Clearinghouse Post #1: The Three Os of GM'ing

As I near my 500th post in the next week or so, and in an effort to get rid of a few draft posts that will give me an inaccurate count of published posts (which I'd rather not count in that 500), I'm running a quick series of blog posts as attempt to "clean house." These posts may not be fully formed, or even make total sense, but did not want to delete/dismiss them entirely.

CLEARINGHOUSE POST #1:
The Three O's of GM'ing: Obstacles, Opponents, and Objects

Back in the mid-90s, during my anime fascination period, I was working on an Anime RPG originally entitled Gokko (the Japanese word for a game of make believe). I believe that, since that time, there actually might have been a manga produced with the same title, but having lost my interest in the genre, I really wouldn't know. I've written about Gokko before, only it was called by its new title, StoryCode AG. I actually shared the Gokko character generation tables, as well as some sketches for the interior art.

One of the things I was particularly proud of in Gokko (which could still one day see the light of day as the StoryCode AG RPG) was boiling the GM information down into small digestible "chunks." This includes "The Three Os."

The following is from a draft edition...

THE THREE Os
For the most part, anything a normal-sized character will come up against will be able to be detailed within the characteristics described by the basic GOKKO rules. These things will usually fall into one of three categories: Obstacles, Opponents and Objects.

Obstacles
Obstacles are typically inanimate, or autonimically animate, items that operate of their own accord. Some examples of Obstacles are a slimy wall that has to be climbed, a giant razor trap to be detected and disarmed and an ice-covered lake that must be crossed. (This section goes on to talk about appearance, interaction, and resolution.)

Opponents
While Opponents take slightly more effort to create than Obstacles, they should seem slightly more familiar. After all, Opponents are simply NPCs that are specifically enemies of the PCs. Opponents fall into three categories that not only describe their importance to the story, but also the relative threat they present to the PCs. The three Opponent types are: Disposables, Baddies and Supreme MVs. (This section goes on to talk about the different types, the challenge level they should present, and the number of each that should appear. BTW, "Supreme MV" stands for "Supreme Master Villain"; I took pride in creating several anime-isms throughout the rulebook... you know... just putting the pussy on the chain wax.)

Objects
Objects, as a category, encompasses a number of different types of items that all have one thing in common – Objects are physical items that respond to the commands, or are used by, a character. This ranges from a magic wand to a suit of body armor. (The content in this section is short, but features two examples of constructing mecha; an entirely separate book for mecha and mecha combat was planned.)

So here's the question for discussion...
"Does a modified form of this cover everything that one might find in an adventure on the way to achieving one's goal (apart from the actual environment, which is the meta "container" for the three Os)?"

More sketches from the mid-90s Vault... Sci-Fi Comic Pages

These are more pages from the sketchbook recently "unearthed" in my garage. If I recall, the title of the comic was Terra XT-20 (or something like that), which stood for "terrestrial exploration team 20" (a military planet exploration/recon team). It wasn't anything I'd really planned on finishing; rather, it was more an idea I liked... played around with... but never took any further.

From the Vault... StoryCode AG Sketches (mid-1990s)

This weekend, I dug pretty hard through the garage, trying to get rid of a lot of trash and preparing for the upcoming garage sale my wife and I are having. As is inevitable every time I dig in the garage, I find old game stuff (e.g., my previous posts regarding the undertemple map and the map of the wizard's keep.)

While going through some old sketchbooks, I came across (or should I say "finally found") the sketchbook with my initial sketches for the anime RPG I started working on in the mid 1990s (originally titled "Gokko" but renamed "StoryCode AG"). Regular readers of this blog (particularly those that have been around a while) might recall my posts about the tri-color dice mechanic, or the quick-character generator (all characters in StoryCode AG were to be randomly created - very OSR in my opinion.)

Anyway, here are some of the sketches I worked up in the mid-'90s. (The first one is the sketch I did for the cover, with a recent envisioning of the cover layout.)

Lost Game Mechanic: Tri-color d3 ("What Was I Thinking?")

Every once in a while, I dig something out of my files (sometimes paper, sometimes digital), and think to myself, "What was I thinking?" No, really. I don't know what the thought was, and I'm incapable of reverse engineering my own idea. Such is the case with the chart at the left.

In this case, I do know a couple of things: 1) it was while I was working on the anime RPG concept that developed into StoryCode AG, and 2) it used the tri-color d3s from the game Toss Up, purchased on sale at Wal-Mart a while back.

As far as I can tell/remember, each side (attacker and defender) was rated for some ability from 1-10. Those ratings were then compared on this chart to produce a "target" square. My thinking (based on looking at this chart) is that each side would then roll a number of the tri-color d3s (equal to their rating?), and add the pluses and minuses (a la a Fudge-like mechanic) to produce a "final" square on the chart. The color on that square would then interpret the result (extreme miss, standard miss, barely a hit, standard hit, extreme hit?) based on the action.

The only problem I see with this mechanic is that strong characters (high rating = more dice) have a higher chance of "evening out" their results to ±0, while weaker characters (lower rating = fewer dice) have a better chance of rolling greens (good) or reds (bad) over a "wash" roll (±0.) I'm thinking that the idea here was that an unskilled player is a wildcard, and a skilled player is more adept (hitting more "in the middle" of his ability every time.)

I do know one more thing about this chart... I never actually tested this idea. I just put mechanic together because I thought the dice were cool. (No offense to Fudge dice, but... c'mon... they're kind of bland.)

Quick Character Generator PDF

This 11"x17" PDF features tables to quickly generate Animé characters but can be easily adapted for use in fantasy, superhero and sci-fi genres for both PCs and NPCs. No ratings or points are assigned, only generalities for the following: 1) body type, 2) personality, 3) skills, and 4) powers/origin of powers.

This chart was developed as part of an early incarnation of StoryCode AG, when character generation was randomly determined rather than an extension of an archetype/pt. build system.

Note: This chart uses a d4, d6, d8 and d10; it does NOT use a d30. (Sorry to disappoint the d30 fans out there; maybe I'll adapt it for d30 use in the coming weeks.)

To download the PDF from MediaFire, click here.