Systems of Reward

I was just talking with a buddy at work about systems of reward in gaming. I think we started talking about video games but he is the friend I made the Ziggurat bachelor adventure for so we ended up with old school gaming.

I realize that systems in games can be counter-intuitive. For example, one would think giving experience for killing monsters makes sense-- you become more knowledgeable at how to kill a troll by killing trolls etc. But what happens is that system of reward pushes players to fight things, even things they have no reason to fight, even things they should by all rights be running from. Eventually you have players "clearing out" dungeon levels, which would be craziness in a world where living was considered a valuable thing.

The old school way of using treasure as a general, abstract reward solves that problem-- see a troll, hell run, why should I risk my life fighting it, we already found its hoard. But it makes every player out to be a treasure hunter. I've got no problem with a campaign where that is understood, but I am interested in other possibilities. Here are some ideas that I and Mah-Kuss the now-wedded brainstormed:

If rewards push players toward certain actions, you want to find rewards to push them toward actions that would work with groups of adventurers risking dungeons. But the best solution would also allow players a little choice in the goals they want to pursue. So, how about these general categories:

• Plunderer - the standard Treasure Hunter
• Collector - an artifact hunter
• Scholar - a knowledge hunter
• Defender - protects others pursuing their goals.
• Adventurer - Glory/Faith Hunter

Okay, so instead of just raw treasure Bob, your player, makes an agreement with you that his character goal is knowledge. There could be several subsets of this, the two we thought of were exploration (knowledge of locations/wonders) and ecology (knowledge of botany/zoology). And to keep things as simple as possible, you assign goals just 3 levels of difficulty:

• Common
• Uncommon
• Rare

These will represent how likely it is to obtain these goals as well as the reward for achieving them. Let's say I have a character who is a Scholar. Observing a giant rat might be common. So, the first time I see a giant rat, I get X experience points. Getting a sample of giant rat tissue/hide might be a little harder: 2X experience points. And, finally, observing a giant rat den and how it functions for a few hours might be harder to accomplish thus 3X experience points.

If we see the above as being a vertical example, horizontal could work as well. For example: giant rat is common, troll is uncommon, will o' the wisp is rare.

This three level reward could apply to all the categories above: common artifact an ancient sword; uncommon, a full suit of armor; rare, one-of-a-kind magic blade.

Defender might be a little different: common everyone comes back alive, uncommon no one takes a scratch on this adventure, rare no scratches and it was incredibly dangerous.

Adventurer is a different beast altogether. I was thinking of warriors doing things for the honor of it, or perhaps clerics doing it for the faith of it it. "It" being any of the above goals. And we realized this might be perfect for new characters, because they could receive multiple experience awards early on when surviving is so difficult. For example they might earn an XP award for finding treasure, an artifact, and getting everyone back alive. But then at some level they could be required to choose one of the other more specific focuses (so, Charlie, you're 3rd level now, what do you see your character wanting?).

This would be a way that players could have compatible goals that would give them reason to venture into dungeons/tombs together and yet not force them all to be tomb robbers. Your wizard player really likes the idea of finding spells, there you go: common, uncommon, rare. Your fighter is looking for better gear: common, uncommon, rare. Your player wants to pursue some other goal that can be reached by just raising money (house, clothes, good food), fine let her seek treasure the old fashioned way.

We envisioned a story emerging from these slightly different character goals. For example the party is down in a dungeon and coming back out. The Scholar sees what looks like a roper in the next chamber and desperately wants to investigate, the Collector has the Crown of Arpas and could cares less, the Defender is happy everyone is till healthy and strongly objects to investigating.

What do you think?

The Seven Giants of the Urals

I had to resurface to share this awesome find. A real land feature from the Urals. I saw this on Neatorama. Amazing.

