Prelude I:

Someone asked why readers might want to read a diary of rules creation.

The Answer is simple: it helps you understand rules and rules processes, making it easier for a GM to interpret other game mechanics as they encounter them.

That’s always the value of a glimpse behind-the-scenes!
 

Prelude II:

Well, that was an adventure! Sorry for the delay in posting folks – it wasn’t my fault! There was a security tangle between my ISP’s backbone provider and my hosting service, with the bottom line being that I was ejected and locked out as a hacker. It was supposed to be only for 10 minutes, but didn’t unlock properly because I was already logged onto the site and in the process of uploading this article. But Bryan from TCH Hosting has done a great job of helping me sort it out – thanks, Bryan! :)

Usually, when you develop rules structures, you edit and write over the top of your draft in progress until satisfied. Because I want this to be as much about my thought processes during rules development, that’s not the approach that this article will take. Instead, I’ll be transcribing my thoughts in chronological sequence as they happen with a minimum of editing for clarity, and showing all my intermediate stages – even if they lead me down a blind alley for a time.

In the last article dealing with the Zener Gate rules, I made mention of a table that was to be at the heart of the system, and a few dangling unresolved questions. Today’s article is intended to complete the picture.

What needs to be in this table of comparative values? Range, Size of target (large), delicacy of precision, time, weight. Maybe speed.

The parts of the system worked out so far indicate that +1 is a significant advantage, -1 a significant liability, and anything up to plus-or-minus-6 can be tolerated – as an extreme modifier. Since some modifiers can counter others, that means that the most useful range on the table will be -12 to +12. I could run it up to plus-or-minus 15, or I could go 20, or even 25 – but whatever I choose, the number of entries on the table will be double that number, and that has me inclined to go smaller rather than larger in terms of range.

But that also makes a big assumption: that minus values will need to extend to the same distance as positive ones. And I don’t think that is likely to be the case. For every 5 values I remove from the low end of the scale, I gain 5 more that I can use at the high end. If I can, I’d like to get away with a low of -5, leaving me 10 more to play with at the high end on a thirty-entry table. But that will all depend on the progressions that I choose and which seem reasonable. And those will be different for each attribute that is indexed.

Weight

The Hero system bases it’s LIFT value – the real-world index of STR – on a geometric progression in which each +5 to STR is a doubling of Lifting capacity. The base value is 100kg at STR 10.

That works well for a superhero game, moderately well for a pulp game, not all that well for a game populated by normal people. LIFT goes up too fast – a STR of 25 permits a lift of 800kg, or a small trailer.

A key question has always been whether or not this “Lift” included the character’s body weight. Part of the table (the low part, in which a grenade requires a STR of -25 to lift) argues no, but the base value makes a heck of a lot more sense (given that STR 10 is supposed to be the Strength of “the average person”) if 100 lb – about 45 kg – or so – is already used up getting the character upright.

I don’t consider my personal Strength to be that far removed from average, but I doubt that I could lift 100kg. Even 50kg would be a struggle – if lifting meant being able to hoist it overhead without assistance.

So instead, I’m going to look at the question of weight in a different way – as “Load”.

Load

A character’s total load capacity is determined by looking up their STR on the index and finding the corresponding weight value.

A Distributed Load counts for 1/3 of it’s actual weight. So 6kg of uniform, boots, etc uses only 2 kg of the capacity. 60kg of body armor would only use 20kg of the load capacity. Medieval armor, at it’s heaviest, came in at about 50kg, because the heaviest load that could be carried by Warhorses of the era was the limiting factor. Note, too, that if you were expected to fight while wearing it, you would not want this load to be anywhere near the wearer’s capacity!

A Balanced Load counts for 1/2 of it’s actual weight. So 20 kg of backpack would use 10kg of capacity.

Unbalanced Loads are the least desirable, counting fully.

Shared Loads

If multiple characters work together to lift or move something heavy, how should loads be assessed? Dividing the load by the number of participants gives each individual load, and the group can only move as fast, and as far, as it’s most heavily-burdened character.

That means that the base value can be set quite a bit lower, and the progression can be quite a bit slower, and reasonable results can still come out the other end.

I was momentarily inclined toward the elegance of a base of 10kg at STR 10, but that seems too low. Something closer to 25 or 30 kg seems more reasonable.

