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Prompt: Close

If there's one thing consistent about Tabletop Gaming stores – it's that they close.

I can rattle off a few names: Oxford Games and Comics, The War Room, Sword of the Phoenix- there are many more. Making a living off of a niche industry is hard, and you learn to adapt or die. I worked for years for a game shop, and the owner stopped adapting. For a while he did, branching out into Poker Chips (as big a seller as Magic cards, believe it or not), Chilmark (another big seller), How to Host a Murder, Osprey Books – whatever he needed to do in order to turn a profit and allow the game store to remain in business. He became a distributor, supporting shops in smaller towns that the larger distributors wouldn't supply with favorable terms, and moved from prestigious places to others that were less so when the years became leaner. We'd even set up an online store for the shop, hoping that would bring more business in (and it helped me get some web work under my belt while I was in college), but nothing worked. I remember talking to him before the decision came down, and he said that he'd put away a lot from the best years, but it had been a few years since he actually turned a profit. With Diamond/Alliance swallowing up all of the smaller distributors, it was rare that he was able to actually get favorable terms by going direct. He could keep the place open for a few more years on the liquidity that he had in the business, or call it a day, and chose to do the latter, though he really didn't want to do so.

Now with the pandemic and quarantines, I'm not sure how many more that were just hanging on like he was will be forced to close. I can personally get games from Amazon pretty easily, but I'd rather support someone- but what do you do when there's no one to support. The closest store to me is almost an hour away. And given the shrinking number of stores, how long until there will truly be no one to support? It's a sad thought, but I don't really know of any real solutions.

What are some thoughts on how game stores can survive and even thrive in these troubling times?

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Prompt: Favour

Though many adventures start with doing someone a favor, this particular spelling of the word directed my mind to another definition of the word- favour given by a patron or organization. When running a game, I like for my cities to be alive, and not revolve around the PCs. But I also want the PCs to be embroiled in the operations and invested in the outcome. It's hard to have a good balance between a patron railroading the PCs actions and being entangled with them of their own volition. I was able to get partway there with the city creation rules in Fate- first in The Dresden Files RPG, and then with Fate Core as it had it baked in. The organizations had their own Aspects that the PCs could find out about and tag for effect, helping to build the narrative around them. But this still gave little mechanical benefit when the organizations were not directly involved. I recently did a playtest for Swords of the Serpentine by Pelgrane Press, and the final piece of the puzzle slotted itself into places- the PCs have ratings with the different organizations- both positive and negative- to indicate their involvement. These ratings are fluid- as the PCs have positive or negative interactions with the groups, their ratings increase and decrease, and with an increased rating comes an increased presence, increased support, and increased obligation. This allowed for the PCs interactions to have an impact on how they maneuvered in the city, and made the city seem more alive in play. I just need to find out some way to represent the dealings that the organizations have with each other in a more dynamic manner without having to manually work these angles or randomly generate them.

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Prompt: Strange

How do you inject a feeling of strangeness into your game? Not outright horror, though it can descend to that. But the subtle feeling that something is not quite right, to get the players' attention without crossing over that line to the obvious? I find the use of the other four senses a good way of calling attention to something that gives a creeping suspicion that the players are walking into something on the wierd side. The faint sound of flapping in the wind like the wings of a wounded bird. The sudden rise of goosebumps as the wind chills a few degrees. The cloying smell of decaying flowers. The heat parching the throat, making the player swallow. The slimy feel of the bannister, leaving a bitter, tingling residue on the hand. Even better, use the senses in strange ways, twisting expectations. The taste of copper on the tongue, heavy in the air. There is also the negative use of senses. The most obvious used ones are the wildlife going silent, but an example could also be the sudden stillness of the air.

The use of metaphors or onomatopoeia (as long as they don't fall into overuse) can also signal that things are a bit off. The delivery of these concepts is as important as what is actually said- if you're trying to jar your players, then even how you say it should invoke that dissonance. “As you make your way through the forest- SNAP!” This communicates viscerally that the player's stealth was compromised. “As your movements disturb the night, the natural sounds die down, and you hear swift movement in the forest off of your left shoulder.”

How do you communicate foreboding strangeness to your players?

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Prompt: Lever

When we played Rolemaster the companions were a bit overwhelming with all of the options, so we had to pare them down. Same with GURPS. This was my first introduction to Levers in designing a campaign. There are some systems that are ready built, and anything you do to them are outside those parameters are homebrew rules, and not necessarily well received or expected by the players. I like those well enough. But the toolkit RPGs GURPS, Fate (and FUDGE), Rolemaster- those were my bread and butter, being able to tweak little things by using optional rules that were included. Those made me prepared for using engines to design hacks- Powered by the Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, GUMSHOE, Rooted in Trophy- those systems that are released to be able to adapted.