Wonder

I had a few goals of my own going into my bachelor party gaming session. One of them was:

Wonder
I have Gygax' Role-Playing Mastery and though I don't think I'd recommend it-- it seems to spend a lot of time talking about the obvious, one thing did catch my eye. On page 83 Gary talks about adding flavor to games and gives a list of 7 things to shoot for:

1. wonder & fear
2. adventure & heroism
3. problem solving
4. role-playing
5. combat, conflict & battle
6. group operation
7. enlightenment & education

Well, actually you can see it's more than seven things. Three, four and five seem pretty straightforward to me but the others are interesting. I really felt my session in the abandoned nunnery was a success because it elicited fear-- was it Jeff Rients touching on the similarities between gaming and horror movies? Anyway, I feel I can design scenarios to evoke fear. And it works. And it is a cool goal to have. But wonder?

How would you evoke that? I would like to try. Just describing things with words, can it ever be the same as seeing the Grand Canyon, or Bridalveil Falls? So, as I was brainstorming for the bachelor party session I always had that in the back of my mind, what would be marvelous, what would make the players pause, surprise them. I'm not sure if I pulled it off.

Part of the problem may be cliche, the players all pretty much expected something big and bad down that hole. And my connubial temple visit sort of turned into a Pirates of the Caribbean ride (at least in my head). But I'm not convinced you can evoke wonder with verbal description. Have you managed it?

Epithalamium - Post-mortem

Sorry to drag this out, it gives me a reason to come back and post. It also gave me a chance to reflect a little more coolly on the session (I'm pretty self-critical). I'll write about the session in general and then zoom in on certain themes.

Overall, the groom seemed to have a blast, laughing quite a bit. Kaiser's player who hasn't played since high school was enthused enough to suggest we meet monthly to game. Garrett's player is what my grandma would have called a card, he is quite funny and throws himself into roleplaying, and while he can be a little much at times I think he definitely added to the fun factor of play. I've been gaming with him in a 4e campaign as a fellow player but I think I'll invite him whenever we get together for S&W in the future.

One big effect on, at least how I think of how the session went, was having my brother as a player. It is a long story, but my brother is the worst sport I've ever encountered. He also is a role player of the breed that runs directly in front of the biggest enemy and whacks at it with his biggest weapon and if it bites him in half, as Mah-Kuss did, he becomes surly. So, why invite him to play? Well, I wanted more players, it was a special occasion. (And I thought if it is a different ruleset maybe he might be able to let go, ease up a little and just have fun). But he really didn't add much roleplaying, he was very quiet and I was worried toward the end that he might embarrass me with an outburst. He didn't, but I think I'll let him find his own group if he wants to play (I think he would enjoy 4e much more, he could be very powerful and have almost nil chance of dying, but uggh, the tedium of that kind of game, isn't the possibility of death what gets the blood pumping?)

As for the adventure, the start seemed to drag a little: they saw the opening ceremony, and had to decide how to enter the temple, then follow couples in. It took a while for any kind of conflict or tension to occur. Pretty much when Ehud cast charm person it shifted from an observation of a living temple to an adventure.

Even in the bowels of the temple there wasn't much going on until they encountered the room of birds. That combat lasted forever for old school play! I had all combat in the swirling screeching birds give -4 to hit, so the players survived but they couldn't hit their foes either. And they weren't just standing in the room wacking at each other, they were running from door to door as the guards tried to flank them and catch them outside the room. So, it lasted almost too long, but at least they had some tactical decisions to make.

They didn't really want to explore the temple much, that damn hole was too much a draw. Serves me right I guess. I suppose I could have had the priests put a stone cap on it or placed guards around it. So several of my interesting rooms were never seen.

Now that I think of it ol' Mah-Kuss was kind of a cliche-- the god which is really some foul creature being fed sacrifices? If I ran it again I think I would try for something more unexpected, maybe Mah-Kuss is a god, but his avatar require 665 bodies to contain his powerful essence. Down the hole, and the players are suddenly ringed by hundreds and hundreds of young women speaking with one voice.

I think I'll write more about how the goals worked in another post, but I was surprised that two of the players didn't seem to even try to pursue their primary goals. Maybe they were waiting for some sign from me or didn't know what they were supposed to do but . . . ?

