Better Encounters, free supplement, designer interview
Hey, readers of The Dispatch!
Before we start, I want to remind new members of the tribe they can benefit from a 10% discount, anytime, on the whole The Lost Bay Studio catalog with the code PEOPLEOFTHEBAY or here https://www.thelostbaystudio.com/discount/PEOPLEOFTHEBAY
In today’s newsletter: a free table, the best game design blog posts I’ve read last week, and my selection of Zine Quest/Zine Month projects.
Better encounters with new NPC Roles
Imagine you’re playing the following adventure:
Sultan, your pal, is possessed by an evil spirit. His body and mind are mutating. You’re super worried: he won’t last very long, if things continue like this. You’ve been told that an old Punk Monk might have some life saving info. You venture North looking for the monk, until you reach a small trailer, parked under a gigantic and noisy highway overpass. You knock, open the door, and find two wrinkled and fully tattooed dudes. One of them is about to blow out the candles of a birthday cake. You stare at them, they stare back. You’re intruding, how will they react? Are they friend or foe?
This is where, in a classical OSR fashion, the GM (or yourself if you play solo) would roll on a Reaction Table to determine the NPCs reactions. The simplest reaction table goes like this
Friendly
Indifferent
Neutral
Neutral
Unfriendly
Hostile
That’s super useful. I guess the original idea behind reaction tables is that NPCs are not all evil monsters you need to slaughter. But reaction tables don’t give many hints about why NPCs react the way they do. This is where, as a GM, I freeze. When I use reaction tables as a GM, the encounters tend to quickly become a bit boring and repetitive. And to clarify, that’s on me.
I need a bit of context to do a good job. But I can’t map the totality of the NPCs before the game starts, right? So over the years I’ve crafted a few techniques that help me give depth to NPCs without too much hassle, and my favorite one is Roles.
Roles are included in The Lost Bay RPG as the default NPC behavior table. They inform about the NPC Role in the context of the scene/adventure/plot. Here’s the first entry of the table.
Each Role is described by a title, almost like an archetype, and a super brief description of their primary want, or modus operandi. In addition, each role has three Moves. Moves describe ways the NPC can interact with the player characters. Some Moves are purely narrative, some are more mechanical. Here you have enough to build a rich interaction, and to start building an NPC which could become a recurring cast in a campaign.
Back to our trailer birthday party. Let’s say we rolled 1, Fake Samaritan. Now that’s becoming interesting. Those Punk Monks are up to no good, they’re playing a malicious scheme that will reveal itself in the long run. Having them perform just one of their moves could lead to interesting and fun developments. I guess they’ll welcome the player, and offer them cake. And later on, reveal their nefarious plans.
I’ve put together for you a free Roles table. Roles are one of the modular tools included in The Lost Bay RPG. If you like that, be sure to follow the project here or subscribe to The Dispatch to get future goodies.
If you’d like to try The Lost Bay RPG and are looking for a table, hop in The Lost Bay discord server. I run regular 60 minute intro sessions, and a weekly West Marshes like campaign.
From the blogosphere: shades of Weird, and solo gaming
Among the vast ocean of blogs filled with advice and tips, two publications have caught my eyes in the last week.
No-weird, low-weird, high-weird, gonzo: thoughts on weirdness in games
Verdant Core, a GM and a designer with a penchant for solo streamlined procedures, questions the spiral of ineluctable weirdification of their games, and proposes some sort of weird-classification scale. It’s simple and clever.
I used it to do a self-evaluation of my own sessions/adventure/game weirdness level. I confess I’m afflicted by the same fun spiral to weirder moods.
I think I might use Verdant’s nomenclature (with permission) in The Lost Bay GM Guide to help GMs set expectations about the sessions they run or modules they write.
How I write solo rules, pt. 1
In this blogpost, Alfred Valley
dissects how they wrote solo rules for This Ship Is a Tomb, a massive procedurally generated Mothership hexcrawl by Fey Light Studio. The post is utterly fascinating, as it takes us through Alfred’s thought process, almost in a chronological order. If I’d dare to summarize in a couple of words what this post is about, that would be Rules as Lore. That’s 100% my personal interpretation, and I’m not sure the author would share it. In any case I can tell you that this post shifted the way I view and frame game design in general, not only for solo games/adventures. Alfred is one of the most creative designers of the indie scene, and I certainly can’t wait for part 2.https://hausofvalley.blot.im/how-i-write-solo-rules-pt-1
The Month of Zines
Zine Quest and Zine Month are raging, we are only 11 days into February and my gut feeling is that this will deliver a haul of great titles. I’ve been impatiently expecting three of them, and if you enjoy this newsletter, I’m pretty sure you’d like them as much as I do.
