More Dungeon Twister Thoughts

Back to boardgaming.

Again.

In fact, I may not get back to roleplaying until after GenCon at this rate.

See, I have more Dungeon Twister 2: Prison info than I am allowed to share.

I just finished updating my DT Reference file. I can't upload it until the game comes out - and I haven't updated the "Rooms" tab, yet, either.

But I have some numbers on the new set that those of you who are numbers geeks will appreciate and the rest of you may find interesting:

One of the biggest complaints I've seen lately about DT is that the Hit is significantly more powerful than the Run. I don't necessarily agree with this assessment, but it looks like Chris has noticed it as an issue - the average Speed of this set is 3.75, and the average Strength is 1.875. It means that the speed is almost exactly equal to the overall average (which is 3.77) and the Strength is about .5 lower than the overall average (which is 2.361).

In fact, this box has the second-lowest Strength so far - only Fire & Water has a lower average Strength.

The three returning characters were known - Cleric, Wizard, Mechanork. The remaining five are ... different. And very interesting.

The "Human-Snake" that was previously mentioned has been renamed. He is now the Naga.

The "Loop-holes" are the Arrow-Slits which were introduced in Sylvan Creatures, and they will continue to be called Arrow-Slits in no small part because that is what the English-speaking fan community already calls them.

Item-wise, I don't think anyone will be surprised to see the Rope or Key returning - since the Thief isn't in this set, they are both pretty much essential.

LIDT Members have now seen three previews - an image of Room 37B, preview art and photos of La Traitresse (Backstabber), and information on her special ability. If you're not a paid member, these links will give you the DungeonTwister.org main page.

I also still need Regional Managers and Tournament Judges. Please let me know if you're interested in either of these.

I've given up on trying to predict what I'll have ready next week. :) There will be a post, but I have no idea what it'll be. I do still have some things to say about roleplaying and systems and the like. I also have a lot to say about GenCon, which is now less than a month away ... so tune in next week.

System: Player Expectations and Style of Play

Since I'm going to be talking about system and how it impacts games for a bit, I think that it would be good to start by defining system.

For role-playing, I define a system as follows:

System: A set of rules used to determine the success or failure of characters within a role-playing game.

There are other elements which nearly every system has, but they are all designed to support the core success/failure mechanism of the system. For example, most games have a character generation system of some sort.

The most common core mechanisms involve dice, and can be summed up in a single sentence - "Roll one die, add appropriate modifiers and compare to a target number." "Roll a number of dice. Count the number of those dice which equal or exceed a certain number."

Systems also provide reward systems. Most of the time, this takes the form of experience points which allow characters to change and grow.

Each system brings with it certain expectations, which can drastically color how players react to it.

Where do the expectations come from? A variety of sources.

The most important and influential piece of the player expectation puzzle is the game's reward system. In Dungeons & Dragons, defeating monsters¹ and disarming traps give you experience points which are added to your total. At certain threshholds, you gain more abilities which make you more effective at defeating monsters and disarming traps. The system doesn't spell out rewards for outwitting NPC's or avoiding combat. This leads to a specific style of play.

In the Tribe 8 (and other Silhouette-system games), you gain experience for being involved with the game, for advancing the story, for staying in character, and for working as a team. Yes, you can get experience for defeating enemies, but you can potentially obtain more experience for a dramatic act of self-sacrifice than for that defeat.

In other games, survival is its own reward. Call of Cthulhu is probably the most infamous game in this respect.

Other games provide additional rewards - King Arthur Pendragon, with its Winter Phase allows players to build dynasties, not just characters.

While it's the major contributor, a game's reward system is not the only element which impacts a game's style of play. So what else influences player expectations?

Rules focus. In Ars Magica, for example, devotes more than two-thirds of the rules to the magic system. Not surprisingly, the game focuses on magic. In fact, the combat system is almost underdeveloped by comparison.

Skill Lists. Tales From The Floating Vagabond had a skill list which included, "Swing Nasty Pointy Thing with Panache." With a list like that players knew from the outset that the game didn't take itself too seriously. It's worth noting that the game (and a number of its supplements) are now available at Drive Thru RPG.

Interior Art. CthulhuTech is illustrated throughout, and there are a number of images that make me think, "I wanna be that guy."

Game Fiction. I'm not talking about the Dragonlance novels, here. Nearly every game includes one or more bits of introductory fiction. These are frequently incomplete and end with a cliffhanger of sorts before introducing the rules elements demonstrated by that fiction. More importantly, they give you an idea what the setting is.