We always joke about people wearing beards or capes when they game so this time, mid-game, I left to use the restroom and came back with an ornately embroidered robe on, representing the high priest of Mah-Kuss. They seemed to be surprised and amused by that. After 5+ hours of play by that point I was losing my spontaneous humor, so I invited them to put on the robe and give some words to the assembled couples-- I think some of that ended up as video on somebody's Facebook.

In the end, it was fun. I have some things to brush up on-- movement in combat, dungeon layout-- but that's how you learn and get better.

I think I'll make another post soon on some more abstract ideas from the session.

Epithalamium - The Recap part 2

The party not being satisfied with what it had accomplished and not being daunted by losing most of their hirelings plotted to investigate the offeratorial hole in the ziggurat. Using the proceeds from selling the gear off of the slain temple guards they found more hirelings, bought rope, and down the hole they went.

The vast chamber was only dimly lit. directly under the hole was a pile of treasure and bones. Before the party had much chance of sifting through the jumble a huge shape moved toward them from out of the darkness.

What emerged looked like a 40' long pale caterpillar with tentacles waving around a gaping maw and a large eye ominously moving around on a tail. This eye quickly turned the hirelings Puru, and Rajeesh to stone. Kaiser and one of his hirelings lobbed pints of oil at the maw and successfully lit the great worms head on fire, before it managed to bite Kaiser in two. Gorlac, also bravely chopping at the creature's head, was bit in two in turn.

On the creatures flank hireling attempted to blind the foul eye by throwing handfuls of treasure at it. Several more were turned to stone until Garret Osmond managed to land a massive blow with his mace on it, forcing the creature to retract it in pain. Kaiser's hireling, the 60 year old with wodden stumps for both feet somehow managed to pick up his dead master's bastard sword and swing the killing blow.

The glistening hulk trembled and lay still. Only two of the original party remained, but their quick filling of backpack netted them treasure worth 5,100 gold pieces.

Poor Gorlac will never know the fate of his mother, although it may be safe to assume they share the same grave now. Poor Kaiser seems to have succeeded posthumously in desecrating the temple of the fould Mah-Kuss that he considered a demon. Garret Smallwood never even inquired about his long lost sister but seemed pleased with his new wealth. Ehud the club footed managed to find a bride and become rich, but seems to have failed miserably at honoring the temple of Mah-Kuss, if only for all the chaos and bloodshed he helped instigate.

Epithalamium - The Recap part 1

Once every ten years the Ziggurat of Mah-Kuss the Eternal Bridegroom is opened to the public. At all other times it is the domain solely of Mah-Kuss and his priests, but during the festival couples come from miles around to ask the blessing of Mah-Kuss and to be wed under his auspices.

This festival brings sellers and merchants, gawkers and tourists as well as people with more private goals. Among the crowd this decade were the fighters Gorlac and Kaiser; Ehud the clubfooted mage; and Garrett Osmond the cleric.

A procession of voluptious young women, clad only in white robes, rode five pure white pregnant mules up the ziggurat's steps and to the a circular hole in its crown. Each women carried a precious gift which they dropped into the hole as an offering to Mah-Kuss. They then jumped in themselves, disappearing in the darkness below into what seemed to be a vast space.

Our staunch adventurers were incredibly tempted by that hole. And only after much discussion did they and their mostly female hirelings decide to follow the teeming crowd of couples into the ziggurat itself. Garret began questioning his local hireling Anand while in line about the customs involved with the event. He also attempted to woo a women in line, with little success; she expected him to have something of value to offer Mah-Kuss before even considering wedding him.

Inside, after some stalling with the traditional kiss of the giant stone phallus, the group passed through heavy velevet drapes into a large space, dimly lit and smelling of moisture. Before them was a lagoon of milk and couples were getting into wooden boats carved in the shape of lotus flowers. Each boat had a priest acting as a gondolier.

