Interviewed!

I've been interviewed on Geek Native! Which feels very odd.

The interview is here.

Dramatic poles in Hillfolk one-shots

I’ve run five or six sessions of one-shot Hillfolk/DramaSystem now, and I’ve never given dramatic poles much attention. 

Mechanically, they don’t do much. Their interaction with the rules only occurs at the end of a session.

According to the rules: 

At the end of each episode, each player in turn (in seating order) makes a brief statement, highlighting how he entertainingly brought out his character’s dramatic poles over the course of the episode, in relation to the episode’s theme.

Any story with a theme inherently includes the opposite of that theme. A story about war is also about peace; a story about hunger is also about nourishment; and a story about love also threatens the possibility of lost love. Therefore, you can describe your character as either reinforcing or undermining the theme.

You might describe yourself moving from one pole to the other, or bringing both poles into your characterization at different points.

…

All participants then vote, ranking the other players in order, with #1 the best score, #2 second best and so on. The argument is just a reminder: voters base their rankings on how well the players brought out their dramatic poles in relation to the theme, not how skillfully they made their cases. Moving from one pole to another in the course of an episode is a good thing. Vote against players who, episode in and episode out, stress a particular pole and ignore the other. Players do not rank themselves. No one ranks the GM, who never gets bennies. The GM votes, too, ranking all of the players.

The GM then totals each player’s vote tally. The number of drama tokens a player has in hand is then subtracted from this number. 

The two players with the lowest scores gain one bennie each.

Bennies are the campaign currency, and are kind of like super drama tokens. In a one-shot they’re worthless, of course. 

And so, as a result, I hadn’t paid dramatic poles much attention.

However, I now think that was a mistake.

DramaSystem and Furnace

A couple of things happened at Furnace when I ran Success2Soon, my pop group playset.

First, Paul Baldowski was playing and joked that he felt that Robin Laws specialised in designing RPGs that fixed things in gaming that didn’t need fixing. In Hillfolk’s case, it’s challenging players who say, “My character would never do that.”

Second, at the end of the game, I asked the players to highlight how they brought out their dramatic poles over the course of the session. And we voted on them, with the person with the most votes “winning”.

That was interesting, and worth doing again. But next time I run a DramaSystem game, I’m going to emphasise dramatic poles even more.

Because they help roleplaying.

“She’s rich…”

The example I always use of a dramatic scene is in Star Wars (as I still think of it), or to give it its full title, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

We’re on the Death Star, and Artoo has just told Luke that Leia is in the detention centre. Luke tries to persuade Han to help him rescue Leia. It’s a dramatic scene – Luke is the petitioner, and Han is the granter.

Luke initially fails, but eventually succeeds by appealing to one of Han’s dramatic poles: money (paying off the bounty on his head). Han’s other dramatic pole at this point is loyalty to his friend, Chewbacca. 

(Luke’s dramatic poles, on the other hand, are duty [responsibility to his uncle and aunt] versus adventure [running off with Ben to join the rebellion].)

My character would do that

Dramatic poles help explain why characters do things that appear to be against their self-interest (like sneaking into the detention centre in the heart of the Death Star).

And that’s why there’s space on the character sheet for other character’s dramatic poles. It means you can use them when petitioning, and help create the drama.

And another thing: procedural scenes

While I’m on the subject of Hillfolk, I stumbled across this AMA on Reddit. To save you the effort of wading through the questions, I found an interesting point about the design of Hillfolk’s procedural system (which seems clunky written down, but works fine in practice).

Question: Hillfolk is a game I have been wanting to play for a long time now, as soon as I can find the right group for it. The procedural resolution rules seem to be quite a divisive subject among players. Were there any particular design considerations that led you to implement the system the way that you did? What kind of impact do you feel that replacing the procedural resolution rules with rules from another system (as many people seem to do) would have on Hillfolk's overall gameplay?

Robin’s answer: The procedural system is designed to do what it needs to do without pulling focus from the central feature of the game, the dramatic scenes.

Because drama is more about dealing with the repercussions of disaster than chalking up wins, the system also imposes a much higher failure rate than you'd tolerate in the procedural-focused games we're all used to.