To work out the progression, The simplest way is to look at the top end of the scale. If the top STR value to be indexed for humans is 25, what’s the world record clean-and-jerk?

263.5 kg, lifted by Hossein Rezazadeh, according to Wikipedia.

Let’s plug that in and see where we get:

Balanced Load

So, if every +1 represents ×X on the scale, with STR 10 being 25 or 30 and STR 11 being 25 times × or 30 times ×, respectively, then STR 25 is 25 or 30 times × to the 15th power:

263.5 = approx 25 x^15. Take the log of both sides:
Log(263.5) = log(25) + 15×log(x)
Log(263.5) ? log(25) = 15×log(x) = 2.42078 – 1.39794 = 1.02284
log(x) = 1.02284 / 15 = 0.06819
x = 1.17001

Now, that’s not all that convenient a number. Trying it with 30 as the basis won’t make a huge amount of difference, either; x would still likely end up being 1.1-something.

So let’s go with a progression of 1.2, and round the progression off every now and then – downwards.

(STR 10) 25;
(STR 11) 25×1.2=30;
(STR 12) 30×1.2=36;
(STR 13) 36×1.2= 43.2, round down to 43;
(STR 14) 43×1.2=51.6, round down to 50.

That’s a doubling every +4 STR, much to my surprise! So +15 STR would be ×2 ×2 ×2 ×43/25 of 25 STR, or 43 ×2 ×2 ×2 = 86 ×2 ×2 = 172 ×2 = 344kg.

We can quickly work out the actual record: 263.5 / 8 = 32.9375, which is a smidgen more than STR 11 above, which means the record is 11-point-something, +12, = 23-point-something. That’s close enough to be workable.

What if the progression is fine, but the base value is a bit too high? What does it need to be for the record to come in at exactly STR 25?

263.5 / 8 = 32.9375; 32.9375×25 / 43 = 19.149, or 19.15kg.

So the best compromise would probably be to define STR 10 as permitting a 20kg load, and a x1.2 progression from there:

(STR 10) 20;
(STR 11) 20×1.2=24;
(STR 12) 24×1.2=28.8, round down to 28;
(STR 13) 28×1.2= 33.6, round up to 34;
(STR 14) 34×1.2=40.8, round down to 40.
(STR 18) 40×2=80.
(STR 22) 80×2=160.
(STR 23) 160×1.2=192.
(STR 24) 192×1.2=230.4, round down to 230.
(STR 25) 230×1.2=276.

Still not quite there – the world record would be somewhere in the vicinity of STR 24.5.

Hold the phone – what if we consider the load to be balanced, instead of unbalanced?

Balanced Load

In this case, the static load was 263.5, but the balanced load is half that, or 131.75.

We now have three possible bases for consideration: 20, 25, and 30.

Base 20:

131.75 = approx 20 x^15. Take the log of both sides:
Log(131.75) = log (20) + 15×log(x)
Log(131.75)-log(20) = 15×log(x) = 2.11975 – 1.30103 = 0.81872
log(x) = 0.81872 / 15 = 0.05458
x = 1.134

….not especially nice. It’s too far away from 1.1 to round down and from 1.2 to round up.

Base 25:

131.75 = approx 25 x^15. Take the log of both sides:
Log(131.75) = log (25) + 15×log(x)
Log(131.75)-log(25) = 15×log(x) = 2.11975 – 1.39794 = 0.72181
log(x) = 0.72181 / 15 = 0.04812
x = 1.117

….better, not far removed from 1.1.

Base 30:

131.75 = approx 30 x^15. Take the log of both sides:
Log(131.75) = log (30)+ 15×log(x)
Log(131.75)-log(30) = 15×log(x) = 2.11975 – 1.47712 = 0.64263
log(x) = 0.64263 / 15 = 0.042842
x = 1.10367

…which is really close to 1.1. Rounding errors would soon swamp any difference that small. So base 30 gets the nod, and the progression is now x1.1:

(STR 10) 30;
(STR 11) 30×1.1=33;
(STR 12) 33×1.1=36.3, round down to 36;
(STR 13) 36×1.1= 39.6, round up to 40;
(STR 14) 40×1.1=44.
(STR 15) 44×1.1=48.4, round down to 48.
(STR 16) 48×1.1=52.8, round up to 53.
(STR 17) 53×1.1=58.3, round down to 58.

