RPG Blog Carnival: Encounters & Rewards

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for this month's Blog Carnival considering how encounters can be defined. Specifically, I discussed what an encounter is for me and why I categorize them in such away. Hint: it is all about rewards. You can find that article here, but the long and short of it is that I need three things to qualify an encounter: an event, an instigator, and effort. If all of these things exist then the scene, be it combat, social, or puzzle, is considered an encounter in my mind. That is the point where I judge the ease with which is was done, the intended difficulty, and the rewards. Sometimes encounters are planned, sometimes they pop up, and sometimes you don't even know about them until they are over. Today I want to talk about how I plan for encounters and how that effects rewards.

Planning Encounters

This is a fairly simple process. You have an idea of what you want to happen and you make sure you have the notes you need for it. Of course that oversimplifies the idea, as the more complex you make the encounter, the more complex the planning. Still, I'm just getting at the basic idea. There are certain things you plan out. Maybe its in judicious notes or just thoughts you had floating around in your head. Regardless, there is probably something that initiates an event. Those two parts of encounters are, in my opinion, the easiest to achieve and easiest to plan for.

Monsters and combat. Traps and puzzle solving. Guards and diplomacy. These happen all the time and they don't always need to be called encounters. Remember, for me, an encounter = a reward. Combat is the most easily recognizable as nearly always earning rewards. XP is built into combat in games like D&D. It costs nearly all the resources the mechanics of the game contain. But so can others. 

When I am planning out any type of encounter there has to be some cost. Puzzles may take time, cleverness, and good skill checks. Combat will take HP, arrows, and spells. Diplomacy may see a give and take of information or other resources like money. If an event or scene does not come at a cost to the players, even when they are taking agency in that scene, it may not be worth much or anything. A smooth persuasion check to get past the guard probably isn't worth XP, but a series of guards who are persuaded, bribed, and avoided may be worth a bit.

Encounter Compositions

There are tons of ways for a RPG to play out. Combat and intrigue abound. Crafting, planning, brute force, cleverness, spells, bribery. Things happen in limitless ways and that is what makes the games fun. Nevertheless each individual scene has a specific composition. The intended make-up may differ from the result, or the encounter could begin one way and end another. Mixing and matching different styles can increase the fun of the game and diversify rewards and how they are earned. The key is to make sure you players know that they are rewarded for things like NOT fighting or finding a way out of the situation you hadn't anticipated.

Here are some ways you can make encounters more interesting or more difficult:

• series/waves of enemies, traps, or puzzles
• terrain hazards
• traps hidden within a combat area
• unexpected social attempts
• skill requirements
• exploitation that require skill checks
• equipment
• a changing strategy

When planning things out you should have an idea of how difficult this should be for your group. This is part objective and part subjective. What do the numbers say? Figure out if it is too much damage or requires things that the players have limited access to. Is it a puzzle the players themselves are good at or one that notoriously stumps them? If you didn't plan the encounter out, look back and try to determine how hard it should of been for them. Did they create a difficult situation or an easy one?

Rewards!

When all is said and done, players expect to get something out of the events. What that is can vary greatly. Information, advancement, money, XP, status, equipment, or leverage. Perhaps they earn a companion or an insider to information for the future. Maybe it is an alliance between two groups or a keep to call their own. Regardless, it will be up to you to determine the reward. XP is always good but the other things make a great mix too. Sometimes the decision is easy though, dungeons will have treasure but don't have allegiances waiting for you at the end. Unless of course that's part of a larger story!

Be sure to consider the encounter as a whole when it is done. Determine what was involved, who was involved, and the things that got left out. From beginning to end what were all of the obstacles along the way? Figure out the base XP that those should reward. Books like the Dungeon Master's Guide will help out with this, but often it may be up to you to decide. Monsters have XP and often traps do too. For social encounters I generally use the standard encounter value of combat for the party level as a base. Such encounters tend to be of similar challenges throughout game play because much of it is based on the players and not the stats.

Once I have figured out the XP for all of that, I always adjust. Was the tactic super risky? Was it the least risky option? Perhaps the risk wasn't worth the outcome. Sometimes players are just really clever or come up with great ideas or tell great stories along the way. All of these can earn some extra XP. Taking the easy way out may earn them a little less. Personally I find that adjusting the base XP reward for how difficult the fight ended up being is the first step. Maybe they didn't catch a hint you thought was obvious or they thought of something super clever and round-about. I increase or decrease, respectively, the reward for those situations . Then I go back and start adding little bits for role-playing, cleverness, and other extras.