So what about Universal Systems? That is: systems which don't tie to a specific setting or genre. Universal systems generally lack a specific rules focus, they have very diverse skill lists, and the interior art and game fiction are all over the map in terms of quality and flavor. GURPS, FUDGE, Silhouette, and d20 have all tried to be completely universal systems - how well do they succeed? I'll talk about universal systems next week.







¹ Until fairly recently, "Defeating" always meant "killing." Now, if you can force them to retreat or flee, you get credit for defeating them.

Late This Week

I will have a post up this week - it'll just be late.

I'm still recovering from a (quite good) trip to North Carolina, where I didn't have any access to a computer and so wasn't able to get anything written.

Briefly Back to Boardgaming

Remember last week, when I said I'd probably have something to say about Dungeon Twister or Ghost Stories: White Moon or something?

Well, I do have something to say about Dungeon Twister. And a few other games.

See, I forgot that last weekend was Origins. And the SdJ announcement. Many congratulations to Rio Grande Games and Donald X. Vaccarino for winning both with Dominion.

Also, congrats to Archaia Studios Press and Luke Crane for Mouse Guard's upset win! I'll be ordering a copy from IPR after GenCon.

Remember when I mentioned that the LIDT was accepting paid members, now? Well, there is now a benefit to having paid: An exclusive preview of one of the DT2 rooms. Room 37B. It can be found here, if you are logged into Dungeontwister.org as a paid member. The LIDT will also be handling tournaments and goodie distribution with the new edition. Information on membership is here.

I also tweaked the sidebar a bit - I now have a Google Voice account, so if you have a DT Rules Question that can't wait, you can call me. I don't know if it works outside of the US, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Next week, I'll talk more about System and RPG's. I promise. If this weekend's wedding in North Carolina doesn't kill me.

System Matters

Let's get to the meat of the discussion, shall we? I have two words for you - they are words that the large sections of the RPG publishing industry spent the better part of a decade trying to convince you were incorrect. Words that the rest of the industry spent the same amount of time trying to reinforce and remind you of.

These two words?

System Matters

In 2000, Dungeons & Dragons released its third edition. The game was a huge step forward for D&D - it transformed the game, and advanced the system so it was almost caught up to the rest of the industry¹. But it did one thing that advanced the entire industry - it opened its system up to third-party publishers, with a few restrictions. This meant that anyone could publish product that used the same system as the best-selling game in the industry. They were even allowed to claim compatiblity. Did I say allowed? I mean "required." Each book said on the front, "Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook." Sales exploded. For everyone. We saw d20 Superhero games, d20 Pulp Noir Detective games, d20 Cyberpunk games, d20 Horror games ...

For the first few months, all you needed to do in order to sell product to a distributor was slap that d20 logo onto the product.

And everyone that produced d20 product spent time telling you, "System doesn't matter. The flavor of the game comes from the Game Master (GM)." In essence, "The d20 Version of Game is just the same as the non-d20 Version of Game. If you are noticing a difference in your game, it's all your GM's fault." More on this later. And by "later," I mean, "Probably next week."

What these publishers forgot - and hoped you would forget - is that each system brings with it its own set of player expectations. Someone who enjoys GURPS is probably not going to enjoy a system with fewer rules, such as Vampire: The Masquerade, because each game has a completely different reward system. And yes, I know about the train wreck known as GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade. It took the Gothic Punk setting of the one and shoehorned it to the system of the other. The problem was that most GURPS players weren't interested in the setting, and most V:tM players preferred the system they already had. Steve Jackson Games published a few other World of Darkness adaptations

In fact, I suspect that GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade is a large part of why White Wolf and Steve Jackson both approached the d20 system the way they did - White Wolf published a series of settings and adventures that were completely unrelated to their World of Darkness setting (and didn't use the White Wolf name), and Steve Jackson Games waited a few years, and then began mocking d20 with The Munchkin Player's Guide.

Meanwhile, other games quietly started to take advantage of a growing d20 backlash. In 2001, Sorcerer (a game which had existed since the mid-90's) was a success in its print incarnation - not a huge success, but enough that smaller independent publishers started to take note. Discussion of game theory on the Forge took off. A few years later, the Indie Press Revolution took off. While they haven't billed themselves as such, these groups are to role-playing what the Punk movement was to music. But that's another subject for another time.

Is this to say there is no such thing as a functional universal system? No. Not at all. I'm also not saying d20 was a bad game - I thought some a few d20 versions were actually superior to the "original" versions of some games. I'll talk more about both of these later, as well.

I know it seems like I spend more time talking about what I'm going to talk about instead of just talking about it.