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Prompt: Humour

I've never been the type to crack a joke or think of something witty at a moment's notice. I've always been more logical and reasoned. Even when I have a rare moment of insight into the mind of jokester, it has always been rooted in something of a more logical origin. I like a good comedian, and a good comedy- I've just never had the mindset of creating that comedic moment. I preface this particular entry with that disclaimer so that it can be more clearly understood when I say that I just don't like comedic games. I've tried them, and they've definitely been something that has taken me out of my comfort zone, and unlike some other pursuits that do the same, I've not come out of them with any clearer understanding of the purpose nor how to participate. Toon, Paranoia, and a host of others. When humor is naturally injected as a result of the narrative, that's a different thing. We had a situation in our last Pathfinder game where the druid had trailed the party because he had some other gathering to do, and decided to wild shape into a dinosaur- I forget the type, but it was akin to a velociraptor- and pursue the party. He happened to come up on the necromancer from behind, and she turned, ready to take possession of a soon to be undead dinosaur for her entourage. That whole situation and the glee that the player described in her eyes, and the abject fear in the eyes of the dino as they rolled for initiative- her glee turning to sadness when he got initiative and was able to shapechange back to the druid, was hilarious! But that wasn't planned, and wasn't the point of the whole thing. The closest I've come to enjoying something in this vein was Tales of the Floating Vagabond, but that wasn't purely an exercise in humor, even though it was very much absurd. I know that some get great enjoyment from it, and recount their Toon or Paranoia sessions with mirth, but it just runs cold to me.

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Prompt: Edge

Edgerunner- a person striving to survive and prosper in a 'punk type universe, derived from the fact that they're always on the edge between success and disaster. I was introduced to cyberpunk through William Gibson, as many were, and it immediately captured my imagination. Not too far into the future as to be unobtainable, but far enough to seem 'cool' and 'futuristic'. Though I played science fiction games, my first cyberpunk game was Cyberpunk in the black box with Friday Night Firefight as the combat system. I actually still have a shrinkwrapped copy, as I wanted to have a copy just in case something happened to my primary copy in the old beat up box. We moved from there to Cyberpunk 2020, and branched out into Shadowrun, Cyberspace, and GURPS Cyberpunk. Just on the other side of Cyberpunk lay Transhumanism, and delving into that in several books made me love the idea, but want it to be grittier than most transhumanist stories were- my sweet spot lay in the world Altered Carbon, Transmetropolitan, and Ray Winninger's Underground. I'm really not sure of the allure of the media- it's ugly, violent, and shows the worst, most cynical part of humanity. I suppose what I like about it is the fact that even in the darkest of places, if the hero is willing, he can be the brighter side. The Cases and Kovacs of the world. Sting put it best, I think, “At night, a candle is brighter than the sun.” And though many of my heroes died in pursuit of that dream, they made for some damned good stories.

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Prompt: Rare

I collect games to be complete and because I want to read and play them. I know I have a few rare pieces in my collection, but they are valuable to me for the content rather than the monetary value. Below, I'll detail a few that I know are valuable monetarily, but of value to me more for the content.

I love the Black Company by Glen Cook, so when this was released, I had to have it. What I love about the Black Company is that at its root it is a character based story, set in a terrible war where the main characters have little power, and just struggle to survive. It later migrates a bit from those roots, but you can always trace it back to those beginning stories. Others that I have or wish that they'd make that are in the same vein are The Powder Mage series (already available for Savage Worlds) and Malazan Book of the Fallen (not adapted)

I love the Authority by Warren Ellis, for the characters and the themes of Superheroes on a level that we rarely see them, facing foes that are unlike those that I'd seen in comics before this. For all of that, the story was more rooted in the character study of the various heroes and how they dealt with the threats and others perceptions of them. Others in this same vein that I'd love to see adapted include Stormwatch and Planetary.

At times, I think I prefer Dune to Star Wars, though it is a close fight. Where Star Wars leans on the melodramatic, Dune veers towards a more esoteric version of the future, based on things in the past that flow through its DNA. Though many don't like the Brian Herbert prequels, I love them- they are less dry than the Silmarillion and other prequels for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and serve much the same purpose- to set the stage for the stories that we know and love. To be able to play in that world is quite intoxicating, even if I only use the book for reference rather than the rules.

