I received a really quite flattering and complimentary email the other day, asking me to take a look at the Kickstarter fundraising campaign for a new video game that was inspired in part by my writings here at Campaign Mastery. It read, in part,

 

From: Luciano Sgarbi

I’ve been a huge fan of Campaign Mastery for over a year now. As a video game designer focusing on Western RPGs your site has proved a treasure trove of inspiration and guidance.

I know you don’t normally feature Video-game Kickstarters, but as so much of your content can be applied to the medium, I thought it was worth a shot.

Here’s our RPG, if you like the look of it, it would be wonderful if you passed it on. We’ve learned so much from your articles: I’m constantly firing your links around the team and saying “This got me thinking about something in Witchmarsh.”
Fantasy Games

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1027299776/witchmarsh

Well, it’s true that Campaign Mastery is all about tabletop RPGs and not Video-game RPGs, but I play computer games (when I have the time) so I decided to take a look anyway, and I have to admit to being impressed by what I saw.

Witchmarsh

Witchmarsh is an action RPG set in the Roaring 20s, featuring a team of investigators in a story-driven supernatural mystery. Right away, that ticks a lot of the right boxes for appeal to a tabletop RPG player – “a team of investigators”, “story-driven”, “mystery”. Some of these can be rather tricky to pull off in the video-game world, but that only boosts the appeal if they look like pulling it off – and they do.

Then there’s the theme: 1920s supernatural mystery. Describe that to most RPG players and one of two genres will leap out at them – Pulp and Call Of Cthulhu, both of which have sufficient overlap that often game materials intended for one are useful for another, and both of which get mentioned a fair bit here at Campaign Mastery.

The game action itself is side-scrolling, one of the simplest mechanisms – there’s a reason why that was the game mechanism of choice for so many of the early video games – but the action itself reminded me more than a little of the original Diablo. This is not a bad thing; there’s a reason why that game became a successful franchise. This confers major two advantages to the designers, in my opinion: first, it makes the action fast to execute, and second, it leaves more room in the computer code for story. There may well be other advantages, as well, but those two are enough to be going on with.

Fast

there’s nothing worse than an unresponsive game. So long as you can fight in “semi-automatic” mode, real-time gaming is tolerable even for those who aren’t fans of the style. I have to confess to a preference for turn-based games, myself, but that ship sailed a loooong time ago.

More Room For Story

That’s gold. So many RPGs of the past have had the feel of being relatively pre-scripted plot-trains – to get to the solution, you have to go through the same encounters, find the same clues, and solve the same puzzles, which lead to the same encounters. At best, you might have some pretense at dialogue functioning through multiple choice responses. In other words, they played like a find-your-own-adventure book read. There have been occasional exceptions, w3hich have all been lauded for being exceptional in the degree of interaction between player and plotline.

But if you keep reading the description of what the designers are aiming for Witchmarsh to become, it only gets better from an RPG point of view: “The game features online multiplayer, extensive character creation, countless ability and item combinations, and rewarding boss encounters.”

Online Multiplayer

I can take that or leave it, but it requires a great deal more flexibility in the number of ways that players can interact with the world around their characters, so I guess it’s a good thing. I do hope that the game can be played solo, though, so that you aren’t hostage to other people being available. But the success of MMORPGs is undeniable.

The other benefit is that you need to build in less “AI” if all the player characters are independently controlled. So that, too, leaves more room for story. So it’s by no means not without a silver lining, even if cooperative play is the only way to go.

Extensive Character Creation

That’s been around since the early TSR games for AD&D, which I quite enjoyed. Every player of those games that I’ve spoken to has had his or her own philosophy of team design, and that in turn impacted on what the group could defeat easily and what they struggled with, which in turn – in the best of the games – influenced gameplay outside the combats. Modern video-game RPGs can essentially be divided into two camps: those with pregenerated characters that you have to use, and those with Extensive character generation.

Countless ability and item combinations: this is fine so far as it goes. The question is whether or not those combinations will make a difference outside combat. I’ll come back to these two points: character creation and ability/item combinations – in a minute.

