Building My Hunter Setting

I'm really excited to run Hunter. I've got a few of my aerial friends interested now. I'm hoping we'll find an evening we're all free so we can play. I'm figuring to start early next year.

Here's an issue I have though, and a reason I've struggled with Hunter in the past: having played various of the WoD supernatural creatures, I have great sympathy with them that means it's hard for me to make them the bad guys. Especially werewolves. I really loved playing Werewolf.

My setting is my take on Aberrheidol, a dark version of my uni town and used in various games run by my friends from there. My version has a few places from my home town as well, the library I grew up with, the pub/club where I had one of my first jobs (and that was a significant place in the Buffy game I played in that was my very first exposure to TTRPG's), and probably the climbing centre that holds our aerial circus school. I might attach it to the swimming pool; I'm not likely to put it on campus.

I don't know what sort of characters I'll have among my players. I'm going to give them support and freedom; I'm excited about it. Also, my usual GM has agreed to show up occasionally. I will run it by him, but I'd like him to play an experienced Hunter who can sometimes drag them along when he needs backup, or something like that.

Among the major NPC's, I've a few ideas. I need to read the book in a bit more depth, though. 

For antagonists, I think they'll start with a degree of ghostbusting before we move onto more fearsome foes. I've been listening to The Witch Farm (and other Danny Robins ghostly podcasts), and this is giving me lots of inspiration.

I'd like some kind of metaplot/end game/bigger bad so that maybe they need to befriend or at least work with supernatural creatures from time to time, but I don't know what that could be yet, so maybe we'll just run monster of the week for a while until I have a better idea.

Wish me (and them!) luck!

Running Hunter

I haven't run a game since uni, and only ever run a handful of sessions. But I want to introduce new people to TTRPG's and I want to run games for them that might bring them the same pleasure playing brings me.

I don't know if it will work. I haven't the experience to bring the skill to running games as yet, and also playing is one of my biggest Special Interests, so I'm not sure other people can even get as much out of these games as I can. 

I'm going to try, though. I'm going to run Hunter. I feel confident in White Wolf systems; I like rolling all those dice, and I like the flexibility of creating dice pools. I have played in Hunter before, but a long, long time ago. This gives me an idea of how it can feel (although we were playing within a wider World of Darkness where we were also werewolves and vampires).

I've got a good setting in mind, my take on a town called Aberrheidol (a name that may be familiar to some of my uni friends). It's a coastal Welsh town, with a ruined castle and a pier and hills and woodlands and all sorts of cool things. I'm transplanting a few landmarks from other places too. It's a location I know well, so I think that will help.

I've got a few ideas for NPC's, and I think a plothook for the first adventure, but I'm not especially set in stone there. I'm looking forward to the book arriving to do more on this. On which note, I never treat myself but I looked in my PayPal and it was the exact right amount for the book so it was a great justification to treat myself and I'm so excited.

No idea how we're going to organise when we're playing, or even a full list of who I'm inviting. They need to want to play the way I want to run and also have free time when I do. However, I refuse to let this be a pipedream; I insist on bringing it to reality.

There will be more to follow...

#RPGaDay2018: Day 19 - What music enhances your game?

Just listen to the open few bars of that. I'll explain in a bit.

My GM's have used music to inspire sessions or set scenes for pretty much as long as I've been gaming. I remember being in a room in the Renraku Arcology in the Shadowrun game right back at the start, with all these dolls who turned their heads to me and sung my name in creepy voices "Kamayaaa, Kamayaaa", a scene presaged when the GM started the session by playing the intro to a metal track he enjoyed. I'm not sure which song it was, but the intro was a bunch of kids singing about how they were going to get you...

The game most inspired by music was the World of Darkness campaign I played in at uni. I will always think of that game when I hear "The Final Countdown" by Europe, and The Pixies "Where is My Mind?" is the song for Malkav for me, but it's REM's "End of the World" where the GM took the most effort. He went through the song, making sure each line showed up somewhere in the Werewolf, Vampire or Hunter game. I'll never forget the NPC hunter we met as he paddled into Hudson Bay in a small dinghy to face down the Godzilla-monsters (Mokolé in their archid forms): we were nervous for him, but Lenny Bruce was not afraid.

There's been plenty of others, but not many other uses of music that have stuck with me so directly. 