So if you replace it with a rules system you find aesthetically alluring and like to play around with, you'll likely:

a) call too many procedural scenes

b) succeed too often at them

(Remember that if everyone wants to succeed, you just say you did, with narration, and then get back to the interpersonal interactions.)

Which I found interesting. Hillfolk’s procedural system is harder because in a dramatic game, failure is more interesting than success. I wish the rules actually said that.

Next time on Hillfolk

So next time when I run Hillfolk I will:

• Make sure dramatic poles get the emphasis they deserve.
• Stress that the procedural system is tough because failure is more interesting than success.

(And next time will probably be at Consequences, at the end of November.)

Furnace 2024

A couple of weekends ago I attended Furnace, the RPG convention in Sheffield. As usual (previous reports here), I ran one game and played in three others.

Furnace is a lovely, friendly convention and would be the highlight of my gaming calendar if it wasn’t for all the other lovely events I go to.

Anyway, here’s what I played and ran.

Kids on Bikes

Fergus ran Swallows and Elder Things, an investigative scenario for Kids on Bikes where we played WW2 refugees sent to the country to stay with our uncle. (We were effectively Enid Blyton’s Famous Five – including a dog. I played Bea, nine years old and the youngest.) We uncovered dark secrets of an expedition to the Antarctic where our uncle had brought back something he shouldn’t. And thanks to some bad rolls, we all died in the climax to the ancient creature we really shouldn’t have reawakened…

Lots of lovely details (tongue sandwiches, ribbons, throwing sticks for Tommy the dog) – and everyone leaned into their characters. In fact, we had so much fun roleplaying kids that the scenario overran the slot a little – but it didn’t matter. Neither did the TPK ending.

DramaSystem (ie Hillfolk)

After lunch, I ran Success too Soon, a game for DramaSystem (ie, Hillfolk). My four players played members of a successful pop band who had reached the end of their first tour. We created the characters as usual in DramaSystem, and then their manager told them their record company wanted them to sign the next contract tonight, which kicked the game off.

While the band argued about what to do with the contract, I raised the stakes by introducing a parent who wanted to remortgage the house (and was relying on their income), and a music journalist looking for a scoop. We ended up with the band fracturing and one member going their own way.

This was the first time I had run this playset and it seemed to go well. As ever when I’m running a DramaSystem game, I felt drained at the end of it – I find it a very intense game.

Anyway, I’ve now put the playbooks on Itch.

Liminal

Elaine ran The Forgotten Station, a Liminal investigation into an old book which led us to a forgotten underground station and a dangerous magical ritual. I played Morgan, one of the Hidden, those who are easily overlooked (and inspired, I think, by Neverwhere).

As always, Liminal was a lot of fun. Lots of inventive London magic by our geomancer, and plenty of in-character chat, which I always like to see. We ended with a climactic battle against the forces of darkness (we won) and finished pretty much on the dot.

Mouse Guard

For my last game of Furnace, Guy ran Mouse Guard, where we had to track down a grain peddler who was suspected of being a spy. We faced terrible hazards including rain and a mink. I played Lillye, an enthusiastic guard mouse. (It’s fun being given an enthusiastic character – you just volunteer for everything!)

This was my first time with Mouse Guard. I had the book a while ago (a rare raffle win from a previous Furnace – it’s not the sort of thing I would normally buy), but I never got it to the table because it didn’t really make sense. And although it made some sense when Guy ran it, I felt the lack of system mastery when it came to the challenges – we were nearly defeated by the rain, and in the final battle, when two of us went up against a mink, we lost. I’m not regretting getting rid of Mouse Guard, but I’d like to play it again.

As for our adventure, we had a nice time, although it would have been nice to have a bit more time for some character stuff - we were all done a couple of hours or so.

Until next year

And that was Furnace 2024 for me.

There are other conventions at The Garrison (see them all here), but they are all too close to other gaming weekends, so I give them a pass.

Next on my calendar is Consequences, the freeforming convention in November.

Traveller’s Wrath of the Ancients: First Impressions review, part 3

This is part 3 of my long review of Mongoose Traveller’s Wrath of the Ancients. This will make more sense if you read part 1 and part 2 first.