Of course this all comes into play for non-XP rewards, as well. Sometimes it may be a good idea to reduce the reward for an easy encounter some other way. Give them all the XP but have those the players wish to be impressed, less so. If they were really clever have the king give more money to balance a reduction in XP. You can add or take away different rewards in full or in part as the result of play. Most of all be sure to talk to your players if they question how they are being rewarded. Be up front and make adjustments to your practices when needed.

The thing about RPGs is that they are always flowing, always changing, and always developing. Stuff happens to the players and because of them. Events, obstacles, and rewards may all come naturally most of the time. An encounter is really just a fancy way of categorizing these things, often with the thought of combat = XP in mind, at least mechanically. For me an encounter is a category that helps determine when I need to reward my players. It helps me plan and helps me determine those rewards later. Most of the time I don't even use the word, and I am sure you don't either, but the concept of it is still there. Hopefully sharing how that works for me has given you some useful insight or ideas!

Updates And Priorities

As the Twitter-verse knows, I decided to avoid both Twitter and Facebook this week. I also ended up avoiding working on very much too. In fact I focused mostly getting through the long work week (February vacation for kids woohoo) and relaxing a little bit. Stuff I wanted to get done, I knew I would and so I decided to just focus on what I could. Which ended up being mostly nothing, so I focused on reassessing how to go about these things. Part of this has been making lists, but I need to start adjudicating and prioritizing those lists. So that is what today's post is about. Why things aren't going to get done or when they are going to get done. How I am going to turn my ambitions here into directed productivity and not bursts of stuff and dead zones.


Luxarrah, Brave New Worlds, & One-shots
We are so far ahead on recording. We did this on purpose. I started a second long term campaign for the express purpose of Brave New Worlds being on hold for scheduling problems. I paused the release schedule to build up a backlog and get some one-shots rolling. That all has gone well. I figured I would be able to keep a regular editing schedule. That...hasn't quite worked out.

First of all, I have had some weeks where I just haven't been able to keep up, or editing has been pushed into a shorter time-frame instead of spread out over the course of the week as planned. Then of course my revamped Patreon goals and rewards change the approach of releases and edits. Getting sessions done for the release of the first episode takes a different approach and a change in planning. I'm learning constantly and some lessons come the hard way.

With PAX East coming up and editing behind, I can tell you the next couple weeks will be bumpy for Untamed Dice. But, I can also tell you I am committing to Luxarrah and Brave New Worlds as the mainstays, as well as regular one-shots. However, the Legend of Zelda One-shot adventure is going to take a long time. I went a little all out and we will end up doing it in mini-series with other one-shot games or adventures in between. All the while new Luxarrah (and BNW soon I hope) will also be released.

Before I will promise the smooth regularity of these shows though I want to get ahead and I want to smooth the bumps to editing. My editor friend would prefer smaller, shorter episode files. No problem, except I need to also make sure I get all of them from one session done....and reincorporate them into a Patron episode. It's an over-site that kind of just crept up as a problem as we got ahead and began changing methodology. As we figure things out I'll be sure to keep you all updated.


Home Games & Developing My Homebrew
Half the reason for this site was to share my homebrew worlds. With all the notes and ideas I have, there has been precious-little fleshing out. I need to get back to that and I need to get back to sharing it. I also want to play without trying to record it or without doing so for the purpose of recording it. I have plenty of players and plenty of ideas. I just need to work out running random sessions now and again just for the fun of it without the extra work of recording. As fun as it is, as easy as it is to add to the session, the weight of too much recording is becoming obvious. Recording energies must be applied to the above three things. Extra creative energies can be used for the good of random, messy, spur of the moment games.


The Site & Publications
I want to improve the site, and I know how I want to do it. This is going to happen sooner than I had intended and with purpose. Part of prioritizing my to-do lists is prioritizing my projects. I am already planning an organization scheme and will be getting help from a friend on some design improvements. Homebrew, regular article titles, and the podcast all have homes here and I would like to make things a little nicer and a lot more robustly filled out (looking at you homebrew wasteland).

As for publications, those keep getting back-burnered. Part of it was computer troubles and then settings re-adjustment. Part of it was re-committing myself to what I wanted to do. Of course a big part, I now realize is the simple need to go back and update my current PDFs and make them look a little nicer. Simple things like a better blocking for the monster stat-blocks and a logo / name that goes with but isn't my blog logo. I also want a better looking page to showcase and link them on my site.