Rewarding Boss Encounters

Here’s where I start running into problems. The gameplay itself (horizontal scrolling) is already reminiscent of an old-style arcade game; “Boss Encounters” smacks of the end-of-level beasties that used to be sine-qua-none for such games. And they weren’t RPG in any way, shape or form.

You can’t have an RPG without the potential for combat. And you certainly can’t have an “action” game without it. But I had to wonder whether or not the “action” arcade-style gameplay was going to leave enough space for roleplay. The whole term “boss encounters” serves as a red flag to me.

 

Game Features

The next section of the project description lists the game features, and these not only assuage those concerns, they ramp up the excitement and promised potential of other features that already had a thumbs-up.

• A mix of modern and classic RPGs, with branching dialogue and responsive, tactical combat.
• Play singleplayer or with friends in 2-4 player Co-op.
• Dripping with Jazz Age style, featuring music by Francisco Cerda, composer on Gunpoint and Jamestown.
• A massive character creation sandbox with over 50 unlockable abilities* across five spellbooks. Mix and match attributes, perks, items and weapons to create a unique team of adventurers. Or simply use one of the many templates to dive straight into the action.
• A game for seasoned RPG fans as well as players new to the genre. Optional bosses and challenges for those brave enough to seek them out.
• Over ten playable characters. Watch your choice in personalities result in conflict, friendships, wisecracks… romance?
• A dynamic hidden item system ensures no two trips to Witchmarsh are the same.

I’m not going to go through all of these, but I do want to cherry-pick a couple of these game features for mention.

Branching Dialogue

This sounds to me like the multiple-choices style that I referred to earlier. But it also implies that there is no one “right path” through the dialogue, that it exists within the game to do more than frame the parameters and location of the next battle sequence, and that would put Witchmarsh a step ahead of most games using such systems, making this a means of interacting with the world around the characters – a hallmark of a true RPG.

Singleplayer or multiplayer

I’d already identified this as being a big bonus in my book. Say no more!

Soundtrack

I don’t know the composer, or his work. I’d love it if the designers made available a snippet of the soundtrack that could be downloaded as an MP3 for potential backers to sample (it doesn’t have to be a full track, just a minute or so would be enough. Or perhaps they could provide a full sample track – at a £2 backer level). Nevertheless, this – coupled with the availability at many of the backer levels of a CD of the soundtrack – means that there is potential value for any tabletop RPGs set in the 1920s or even the early 1930s. So this becomes a big incentive for tabletop RPG players and GMs to back the project.

Unlockable Abilities

This reminds me of the logic behind feats in D&D – in order to have the choice of obtaining a feat, you have to “unlock” it by achieving its prerequisites. Since these appear to be more than combat abilities, they have the potential for further expanding the degree of interaction between world and characters. Even if they are just combat abilities, the greater the capacity for customization of characters, without their being any “necessary” or “right” choices, the more it amps up the genuine RPG attributes of the game.

Mix and match attributes, perks, items & weapons

And this only reinforces that impression.

Dynamic

Dynamic has two meanings – one is fast-moving, action oriented, excitement; the other suggests that the world changes in response to the actions and choices of the players. In this context, the designers could mean either or both; based on the other game features they promise, my money is on the latter.

No two trips are the same

And this final statement only reinforces that expectation.

Leads, Clues, and Dynamic Plots

A clue as to the RPG integration with the game comes from this section of the project description. The designers use the term Leads to refer to plot signposts that direct the characters to locations where mysteries and events are unfolding. These may prove relevant, or they could simply be a red herring, yielding only EXP and treasure. Clues “fuel progress in the game’s main storyline, and how you choose to interpret them will impact on your team’s reputation. Did the embalming fluid come from the crypt, or are the local bootleggers brewing up something nasty? Dig around for information before throwing your weight around,” the designers write.

So, you customize your character, which leads to differences in both combat and in the way the character interacts with the NPCs, which leads to your being directed toward different encounters than would be the case with another character construction, some of which will enhance or alter your character’s reputation and capabilities, all of which will lead to different steps being taking in the solving of the main plotline. That sounds more like an RPG to me than any video-game that I’ve ever heard of before.

