Minecraft Season #2 Thoughts

Between Two Worlds

A lot of work done, need to flesh out the towers and the throne room though.

After a time playing the game visiting other servers and such. I have come up for an idea for season 2 of our Minecraft server. There is an interesting assortment of plugins for Minecraft to make the game more roleplay focused I would love to have. Currently the game is caught between versions of 1.6.4 vs 1.7.2. In the newest version has a lot of features I really like, such as the new biomes (different terrain types within the game's world), and new plants and such.

My thinking is to develop a 1.6.4 server setup with the cool MMO and roleplay mods the give the game classes, crafting jobs, player-owned plots and such. Even the older vesion has less cool stuff than the new version, the 1.6.4 version had a lot more support for tweaking the game to the things, as a roleplayer-centric person I am, wants.

So season #2 will start in a couple months after I see what exact package of plugins I want to try, the old Season 1 world will be archived so no one will lose anything as we try the new setup.

I did learn the backbone of the plugins, called Bukkit Mod is a long way off from being updated to the 1.7.2 codebase along with the delay of updating the plugin makers have to do.

The question would be then, wait for the update to happen, which could take a while? Or try a new setup?

If there is anything you would like to see, please share!

~G

SOE Live: Day 0

Oh yeah, George and myself are down here at SoELive 2013, where we are having a blast, and tired from the trip. Getting together with gamers, either pen-and-paper or MMO is always a cool thing, and sharing ideas and creativity is always cool. You can feel the excitement rising here, with Friday's EQNext premiere and a whole host of seminars coming up that will take us through the weekend. There is a ton the experience and learn, everything from how to manage an MMO to setting up a successful Youtube channel, creating MMO quests, and a bunch of other very cool stuff that has lots of applications to the pen-and-paper world.

Come back for daily reports on what we did and saw, and we may fill you in on some very cool stuff. Tonight, it was all about chasing SoE peeps on Facebook around Planet Hollywood, getting a bite to eat, and getting some rest for the big days coming up. Oh, and yeah, getting the luggage into the room. I swear this hotel has the longest walk from your car to your room, and carrying 50 pounds of luggage is not fun at all. Especially when you are walking through a mall, and you don't want to drag your suitcase through a crowd, or clock some guy with a Samsonite when you turn a corner. The things we do for you guys I swear....

7dRPG Core: Dungeon Playtest I

You need to go through these exercises when you design a game, so last night we kicked up a 7dRPG playtest as a dungeon game. Yes, 7dRPG will be a Steampunk game at heart, but the core will be used as the SBRPG2 engine. The game needs to work on the board, so play-tests like this help solidify the rules. Once we get all the tabletop rules worked out, these will be rolled into the base rules, and 7dRPG will benefit as well.

You do find a lot of little things you forget to write down in these tests, little things you assume but don't write down, and you go through the rules making notes, adding sections, and clarifying rules to be how they were used on the board. Play-tests like these are a cleansing exercise, and they help tighten the game experience. We cleaned up a lot of little strange rules last night, and I will be making changes to the core document today.

One thing we discovered is the importance of non-generic monster designs. We have this concept of 'generic monsters' where you can ballpark a monster based on a generic toughness level. Here, we spun our monsters up as generic characters, and they suffered two problems, being too tough and being too easy. These monsters were very bland as well, with no special skills, powers, or special attacks. Having a system where you can ballpark monsters to get them into a general toughness area is important, but you need to have a power list for them, and also a list of specific designs so you can have monsters with fun attacks and defenses to play with.

We did nearly have a TPK party-wipe on the first play through, our group of three generic spiders were way too strong for our initial 3-person group. We adjusted things a little, but kept the strong monsters because we like the lower-level challenge to be high. If you start out a superhero, you never get that feeling of dramatic improvement when you start getting powers unlocked, and you become a capable fighting machine. In this session, only one character had magic, and the healer did not have any, relying on units of bandages and medical skill to keep the front line fighters alive. Cool stuff, and it gives you a really good benchmark to start from once your healing magic kicks in.

Some of the assumptions you make in your initial design will be 100% wrong when you play it on the board, and we encountered this as well for some of the minor fiddly rules. You will sit there and write one thing, play it, and the obvious answer will be right there. You can't be too attached to a special rule, and you always need to be willing to throw rules overboard if they just slow down or confuse play.