Which brings me back to the video at the top. This is The Emissary's theme song, the mysterious NPC from our Exalted game - the Anathema Taji and Kito first befriended that caused them so much trouble (though not as much trouble as their presence causes him...)

The fifth paragraph of this episode is the pertinent one. Rich had established the character's theme song by having it play whenever we saw him give the laws, something we witnessed a few times at a great distance as we settled into Nexus. We then got on with the various troublemaking we liked to get up to, eventually detouring to the White Tower - the tallest building in the city and one which would give us a good view. As we stood on the path debating how to gain access, we heard the opening bars of the track and turned to the GM, eyes and mouths wide with horror. We'd completely forgotten this was where The Emissary lived, and sure enough, he was walking towards us...

For me, it was hands down the best use of music I've ever experienced in a game.

What about you? How has music enhanced your gaming? Let me know below!

#RPGaDay2018: Day 7 - How can a GM make the stakes seem important?

This is a hard question to answer. A lot of the games I've played over the years, the stakes have been world-saving, which makes them pretty important! But the stakes should matter even when they aren't so big.

I guess some of it comes down to the degree the players have invested themselves in the world. It's pretty easy to have even minor stakes feel important to me: give an NPC I care about a good, in-character reason for caring, and my character will too - and "care about" can mean my character loathes them; there's a lot Svetlana would happily do if it meant undermining Irrevetti's power. While Lacy had to point out to other party members that saving his friend's friend would help us achieve our meta-goal of saving the world, for Solomon it was enough that someone she admires asked for her help.

Another trick is to look at the character - both the character sheet, and the way it's played. In Deadlands, my partner knew Carson would offer himself as the one who'll die when we attempt to bring the Flood to Lost Angels because the character has the "Big Damn Hero" flaw (or whatever it's actually called), and the player remembers it too. Likewise, Solomon would do whatever he needed her to to assist, because she's Loyal. Taji is overconfident and very competitive, so give her  a challenge or imply she can't do something and she'll go out of her way to prove you wrong: the stakes aren't particularly high, necessarily ("bet I can dig faster than you!"), but they'll matter to her (this also works on Bells's Mage character, Howard, who is also overconfident and dislikes admitting he can't do something). My new Exalted character Amaryllis, whom you haven't met yet, has very high Compassion, which means give her a bit of a sob story and it becomes important.

Make it personal. NPC's are the easiest way for me, but not all players are interested in NPC's, so maybe have a beloved item nicked from one of them, or rumours of an item of power another would benefit from. Feels a bit boring to me, but works for many other people.

Remind players of clocks ticking - that plague village they visited a while back, has anyone been back to see if it's still spreading? That Quantum lake that covers Vienna, when did you last visit? It occurs to you you haven't seen Tark for a while. A newspaper headline announces the progress of the army marching this way (I love in-game newspapers for delivering plot hooks and clock reminders). You turn on the radio to hear Theresa's parents pleading for her safe return. You did remember to write back to Marcy, right?

If you're taking part this year, don't forget to link to your response in the comments below!

Guest Post - Assembling a Group by Heinz

I've got another guest post for you! This time, Heinz discusses how a GM can guide players to create coherent characters that work together.

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The lovely Fern Kali allowed me to put my thoughts together on a kind of… guest author week she’s doing on her (much better and waaay more frequently maintained than mine) blog. The central focus seems to be about characters, and since I mainly play as a GM, i thought I’d write about that. I literally have no idea if this isn’t just a bunch of stuff anybody knows, so, here goes nothing.

As a GM, of course you can simply say to your players “What do you want to play?”, and you should. But let’s be honest: the character design is far too important to leave it to players. ;-) No character is an island, and it’s not possible to not communicate. So characters encountering each other at the inn, or characters already established as a group when the game begins, are more than the sum of their parts: a group is a social network, if you will, and it requires careful assembly for you as a GM, be it by gentle nudge or by Word Of God. And if you are a Player, you might help your GM by bending your concept a bit in the way they propose. 

The first rule of all, in my opinion, is: the character must be playable in a group. This seems like a no-brainer, yes, but it’s surprisingly easy to fail in this part. Can the PC do everything alone? Fail. Has the PC nothing that ties him to the group or its goals? Fail. Can’t they even pull his own weight? Also fail. A character has to be able to be a part of something bigger, a part of the party, and for that, they has to be able to give to the others and they must need to take from them. Otherwise, there is no reason for him to be on board. How many times have you seen groups where people accompany each other just because? 