Multiple Paths to Multiple Outcomes

What interested me most was the promise of multiple paths to multiple outcomes. Some of this promise has been stated outright, some has been inferred. A computer game, by virtue of having fixed logic built into it, is inherently sandboxed, so this got me to thinking about how such a game would work, at a programming level (the natural result of having been a professional systems analyst myself). And, in particular, I started to wonder if maybe there wasn’t a lesson or two in RPG adventure design to be extracted from such thoughts.

The basic unit of logic

The illustration to the right depicts the basic unit of logic in programming. There are nuances and variations, but this is what lies at the bottom of them.

It’s called the If-then-else statement. The computer program reaches the point in it’s logic from two paths in the illustration – one where choice A has been made, and one where choice D has been made. These choices have been made earlier in the game by the player and the choice recorded. When you reach the branching point of the logic, the program has a choice: If the earlier choice was A, the program directs this subsequent interaction to B, if not, then it directs it to C.

This can be summed up quite succinctly in plain English: If A then B, else C, which means “If A has happened then do B, if it hasn’t then do C”.

A could be anything, from an element of character design to having said one thing and not another to a previously-encountered character, to having found a particular item or followed a particular clue. An RPG video-game can consist of hundreds of thousands of such statements, assembled into a web that creates multiple paths from the start to the finish.

All roads lead to Rome

When there is only one solution, the adventure has only one outcome, and all those paths eventually funnel down to that single resolution of the plot. This is the basic structural logic behind the simplest of adventures.

Fairly elementary, but now imagine that instead of one possible outcome, you have four, depending on whether or not you have also done E, F, G, or H, respectively. And now multiply that basic if-then-else by a hundred more. The result is called a decision tree, and you can end up with hundreds of combinations of outcomes and decisions. That’s why such patterns are called “decision trees” (even though the tree is upside down if you use the normal convention of starting at the top and putting branches underneath).

Tabletop RPG adventures are full of decision trees. “If the PCs do [x] then the plot does [y].” Some are small and self-contained to that encounter or scene, others can dramatically reshape and restructure the whole adventure from that point forward.

• “If the PCs feed the goblin, he will warn them of the mad Troll in the forest.”
• “If Marlon sings with Lorelei, she will tell him of the secret passage past the watchtower.”
• “If Tolmand picks the lock on the chest, he will discover that it is linked to the lock on the outer door, locking the PCs in the room.”
• “If a PC activates the navigation system without resetting the ship’s computer, the stardrive will engage at maximum acceleration.”

In the simplest of adventures, though, the plot eventually funnels down to the one possible solution. When we’re talking about Mysteries, these are most commonly built by starting with the solution (“Who did what to whom”) and working backwards to “How did they try to hide it” and then to “who might have done the deed”. Eliminate these other suspects one by one and permit the PCs to discover the hole in the cover-up and you have your mystery plot; it doesn’t especially matter which suspect they clear first, just who is left standing at the end, and how can they prove they did the deed.

1 Decision Tree,
46 Branches,
12 outcomes

Not all roads lead to Rome

But just last week, I showed that it was possible to use the same basic structural logic to lead to multiple different outcomes, in The Pattern Of Raindrops: A chessboard plotting technique. In terms of mysteries, the “parallel plot” technique described at the end of The Butler Did It: Mystery Plotlines in RPGs and illustrated with an example (“The wounded monarch”) in The Jar Of Jam and The Wounded Monarch: Two Mystery Examples gives a clear approach to building consistent mysteries with more than one solution, leaving the PCs free to discover their own path within the game.

There can be multiple possible endings and outcomes based on decisions of the player, with the “correct” outcome for any individual game selected by the choices made in the course of the game each time it is played.

The key is always ensuring that the solution is consistent with all the clues that the PCs have uncovered en route to that solution. And there’s no reason this approach can’t be implemented in a video-game; all it requires is that the switches between the different solutions are identified early enough in the gameplay that the identity of the true culprit changes NPC behavior appropriately.

