Con Report: MagnaCon 2011

MagnaCon was a lot of fun. I ran five games (in four different systems) and met some awesome people. I'd like to especially thank Veronica Livingston for being a great host, and I'd like to thank Matthew Ward for getting me involved in the first place.

On Friday, I started out running Swords & Wizardry. I only had two players initially. They each ran two characters so we could run the adventure. Eric and Camdon were both good sports, and I think we all had a good time. Later in the session, we were joined by Matt, who managed to have two characters die on him. Finally, the last part was rounded out with the addition of my wife, Veronica.

For the Deadlands session, we had Wife Veronica, Camdon, Matt, Ed, Other Ron, and Lee. That game was a blast. I was going to go with a post-train robbery, Reservoir Dogs kinda thing, but at the last minute I decided to go with more of a From Dusk Till Dawn thing. My great friend Clint Black put that bug in my ear early last week, and by Friday morning, I'd decided he'd made a better call. It ended up being a blast.

Saturday morning, I ran Icons for Wife Veronica, Lee, and Olivia (11 years old--awesome!). It was a good time. The cheesy, in-character one-liners were hilarious.

Running two of the same story at MagnaCon turned out to be a mistake, as evidenced by the one person who showed up to re-play the S&W story I was running. So Camdon, my wife, and I put our heads together and decided to grab some Savage Worlds fantasy pregens from the Reality Blurs website and run something off the cuff. I consulted the excellent book, Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters, and had a story ready in minutes. It was relatively short, but I think we all had fun.

For the finale, I ran my Chicago, A.D. (After Dresden) story using the excellent Dresden Files RPG. We had Wife Veronica, Camdon, Ed, RP, Matt, and Chuck. Despite several factors--noise, group size, and mild food poisoning on my part--the game went pretty well. I have to say FUDGE dice hate me. I rolled multiple -4s and -3s in that game. This wasn't an isolated incident, either. It's happened every time I've played FATE. Unlike what the math fans will tell you, FUDGE dice really average -1, at least in my experience. I mean when I rolled high, the players were even celebrating.

So in my judgment, I am a little nuts for taking on as much as I did for MagnaCon. I won't put myself in quite that situation again--running so many games in so many different systems. That said I had a lot of fun.

But I have to say, "mission accomplished," on multiple levels. I ran five stories in four systems. People seemed to have fun. I had fun. Most importantly, potentially long-lasting relationships were formed in those two days. And that last thing is what this hobby is all about for me.

The only truly negative experience of the weekend (other than the mild food poisoning) was I missed my daughter terribly (as typically happens when we're separated for more than a day), so Vern and I have made the decision to take CaLeigh to Genghis Con Jr. next month. She was excited when we told her. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that goes.

Overall, MagnaCon is really a board game con, and they're trying to add RPGs. If board games are your bag, they had everything. The open library rivaled Pulp Gamer's, and Time Well Spent was there selling games at website prices.

MagnaCon 2011

Tonight and tomorrow I will be at MagnaCon in Denver, running roleplaying games. Here's what I'm running:

Friday
3:00pm - 7:00pm: Swords & Wizardry (up to 8 players)
Labyrinth Tomb of the Minotaur Lords - Enter the dungeon and discover it's treasures. Swords & Wizardry is a revival of the original fantasy roleplaying game. All materials necessary to play are provided, but feel free to bring a pencil and pad to take notes, and your own set of polyhedral dice.

8:00pm - 12:00am: Deadlands: Reloaded (up to 8 players)
Greed - Your gang has just robbed a train full of railroad payroll. The heat is on, and you're holed up in a small town, waiting out the law. But something's... wrong. This horror western uses the Savage Worlds game system. All materials necessary to play are provided, but feel free to bring a pencil and pad to take notes, and your own set of polyhedral dice, including a separate, different six-sider.