Groups need a bond, a common goal, and they need it to be bigger than their desire for freedom. This doesn’t even have to be there from the start – if you chain your group up on a slave ship and force them to spend time together, they can bond there. But there is still the need for something they can bond about. It might be as simple as one hiring the other. But there needs to be SOMETHING they can build on, and I have seen a lot of players that seemed to have a lot of fun in raising hurdles for others to like them. Don’t let them. 

So, here’s a list of Do’s and Don’ts if you are a GM that composes a group for a game.

Do’s

-          Regardings skills: give them something they are the lone expert for, but make them depend on each other.

This is fairly easy: characters that can do everything are boring, characters that can do nothing are useless, and it’s nice if your character is really good at something. The trick as a GM is to make them depend on each other despite being experts in their field.

An example: my most recent group is a bunch of space explorers, stranded with a failing colony ship and desperately trying to keep that giant ship afloat. There are two fighters, one primarily ranged, one more for the CQC, but both can assist each other in their roles. The other two are technicians: one for the electronic stuff, one for the mechanical components. One of those is also a psychic on the side.

Usually I mix up the tasks for them: everything that needs to be done requires at least two of them. The broken door must be mechanically opened and electronically fixed. The giant machine must be lifted by strong people and/or the psychic and its base fixed by the mechanic... you get the gist. I design the challenges so that one alone can never succeed. At the same time, you need to make sure that a single character taken out doesn’t kill the group, so for every specialist, there is one stand-in who’s way worse in the skill, but can at least fill in the role of the missing character (in my group, one of the fighters is a hobby mechanic, and the other one does his own electronics on the side, while the technicians can also use a gun if they must). If the task is really complicated, they can also assist each other. Oh, and: have one healer, but more than one medic. ;)

-          Regarding character design: bring the band together.

I like to use the concept of the Five-Man Band. That’s a trope from tvtropes, and it is really well explained here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand. As said there, the Five-Man Band does not have to be composed by exactly five people, but it helps a group to work if you split up the functions of these five. The Leader, the Lancer, the Chick (I usually call that The Special, because someone ALWAYS wants to be special), the Smart Guy and the Big Guy are usually easy to assign, and they are easy to adapt to your respective game world. The concept can be bent, even broken in parts, and it’s no guarantee for a working group dynamic. But if you assign your players parts in the Five-Man Band, it usually allows you to see the structures more clearly, and to see where there are holes to fill.

-          Tie them into your world.

Another thing that seems fairly obvious, but nevertheless: if you are planning to send your group against Dragon X on Mountain Y, in the desert of Z, and you are travelling with the airships of A, the cityboats of B and the dancing charlatans of C, then put strings to these things in your characters backgrounds. Put more than exactly these strings there – it would be fairly obvious, and who knows where they are going instead? You can only railroad them so far... ;)

-          Challenge your players with new roles

This is if you have experienced players in a new group: a very traditional group played by the “wrong guys” can be serious fun. Assign the guy who always played the mage as the knight that leads the group. Ask the all-time mercenary player if they would like to play the medic. See if the all-time human scientist player doesn’t want to try his luck as a locust in an exosuit. Sometimes, players have these ideas themselves, but sometimes it’s an actual help if you suggest something: you can often see better which roles they could fill. But: tell everybody at the table about the experiment, and: both of you better be prepared to say “Okay, bad idea” soon and bury that guy in a fast and decent way.

Don’ts:

-          Don’t let them play the edgy loner.

Remember how cool it was when Aragorn, pipe aflame in the darkness, sat in the corner of the inn, all mysterious and dark? It does not work that way at the table (it might every once in a while, but it’s just dumb luck). We’ve had that type, it’s been played a lot. Our cup runneth over with shady lone wolves. Play someone who wants to be alone, if you must, but then allow the situation to pierce your lonely coat. A good approach is to ask your players “Why should anyone care about your character at all?”, and if the answer is “Because I’m a player”, then scratch that.  They can play complicated if they want, but they shouldn’t play pure refusal. RPGs are parlour games – treat them as such.

-          “My character would never do that!”

