HQ2: Community Resources as Flags pt.2

While tinkering around with writing up some setting material, I realized that in order to really get the most out of using Community Resources as Flag mechanics, you kinda have to shift your view of them.

The book lists them as literal resources or abilities (”Wealth”, “Influence”, “Magic”)- though in the examples you see it becomes abstracted to themes (”War”, “Peace” etc.). And this works well enough, but if you focus it a bit more, it really shines.

“One Thing”

Make the first Resource the “one thing” the community has that makes it stand out and gives it influence and power. For example, “Controls the Southern Trade Routes”. This sets up their biggest source of power and sets a tone for what the community is about. If you choose to focus play on it, it becomes a big source of conflict, while if you focus play away from it, it still sets up the base of legitimacy while wrestling with other issues.

“We need THIS to survive.”

Pick two resources specific to the community and situation that they need to survive. “Safety from Sand Beasts”, “Oases, Water, Housing”. These should fit local to the setting and be things the players would want to call on often (in this case, a desert campaign would make sense). The strength of a community is not just the numbers, but how appropriate the resources are to the kinds of conflicts you expect to see fairly often.

“This is who we are.”

Finally, have at least one resource set to define the social/cultural identity of the community. This sets up a combination of morale and culture. “The Southern Trade Clan, and the ways of the Old Royalty”, “The last of the Dynasty style weavers”.

As a whole

By doing so, you set up communities in basis of power, necessary resources, and cultural identity, all of which make great places to set up conflicts. You’ll also notice that more than one could stand in for the recommendations in the book- military, wealth, magic, etc., while at the same time giving it a bit more context if you’re using it to generate situations to play with.

Inspectres keeps getting deeper

I’m gearing up for some Inspectres in a couple of weeks, and I swear, everytime I pick up the book, I discover new, awesome design features about it. It’s like it’s infinitely deep in it’s elegance. Here’s what I noticed this time…

Mutual character building

During a Confessional, you can assign a characteristic to another PC (”Clumsy”, “Flirty”, “Muttering”, “Missing Finger”, etc.)

And though the other player doesn’t have to actually play that, you get bonus Franchise dice if they DO. And Bonus Franchise Dice are really the best way to get grow your business and NOT catch Stress.

So an “optimal” strategy is to make sure to assign each other characteristics each game, and play up the ones you get, and maximize your bonus Franchise dice. (the group is rewarded for accepting each other’s input).

Also- design feature- players are rewarded for pushing focus on developing each other’s characters AND accepting input.

Know when to fold’em

There’s a larger scale game at hand- figuring out how to make more Franchise dice than you lose from having people catch Stress rolls. If you’re getting bonus dice from playing as above, it becomes a more viable strategy to end a mission early and lose 1/2 the Franchise dice, especially if it looks like it’s going to tank completely, instead of digging deeper into the hole by trying to push through on a failing venture. (see how that mirrors a startup as well? Brilliant).

Weird Agents for the assist

So Weird Agents always start with Cool dice, and they often have stupid high scores in certain areas. Because Weird Agents can’t score Franchise dice, this means they’re no good at completing the mission directly- but they do serve as great assistants for the normal agents.

How? After a normal agent catches a lot of Stress and perhaps is weak in a Skill, the Weird Agent can step in, make the roll to change the situation until the Normal Agent can make rolls with an undamaged Skill.

Don’t forget that Weird Agents can also use Teamwork for the Normal Agents too. They also make good “shields” for stress by letting them deal with the stuff you know is going to be crazy.

It’s all about the fictional positioning

On that note- I was surprised at how much of the game runs on fictional positioning. Again, it’s not a good thing when you have a Stress freakout- but you can do some things to change your situation so you, or your teammates, can bring in some better skills.

“I freak out and totally jump through the magic portal before it shuts! When I wake up, I’m in the middle of the hidden Chamber of the Kings… and it’s covered in undamaged hieroglyphs… Oh, hey, my Talent is Ancient Languages, lucky that!”

Again, using your narration power to force the kinds of rolls, or the people making the rolls, to the most favorable situation.