Saturday
9:00am - 1:00pm: ICONS (up to 8 players)
It's Saturday morning--time for cartoons! In this super-powered game, your super team must foil the Siderial Schemes of Dr. Zodiac. All materials necessary to play are provided, but feel free to bring a pencil and pad to take notes, and two different-colored standard dice.

2:00pm - 6:00pm: Swords & Wizardry (up to 8 players)
Labyrinth Tomb of the Minotaur Lords - Enter the dungeon and discover it's treasures. Swords & Wizardry is a revival of the original fantasy roleplaying game. All materials necessary to play are provided, but feel free to bring a pencil and pad to take notes, and your own set of polyhedral dice. THIS IS A REPLAY OF THE FRIDAY EVENING GAME.

8:00pm - 12:00am: The Dresden Files (up to 8 players)
Chicago, A.D. (After Dresden) - Harry Dresden is dead or missing, and there's a power vacuum left in Chicago. Can Harry's friends stop a new player from filling the void? This FATE game is based on the popular Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher, but no knowledge of the books is required to play. All materials necessary to play are provided, but feel free to bring a pencil and pad to take notes, and your own set of FUDGE dice.

The ICONS and S&W games are published adventures, which I'd normally avoid, except Dr. Zodiac was only made available to folks who pre-ordered ICONS, and the S&W adventure was published in a fanzine. So I feel safe running them. The other two are my creation, though Vernie helped me with the DFRPG one.

You might be saying, "Ron, that's four different systems" or "that's open to close on both days," or somesuch. You're likely thinking, "this guy's nuts." But it's a good cause.

I'll let you know if I'm nuts Monday...

D&D Animated Series to Blame for Magic Item Lurve

I started playing D&D in 1984, the same year the D&D cartoon came out. In case you don't remember this show, it's about six kids who ride the Dungeons & Dragons roller coaster at the amusement park. The ride somehow propels them into a fantasy world where they meet Dungeon Master, a pudgy, bald midget dude who instantly gives them magic weapons. The ranger gets a bow with no string or arrows, that shoots unlimited arrows. The barbarian gets a magic club. The cavalier gets a magic shield (no sword, no horse). The thief gets a cloak of invisibility. And the acrobat gets a magic staff, which can appear in her hands at will. The point of the show was for the kids to find a way back home. It was a cute show. My daughter and nephew are both six, so I decided to use them as an excuse to purchase and watch the series again.

My buddy Tony got the core AD&D books from his parents after seeing the cartoon. He had me over to play. What's the first thing he did? Assign me a magic item. Heck, we didn't even roll attributes yet. So now I know why my friends and I, and probably so many others who started out in those times, were obsessed with magic items in D&D.

I don't know why this is important, but I thought I'd share.

And for the record, the kids want to know more about D&D now. Mission accomplished. :)

Play-Thru: Leverage - The Quickstart Job

Margaret Weis Productions has announced Leverage: The Roleplaying Game, and with that has released the Quickstart Job. As would be expected, Leverage is powered by the Cortex System. The back of the book bears a logo that says "Cortex Plus." Given the many differences between the Cortex we already know and what is in this quickstart, it's appropriate to have at least a slightly different name. I've had a chance to run the Quickstart Job twice, with mostly different groups. My roleplaying group has been chosen as a playtest group for the game and had this in hand before release. It may be helpful to read my post about Cortex before continuing on. Also, anything I say could be different in the final release of the game, as it's still in development. This is really just what's in the quickstart.

Before I get into the game itself, I should probably talk about Leverage, the property on which this game is based. Leverage is a show set in our modern day. It's basically Ocean's Eleven meets Robin Hood. Nathan Ford is a former insurance investigator who hit rock bottom when his employer let his son die by refusing to cover the boy for a medical treatment that could have kept him alive. Given a chance to get even with his former employer, he wound up working with a team of criminals, each experts in their field: Parker, the really crazy (and completely adorable) master thief, Eliot, the "retrieval specialist" and resident muscle, Hardison the expert hacker, and Sophie the grifter (and occasional love interest for Nate). Over the course of working together, the group finds purpose in helping people get back at companies that are able to bypass the law with their power and money. The concept is, only thieves have a chance against such corruption.