Other Projects
Another thing that has been half neglected and half taking time away from personal ones are two projects I am working on with others. One is a board game that is halfway to a handmade test version. The other is a digital product that is 2/3 -ish to the way to finalization stages. I am very excited for both but my efforts have been scattered. Sometimes I get lots done on those and things here slide a bit. Sometimes the other way around. I am finding a balance and assessing why this happens. That was part of my week of. Thought, digestion, learning. Continuing not to just move forward but to grow.


Essentially, what I want to say is that my slow momentum has worked and I have been building speed, but it is a snowball turning into an avalanche. I need to make that momentum fit another analogy and grab the reigns on whats up. I have figured out some ways to do this and will be doing it in practice now. There is always room for improvement and sometimes the best way of regaining control is to ignore something for a week if you have the chance. I did, and I took it.

New Luxarrah...Finally!

Today I can finally say both intended episodes of Untamed Dice are out! First up is the finale of our Cat adventure, which came out yesterday. Then we have the next episode of the Luxarrah game.

Next week we will not have any episodes up, but I do hope to be in a position to get two up the following week. If not you will at least be able to look forward to the start of our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game! Stay tuned for updates as editing is caught up on and PAX approaches!

Resources For Every GM: Reference Part 8

Good afternoon everyone! Last week the Resources article got passed over, but I could not let that happen twice in a row. Today I have three reference books for you from my personal library that wouldn't be bad editions to your shelf. In fact, you might find these to be amazing books for your shelf even if you aren't a GM. Two of them are sort of a pair, but concern enough differences that I didn't want to lump them as one reference. The other heads towards the science fiction end of the spectrum, but only in original setting.


Star Wars: The Essential Guide To Alien Species (Ann Margaret Lewis): This is a fantastic book for any Star Wars nerd, especially one interested in creatures and races. The one I have on my shelf is from 2001 and is the first edition of this book to be printed. Obviously, there have been some additions since the Phantom Menace. Nevertheless, this book is of great use. If you are playing a Star Wars game, this book is almost essential because of how much data there is to it. As good as FFG's rule books are they can just not compare to the detail in books like this one. There are others in the series such as characters, weapons, droid, and planets. Alien species is the most universally useful one, however. Not that you need this book to make a rancor for your D&D game, but every page has something new you may not be aware of. Take the Amanin, for example. You get one shot in, Jabba's Palace (?), and an action figure. This takes it further describing the hunter-gatherers and just enough info for you to make a race from. They are slow, unless swinging from trees or, of course, rolling up into a ball and rolling at you. What an odd people to find in a D&D jungle. Give shamans some spells and you got a crazy NPC race of neutral tribesman. Yes, if you seek fleshed out creatures and races to spice up your table, this is a perfect book for you!


Diablo III: Book of Cain (Flint Dille): This book, and the next, are recent additions to my shelf thanks to Christmas gift cards and I love them. To be fair I am in love with the Diablo world and the mythos that Blizzard has given it over the years. The battle between good and evil is amazing and takes interesting turns on the world of Sanctuary. The Book of Cain reads like part fantasy world reference book, part history book, and part journal. That's because it is a representation of the in game object of the same name. In it the last Horadrim, Deckard Cain, tells the tale of how his order has fought evil over the centuries. It tells of the Lords of Hell, the Angiris Council, the Hells, the High Heavens, and more. The history of human-kind and the world are detailed here, as are some details from before Diablo III. Add this to a set of D&D books and do some work on monster stats and you could play quite the adventure in the Diablo world, even without ever having played it.


Diablo III: Book of Tyrael (Matt Burns & Doug Alexander): Yes, another Diablo book. Surprise! Tyrael is one of my favorite characters in the series because of his purpose in the story. He represents a lot to that story: humanity, justice, learning a different point of view, change. If the Book of Cain is the must have to run a Sanctuary adventure, then this is the must have for a prolonged campaign. Much of what is in here you can learn about in the game if you play it and if you looks for and listen to all the journals. This book provides it in a manner usable at the game table, though. Not only that, but it gives so much more. There is a timeline and a section on the various regions, orders, and people that exist in the world. If you aren't looking for a way to play a Diablo campaign, this books is still a great source of inspiration. Steal NPCs or orders for your game, or take notes on how they interact with their world. And, when it comes down to it, you need these two books if you love the Diablo series.

Untamed Rant 5: Storytelling

It's a day late, but here it is, the 5th episode of the Untamed Rant!!