Planning for Disaster

So many people overlook the value of the official titles- CEO, Chief Technical Officer, and Chief Financial Officer- but when you realize the first (in theory) has authority and the latter two control actual resources (tools and technology and funds, respectively)

So, the way any business is successful is when people actually coordinate and get things running smoothly. Here, the game gives responsibility/power over through the titles, but doesn’t give you any actual procedures or policy to follow…

Which means the team is forced to negotiate policy on the fly. While being Stressed and maybe trying to save the world…

No wonder a lot of people’s Franchises tank…

Visualizing Characters

I’ve started doing something new- drawing a character before I do anything else- stats, name or even character concept.

You know how some writers talk about the characters “tell them” where the plot needs to go? I sketch characters and it becomes easy to see what kind of character they are- the personality, background, all of it starts to flow from the sketch.

This has come out of me putting together pregen characters for a 4E adventure over the last month or so. Part of it is the problem of POC focal settings- our mainstream media has left us short of such genres (and quick to rob us of the few we get), so it becomes a situation where you’re building up from scratch- pregens serve as archetypes for players to be able to understand what kind of characters work in this setting and also show off bits of the setting in the process.

I think it’s a process I’m going to stick with as a player, as it seems to work a lot better for me to get the creative juices flowing.

4E Skill Challenges made easy

To Challenge or not to Challenge?

The first key to using skill challenges is to understand when to use them and when not to use them. It’s really basic, but clearly needs to be stated since people seem to keep missing the point. The questions you need to ask yourself before running any Skill Challenge are:

Would this be fun for the group (and can I make it entertaining)?
If the group fails, will interesting stuff still happen?
Is there more than one way to address the Challenge?

Yes to all 3? Go ahead. Otherwise, consider simply saying “Yes” and skipping it, or making it a single roll and keep it moving.

Structuring Challenges

It’s like a level, not a door

One of the biggest mistakes I’m seeing is people are using Skill Challenges for Skill Checks. For example, picking a lock should be a single roll, not a skill challenge. Who wants to take 5-6 rolls to unlock a damn door?!? No wonder people think they’re boring.

No, think of Challenges as if you would a videogame level – there’s a big goal and probably several steps you have to take to get there. If the goal is to rescue the hostages from the bandit’s camp, make it one big skill challenge, don’t make it a series of them (”Scout out the Camp”, “Sneak in”, “Unlock the cells”, “Find the Weapons”, “Get out”, etc.).

You do this for two reasons: First, it makes each success feel like it’s got some weight- the players will have accomplished an actual step, not just “You’re 20 feet closer to climbing the mountain, roll again.”. Second, it makes it easier for players to bring in more skills and for everyone to have something to do because it covers a bigger range of options.

Fiction First!

Second, whatever is happening in the fiction of the game comes first! Skill Challenges should not be crappy IF-Then trees where players guess a skill to use! Players describe what they’re doing to solve the problems and you should be willing to use whatever Skill or difficulty makes sense based on that.

Including being willing to give an auto-failure or auto-success if something is exactly what needed to be done.

This is how players from older editions who are used to narrating their way through problems fit in with Skill Challenges (”…then I carefully slide the jar on the silk, which should keep it from making noise…”).

This is where players think tactically and use their minds (as in Fictional Positioning) to solve Skill Challenges.

Twists

Another thing that’s necessary for DM’s to do is describe new problems that crop up during the Skill Challenge, regardless of which way the rolls are going.

“You totally snuck past the guards. But before you get to the cell, you see that their cell is right next to one of a griffon! If you want reach their lock AND keep your cover, you’re going to have to hope it doesn’t reach through the bars and take a snip out of you…”

You should come up with at least a half dozen possible Twists for any given Skill Challenge, more if it’s going to be high in Complexity. Twists not only make the Skill Challenge exciting and tense, they also open the door for players to use new tactics or skills, and most importantly justify why this isn’t just a one-roll skill check.

A Twist should come up either after failures or every 2 rolls in a Skill Challenge to set up a fun pacing dynamic.