Oh yes, those are D&D Dungeon Command tiles with Pathfinder minis on them, along with some of our painted metal ones. Those dice are just incredible too, George's set of clears he just loves because they sparkle under the light. We throw together bits of random games to make ours, we do follow a BYOB styles of mash-up when it comes to tabletop gaming, and believe the tabletop game you play should support whatever random figures and bits you have at your house.

If you have a party of 4 metal figures, a pack of skeletons, and a container of plastic spiders and ants, you should be able to play games with those pieces, make things up, and enjoy yourself without needing hundreds of dollars of 'official' figures and playing pieces. You should be able to mod those pieces to higher-level or specialized units, should your characters get experience and level-up. It's part of the reason our games have such a strong design and creation element to them, we are 100% believers in supporting your creativity and the playing pieces you have.

Players Pit: Legends of Andor

Simple and Fun Fantasy Gaming

 Todat we will checking out Legends of Andor, a new 'epic quest' game from Fantasy Flight. This is a game where you build a team of heroes, and work to complete story quests on a large double-sided game board.

Very nice quality game!

After opening the box, I saw some very nice punch out counters, cardboard minis, and very nice game cards. Everything had a nice addictive new game smell. Setup was easy and we played the tutorial mission that introduced us to the basics of the game.

One neat thing is that the main game board is double sided - one with an overland game, and the other with a more challenging underworld campaign. Very unexpected and cool!

First Session: Tutorial Adventure

The game has six campaigns in it, a tutorial one, a normal one and an advanced one. We played through the first one and it was very helpful, and fun to boot. It followed a reduced rule set with no player items - just gold coins you could use to up your stats with. The player has two stats: Strength that adds to die rolls, and Vitality that acts like hits points and determines how many attack dice you roll. The advanced game adds gear and consumables to your arsenal and the monsters look to be tougher. There are about 6 multi-part quests to play through in the box, with the 6th quest being a 'create your own' style adventure.

Fun Factor A

The tutorial game actually was quite fun and I would replay the game starting with that scenario again since you get to keep your characters between games, and if you fail a game you start over with them and keep your earnings. We won the first game by a slim victory by having our heroes plow a hole though the monsters and dropping off the final scroll to the elf village. It took a good deal of team work and using 'team attack' combines character attacks to bowl over the baddies to make it work.

Fighter, Mage, Dwarf, Elf

I played the fighter and the dwarf and Hak played the elf ranger and the human mage. They come with male on one side of the card and female versions on the other so girls and guys can have what they want to play. I feel they didn't have to do that, but this detail added to the quality feeling of this product.

I love my dwarf, I made her fight alone for the most part as she was assigned to pick up monsters before they reached the castle so the main team could dive on to the main mission objective. She had a couple of close scrapes, but she preformed with legendary luck and bravery. The game gives you an epic D&D feel as you race around protecting the kingdom.

Turn Phases and Events

The turn has a 7 "hour" turn track; and you use one "hour" to move a square or attack a monster. The event cards you draw at the end of each turn, are much like Arkham Horror's global story events and have a little role-playing spiel to read before your apply the results. Very nice touch.

Super Fun, Stay Tuned

We took about an hour to play and learn the game. I feel the advanced game would probably take two or more, which is perfect for jack-and-coke gaming. I am actually excited for the next session where we cover the advanced rules. I hope this game gets expansions as well, I can see room for new monsters, more events, and gear. The game is good for beginners, and also has that epic quest LotR style feel going on.

Stay tuned!
~G

Character Design as Choices

George and I had a great talk about character design opening up a series of choices during play. In a way, character design lays out the choices the player will make later in the game. Is my character strong? Do I envision my character doing a lot of strong things? Does my character know magic, and if so, what type? Design guides later choice.

Now let's look at less-optimal character design. These are choices you make during development that have no effect on the game later. A good example is buying the Craft (baskets) skill in a sci-fi game where basket weaving plays no part in the game later. Bad choices can be player afflicted, or they can come from the rules by design. Consider a derived character statistic that plays little or no role in the game, maybe it is a saving throw versus a particular class of magic item (rods), or a character statistic that is calculated but has an esoteric or specific use (the original Top Secret had Evasion and Deception statistics that were never described how they were used).

