thoughts?

Humanoid Combatants in the Caves of Chaos

This is probably obvious to any of you who've played or DMed Keep on the Borderlands a lot, but I wanted to see how many humanoids are in the Caves of Chaos and what types. So here is a crude treemap of the number of combatants (including females where they fight and those badass baby bugbears):


As you would expect, there is a general trend of fewer combatants the tougher they are, but hobgoblins are sort of an anomaly. And here is the map of the caves color coded by humanoid type. You can see higher up and farther into the ravine means more danger for the party:


As far as the factions go, it is almost a cross-ravine war going on; goblins and hobgoblins versus orcs. Except the gnolls sometimes ally with the orcs. The ogre generally fights for the goblins but will go to the highest bidder. Kobolds try to stay out of the line of fire. Bugbears pick off any stragglers. And the simulationist in me wonders what the hell they all eat.

Factions

Alex Schroeder was one of the judges for this year's One Page Dungeon Contest. In February he posted some ideas about what he likes in small dungeons. I don't see why the qualities he lists need be limited to smaller dungeons. I paid close attention because I'm really interested in the idea of abstracting out guidelines or general qualities for a successful old school adventure.

Now, much of what he lists you've probably seen before. I covered T. Foster's list of what one typical old school adventuring session should probably include here and Tran Eskoor An Doon posted that same list with some great additions here. I also blogged about Guy Fullerton's idea of the qualities of a great old school module, which is a little different but certainly related.

But one thing Alex mentions that I hadn't seen in either of those lists relates to factions in a dungeon and the opportunity for players to negotiate with them. This seems like a classic feature and should probably be added to any list of old school touchstones or qualities of great modules.

Here are some of the things he mentioned liking:

• Intelligent opposition. If the monsters are too stupid, no amount of trickery will help.
• A handful of named NPCs with goals and quirks to interact with.
• Potential allies for the more politically inclined players.
• Maybe even a third party beyond the party and the enemies.
• Relations between these NPCs in a sentence or two. A is hiding from B. C really hates D. E escaped from the prison run by F.
• Factions that these NPCs belong to. Actions will have long term consequences if factions are involved.

And I think these points are somewhat related in that they facilitate interactions with factions, a dungeon design that:

• suggests multiple goals. Rescue prisoner here, kill boss there, find hidden treasure
• offers an opportunity to spy on enemies for the stealthily minded players. A murder hole, a grate, a tiny tunnel, a scrying ball.

I'm really interested in designing my own Keep on the Borderland mini-sandbox, but I've never been very interested in humanoids as factions-- only because they aren't very distinct in my mind, sort of size-sorted orcs. So I'm thinking about factions and what would make them work. Some useful stuff from Alex toward that goal here.