If that is the answer to something that is required for your group to work, then that is dumb design. Plain and simple. Yes, we all know the type who has principles, a code, honour, whatever. They have always lived by that, and they would never do THAT. That’s nice. I mean, someone has to have rules and respect them. But if it’s clear that, sooner or later, you have to work with that half-orc over there, and you design your character to never do THAT, that’s bad. Allow them to be fearful or hateful, mistrust half-orcs, be racist, whatever. But if you close doors and vow to NEVER open them, then that is a flaw by design, for you are setting the player up for disappointment. It will always come up, and it will get on your group’s (OOC) nerves sooner or later.

-          Mind the gap.

Fairly obvious: you shouldn’t allow Gandalf and Rincewind in one party. It’s pretty clear who will always be the better mage, and who will be bored (or gone). Do not allow really big skill gaps or anything like that – it is frustrating. I feel dumb pointing it out now, but it IS important.

So, that’s off the top of my head what I keep in mind when I compose a group for my games. I’d really love to hear the readers’ thoughts – this is far from complete, I guess. ;)

Guest Post - Creating Characters by Rich

I recently wrote about connecting your character to the world, and muttered at the end that I'd like to see if I could get my friends to do guest posts. Two of them were very pleased to - here's the first, from someone who more often GM's for me than plays, and he's written from that point of view: making NPC's real. (I didn't play in his GURPS game, but know Noleski and Sam Spade from Pathfinder, and Alastair from Aberrant. Once you've read what he has to say about Alastair, I'd love you to read this post here, because it talks about how I dealt with the emotions a scene he mentions conjured up).

Over to Rich!

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Characters… Christ, where do you start?

From a Storyteller/DM/GM/Ref point of view what can start as a gimmick, has frequently, developed into a staple character of the story. Anyone who has run a game, they have certainly been in the moment where you are put on the spot, the players look at you for what’s next and… the character has a lisp, they’re 5’4”, dresses colourfully, and has eyes that take in too much, a smile never moves past their mouth… Oh you want to know what they’re about… Ermm they’re a warlock, down on their luck and are one disaster from homelessness. From that you know they owe all sorts of cash to all the wrong types of people. So, they’re desperate, hey they just might be willing to help the players out… as for what they want in return depends on who they are… Are they smart, devious, manipulative, straightforward, blunt, several bulbs short of a full metric Blackpool Illumination? Are you starting to see the problem?

Where do you start?

There’s a few characters in my games that have stuck out to me, likely for entirely different reasons than they might for the players. (or one hopes they do anyway)

GURPS, it was my first game, and the short campaign (technically my second campaign using the system), was a pretty big deal for me in formulating how I’d run games in future. The premise of the game was a couple of people were hired by a Ford exec to drive one of the first four door model T Fords to California. The car, however was sentient, and a magnet for the supernatural… From dragging the group into a hair-raising adventure in a town dragged into hell for all of a day, culminating in a rather civilised cup of tea with a demon… Anyway, this was years ago, point was they didn’t find out the car was supernatural, or the reason they were kept alive through a series of convenient happenstances. Point is, my feeling over the game has informed how I tell a story; I like to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that the players only realise was a trail when they look back on it.

Pathfinder. There’s a couple of characters here that really stand out to me. As a “brief” bit of background, the campaign began as the Kingmaker adventure path which was quickly discarded in favour of my own spin on Golarion and its goings on. The advantage of an established world is that you have less work to do, and for a dungeon master with enough to do as it is, having a list of already created characters is a godsend. Noleski Surtova, Regent of New Stetven, was originally written as a cruel and hard person. When I approached the campaign, I knew I wanted him to be present in the story, so I deconstructed the character and started from the ground up. His childhood teacher, Sylvester Malliard, who is an old Wizard who seemed ancient in even his childhood and served as the previous king’s teacher. Then I moved on to how he became regent, the previous king and childhood friend, disappeared mysteriously (still not unveiled in the story, so… as I’m writing this for one of my player’s blogs… You’ll appreciate my reticence) naturally this disappearance tears him apart. Then how does he feel about the Stolen Lands? Noleski sees himself as a caretaker for Brevoy, and her people, therefore reclaiming it from bandits was an exercise in bringing strength to the country in a time of depression. He also is an aging man, old for a bachelor ruler, and his sister (who was supposed to be a Machiavellian manipulator) had attempted to set him up with other prominent members of the court. How does this inform his character? My conclusion was that he was married to his country, to his job, he hadn’t even considered taking the throne until the Stolen Lands had been reclaimed. Those were my thoughts going in. So, who is Noleski? He’s someone that has been influenced by his teacher to show kindness and wisdom in dealing with his people, though he won’t hesitate to make the “right” decision, even if it seems harsh. He knows how to get the most out of people, and will delegate when necessary, and is not afraid of picking up the sword when necessary. That should be enough to work with, right? Yes, and no. Progression makes up everything else. Whether it’s a marriage to one of the players, or the occasional letter, reminding the players of their obligation as rulers of a vassal state.