If you can’t face reading part 1 and 2, well, the TL;DR is that I think Wrath of Ancients isn’t great. It’s overwritten, badly structured and formatted and makes excessive use of lazy coincidences, signposts and information dumps. Worse, I think it would be hard work to run.

In the last two posts I went into the plot in some detail. This time I'm thinking about railroads and presenting an alternative campaign idea that fits my idea of what an Ancients campaign could be.

Riding the railroad

Wrath of the Ancients doesn’t want to be thought of as a railroad.

Which is odd, because a railroad is exactly what it is. You can see that from the signposts I’ve mentioned - each scene has a signpost leading to the next one. Sure, the PCs may take slightly different routes between the scenes, but it’s still a railroad.

At one point, Wrath even says, “The Referee should not railroad them in any direction...” Except that if the PCs don’t follow the big flashing “here’s the adventure” signpost, the GM has to work overtime trying to get them back on track.

(To be fair to Wrath, it does have a couple of pages of signpost ideas to get the PCs back to the plot. But that only signals its railroad-y nature.)

But if you are worried about your campaign being a railroad, write it so it isn’t! Don’t write a railroad and then lecture the GM about it not being a railroad!

Avoiding a railroad isn’t hard:

• Provide a timetable of events and write the villains so we know what their plans are, and how they and other parties (Imperials, Omicron, Zhodani and others) react.
• Write scenes and set pieces flexible enough that they can be located wherever necessary.
• Give clues to the players so they can decide in what order to investigate them – and at some point make sure they know what the bad guy’s plan is so they can work out how to foil it.

There - a non-railroad campaign.

(And frankly, it’s not the end of the world if your campaign is a railroad. As long as the players are having fun and are making their own decisions, railroads are fine.)

Let’s not upset the boat

One thing I found disappointing about these campaigns is that they don’t really rock the boat. Chartered Space isn’t really changed by what happens. I would have been much happier if, during the campaign, the Ancients had gone on the rampage, carving up large chunks of Chartered Space.

So what would I do?

So, given I don’t think much of Mysteries/Wrath, what would I do?

First, I’d probably keep Secrets of the Ancients entirely separate. Secrets is great and stands on its own. Mysteries and Wrath use the same Ancients canon as Secrets (ie, the Final War isn’t over yet), but they don’t really play well together.

So, some options.

The classic campaign

One option is to go back to Adventure 3: Twilight’s Peak and drop information and ideas into an existing campaign. Work it like Twilight’s Peak, with rumours leading to the Ancients’ base.

And that might be enough - I might never use Wrath of the Ancients.

The Omicron campaign

One of the challenges of writing for Traveller is designing adventures that suit any party. (You can see that in some of the gymnastics that start some adventures.)

But why do that at all? Why not assume that the PCs are members of Omicron Division, seeking evidence of the Ancients. This way, the PCs could visit Research Station Gamma and the blockade at Andor, and meet the Ancient Hunters all before things start kicking off.  

And then it’s easy to give the PCs clues pointing them towards Twilight’s Peak and the rise of Tsyamoykyo.

(And with the PCs involved, I’d make Omicron less inept.)

The Ancient Hunters campaign

For this version, get the players to create Ancient Hunters during character generation. Give the PCs links to other Ancient Hunters, and make them interested in anything to do with the Ancients. This might be more like the standard Mysteries of the Ancients campaign - but give them several clues to follow at once, rather than just giving them the next clue.

Agents of Seven

And if you’ve already run Secrets, then the PCs may be agents of the Ancients and part of the Final War. They’ve got an incentive to follow up leads to other Ancients’ sites like Twilight’s Peak and can get involved that way.

The rise of Tsamoykyo

But what is Tsamoykyo doing? In Wrath of the Ancients, he doesn’t really get started. He supposedly has the goal to do great (but unspecified) works and to meet God (as the creator of the universe) to understand why the universe is the way it is. But the campaign ends before he gets started, which I think is a shame.

So let’s give him a preposterous plan: Tsamoykyo wants to create an Undoing to summon the Creator. To do this, he’s going to rip a huge section of Chartered Space into a small pocket universe and collapse it into a giant black hole, which will then punch back through into the real universe, creating an anomaly that will force the Creator to appear.