Another thing to watch out for is pigeon-holing a character in design, which would be like making a technician in the Original d20 Star Wars rules. Of course, your character was useful, but many players did not like being the character who was forced to stay behind and fix the starship while everybody else went out to explore the alien world. It's an extreme example, but it highlights a choice made in character design that puts your character in a disadvantageous position when it comes to play-time. This is a tricky subject, since you need to have a feel for the game's theme, how good the referee is at including fringe builds, and what the typical adventure is for the group.

In most pen-and-paper games, you can never go wrong with a combat-oriented class, but that is often the lowest common denominator in RPGs. If you think of more cerebral role-playing, like old-school Star Trek or even horror-based Call of Cthulhu, you can build characters out of the combat-trap. In the end it comes down to player choice and what's easiest for the group to support. If combat is the challenge, you will get more combat-geared characters. If the game and the group feel other non-combat play is valid, you will see build and adventure support for less traditional builds. When you think of 'choice' with character builds, you often have to consider the environment those choices are made in.

A key tactic to preventing pigeon-holing and meaningless choice is to tightly link character design to the world's theme. If you are playing intergalactic space pirates, focus the character designs on roles that would be active participants in the game world. Of course, space pirates have mechanics and cooks, but those classes are not central to the 'space pirate' theme you want for your game. You want classes that are out there, piloting ships, leading boarding actions, stealing cargo, and being a space rogue in the game world. Active roles beat passive roles - especially when playing with a group.

An interesting contrast are games like Pathfinder and D&D, where the referee needs to allow players to create 'adventurers' from any class printed in the books. Many times this turns out to be a challenge, as the referee is trying to figure out what a forest druid, inner-city thief, and paladin of the sanctuary are doing together. The theme of D&D type worlds is dungeons and treasure seeking, so many times these games assume a broad 'adventurer class' exists in the game world, which I have always felt is a little artificial and forced. I prefer my adventurers to be forced into being a hero, it inherently is more heroic and appealing, at least to me.

Think about motivations for creating characters, how things fit together, and the theme of your world. As an exercise, try designing a group of D&D characters who belong together, united by a single theme or purpose. Design should drive choice, and also focus on the fun.

Delta Breaks Down, and the Rebuild

More play-testing reports today from Project Delta, and we hit the game pretty hard last night. We nicknamed our play-test exploiter group 'The Gank Squad' and they really dug into breaking rules. We had an exploit with a reaction-charge power that allowed one player to activate, and zig-zag zip around the map attacking enemy after enemy. It was perfectly legal, and supremely horrible to watch. We ended up putting triggering conditions on the reaction powers to limit when they could activate, and that helped a lot. Now the power allows a charge on enemy move, and this brought the power back to its intended use, and also eliminated the exploit.

We also had a situation come up with figures subject to fear that gave us a heated argument, and made me have to time-out and walk around the room to thiunk about it. We had a mechanic where feared figures were controlled by the referee during a special phase, and by design, when a figure 'activates' (by the GM) special activation-only resources for the figure reset. I said they should, since the referee is 'activating' the figure during the GM phase to move it under the fear effect, George said it was an exploit since this would essentially reset resources for the figure after fear broke.

We came to a compromise moving the figure activation out of the GM phase, and a side must check for fear break and move their feared figures first, without formally activating them. I got what I wanted was to not break the resource reset on activation rule, the last thing I wanted to have happen is have special cases for activation: where some resources don't reset, and in other cases they do. The
'sanctity of activation' resource resets were kept, and George got his 'feared figures do not gain a benefit' ruling, so it all worked out.

We had another situation where a side could basically shut down the other side's turn with the use of sleep or stun powers, given careful resource management by your team. We are modifying the activation rules to account for this, and there is still some heavy thinking going on here. General challenge is being addressed too, if you are skilled enough, it is easy to blow-out the other side. While masterful and a hoot to watch; it is not fun in the long-term, and we need to have more balanced fights to keep the game exciting and interesting.

Play-testing is hard, and having professional experience as a QA person under your belt helps too. Play-testing should not be fun or pleasant; you are exploiting, breaking, twisting the intent, finding cheats, arguing hard for obvious loopholes, and generally trying your best to be an ass in regards to the rules. You then have to be able to remove your feelings from the process, and then step back, take notes, and be objective despite having just fought tooth-and-mail with each other. The process is hard and sometimes exhausting, but it really produces superior, battle-tested, and well-thought-out rules.

Relative Balance vs. Absolute Balance

Game balance comes in two forms: relative and absolute. Now, we are talking about balance between the player characters and their opponents, the raw combat power vs. combat power with everyone going all out. Games are notoriously hard to balance, but the method of rating opponents matters a whole lot here.