I started watching Supernatural when it was first released, but after the first few seasons laid it down, and didn't pick it back up until my daughter became interested in it. I love the mythology of the world, as messy as it is, and started to try to find the game after watching it with her, thinking that perhaps I could get her to try it. I found out that it was quite sought after, but found a reasonable copy on ebay at almost cover price. Before we could play it, our move came up, and I'm not sure where it is now. I hope it just got packed away somewhere, but I fear the worst. This one really hurt because of the interest sparked in her eyes when she saw the book.

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Prompt: Push

Every time that I've discovered a new group, it's been because I pushed myself to engage with someone outside of my comfort zone. I'm not a gregarious or outgoing person. Interactions tire me. I like gaming with others though, and miss it when I'm not. So after a group breaks up, in general, I've found myself going outside of my comfort zone to talk to others. I've me several of my lifelong friends in that way. When I moved, I fell in with some people at work, and we engaged with others to pull together a group. But they were all a lot younger than I, and going through life with children entering the picture in one way or another, and we gamed less and less, and as they left the company, it became really sporadic, until there were no more sessions. I found out a bit after that some them had gotten back together and were gaming. And I wasn't contacted. By that time, I'd really gotten back into online gaming- play by e-mail, roll20, play by document- and found solo gaming. I now find that I don't really crave that level of interaction in person, though I wonder if I'd see that need if I gamed in person again at a convention or some other function, and if I'm forgetting some aspect because I don't want to try again.

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Prompt: Investigate

I've tried to run investigation games before- they've always turned out poorly. At first, I could blame the root cause on one thing- me as a GM. In preparing the adventure, I didn't follow the rule of 3s- have three sources of information, so that the players wouldn't get stuck by not seeing the clues or a faulty dice roll. But even after having that, in some cases, players just didn't see things in the same way that I did when making the adventure.

Then I found Gumshoe. For those who haven't heard of it, Gumshoe is a roleplaying system designed in 2007 by Robin Laws. It's designed to solve the flaws of players finding the clues by changing the focus of clues in a game to deciphering their meaning. It does this by having two different sorts of abilities – Investigative Abilities and General Abilities. Investigative Abilities center for the most part around professional skills, and as a professional, you are assumed to have more than a basic level of competency. Investigative abilities always work; there are no dice rolls involved. If a scene contains a core clue and a player character uses an investigative ability that relates to the clue, the character will find the clue.

A spend for an investigative ability costs points from the Investigative Ability pool, in exchange for additional clues. These clues are not necessary to solve the scenario, though they should give additional information or other benefits. Spent pool points from investigative abilities are refreshed between scenarios.

This method of telling a mystery keeps the onus of continuing the trail off of the players and off of me when writing the scenario, so that we can just narrate the story of what happens. It's one of my favorite systems now!

As a result of the DramaSystem Kickstarter, the SRD has been released, and can give a good overview of what the system is like before you dive in. The SRD can be found on The Pelgrane Press Site.

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Prompt: Tower

Towers are a staple in RPG- the high spires in the villain's castle. Or the towers where a final defense is mounted in a siege. Even in sci-fi, you have the skyscrapers and, to take it to an extreme, the orbital elevators that tie a planet to the stars. Usually, there is some reason that you have to fight your way to the top. Some incredible hard-fought (or over the top depending on genre) prelude to the final battle with the Big Bad high above the ground below, or to rescue someone important. Think Trinity and Neo in the Matrix, or Bruce Lee in Game of Death. It's a trope because it works- it's a way to communicate to players that this is climactic and should be treated as such, and this will get harder as you rise in levels- akin to levels in video games. How can we take this trope and turn it on its head?

1. The Big Bad is out for a meeting. Or something that takes him away from the location. Of course, you have to give the players something for the battle that they just waged to get there, but it doesn't have to be that final battle. This is especially true in more modern day scenarios where executives don't always stay put.
2. A fight from top to bottom. The only way to enter the sanctum is from the top- it is the least heavily guarded location in the big boss's domain.
3. Use of technology or magic to get around the trope. In our long-running Middle Earth campaign, after we goofed and Sauron got the ring, we were able to get a magic item that boosted the mage's power enough to teleport us directly into Sauron's tower. Of course, that didn't end well, but it was a different take.
4. The boss at the top isn't actually the boss, but a fall guy. This fall guy has some seemingly insignificant clue to the bad guy's location. (Make sure you have at least 3 ways to get this information in case your player characters aren't as fast on the uptake as you'd like)

What are some other ways that we can subvert the Tower trope?

(the image above “Stone Spire” is courtesy of JaimeNieves on Deviant Art)