… looks like we aren’t going to get a nice neat “doubles in this many steps”. Maybe if we round up at STR 15?

(STR 15) 44×1.1=48.4, round up to 49.
(STR 16) 49×1.1=53.9, round up to 54.
(STR 17) 54×1.1=59.4, round up 60.

It took another “round up, not off” in the last step, but this progression gets us there – load capacity doubles every +7 STR.

Of course, this list isn’t used just for people. Vehicles have a STR, too, that defines their carrying capacity. A sports car has room for 2 people (240kg-250kg, maximum), plus at best 50kg of baggage. Plus itself, of course, but that doesn’t count. This is a distributed load (over all four tires), so the actual static load equivalent would be 4×300=1200kg.

(STR 17) 60.
(STR 24) 120.
(STR 31) 240.
(STR 38) 480.
(STR 45) 960.
(STR 46) 960×1.1=1056.
(STR 47) 1056×1.1=1161.6, round down to 1161..
(STR 48) 1161×1.1= 1277.1, round down to 1277.

So a sports car would have a STR of about 47.2 or something like that.

A four-passenger saloon can carry four people and easily 300kg of luggage. 4×120=480, +300 = 780. But this is a distributed load, so the static load equivalent is 4×780 (four tires) = 3120.

(STR 49) 1277×1.1 = 1404.7, round up to 1405.
(STR 50) 1405×1.1 = 1545.5, round down to 1545.
(STR 51) 1545×1.1 = 1699.5, round up to 1700.
(STR 52) 1700×1.1 = 1870.
(STR 53) 1870×1.1 = 2057.
(STR 54) 2057×1.1 = 2262.7, round up to 2263.
(STR 55) 2263×1.1 = 2489.3, round down to 2489. Except that it should also be 2×1277, which is 2554. So split the difference and call it 2500.
(STR 56) 2500×1.1 = 2750.
(STR 57) 2750×1.1 = 3025.
(STR 58) 3025×1.1 = 3327. So a family saloon would have a STR of about 57.3.

Note that this isn’t the only way to calculate the table. I could take as gospel the principle of double every +7 STR. Which means that STR 18 will be double STR 11, and STR 19 will be double STR 12, and so on. This preserves the rounding errors in the original progression, and enlarges them, but it preserves the shortcut perfectly.

And that makes it easy to find any load on the table, even if the table doesn’t go up that high. Simply keep halving the load (and counting the number of times you have to do so) until you get to a value within the range of the table. Count +7 for each doubling, and add the STR indicated by the table.

A freighter carrying 100,000 tonnes? That’s a classic distributed load, so x3 (there are no legs or tires to distribute the load, so we fall back in the standard).

300,000 -> 150,000.
150,000 -> 75,000.
75,000 -> 37,500.
37,500 -> 18750.
18750 -> 9375.
9375 -> 4687.5.
4687.5 -> 2343.75. Which is a smidgen under halfway between STR 54 and STR 55, according to our calculations above. So (7×7)+54.5 = 49+54.5 = 103.5.

A third approach is hinted at by what I did at STR 55, above. I rounded off to a convenient number. Which might not be mathematically accurate, but which is a heck of a lot easier to use. And that’s a winning argument in my book.

At this point, constructing the “weight” part of the table is a simple exercise.

Length/Distance

Whenever I think of this value, I think of modifiers to an attack roll, or to a perception or “spot” roll – however the PC wants to define it. Something along those lines is ubiquitous in RPG game mechanics.

But here I don’t have a base value to start from. I could define one – “-1 at 5m” or “-1 at 10m” or something along those lines. I also have no real idea of the desired progression rate. So this is going to be a great deal harder.

I think the way to get a handle on this is to look at the sporting events of some sort of international competition. I didn’t find a list of Olympic events at Wikipedia (I’m sure it’s there somewhere) but did find one for the Commonwealth Games – 10m air pistol, 25m sport pistol, 25m standard pistol, 50m small-bore rifle – so these are important values that need to be embedded within the table.