Review: Cat By John Wick

Have you ever wondered why cats are such loving creatures, but also appear to be sadistic self-proclaimed overlords? I'm sure there are a lot of answers out there, like because they protect us from the dangers of ancient Egyptian undead. Anyways, John Wick has provided us a way to explore the answer to that question in the form of the role-playing game Cat: A Little Game About Little Heroes.

Now, Cat is not a new game as the edition I have was published in 2014 and that certainly isn't the first. In fact, the first edition of this game was finished in 1999! As a smaller, indie game it is one of those that you don't see popping up everywhere. You probably won't see it at most local game shops and you definitely won't find it at Barnes & Noble. Nevertheless, it is still being published and still worth your time to at least get a preview here. If you are intrigued and want to know what it is like to play you can also check out our one-shot adventure on Untamed Dice. The playlist for that can be found here.


The Mechanics
Let's begin here, because the mechanics of a game can turn a lot of people off of it. On the other hand, an interesting set of mechanics could be the reason you pick up the game. Either way, Cat is a very simple one. You may not enjoy simplicity, and if you need some heavy complexity, mechanics, and math turn away now. The GM, or Narrator, will probably just reach out and push your stuff off the table anyways.

Personally, I enjoyed the simplicity of the game and thought it left a lot of room for the important part of the game: playing. Don't get me wrong I love D&D and other complex games for what they do, but I don't need a ton of rules to know that a cat is an asshole, but its a lovable asshole. They do things, for REASONS, and then pretend they didn't. In the game there are certain difficulties set by the Narrator which determine the number of needed successes (1-5). Then you roll however many dice you have in a stat (3-5). Evens succeed and odds do not. Got it? Good, because that is all there is too it.

The only exceptions to this is that there are limits to what cats can and cannot do. There are also specific ways around those limitations. Magic is straightforward and based on the tail stat. Spells are specific, require a certain tail score and may ask you to roll. There aren't a lot, you don't have to choose them, and you just have them or you don't (again based on tail). There are a few other bits like what you are good at might add a dice and scars which temporarily reduce your scores because you're hurt, but these are simple +/- a dice functions. What it comes down to are that the mechanics are very simple, easy to learn, and meant to create drama. They are not there to create a complex world, that is up to your imagination.


The Story
Spoiler alert: cats are here to protect us from the boggins and other nasty things. The idea behind Cat is that cats are here to protect humans. There are reasons for this, mostly because they won the Contest and we lost. They get to rule the world, but have to protect the losers. That is how the Contest works, after all.  I don't want to go too heavily into the story, because you can read John Wick's short at the beginning of the book if you get it. The story is good and really puts the game, its intent, and its purpose all into perspective.

The story of the game at your table? Now, that we can talk a little about. As Narrator and players the basics are the same, no matter what: monsters are real, cats rule the world, cats protect people from monsters. But the genres and stories that include cats, all the ways you could work with cats, those are quite varied and many are mentioned in this book. Wick provides you with folklore about cats that is true, and facts about cats that are false. He also provides context for running a game which includes the various bogeymen that might have to be dealt with to where cats might come from (Ulthar perhaps?). There is plenty there for a group to sink their teeth into.


Playing It
When playing this game, the Narrator has the job of providing an enemy, a goal, and creating drama throughout. Because there are not a lot of mechanics this is easy in some ways, mostly not having to look much up or figure out various things when the players decide to try something crazy. The difficulty comes in with creatively responding. It is on your shoulders to do it, do it well, and not take too much time.

The weight of the game, the story, and how it unfolds is much more in the hands of the players, or at least it seemed so. It is really hard to tell with Cat. It is a game that really lends itself to acting almost as if you are just telling a story with each of you jumping in for a turn. Of course that's what RPGs are, but the few mechanics and the fun of the setting make you lost to that fact. It's a great feeling and tons of fun. There is a lack of structure to the game, but because you're cats the story easily comes around to something happening that causes you to get back on track. The game just lends itself to happening without effort and without pause.


Presentation
I have mixed feelings about the presentation of the book. It is not a large game and it certainly doesn't need to be. The book is quite small, but could actually be made smaller. The font isn't huge, but the spacing is generous. The table of contents is fantastically laid out, but some boarder or chapter number on the corner or page edge would make quick look ups a lot easier. Instead, there is a paw print motif that runs up the side of pages. Well, some of them...randomly. It isn't a terrible look, or even distracting, but it is a bit random. There are plenty of good cat pictures and silhouettes of cats throughout, but I would have liked to see more art like the cover with a cat protecting its human from unknowable monsters. To me, that would have added to the feel of the setting a little more.