Relative balance assumes the PCs and the 'monsters' are rated on different systems, such as D&D4, Aftermath NPCs (not PCs), basic D&D monsters, and D&D3.5 (monsters only, note this qualifier). The game system rates opponents on a different set of scores than player characters, often because the complexity of rating a monster as a PC would be so high as to be prohibitively complicated. These games tend to never be balanced correctly, since there will always be a difference between what characters can get away with and the limited set of powers monsters have. Balance is achieved through play-testing different combinations of player builds and monster ratings. This usually takes a long time and many patches to close loopholes, fix monsters, and adjust power levels. These games also have a better 'play feel' - since the experience is engineered to be fun and play perfectly.

Absolute balance assumes the PCs and monsters are rated on the same system, if a player finds an exploit or power combo, it is perfectly legal for the monsters to use it too. D&D3.5 PCs, SBRPG, Traveller, most of the TSR boxed games, and any other game that lets the referee spin up monsters using the character generation rules. Balance in these games is easier, since what you are balancing is one system - characters vs. characters. A lot of sandbox style games have this balance, with everyone playing on an even keel, all designed with the same system. These games are typically more difficult to play than relative balanced games, since the monsters are playing with a full set of powers and abilities. Victory goes to the smartest and best planned parties, rather than players being assured a balanced experience.

We recently had an issue with this in George's Project Delta BYOB miniatures system, where the monsters were rated on a relative scale for simplicity, and the characters started to blow them out scenario after scenario. We are moving towards a more absolute system for monsters, and the game is playing better. We play-tested a higher-level scenario, and the problems started to show themselves. We still want some of the relative ease-of-play and balanced feel, but the relative balance bug bit us, and we've had to re-tool the whole monster system to adjust.

Competitive Play: GMs vs. Players

Ouch. I hit a nerve with George the other day with the D&D 3.5 coverage. He was quick to point out he felt D&D 3.0 and 3.5 brought a lot of competitive play to the table, with players interested in creating killer builds to 'beat the game' rather than 'play a role-playing game.' We have seen this at our table, with players bragging about builds they found on forums, and their intent to play them in the game.

My response is typically to not invite those players back to our games. It is harsh, but really, I want to associate with people interested in the world we create together around the table, and respect the rules (broken parts and all). If you want to power-game, there are plenty of MMOs that fill the need better than my game will. It also shows a disrespect of the group you play with, if all you want is to beat the referee, you should question why you are playing.

I will admit there is a line between wanting to do well, and seeking out broken builds and combos to win the game. There is also a problem in all games there are bad choices and good ones, and you shouldn't penalize players for being clever and making good choices. However, exploiting a feat to get unlimited attacks during a round, or a magic item to create your own pocket universe are way over the line, and frankly unfair to everyone.

I feel like my parents when I say, "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."

D&D 3.0 and 3.5 also have part of the Magic: The Gathering DNA in their designs, a very highly competitive game. Players there are used to being unfair to each other with combos and rules, and Wizards has had to ban cards that were used in exploits. That competitive 'build the best class like you would a deck' spirit lives on in D&D 3.5 and its descendants, and it drives interest in the game. When it is used to 'beat the GM', it turns dark, and is a negative, at least to me.

I guess this all breaks down to playing with good players, ones experienced enough to know there are ways to break every game; and to as a group, agree to stay away from cheesy exploits and forum builds. It is an issue of maturity and respect for players, and yes, the dark side is supported by rules systems with exploits and un-thought-out parts.

The old saying is, "A referee can make any game fun."

I guess the next saying would be, "A game is only as fun as the players."

Where Do I Go Next?

George and I were having fun playing adventure modules for other games with the Delta rules set, sort of as a playtest and study in adventure design. We ran into a couple that dropped you off a cliff in certain parts when the characters were wondering, "Where do we go next?"

It hurts when the referee can't figure it out in a short amount of time, and I ended up just fudging it and making-a-long-story-short. I short-circuited the player experience, and directed the group to the next encounter. Ouch. That hurts two-fold:

1. It robs the players of figuring things out
2. The players are playing for the next encounter, instead of being immersed in the world

These short-circuits where the referee has a NPC wander in and say, "Hey guys! I found the secret goblin camp, c'mon!" really rob the immersion of the game. They are equivalent of an actor in the movie breaking the fourth wall, and addressing the audience. The players now know they are being led, and play shifts to 'find the next encounter.' The feeling of freedom and the whole sandbox experience is taken away, and players feel railroaded.