The longest confirmed sniper kill in combat was achieved by an undisclosed member of the Canadian JTF2 special forces in June 2017 at a distance of 3,540m. So that gives some sort of upper range to the table. I presume that a specialized weapon and expert training are both required, and those would presumably be worth something like +5 each, maybe more – let’s say +10-20 between them. Aiming could achieve as much as +10, also maybe more. Skill checks are to be made using 3d6, and low is better than high. So a 3/- has to result from difficulty – modifiers. Or, to put it another way, difficulty = 3+modifiers.

That pegs this value as roughly index points 23-33 on the table. That more or less fits with the notion of a total number of entries of about 30 – and means that there will be some close ranges at which characters receive a bonus to hit for proximity instead of a penalty for distance.

So 3500m is going to be roughly 30 on the table, and 1m=+0 seems reasonable.

3500/1 = x^30.
log 3500 = 30 log x.
3.544 / 30 = log x = 0.11813333
x = 1.3126.

That’s not at all a convenient number. Increasing this reduces the number at which 3500m falls on the range, and so reduces the modifiers against success at that range. But we haven’t even done aiming time yet, which is one of the factors being taken into account – so it might be +10 (as speculated) or it might be +7 or something like that. Adjusting the aiming time bonus compensates for any reduction in difficulty.

Reducing it blows the difficulty out, making this even more of a difficult shot to make. And, realistically, a 3 on 3d6 comes up one in 216 times, which is not all that remarkable. Getting six dice to snake eyes would make this a one-in-46,656 shot – which is closer to the mark. Nine dice to snake eyes would make this a one in 10,077,696 shot – that’s noteworthy!

Six Dice? Nine Dice? Where did that come from?

Since writing the previous article, I’ve decided to incorporate an additional game mechanic. If the chance of success is impossible (i.e. 2 or less or below are required), a character can try for a miracle success. For every extra dice they roll and count toward the total, they increase the target by +2, up to the point where a possible roll is achieved. So 2/- on 3 dice becomes 4/- on 4 dice.

Similarly, if a character can’t fail – the chance is 18/- on 3d6 or better – the character can choose to add “extra benefits” to their attempt. The GM evaluates what benefit or trick the player wants to add as an increase in the difficulty. For every 2 over 18/-, the difficulty target gets reduced by 2 for every extra dice that the character gets to roll, while ignoring all but the lowest 3. So a 19/- becomes a 17/- on 4dice, keep the lowest three, with a +2 gimmick, benefit, or advantage. A 20/- becomes a 16/- on 5 dice, keep the lowest three, with a +4 gimmick, benefit, or advantage. A 22/- becomes 16/- on six dice, keep the lowest three, with a +6 gimmick, benefit, or advantage.

These are intended to (1) give PCs a chance at achieving a hail-Mary pass; and (2) offer them a benefit if they increase the chance of failing when success would otherwise be automatic, both as optional rules that the player (not the GM) can invoke.

So, 3/- on 9 dice (six more than the usual 3d6) is worth +12 modifier, meaning that the original chance could be as low as 3-12=-9. Which in turn means that I can put the range entry for 3500m as much as 9 places higher up the table.

That gives me some wriggle room in constructing this progression. I can pick a convenient value, and so long as 3500 comes out meaning something between 23 and 42, everything else can be tweaked to fit the scale.

The pivot point is a progression of 1.3126 – higher than that, and the difficulty is lower; lower than that, and it becomes higher.

Rather than trying to match that with an exact result of convenience, though, a far better approach is to work out how quickly the range index doubles. Is it every step? Every 2nd step? Every 3rd? 4th? 5th? more?

Or, indexing to a ×5 or a ×10 might make more sense.

When you have so many options to choose from, the best answer is to try them all out for size, and see which one looks prettiest.
 

×2 every +1 = ×2; 3500m = 12. Too low, our window is 23-42.
×2 every +2 = ×1.414; 3500m = 23.55. At the very low end of what’s permitted.
×2 every +3 = ×1.26; 3500m = 35.31. Nicely in the middle of the range of permitted values.
×2 every +4 = ×1.19. 3500m = 46.91. A little more than the highest acceptable value.
 