Here is why:
Every sentence I type spills fifteen more ideas into my notebook. Just in the last few paragraphs, I've realized that I have six different Cthulhu games (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Toon², Call of Cthulhu d20, GURPS Cthulhupunk, and CthulhuTech), that I have two different universal systems within arms reach (GURPS and FUDGE), and that I haven't played a White Wolf game in nearly a decade.

And, once I start to talk about one of those, they spill even more ideas. For example, it occurs to me that the Cthulhu games are a perfect example of how system matters. Each has their own way of dealing with sanity, and each has a different "feel" to it which is based in large part on the system. I am also aware that d20 tried to be a universal system, and it succeeded to a limited extent, but it still isn't as universal as FUDGE. I should write about universal systems and where they succeed and fail.

...

So join me next week, when I continue talking about system and how it matters. And, in a few weeks, I'll talk about setting and how it matters and how it interacts with system.

I'll get back to boardgaming, I promise. In fact, next week - despite what I've said here - I'll probably have an entry about Dungeon Twister. Or Ghost Stories: White Moon, which I've now seen the rules to. If, of course, I'm allowed to say anything about it.

It's also worth mentioning that Asmodee Editions and Repos Productions are sharing a booth at GenCon this year. I'm looking forward to meeting the Repos team.





¹ Care to see the history of the d20 system? Check out Talislanta sometime. Especially the 3rd edition, written by Jonathan Tweet and published by Wizards of the Coast.

² The Tooniversal Tour Guide has a section entitled "The Crawl of Catchoolu." It's a parody, but it's a functional parody.

My Role-Playing Qualifications

So, to qualifications:

What qualifications do I have to talk about Role-playing?

On paper? I'm a credited playtester for two different publishers. That's ... yep. That's it. I have a playtest credit for Paranoia XP, and a playtest credit for Bloode Island XPG, where I was a playtest GM.

I've also run RPG demos at game stores and conventions.

Yep. That's it. On paper.

That doesn't take into account my 23 years of role-playing experience or my 17 years of game-mastering experience.

It doesn't include the fact that I've played everything from Rolemaster to Toon. I've done diceless and free-form games. I've played LARPs. I've also played Shadowrun, and I had almost enough dice for myself¹. I could just make a list of games I've played (or run), but I honestly don't have time to type it up, and I'm guessing you wouldn't want to read a long list of games.

It doesn't consider the various books I've read on both playing and game-mastering. I have a large collection of games – but that's not important. What is important is that I've read them all, and could run nearly any of them with only a few minutes of review.

Even in 2002, when I made my transition from role-player to boardgamer, I continued buying and reading RPG's. That's not to say I no longer self-identify as a role-player, either – I just recognize that I'm more boardgame focused than RPG focused these days.

I have preferences. I won't deny this. In fact, that's what I plan to spend the next few weeks talking about – what I like and why I like it. I'm going to talk about systems, mechanisms, settings, and how they interact.




¹ This is meant to be funny. But it only works if you're familiar with the First and Second Editions of Shadowrun. Third Edition toned it down, and the Fourth Edition is a completely different animal.

LIDT Seeks Regional Managers

The LIDT posted this news item last week (click on the correct flag to change languages).

Go on. Read it. I'll wait.

There are two important things about this announcement:

1) I translated it. I used Google's translation page (which is improving) for a few parts, but I did it.

2) I'm the "Gamethyme" they mentioned for North America. I divided the US into six regions, and now I get to start looking for regional managers for those regions. I'm also looking for Canadians interested in pitching in. Please, if you're interested and have questions, e-mail me. My e-mail address is to the right - where it says "e-mail me." Much as I'd love to be the Regional Manager for the entire continent, there is no way I have the time for it. For the record: France, which is only a small bit larger than Texas, will have four Regional Managers. Of course, they have more DT players than we do at present, too.

That last, of course, is something I'm still working on.

I'm also working on a few posts for this blog that are more role-playing related. I'm not turning my back on Boardgaming (far from it!), but I'm gearing up to run a FUDGE one-shot, which means adjusting my mental gears towards roleplaying for a bit. I'll be (in the next few weeks) talking about what I like in a role-playing game and why not all systems are good for all situations.

Since one of my goals with this blog is to present myself as an expert, I'll start next week by listing my roleplaying credentials - games I've played and/or run and why I'm qualified to talk about roleplaying games in general. It's not like boardgaming, where I can point at my collection (as listed on BGG - I still don't have everything recorded, either. Not by a long shot) or the games I've played (since 2007, when I started keeping track) to establish that I know what I'm doing. Although I really should put up a post detailing my boardgaming credentials at some point.

Role-playing is a different animal from boardgaming (even if some games blur the line a bit at points), so I feel as though I have to establish my credentials on that front.