Death Game
By Laurie O’ Connel
In a nutshell: A battle royale like RPG https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laurieoconnel/death-game
One of my most anticipated games of the Month of Zines, from the dream team combo featuring designer Laurie O’Connel and artist Hodag RPG. As the title anticipates, this game will take your characters through a series of high stakes combats, until only one player survives. Forget fantasy football, Death Game is going to become your new tournament RPG.
Two cherries on top.
First, although the game is powered by OSR adjacent mechanics indie enthusiasts will like, setting up the combat arena has a cool narrative twist. Players and GM get to discuss the context and pick the era (sci-fi? dystopian modern world?), the type of characters (teenagers? Debtors? Job applicants? Criminals).
Second, on several occasions GM and players get to switch seats and roles, which is clever, and promises lots of fun. The cool thing about Death Game is that it’s not about combat. Combat is resolved in skill checks, as with all other challenges. It’s your alliances, your promises and your obligations to other competitors that drive the story forwards. Go fighter, get it!
Runecairn Wander Saga Remastered
By Colin LeSueur
In a nutshell: In the Nine Realms death is not the end https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/byodinsbeardrpg/runecairn-wardensaga-remastered
Built on the lightweight but solid game engines of titles like Into the Odd, or Cairn, Runecairn Wander Saga Remastered takes you into a Norse Fantasy epic world, in a unique gaming experience for one GM and one player. This 84 page hardcover book, filled with stunning art (how good is that cover?), is a reedition of the original Runecairn Wandersaga. Augmented, streamlined, packed with additional content. In it you’ll find a solo procedure, a delve procedural generator, and my favorite: Into the Nine Realms, a collection of sixteen one-page dungeons, for one-shots or longer campaigns. If you’re not afraid of being resurrected, go back RWSR!
Greenhorns
By Marco Serrano
In a nutshell: You’re a young god-like being, you create planets.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marcoserrano/greenhorns
The Creatora Machinika is a mighty device capable of creating planets.
And the good news is: you’re the one operating it.
But the bad news is: creating planets is a dangerous job.
Reading the Greenhorns quickstart gave me instantly an OMG feeling: this is a game like no other, it’s going to take me on a wild ride, in a totally new world, and through new game mechanics!
In Greenhorns, you play as an habitant of the planet Kruxor, who has been charged with the rewarding but perilous task of forging new worlds. The premise of the game and the beautiful art were enough to trigger my instant back. Reading the Greenhorns quickstart (link on the Kickstarter page) put a constant grin on my face. The game is not only unique by its theme and genre, but also by its mechanics.
You’ll recognize in Greenhorns the fast, streamlined and deadly set of rules which characterize OSR games (post-OSR, NSR, you name it). On top of this, the Lore as Loot approach brings cool collaborative world-building to the game. But the most exciting feature of Greenhorns is the planet creation mechanic: a dungeon crawl. The player characters delve via a tunnel system in a set of chambers for each layer of the world created, where they encounter deadly creatures and gather loot. Combining an almost classical gameplay mechanic with such a wild and fresh theme is one of the coolest game design tricks I’ve seen in the last few months. It also guarantees you’ll become familiar with this completely new universe in just a few minutes.
And today we are lucky enough to have Marco Serrano with us.
From a design point of view, what are the tools you used to build this alien Sci-Fi world?
I’m focused on keeping concise setting lore for Greenhorns. Just enough to set up a framework and explain the past that led to the present state. The world is then supported and built through dozens of random tables and a set of narrative tools. Random tables detail things like gear, weapon names, class specific freelance gigs, activities, hangouts, organizations, and more. Narrative mechanics can be introduced in most parts of adventuring and back on Kruxor.
While the crew traverses the planet’s layer(s) (the Greenhorns equivalent to a dungeon) The Rocketeer (GM) presents elements of that world, the beings, flora, objects, living things that shoot out of the planet's walls, the !!Boss!!, other threats, and loot. As the crew gathers more context they too can begin filling the chambers with various elements. Player questions about inhabitants matter a lot too as they look for different avenues to stabilize the layer - hopefully safer ways than their original goal. Lastly, the Rocketeer can facilitate player’s narrative input by asking questions like, “How can you tell this chamber is used as a living space?”