Every roll has an effect

If you’ve followed the advice above, each success or failure should actually encompass a fair amount of actual action. It’s a good idea to give them some kind of benefit or cost to each part, so that way, it’s possible to win the Skill Challenge and paid dearly along the way (”We got across the ravine, but we lost our supplies!”) or lose it and still get something good from it (”We’ve been captured, but now we know the Lich’s soul is in the statue!”).

Some possibilities:
- Advance your plot/reveal exposition
- Give Misinformation
- Get items/equipment/Treasure Parcels
- Lose items/equipment (I go for support stuff, weapons, armor tends to piss folks off)
- Setting up another Skill Challenge later
- Quest Possibilities
- Making Allies/Enemies of NPCs
(You can always fall back on the give/get conditions or taking a Healing Surge, but those are pretty dull and better used for one roll Skill Checks).

Shape the World

Skill Challenges are best when they shape the setting. What I mean by that, is that the results of the rolls, of success and failure overall, has some lasting effect. This doesn’t have to be epic “The kingdoms of Karha and Lihga will never be allies!” but rather small, local stuff – “And the town of Mughi always gives you free food and place to stay, because you helped with the floods”, or “Sir Grahzar grants you leave to pass through his lands, but you are never allowed to draw your weapons except against beasts”.

Even if it’s small stuff, players then see how Skill Challenges matter and really invest in the outcomes.

Longer term thinking

Here’s a simple rule I have for myself: Every Skill Challenge that fails leads to another Skill Challenge or Quest- sometimes immediately (”Escape the Goblin camp!”) sometimes for later in the campaign (Quest- Convince Lord Desna to come BACK to his throne…)

The point is not to make it “one damned thing after another” but rather to get yourself in the right mindstate to think of failures that open up possibilities in the story, not failures that grind the adventure to a halt. By asking “what next?” and in a way that the players can do something about it, you produce an ongoing adventure from it.

(You can do this for successful ones too, but those rarely have as bad consequences for play if they’re not fully thought out).

4E: Mearls on terrain effects

Mike Mearls beats me to the punch and wrote a quick thing on making the environment a fun part of your encounter.

Though he’s pointing it out for Solos, this is really how I figure -every- encounter ought to be (and pretty much how I ran things for Iron Heroes a couple years back). My additional thoughts?

1. Make sure terrain attacks target different defenses, not just AC

2. Some hazards should be ongoing- like a burning house, etc. These then become tactical elements for various push/slide manuevers.

3. Make sure all terrain attacks/hazards are placed either centrally, or in a place (like near a choke point) which is likely to force both PCs and monsters near it. It might be more “realistic” to have something way off to the side, but if you never get next to it, it never really affects the fight.

4. The Law of Jackie Chan – indoor zones can be filled with all kinds of things- furniture, clutter, tools, barrels, chandeliers, fireplaces, stairs, curtains, etc. And these are good because they give creative players a wealth of terrain attacks waiting to happen.

5. Carts! Players love carts. You can use them as moveable cover, you can ram monsters with them, you can pin things to the wall with them, and you can ride them downhill screaming. I swear. Just put carts and inclines in your game and see.

6. Static vs. Moving vs. Moveable.

Static terrain features don’t move. (”Here is a mast, you can spin it around to smack someone”).

Moving Terrain moves around, either at a specific rate and path, or perhaps a random one. (”In this storm, the crate is going to slide around on the boat randomly, doing damage and Bull Rushing whomever it hits. Look out!”)

Moveable terrain is something the players (or monsters) can move around for different effects. (”Burning Cart! Yay!”) If you use moveable terrain, make sure to have a few places it could be useful. Also, since it’ll take up actions to move it around, it better do something cool or worthwhile to make it better than an At-will Power.

7. Point out terrain features the first few times. Until your players start thinking this way, they’ll probably not use it. After all, most rpgs generally tend to punish improvised environmental attacks (”Throw a chair? That’s like -6 to hit and does 1d6 damage? Why would I do that?” “Dude, that was a different game. Here? Chairs do ranged Push when you hit. And he’s standing by the cellar stairs…”)