×5 every +2 = ×2.236. 3500m = 10. 23-42 is acceptable, this is too low
×5 every +3 = ×1.71. 3500m = 15. Still too low.
×5 every +4 = ×1.5. 3500m = 20.12. A little too low.
×5 every +5 = ×1.38. 3500m = 25.34. Acceptable, but on the low side.
×5 every +6 = ×1.308. 3500m = 30.393. Close to perfect.
×5 every +7 = ×1.2585. 3500m = 35.493. Still acceptable.
×5 every +8 = ×1.223. 3500m = 40.5377. Acceptable, but on the high side.
×5 every +9 = ×1.1958. 3500m = 45.6366. Too high.
 
×10 every +4 = ×1.778. 3500m = 14.18. Too low.
×10 every +5 = ×1.585. 3500m = 17.718. Too low.
×10 every +6 = ×1.4678. 3500m = 21.264. A little too low.
×10 every +7 = ×1.3895. 3500m = 24.808.The low end of acceptable.
×10 every +8 = ×1.3335. 3500m = 28.354. Acceptable, but still a little low.
×10 every +9 = ×1.29155. 3500m = 31.8966. Acceptable.
×10 every +10 = ×1.26. 3500m = 35.43156. Acceptable.
×10 every +11 = ×1.233. 3500m = 38.9616. Acceptable.
×10 every +12 = ×1.2115. 3500m = 42.5339. Just barely outside the acceptable range.

 
So, the choices are:

• ×2 every +2
• ×2 every +3
• ×5 every +5
• ×5 every +6
• ×5 every +7
• ×5 every +8
• ×10 every +7
• ×10 every +8
• ×10 every +9
• ×10 every +10
• ×10 every +11

 
Scoring big for elegance are “×2 every +2”, “×5 every +5” and “×10 every +10”. Scoring big for accuracy to the desired result of about 30 “×5 every +6” and “×10 every +9”, but neither of those make the elegance cut, so at best they are on an equal standing with the first three choices shortlisted. Scoring big in terms of a multiplication factor that’s easy to work with are “×5 every +4” and “×10 every +10”, with “×5 every +5” close behind. That means that we have one clear winner with a score of 2 out of 3 – “×10 every +10”, or ×1.26.

That wasn’t the result that I was expecting – I was sure that a ×2 or ×5 would be more likely to get the nod – but mathematics doesn’t bend to suit our expectations.

The resulting progression is:

0 = 1m
1 = 1.3m
2 = 1.6m
3 = 2m
4 = 2.5m
5 = 3.2m
6 = 4m
7 = 5m
8 = 6.4m
9 = 8m
10 = 10m
11 = 13m
12 = 16m
13 = 20m

…and so on. And 3500m is a modifier of 5 (from 3.5) +10 (to 35) +10 (to 350) +10 (to 3500)=35.

Size

I once did an experiment to get a better handle on how target size should work. I drew a number of squares on a sheet of graph paper – 5cm×5cm, 10cm×10cm, 2cm×2cm, 4cm×4cm, and 8cm×8cm, all arranged concentrically. From a height of about 10cm, I dropped 1cm×1cm×1cm d6 and made a mark where they landed. I then repeated the experiment from a height of about 20cm, about 40cm, and about 80cm.

The purpose was to see whether doubling the area also doubled the number of “hits” using the 5cm×5cm score and the 10cm×10cm score. These results would either largely track with the 4cm×4cm vs 8cm×8cm results or they wouldn’t, but the 2cm×2cm vs 4cm×4cm results would give some indication of how the accuracy changed with target area. Comparing all of these with the matching results from the different heights would permit an estimation of the effect of range on the accuracy relative to target size..

So, did doubling the target size double the accuracy?

In fact, it did everything but, depending on the range (height above the graph paper). At close ranges, the majority of dice landed inside the 5×5 area – something like 80% of them. Virtually all of them landed inside the 10×10 area – close to a 125% accuracy increase from doubling the area.

This finding was reinforced by the 2-vs-4-vs-8 results. About 35% landed inside the 2×2 area, another 30% in the 4×4 area, and about 20% more inside the 8×8 area.

As the range increased, so did my inaccuracy (no surprise there!), and the accuracy counts began to approach the sort of ratios that you would expect from the different areas, but even at the greatest range, they never quite got there. I could only conclude that my attempts to aim for the center of the target – no matter how good or how bad – biased even the misses closer to the target than area alone would suggest. At close ranges, this effect overwhelmed the randomness.