A current mystery plotline

The PCs in the Adventurer’s Club campaign are currently trying to solve the mystery of who killed “M”, the head of the British Secret Service (never mind that MI5 and MI6 weren’t actually brought into existence until a later date in real-world history).

They started with a number of suspects, based on the assumption that the murder was probably either the consequence of something M was looking into at the time of his death, or that it was a subordinate. Each of the groups suspected had their own agendas and were doing their own thing, and several had reason to be “interested” in the death, so there were a number of encounters with each of them. Of their five initial suspects – a Tong engaged in the hostile takeover of another Tong’s activities in London, Opus Dei (the “secret service” of the Catholic Church), a former PC formerly employed by the British Library and now turned rogue agent in opposition to Opus Dei, a notorious crime family (the Kasugi Clan) with whom the PCs have had run-ins before, a known Yakuza Boss trying to organize a trade deal, and the former assistant in question, three have now been cleared, and another added to the list from left field – an assassin in the employ of the Chinese Government engaging in some risky political maneuvering of Britain.

In plotting this adventure, Blair and I were at pains to make each suspect a plausible culprit. While we had our solution in place (and I’m not giving away who that is), that plausibility enabled us to change horses in mid-stream if the directions the PCs took in their investigations led them down a different path. If the PCs chose to do something different to what we had anticipated, we were prepared to change the adventure to accommodate them. Have we put any of those plans into force? They will never know!

The Lessons For Tabletop GMs

The biggest lesson for tabletop RPG GMs to take out of all this is that you don’t have to have just one answer, or one path to the answer, to any puzzle or mystery in the game. So long as the solution is consistent with what the PCs encounter and get told, and the personalities are consistent throughout, it will be satisfying to the players.

Write your adventures with “If then else” statements built in, and instead of railroading your players, you shunt them into a rail switch-yard, where the courses they choose to take evolve the game around them. This makes the players collaborators on the adventure, whether they realize it or not.

Witchmarsh for the tabletop

That’s what I hope the creators of Witchmarsh have done with their game design. Multiple possible perpetrators, with the different solutions all internally consistent, and the choice between solutions based on character actions and interactions with the NPCs of the world. If they have embraced this, the game could be a next step in the evolution of Video-game RPGs.

Value for tabletop RPGs

The most obvious value in terms of tabletop RPGs is the possible utility of the soundtrack. The game itself and the other add-ons that might come with it would be a bonus on top of that.

But there’s the capacity for more, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

The prospects

Since the fundraising campaign started, it’s been going great guns; it seems to have touched a nerve. If the current investment rate continues, it will achieve its initial funding goals in another two or three days – in other words, within a week of the campaign commencing – and ultimately reach a target of more than three times that initial request, just enough to achieve the highest of their stretch goals. It certainly holds a lot of promise, and I would be VERY surprised if it were not a very big success.

Witchmarsh The Licensed Property?

Six months or a year after the game comes out, I would hope – based on these results – to see the creative team ready to fund-raise for a sequel. But more than that, I would love it if they licensed someone to adapt the game into a traditional RPG adventure. It could be for Call of Cthulhu, or d20 modern, or whatever; that isn’t so important.

Because it sounds like such a brilliant adventure, and so much closer to a tabletop RPG in structure than anything I’ve seen before, it could bridge the gap. This would no doubt entail a separate kickstarter effort for whoever took up the license, and would be a close collaboration with the games creators; and, importantly for all concerned, it would open the door to cross-promotion if the creative team were also promoting their sequel at the same time.

I have no idea whether or not these possibilities have occurred to the games developers – hopefully, if not, I have just put them on their radar.

You see, in any development project, there are ideas that don’t work out, that get cut for one reason or another. Those notes – alternative solutions, alternate plotlines – are often tossed aside after considerable development. Such a collaboration would have the potential to breathe fresh life into these leftovers.

Everybody wins from such an outcome.

So if you want to see this as a possible eventual outcome, or you simply want to put your hand up for a very affordably-priced video-game RPG that might just redefine the state of the art in terms of interactivity, check out their campaign at Kickstarter, and tell them Campaign Mastery sent you!