The party noticed that the priests embarking on the boats had different color robes of silk: blue and green. They also noticed there seemed to be some friction between these two sects. As the boats floated past islands of baboons and a giant peacock, Ehud cast a charm spell on his priest-gondolier.

Caru the priest in blue, told Ehud, his new fast friend, of a quick way down to the next level of the ziggurat. As he rowed off course the surrounding boats jostled after him with shouts and arguing. As the priests argued on shore the party and its hirelings headed down a ladder into a large room. The room was featureless but for a giant stone egg. After finding that the egg rested on the floor and not on a pedestal, Garret Osmond rallied the hirelings to heave on the egg. They egg began to roll after which it smashed into a doorway with a crash, blocking it.

The square room had doors on all sides. The party went west. The wide corridors were lined with life-sized stone statues of women, presumably some of the 665 brides of Mah-Kuss. They explored several empty rooms, heard what sounded like a baboon through a wall, and saw a nude couple frolicking happily past. They also encountered two green-clad priests while Ehud quoted from the Codex of Mah-Kuss that "marriage is a yoke" The priests asked "A yolk? As in an egg?" with furrowed brows upon which Garret and Gorlac proceeded to quickly brain them.

After more wandering the party entered a very large chamber filled with exotic birds. These cockatiels, doves, canaries, and various birds-of-paradise raised a cacaphony and flew back and forth through the air as they entered. As the party entered a party of temple guards also entered through an opposite door. These oddly pale folk were dressed in gold tinted lorica hamata and carried gladii.

What followed next was a confusion of birds, of fleeing, of entering the bird room again, of baboons and guards. At the end of it Kaiser was unconsious, Gorlac had brained several opponents, Garret had tried baboon carcasses as a missile weapon and Ehud was long on his way fleeing back to the ladder.

The party and what was left of the ill-starred hirelings met up with a group of six priests clad in green. They convinced them that they had been set upon by priests clad in blue. The Green priests, outraged, escorted the party up by way of another ladder.

The party found themselves where the boat ride would have ended if they had completed it. Another large phallus to be kissed, velvet drapes to be passed through and they were in a huge room full of couples ready to be wed.

A physical confrontation between green and blue priests was stopped by the high priest who proceeded to marry all the couples. One of those couples was Ehud and his former hireling Indira, the drunk with the remarkable beard.

to be continued . . .

Epithalamium VI

Arrgh, the spatial aspect of a dungeon is the hardest. Brainstorming all the possible oddities, puzzles and interesting sites is fun, but I want players to have actual choices. If they choose a hallway that never leads them to one of my favorite set pieces, so be it. I can't make this a linear run through everything I've come up with.

But how to organize it then? I'm thinking partially by logic-- how does the temple work, what functions does it need to fulfill? I don't think I've ever designed an adventure around a location that was still functioning, it is certainly different.

But my organization can't be solely logic, right? I'd like the players to have some combats semi-early on, then some puzzles, choices, then harder combats etc. So, I suppose this is game designing, not building a simulation.

I like having brainstormed the possibilities first though, I think I could almost improvise the map, based on the rhythm of action and player interest. That's a little scary though, so I'm hoping to wake up early tomorrow and make the hard decisions.

I think the key is to have a an idea of what players might try (of course you can never predict every possibility) and have clues ready to help them guide their decisions, so if for example, they want to tie two 50' ropes together and descend directly to the lair of "Mah-Kuss", good for them, they'll hear the movement of something very large and the screams of one of the women self-sacrifices that survived . . . umm no longer surviving. If they want to start assaulting any priest in sight, well there are those oddly pale guards in lorica hamata . . . and their buddies that will come running. If they want to wait until night and try to sneak in, I have to think about what will be going on in the temple then.

Here are a few more fruitful marriage quotes:

• And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living! (Tertullian)
  

• Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. (Plautus)

One last thought, what if I made pdfs of possible features, rumors, and player goals and then asked readers to come up with their own map/ziggurat layout? Seeing various different layouts would be cool. Of course you all might not be as interested in the material, but it could be a standard one-off for bachelor party old school gaming :)