The moment I saw the show, I was thinking roleplaying game. In the second season, they nudged me along by actually calling out the roles of each character: Nate was the Mastermind, Sophie was the Grifter, Parker was the Thief, Eliot was the Hitter, and Hardison was the Hacker. The more I thought about this as a roleplaying game though, the more trepidation I had about the whole concept of a heist/caper RPG. In my opinion, I've never truly seen the concept done right. Either you end up playing a modern dungeon crawl (don't split the party) or you have players twiddling their thumbs waiting for each specialist to do their job. In the best play circumstances, the GM's prep job is ridiculously cumbersome. The Leverage RPG seems as if it will find a sweet spot for me.

Gone from Cortex are skills. The character sheets have the traditional attributes in place, but instead of skills, there are stats for each role: Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, and Thief. Like skills of old, they're rated in die types, so the core mechanic of Cortex is basically intact, Attribute + Role Die. Instead of a difficulty number, the Guide (GM) rolls dice to generate a more fluid difficulty. On a glance I thought I'd just do away with the dice and have the Guide take the average roll, but that's where the new stuff kicks in, and Cortex becomes a roll-keep system.

Remember Traits from Cortex? They're slightly different now. They're a little like Aspects from Fate, really (small wonder since Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks are on the development team). If a trait is helping you, you get to roll an additional d8. If a trait is hindering you, you roll a d4 and take a Plot Point. This leads me to another divergence.

Whenever you roll more than two dice, you still only keep the best two. This is now how you spend Plot Points. You spend them to keep more of the dice you rolled rather than to add dice to roll.

Whenever a player rolls a "1" on any of their dice, regardless of which dice they keep, it triggers a Complication. These are situational issues that come up, which give the Guide dice to add to his rolls whenever appropriate to the task at hand. For instance, if Nate causes a scene to give Parker some time, and the player rolls a 1, the team now has to deal with HEIGHTENED SECURITY d6, whenever it would apply. If HEIGHTENED SECURITY gets triggered again (with a roll of 1), it could be stepped up to a d8 and so on. The good news is 1) the Guide has to abide by roll-keep as well and 2) whenever a player rolls a 1, they receive a plot point.

The players have access to similar ammunition in Assets. They can spend a plot point at any time to create an Asset like SOPHIE DISTRACTED THE GUARDS d6 for a scene. If the Asset is purchased after the Guide rolls a 1, the Asset lasts for the rest of the story.

Needless to say, the Plot Points fly in all directions.

There is one combat encounter in the Quickstart Job (with a potential for two). I love the way it's handled. Basically, the player has an Endurance based on the character's Vitality. The bad guys get 2 plus one for each bad guy. So if a character has a 6 Endurance, and he's fighting three bad guys (5 Endurance), it seems like a pretty close match. Basically the player and Guide have a series of opposed rolls. Whoever wins takes an endurance from the opponent. Two get taken with an Extraordinary Success (win by five or more). Description of what's happening occurs between rolls. When someone's out of Endurance, they're Taken Out. It should be noted, too, that the outnumbering side gets additional dice for their numbers. So if three guys are rated at d8, the Guide would roll d6+3d8 to oppose the PC. If this is a Hitter the mooks are fighting, they're likely going up against 2d10 plus any Traits, Talents, or Assets that apply. In one of my plays, Eliot grabbed a WINE BOTTLE d6 and a FULL GLASS OF WINE d6 going into a fight.

I mentioned Talents. These are similar to Feats or Edges in other games. They let you break some rules or give you special perks, essentially. Eliot has one where, if the Guide rolls a one, he can spend a Plot Point to remove a die the Guide rolls for the rest of the encounter. Basically, he's Taken Out one of the bad guys.