Tsamoykyo has already run a trial (on a smaller scale) that has shown great promise. 50 years ago, a mysterious black hole appeared out of nowhere in Reft Sector. (When they become aware of it, astronomers will want to charter a ship to visit the black hole [where there may be clues] and also travel to where they can observe it appear in real-time [ie, overtaking the light emitted by the event].)

The eye of God?

With a successful trial under his belt, Tsamoykyo puts his plan to create a huge pocket universe into effect. So he will take a huge chunk of space - let’s say a 25-parsec radius around Andor (so taking out the Darrians, Sword Worlds, a corner of the Zhodani Consolate and a large chunk of the Third Imperium) and pull it into a pocket universe.

(Centring it on Andor explains why Tsamoykyo has to rescue the Droyne.)

The new pocket universe will only be a parsec or so across, and compressing all those systems into a tiny space will create an enormous black hole which will punch back into normal space. So that’s the plan.

So why is Tsamoykyo doing this now? (Rather than, say, a thousand years ago, or 200 years in the future?) Because of Twilight’s Peak. 

Tsamoyko stored his pocket universe-creating device at Twilight’s Peak, and when he learned that the base had been disturbed, he sent an agent (Tellsadiu – from Mysteries of the Ancients).

Tellsadiu teleported the device back to Tsamoykyo and began to warm up the base.

A timetable

With that as a rough idea, here’s my (equally rough) timetable:

984: Twilight’s Peak is disturbed (121 years ago, during the Third Frontier War) by Mercedes and her crew. The alarm is triggered.

1050: Tellsadiu arrives at Twilight’s Peak and returns the device to Tsamoykyo.

1052: Tsamoykyo creates a test black hole in 1052 (in the middle of Reft, where light will take 30+ years for the black hole to be noticed in the Third Imperium).

1060-1105: Tsamoykyo starts setting up ship teleporters at the edge of his planned area. He needs 30 (say). These will all be in deep space, placed there by his ships, and will be networked.

1080+: The mysterious black hole is observed in Reft from the Third Imperium.

1106: Twilight’s Peak is destroyed (as per Mysteries of the Ancients)

1108: Tsyamoykyo takes secret Droyne cache on Andor.

1108: Tsyamoykyo establishes a forward base at a location on the edge of the rip where he expects the Creator to arrive.

1109: Tsyamoykyo triggers the Undoing, creating a monstrous black hole brimming with exotic energies.

1110: Tsyamoykyo meets the Creator!

Okay, this is a bit rough and ready, and I suspect needs fixing in places. But it’s a start.

I haven’t really worked out how the device works, but I think it needs teleporters to be “around” the area to be pinched off. They then become portals into the universe. And the bigger the bit of the universe you are pinching off, the more portals you need. (Ideally, I want the PCs to use the teleporters to zip quickly around the map.)

One thing this does is highlight Tsyamoykyo’s arrogance. He considers the Third Imperium and other empires utterly beneath him and can’t conceive of them interfering with his plan. That’s his mistake…

Other factions

I also need to think about potential other factions that might be involved. They include:

• Omicron Division
• Imperial Navy
• Zhodani Consulate
• Other aliens – such as the Darrians and Sword Worlds
• The friendly Droyne from Mysteries of the Ancients
• Seven and/or Grandfather (if I bring them in)

They all have their own objectives and will react accordingly. (I might even need a timetable for each.)

Getting the players involved

I can see several entry points, depending on what sort of campaign I’m running. Some ideas:

• The PCs are recruited to investigate the black hole. There they uncover signs of Ancient technology, leading them to investigate further.
• The PCs are asked to investigate mysterious signals coming from deep space and discover a portal in deep space.
• The PCs are drawn to Twilight’s Peak as per Adventure #3.
• The PCs get involved in the adventure on Callia (in Mysteries) and are drawn into the Ancients that way.

As part of the campaign, I want the PCs to discover Tsyamoykyo’s plan and understand how they may foil it. So I’ll need clues – maybe captured intelligence from enemy Droyne, information from friendly Droyne or Omicron, theoretical research from a scientist studying the black hole, or even decoded messages from Ancients’ artefacts.