Once the crew has stabilized the planet, they get to engage with the loot they found and have the chance to describe part of the history and foretell the future of the world they just created.
This is a concept born from the Lore as Loot section in Down We Go which allows players to define dungeon elements and create the lore behind the loot they discover. I merged this with the Cave Painting section from Diogo Nogueira’s Cave of Our People, an introductory adventure for Primal Quest, where the players draw the most significant part of the adventure to them.
In Greenhorns this manifested with players creating truths of the planet. These pieces of history and future are informed by everything they experienced in the chamber, and whether or not the !!Boss!! was defeated or whether the crew helped the !!Boss!! maintain power. Crews can go as deep as they want with this. They can treat it like a complete minigame where they build out large swaths of the world, or they can answer one or two questions per loot item they found. Questions such as “What resource shortage led to the unification of governments on this planet? What was the real cause of the shortage?” or “What life-saving technology was lost with the fall of an ancient civilization? Was the technology ever found, and if so, what impact did it have on the planet?” The worth of the loot is determined by the stories it tells.
The game design encourages shared narrative construction, between the Rocketeer (GM) and the players. Is this a game design device you’ve used in the past and why do you find it cool?
I have quickly become enamored with narrative construction. It has always fit in a bit when I run games, but the full on story game elements didn’t start clicking for me until I read zines made by Adam Vass of World Champ Game Co. Adam’s games are wonderfully condensed and rules-light. There is always a built in framework that facilitates balanced input among players which also helped me understand how it all would work at the table. I credit Down We Go by Markus Linderum as my introduction to blending both adventure and narrative rules which is also why I chose it as the chassis for Greenhorns.
I find narrative elements cool because they present opportunities to enhance the story we’re telling together. They lead to more lore and give the world more depth. Which often has mechanical applications during combat and explorative play. The “minigame” in Greenhorns of players developing the planet they just built gives more meaning to what the crew accomplished while stabilizing the planet and offers time to reflect on the exciting moments and discoveries. It makes dungeon crawling even more remarkable.
Looks like you have a lot planned for Kruxor, which is both the PCs homebase and a full world per se. Can you anticipate what we can expect for Kruxor in the final game version, and what gaming opportunities it will offer?
Kruxor is a prosperous planet with a singular government. The Kruxians have invested heavily in social welfare as the ever-expanding and evolving metropolis has grown to cover most of the planet’s surface. From a bird's eye view, and how the players are introduced to the setting, it’s a wonderful place.
But, players can soon discover the true Kruxian experience the more time they spend at home.
Most Kruxians see themselves as chosen, they have crowned themselves almighty, and slapped the responsibility of creation onto their foreheads. They steward the creation of new planets despite the danger involved and countless lives lost as they send their young to fulfill this purpose. The tragedy of loss is a problem many Kruxians feel, and this leads to Kruxian society being torn apart.
Faction play will be a large part of Kruxor. The crew will determine whether to build alliances, aid rebellion, or try to squash the internal threat against Kruxor. Faction play is being built to lead towards possible end game scenarios based on player choices. The crew could be the heroes of Kurxor’s radical transformation, or the enforcers of its status quo.
Kruxor will include at least 10 named locations where you can purchase gear and weapons, join betting rings, sell loot, visit national parks, and more. The named locations will be supplemented by a hefty amount of random tables to help build out Kruxor. There will also be class specific areas where players can invest more into their class’s past, development, and ways of life.
Ultimately, my hope is that Kruxor is a fun sandbox with opportunities to enjoy and relax, sell and trade and/or engage with factions.
How cool is that? I’m beyond excited about this game!
That was Marco Serrano, designer of Greenhorns, go back the game on Kickstarter now and create your own world!
Coming up next in The Dispatch:
New zines release and unbelievable discounts
Mesmerizing reveal about the upcoming The Lost Bay RPG
That’s all I’ve got for you today. And I’m sorry it took a bit more than planned to release this issue, I got a bad flu. But don’t worry I’m feeling better now, and luckily I’ve found an infallible remedy that will get me through the winter: fresh orange + ginger + spicy chilly herbal tea.