The Quickstart Job is setup at the beginning of the con itself. There's "boxed text" of Nate and Hardison explaining the job, then the team is already on the scene. You of course play as the cast of the show. On both plays, my groups finished in two hours, counting rules explanation. The Quickstart Job doesn't mention the rules which I'm guessing will be included for job planning and other roleplaying opportunities. Feedback was nearly universally positive, and everyone wanted to see more. Even here in the desert, I can hardly wait for Summer.

Who is this for?

If you're a fan of Leverage, you need to check this out. Indie or Hippy gamers should totally check this out. It's Cortex laced with Fate and Dogs in the Vineyard. If you're frustrated with heists and capers in your modern games, there's something here for you.

Who should stay away?

If you prefer tactical play over narrative, this might not be your cup of tea. If you're not happy if there's no big combat in a game, you'll probably not enjoy this. If you hate the show and movies like Ocean's Eleven, 10-foot pole rule (also, we probably shouldn't hang out).

Honestly, I can't really see any group getting nothing out of this game. It had everyone at my table's wheels turning. It's inspired at least one campaign in a different genre already. What are you waiting for? Grab the Quickstart Job, and "let's go steal a holding company."

Rolling Dice and Social Encounters

One of the most common arguments to be had in the roleplaying community is whether or not one should make skill checks for social encounters. This can range from interrogating a subject to the simple collection of information. Recently I've developed a new opinion on this subject--I used to be firmly in the camp of "just roleplay it out"--and it's one I'd like to share. I believe, in the interest of fairness, all encounters in a roleplaying game should be resolved in a similar way. This belief is based on two principles. The first is fairness. The second is anything important to a campaign can be a complex action.

Fairness is something often overlooked by roleplaying groups. It should be covered in a group's social contract (a subject for another time--for now, let Google be your guide), but most groups don't have them, at least not knowingly. In such circumstances, the rules of the group are usually governed by whomever is the Alpha--the leader. For instance, I've always argued in favor of "just roleplay it out." And do you know why? I'm good at it. I've been told I could sell Bill Gates an iMac. Is that really fair? Should I have an advantage over the other players because I'm good at social conflict in real life? I think not. Let's apply a pro "roleplay it out" stance to combat.

Let me introduce my friend Bill. Bill is skilled in at least four martial arts by my count. He's a hiker and a climber. Bill's in pretty good shape. And if you're reading this, it's more likely than not that Bill can kick your ass. So let's say you take "roleplay it out" as your method of resolving combat. Most people doing that at a table with Bill at it would be insane--suicidal or at least masochistic. Roleplaying games already know this, though. So it's not an issue. But is combat really more pivotal than social encounters? It depends of course.

The real question to be asked in a game is, "how pivotal is the action a character is taking?" The only honest answer is, "it depends." But when social encounters are supposed to be important, most game systems fall short. Some games have attacked the problem by having generic conflict mechanics, which can be applied to anything. Some game systems have full-on combat systems and give lip service to other complex actions by having a generic mechanic. One game system I have to applaud for their social-to-combat ratio is the one behind Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. The combat chapter is longer than the social conflict chapter, but the social conflict mechanics are every bit as deep and basically use the same system.

I believe comfort level is the real issue behind this. Most gamers are media consumers. In media it's easy to learn how to describe a fight. But couldn't the same be applied to the social? Not always, and with good reason. When you describe combat, you're using a tool other than your hands and feet to do it. When you describe a social conflict, that's not the case. The very mouth you use to communicate is the one the experts use when they're arguing. But honestly, some people aren't good at describing a good ass-kicking either. They get to roll the dice. Why shouldn't those taking social actions?

I think the answer is most gaming groups do it backwards. We say what our character will do, then we roll the dice. This is overlooked in combat. We're just used to describing a combat action and having it not pan out because of dice--it's the norm. (I think this is why diceless systems came into being.) But when we give impassioned speeches or make excellent arguments and roll a failure, it just feels wrong. Part of the reasoning is conditioning--for the first several years of roleplaying's existence, combat was king. So many groups have either dispensed with rolling for social actions completely or they roll and don't let the talented people (like myself) take the stage.