I also like the idea of the PCs having to convince the Imperial authorities to take action. If they’re successful, maybe we’ll see fleet action against one of the teleporters.

And we can end with a final confrontation in Tsyamoykyo’s pocket universe as before. (Although it’s been pointed out to me that Wrath of the Ancients and Secrets of the Ancients have very similar endings, so perhaps we should do something different.)

Return of the Ancients

So I think that’s what I’d do with Mysteries/Wrath of the Ancients.

That’s assuming I do anything with them – it’s much more likely they’ll just stay on my bookshelf, unplayed.

Traveller's Wrath of the Ancients: First impressions review, part 2

Wrath of the Ancients is a campaign book for Traveller. I suggest you read part 1 of my review before continuing. (And if you are hoping for things to get better, maybe just stop now.)

And more spoilers!

Across the sector

As part of the last section of the adventure, the PCs were given two words as a clue to the next piece of the puzzle: Omicron and Gamma. “Omicron” refers to the Omicron Division, whom they crossed paths with during Mysteries of the Ancients. “Gamma” refers to Research Station Gamma, which is located on Vanejen. (If your players aren’t seasoned Traveller fans, you might have to help them with “Gamma” as a clue.)

Oddly, it’s entirely possible for the PCs to reach Research Station Gamma before the Omicron snatch team. The PCs have a TL25 jump-6 ship that requires no refuelling nor resupply of provisions and can (probably) use empty space between jumps. The ship that Omicron uses is never stated, but it’s unlikely to be anything like jump-6, and even if it is, it has to refuel and resupply regularly. As the PCs are probably only a week or two behind Omicron at best when they set off for Research Station Gamma, they could arrive weeks before...

(Even though Ancients ships are TL25, and even though they have sector-spanning teleportation technology (I’ll get to that), their ships are only jump-6. That seems oddly underwhelming.)

As far as I can tell, it is never explained why (or how) Omicron Division evaded the Andor interdiction fleet, landed on Andor, kidnapped some very specific Droyne, and then dropped them off at Research Station Gamma. And the NPCs at the station have no idea what to do with them - they’re just a plot McGuffin to attract the PCs.

Research Station Gamma

Anyway, the PCs arrive at Research Station Gamma, grandly described as the “crossroads of the campaign”. If you’re familiar with the original Adventure 2: Research Station Gamma, you’ll recognise much of this part of the campaign. The design of the station is similar (even down to the submarine dock); there are Chirpers and unethical experiments are taking place.

On the submarine dock, I did wonder why it had one as it didn’t seem to make much sense. So I went back to Adventure 2 and found that it talks about the storms and ice on Vanejen, prompting the development of submarine travel. So, it is not the secret lair I first thought, but it is not explained by Wrath either.

Unlike Adventure 2, there are NPCs present that the PCs have already met - from Mysteries. One of these, Mercedes (whom we last saw giving the PCs directions to Twilight’s Peak), arranges it so the PCs have access to the station, posing as Omicron agents.

(These books make the Imperium security services seem utterly incompetent. Research Station Gamma is conducting secret research and has powerful Ancients’ technology lying around - and yet the PCs can just waltz in. It was the same in Mysteries in Hell at Perihelion. It’s most peculiar.)

Anyway, the PCs can wander around and talk to everyone and nobody really gets curious. Mercedes tells them about the Ancient that has returned and where they should go next (lazy signpost #4).

And then, the Ancients attack (timely coincidence #5). It’s a really underwhelming attack by Tsyamoykyo’s standards (given what he unleashed at Andor). Given that their objective is to destroy the kidnapped Droyne, he really didn’t put much effort into it. You’d think the least he would do is drop a planetbuster on the station. Just to make sure, as another franchise might put it.

It’s also not at all clear how Tsyamoykyo knew to come here. None of this is explained - I can’t help but feel that it would be much better if the PCs knew there was a clock ticking and they were on a deadline to rescue the Droyne. As it is, Tsyamoykyo’s forces attack only when the PCs have done as much as they need to do.

Once all that is done and dusted, according to Wrath, “The Travellers now know that events are unfolding on Braudel in the Trojan Reach” Really? There’s nothing in the previous chapters that suggests that to me. Instead, Mercedes merely says that the hidden Oytrip on Braudel may hold the clue to defeating Tsyamoykyo. There’s no sense that “events” are doing any sort of folding or unfolding.