Final Thoughts
Overall, Cat is an amazing game. It is a ton of fun to play and takes virtually no thought process to learn. You can sit there and have plenty of silly fun mixed in with epic misadventures and get plenty of laughs doing it. No, it isn't super complex. Yes, it is made for adults AND kids. But those things are why I like it. You probably won't play a giant campaign from it, but that's not the goal of the game either, At John Wick Presents you can find it in print and PDF for just $15 and it is well worth the cost, in my opinion. Sure the production value of the book is low compared to the giant hardcover, full-art games like D&D but it isn't a book that will make you go, "why did I spend money on this?" It gives you exactly what it says it will, and you shouldn't expect more. Cat is a gateway to a fun time, and John Wick is very obviously passionate and committed to this game as a part of his design career. I won't play this game all the time, probably not even that often, but I know that I will play it, have fun, and I am glad I own it.

Bad Weather and Power Outages Make It Hard To Technology....

After a couple mild winters in terms of snow, here we are again sitting on that nice fine line of 25-40 degrees. We start with rain, get breaks of rain, but end up with hours of heavy, wet snow that piles up like crazy. That makes life a bit troublesome and hectic in February, which is already the shortest and generally most financially difficult. Add in 40 mph winds with gusts up to 80 (depending on who you're listening to), and you end up with 95% of your town being without power. Personally I went 22 hours without power, and needless to say, that's why I'm so far behind.

Sure, there are other factors. I was behind on stuff and was putting stuff off. My fault. Buses screwed my Tuesday and moved that work day to Friday (which also didn't happen). Now I have to work extra this coming week, further throwing a monkey wrench into the already devolving plans I had. That bit is Mother Nature's fault. So, here I am trying tow work out a way to catch up on some stuff, while not falling behind on the rest. Here I am updating you fine folks as to what to expect here and when to expect it!


Untamed Dice
My biggest disappointment of the week. I was planning on getting most editing done Friday. When my schedule shifted that was going to be split among Thursday and Friday night. When I was home Thursday, it became a day project for then. Then we lost power. Oh, and so did Michael, aka Bjorn Gregory Brightwood, who has been doing the sound editing for me. So there are two things that were supposed to be out right about now, and just won't be: Luxarrah episode 8 (I believe) and Cat episode 3.

Hopefully, Michael will have Cat for me this weekend and the power cutting out half way through an export didn't screw the file up. As soon as I get situated Luxarrah will be (re-)edited, as well. Sadly, though I have to say you won't be getting them until next weekend. Should that change, for any reason, you can be sure I'll talk about it on Twitter. If things get super crazy again and the Snow Gods decide my fate is sealed, I'll try to let you know on here....eventually.


Blog Posts
This is not so much a problem as it is a set back. Obviously, I am taking time here writing this post for you all instead of working on what I had intended to write a few days ago. That's just how it goes. I intend to get the Cat review out this weekend, at the very least. There probably won't be another Resources until next weekend, but I am looking to get another post out either Monday or Tuesday. Probably the follow up for the Blog Carnival post.


The Future
Part of all the hectic-ness (and yes I will make up words as I please!) has been trying to plan. You know by now that I have been hard at work building this thing up slowly and working on other projects that relate to my work here. One of those took a writing hit this week. One of them took a planning hit. Then, of course, I still need to fix my export settings on my fixed computer. Needless to say, I'm looking at a messy day planner.

Still, part of that planning involved taxes, which are very stressful. Owing again would but a hurt on a lot of things, especially all of this (waves arms around the virtual world). A refund would allow me to catch up on life and do some much needed self-investing here. Lucky of everyone I am getting a refund and will be planning how to get as much out of it as I can this week. My hope is that it will get me a book or two, some more giveaway material, stickers for Patrons, and maybe even a new mic, but that's the hopeful maximum. Nevertheless, a weight has been lifted and that alone makes catching up on stuff a lot easier!

In good news, my edition of the DM Support Group prep series came out this week! You can find that right here, and be sure to check out the other posts. The group is a fantastic one and there are a lot of varied opinions and styles to be learned from. The Libris Monstrum series has been doing fairly well here and even generated more comments than any other articles or series, so far. Another will be coming out in about a week and a half, featuring a personal choice of monster and then I will allow you guys to vote on the fourth! I look forward to continuing this series and using it as a model to improve the older ones.


TL;DR
When you take online courses, write a blog online, and edit a podcast digitally, well, power is SUPER necessary for life. I am very far behind, but things are looking great for my life, which means things are looking great here. There is still lots coming and plenty to look forward to so stay tuned!