I think with a simple twist it's easy to start repairing this damage (as perceived by me) without abandoning our favorite, non-social game engines. Roll then describe. Need to persuade somebody? Make your rolls then act it out. The roll tells you how you need to do. Those who aren't comfortable with acting out social can skip all the details. Those who are comfy with it can go for it. There is a problem with this method. Getting people to act on failure can be tough. At least in combat, the overall outcome is uncertain. Would most gaming groups act out a combat scene knowing they couldn't win? I don't think so. It's still unfair to ask it of players in social situations, but I think its better than the alternative. Another option would be to derive mechanics from combat and apply them to other encounters yourself.

Looking into Old School

Recently, I got into the tabletop Dragon Age RPG from Green Ronin. One of the reasons I like it is because it invokes an old school feel, in presentation and play. This got me thinking about the old school renaissance again. Last year I was looking into this stuff, until I got sidetracked. But between really enjoying Dragon Age and seeing Swords & Wizardry (a retro-clone of OD&D--if your not sure what I mean here, check out this episode of TGTT) being run at the most recent Tucson RPG Guild gathering, my interest is piqued again.

If you aren't sure how to quantify what old school is, check out Matthew Finch's excellent A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming. If Matt's essay doesn't make you want to play in a dungeon crawl or build a dungeon, or at least make you think about the way your play, feel free to ignore my posts with the "old school" label.

On a related note, I picked up the PDFs of Goblinoid Games' Labyrinth Lord Revised (LL) and Advanced Edition Companion (there are free "no art" versions, but buy the full art versions--totally worth it). LL is a retro-clone of early-80s Basic D&D, and the Companion allows you to add AD&D-style character depth to the simpler basic rules. I had a customer service-oriented issue, which I brought up to Dan Proctor, the man behind Goblinoid. That was last night. This morning, he not only got back to me, but he totally solved my problem. I'm decently sure Dan had no idea who I was when he got my email, so I can only assume this is how he treats everyone. Either way, I told him I'd spread the word on his awesome service, so here it is. Thanks again, Dan!

To Screen or Not to Screen?

In a fairly recent conversation on the Pinnacle Entertainment Group forums, I argued in favor of using a GM screen to, at least occasionally, hide rolls. The longer the conversation continued, it got me thinking about my philosophies regarding this. Then I read this post from Rob Donoghue's blog, and I had an epiphany. I'd already done some "roll then describe" stuff with my group, but I never applied it in as wide a scope as Rob's article suggests. I also held on to at least a few secret rolls prior to this read. I resolved to give it a try when next I ran a game, which happened to be my first run of Dragon Age last week.

I sat at the table, GM screen in front of me--I had created three additional panels of tables, to supplement the reference on the back of the GM's Guide, in an effort to minimize book flipping. I sat there, GM screen in front of me, and explained how roll then describe would work at our table. The players seemed game to give it a whirl, so we went for it.

When the first combat encounter began, I realized soon that I needed those tables, but I also felt like I was cut off from the rest of the players. The screen I was using was of the vertical style, and I've been using horizontal-style screens for years. I'm sure that extra height added to my discomfort. Since my screen was custom, I pulled the sheets out of the screen. My wife suggested I put them back-to-back in sheet protectors to save space, which I did. We made the quick adjustment and got on with our combat. I must say I have never felt so engaged with my players. I've gone sans screen before, using my hands to hide a roll, but I never actively paid attention to the difference in feel at the table until now.

I can honestly say I don't see myself ever using a GM screen again, outside of having it handy to check out a chart. And if I ever fall back on secret rolls (something I no longer intend to do, but who knows what a given system will require?), there is always my hand to hide them.