An odd situation happens when the players figure out what encounters are in the module, versus what ones are made up by the referee. Ideally, these should be both treated as equals, but we have played with some groups that did not like extra encounters to be added to the module. I admit, it is a rare occurrence, but disconcerting when the referee's additions are treated as less-than-equal. Again, this is a tangent case, but an interesting one that deserves mention.

The ideal adventure feels natural, and gives the referee scripted situations, along with more open areas where players can explore, find off-the-beaten-path areas, and do a couple optional quests on the side. The module should encourage creativity, and give the referee ideas for areas to further flesh out and other things for players to do. We found ourselves in one case searching through the module's area descriptions looking for fun 'adventure areas' and could not find any. Of course, I could use GM Fiat and just create one, but for a written adventure, I award bonus points for the writer's suggestions and hooks that fit in with the overall adventure.

Good adventures are like good stories, they have a natural flow, and always keep you wondering, 'what's next?' ...and letting you know when the time is right.

Open-Ended Condition Lists

We did a little more design on Project Delta, George's tabletop BYOB minis game. We simplified the condition list, and it made me think of the huge condition list in DnD3 and 4. In both games, the condition lists are huge, exhaustive, and have tons of special rules. These are incredibly simulationist rules, with one-offs and special cases. Delta had a similar long list, and remembering and applying all the conditions on the board was a huge chore, with frequent references to the rules during play.

DnD4 adds special conditions to powers, like a power that gives a -2 to hit to a figure until the next turn/removal roll/etc. This complicates play exponentially, with applied conditions and power-based conditions all applied and timing out on different times. When we played DnD4 with our public group, condition tracking drug the game to a crawl, and it was easier to combine and simplify all the modifiers to keep play moving.

In Delta, we chose to simplify the condition list down, and the game played better. Stun, daze, and disorient are really the same stun-type condition, so you only need one to cover them all. SBRPG has a huge hazard list, with conditions mixed in there, but there is a lot of reuse among the hazards. SBRPG followed an object-oriented design, where you started with a small set of conditions-as-hazards, and those built on each other. It could have been cleaned up, and most likely will be in version 2.0.

Meaningful Levels and Freedom

George and I had another one of out game design discussions around leveling again, and we talked about what it means to level - and have meaningful levels. We talked about systems that parse out powers every couple levels, and have 'dead' levels stuck in them, where you are just increasing in skill and damage soaking ability. I am not a fan of new powers every X levels, to me, you need something more to keep players interested. Leveling up a chart is cool for some games, but there needs to be that something more, that ability to customize and choose your own path.

SBRPG was admittedly, a game that put you on a strict track. You designed your idea class to start, and you were off and running. You did not multiclass - since you could design the class you wanted at the start, why should you need to buffet your character up the level chart? In one way, you were designing your perfect "TV Action Star" right from level one, and then increasing the star's power up to insane levels. We mostly banned multiclassing, since it did not fit in our game, and the game was better for it.

SBRPG also gave you ever-increasing points as you level to spend on whatever you wanted. Want a freely-improvable skill? Go ahead, buy levels of it. Want a new power? It's gonna cost you, but it's there. Want to raise ability scores? There you go, cost is equal to the next level. You are going to get even more points next level, so go to town and don't worry about conserving them.

We did not care too much about balance, since the game balanced itself - NPCs of the level were designed with the same rules. At high levels, super-ninja agility 40 characters were blasting out 10 or more attacks a turn with guns, melee weapons, rocket launchers, or any other implements of destruction. Offensive ability was high, but weapons were deadly, and defenses could get tricky given a good build.

We did not punish character designers, it was up to the group to call a cheese-ball build for what it was, and hey, people liked the freedom to go wild. You bought the book - it's your right. It was old-school in that mentality where the designers knew they were giving players a toolbox full of power tools, sharp instruments, and chemicals - but great things are created when you cut people free. You can't build a beautiful piece of furniture without dangerous tools, and we let trusted people and let them create.

It was a game written to be a computer programming language, like C++ - you could do something totally lame with it, something destructive, or something incredibly awesome. You can see some object-oriented principles in the design to this day, and the theory of 'simple to play, but build whatever your imagination can dream' is a powerful design theory that holds true, even today.