In truth, many of Noleski’s traits were designed to make him a useful ally to the players… Though with limits…

Sam Spade, yes, I probably stole the name somewhere, don’t look at me like that. He started out as a gag character to help the players in an investigation when they hit a wall. Sam Spade is a gumshoe, he talks the walk, and walks the talk. When Sam is around, the world is Noir, fading to greyscale. The music is audible, the players and other NPCs around appear in appropriate attire, think those silly long cigarettes and fedoras. Sam is bound to a sentient artefact detective agency that appears “when it is needed”, and he is dragged with it when he is done. Oh, and he narrates everything. So yes, it’s another trope, but the character who has a comical overlay, the somewhat darker side of the coin is the few hints I’ve dropped, hinting that his bound status is less than voluntary. He largely speaks for himself, and everyone else.

Annnnd now for the hard part… Alastair Benedict St John. He’s one of the NPCs from my Aberrant campaign. So, Alastair is the product of two NPCs, the enigmatic Benedict, and the equally mysterious Jennifer St John. He’s a Nova, and for those in the know, a second-generation Nova. His childhood was… brief, due to his nature, both full mental and physical development took a matter of a year or so. Through various circumstances, Benedict died in the line of duty, which prompted Alastair to start considering revealing himself to the world, which would have meant subjecting himself and the team that had been built up over years of effort to extreme danger… I should probably elaborate, in my version of the Aberrant world Novas (evolved humans with super powers, about 6000~ worldwide) the relationship between baselines (humans) and Novas is strained at best. However, with Benedict’s death it meant the shadowy organisation, think of a mix between the X-Men and James Bond, operating under London had suddenly lost much of its protection. This means that the organisation, the Nova Initiative, was very vulnerable, which lead to the kidnapping of one Jennifer St John when things started going wrong. I won’t go into the circumstances, they’re largely irrelevant, times were indeed dire. At his lowest point, when the character was having a crisis of faith and near giving up, the players who had never given up hope that Benedict was indeed alive, (and were very vocal about it in his presence) he stated, “If he’s alive, then where is he?”

It was a protest, imagine if you had mere years to get to know your father, had to deal with the grief of losing them too soon, imagine if you had such a huge burden of responsibility placed upon you (Benedict was a pretty big deal). Imagine the world you’re fighting to protect is resisting your every attempt to help, now imagine two trusted friends fighting the reality you were desperately grappling with. How would that make you feel? Angry? Hurt? Yeah, probably. If you want connections to a world, there you go.

In summary, characters aren’t just a mask you put on for a couple of hours. They’re people, they have lives, they have families and they’re usually complicated, what family isn’t? (for god’s sake don’t do the whole, “I’m an orphan” thing, it’s grossly overdone) I suppose it’s the same with any form of storytelling, for a few hours as a DM you present your players a window to another world. That world has its own history which shapes it and the characters in it, like Noleski. That world has mysteries all over it for players to find, like ol’ Sam. That world has a part of you, which makes it sometimes a little scary. Truth is, of all the characters I’ve written, Alastair has the biggest part of me in him. I’ve felt the loss and frustrations he has. Ok, sure, it’s acting… or drawing on personal experience, you write what you know, all that sort of thing. Ultimately, I don’t think where you start is terribly important, you can write their history to inform the character or have the character inform their history, but humans are the sum of their parts… Take that how you will.

For me it boils down to this, if you can know the shape of your story and commit to it, let the character guide your choices, rather than you guide theirs… Then your character is in the world, rather than just your puppet.

Rich