So anyway, it’s off to the Trojan Reach we go.

Braudel

Some weeks later, even in their jump-6 Ancients ship, the PCs arrive at Braudel where they find that events have indeed been unfolding and Tsyamoykyo has invaded the planet. Luckily, there are a few friendly Droyne ships hiding in the outer planets. Even more luckily, Mercedes is there - and she has a plan! (Is this a coincidence or a lazy signpost? I’ve lost track.)

How did she get to Braudel so quickly? By a sector-spanning teleport jump! 

(I find Traveller’s teleportation a bit confusing. The core rules talk about teleportation as a psionic power and note the problems of conserving momentum. Teleporter portals get around that by dumping excess energy into a pocket universe. But occasionally, Wrath uses a portal to teleport to somewhere that isn’t another portal. How does that work? Anyway, the Ancients have sector-spanning teleporter technology but the campaign doesn’t lean into that.)

Tsyamoykyo has created a forward base on Braudel in advance of pushing into Imperial space. (Why? Well, Tsyamoykyo wants to take control of Chartered Space and use its population to create great works and maybe even meet God!)

Mercedes’ plan is to sneak onto the planet, seize control of the ship teleporter Tsyamoykyo has handily left on the planet (which is at the top of the ugly 4km-high war machine they’re building), and teleport into Tsyamoykyo’s pocket universe - and somehow kill him.

This complicated plan uses a ship caught in the blast from a temporal dislocation device. That ship, the Rustic Idyll, not only contains one of Mercedes’ old crew mates but also doesn’t have long before it is completely out of phase with the universe and is unavailable. So that’s a mega coincidence combined with yet another plan the players haven’t had to come up with!

The lack of player agency in this campaign is horrific. All the main decisions, ideas and plans are given to the players. They don’t need to work anything out - they just follow the signposts and do the things the NPCs tell them to do.

The next 60 pages (!) cover the first part of this plan - up to entering the pocket universe. Challenges include getting onto the planet without being detected, persuading whatever locals haven’t been subjugated to help fight back and raise an army, storming and taking control of a 4km high war machine (which is oddly ugly, compared to most other Droyne/Ancient technology) and using the Rustic Idyll (somehow) to take a strike force into the enemy pocket universe.

This is so epic that I have no idea how I would run it. 

To help the players, the campaign introduces “advantages” that the PCs can set up to help them in the final battle. Things like a loyal friend who might sacrifice themselves or understanding the villain’s psychology to give them an edge. Suddenly, we’re playing Fate!

Making the game feel even more like Fate, the PCs should be pretty powerful by now. As they’ve been “enjoying” the uplift process for some months, they are likely to be powerful psionic adepts. The campaign probably isn’t feeling much like Traveller any more. This is all to prepare them for the final battle. (Hopefully, the GM is equally prepared.)

The pocket universe

Having taken control of the teleporter on Braudel, the PCs can break into Tsyamoykyo’s pocket universe for the final battle. (Some minor pedantry: according to Adventure 12: Secret of the Ancients, the only way in and out of a pocket universe is via portals (effectively teleporters). Wrath, however, suggests that pocket universes can be accessed via their anchor points. Luckily it’s a minor point and can be safely ignored.)

This involves getting into the pocket universe, wandering around until they find the right bit (luckily, nobody back on Braudel has thought to raise the alarm), and then confronting Tsyamoykyo in his lair.

Then there’s another dream battle, and either the PCs defeat Tsyamoykyo, or they don’t.

If they fail, well, it’s bad luck Chartered Space. If they succeed - they have an entire Ancients workshop to play with! The universe really is their oyster - what they choose to do with it is up to them.

But either way, that’s the end of the campaign.

Overall

As you can probably tell, I don’t think much of Wrath of the Ancients. My review of Mysteries of the Ancients was pretty scathing, and I think Wrath is worse. Which is a shame, because I’m a fan of Traveller’s Ancients: I like wonder and mystery in my science fiction.

I’m not quite finished, though. Next time I will think about railroads and think about changes I might make.