So the size of the target, as a modifier, is dependent on the range. Which is extremely difficult to model using simple mechanics of the sort being contemplated for this game system.

Up to a certain point, doubling the size of the target more than doubles the accuracy. Which is another way of saying that the modifiers should not reflect a doubling of the size for a doubling of the modifier, a smaller increase in the area will do that.

That stops when the range is more than the target. The easiest way to build this behavior into the table is a “shift” up the table based on the range if the range modifier is greater than the size value, and a shift down the table if the range modifier is smaller than the size value – in terms of determining the size increase represented by a particular modifier.

But in practical usage, we will want to determine a modifier based on the size of the target, so these adjustments have to go in the other direction – a “shift down” if the range value is greater than the target, a “shift up” if the range modifier is smaller than the target modifier.

For various reasons that I won’t go into here (too long and complicated), these shifts should have non-linear intervals – 1,2,3,4,5,6, and so on.

So,

+1 = diff 1
+2 = diff 2 to 1+2=3
+3 = diff 4 to 3+4=7
+4 = diff 8 to 7+5=12
+5 = diff 13 to 12+6=18
+6 = diff 19 to 18+7=25
+7 = diff 26 to 25+8=33
+8 = diff 34 to 33+9=42
+9 = diff 43 to 42+10=52.
+10=diff 52 to 52+11=63.

…which is more than we are ever likely to need, but the table can be extended from there.

To accommodate this effect, I need to extend the table seven extra entries in either direction for size only. But that means that I can then use a simple doubling of area for a given modifier.

Next, we need to define a base standard. I keep coming back to 1m × 1m at 2m, If you do the math, that means a target that occupies 53 degrees of a possible 180 degrees (360 if you had eyes in the back of your head), or 29.4% of the visible space.

Why 1m × 1m? Well, the typical human is roughly 2m high × 0.5m wide, which just happens to come to the same area as a 1m × 1m target.

Torso plus head is roughly half that size – leaving an amount of about the same if the goal is to avoid hitting a vital area, conveniently! Head and neck alone are roughly 1/4 the size of torso+head. A hand and wrist is about half that, if open, or about 1/4 of it if wrapped around a grip – so, to attempt to shoot the weapon out of someone’s hand, we’re talking about the same area as the open hand, consisting of half weapon and half gripping hand. Eye sockets are about 1/3 of the width of the head, each, and about 1/6th the length – so that’s 1/18th the head – but a glancing blow to the eyebrow ridge has a 50-50 chance of deflecting towards the eye socket, so we can justify making them just a little larger – a nice convenient 1/16th of the head size is a nice working value. And a ring, or a darts bulls-eye, is about half that area. So 1m × 1m gives a whole range of useful values!

I want these to all be listed on the table. They are all things that a PC might want to target, depending on the situation.

+0 = 1m² at 2m, human
-1 = head + torso or flesh wound
-2 = head + neck
-3 = open hand or weapon in hand
-4 = fist
-5 = finger
-6 = eye socket
-7 = ring, darts bulls eye, marble, button
-8 = keyhole

With the main table, I’m going to take a couple of “rounding error” liberties to keep the values useful.

1 = 2 m² (large motorcycle, doorway)
2 = 4 m² (small car side view)
3 = 10 m² (truck side view)
4 = 15 m² (aircraft control cabin)
5 = 30 m² (fishing trawler, barn door)
6 = 60 m² (locomotive, barn side view)
7 = 120 m² (small train)
8 = 250 m² (large train, freighter side view, small house)
9 = 500 m² (large house)
10 = 1000 m² (small mansion, lighthouse)
11 = 2000 m² (large mansion, Eiffel tower)
12 = 4000 m² (the pentagon, top view)
13 = 8000 m² (small skyscraper, side view)
14 = 12,000 m²
15 = 25,000 m²
16 = 50,000 m²
17 = 1 km²
18 = 2 km²
19 = 4 km²
20 = 8 km²
21 = 15 km²
22 = 30 km²
23 = 60 km²
24 = 120 km²
25 = 250 km²
26 = 500 km²
27 = 1000 km²
28 = 2000 km²
29 = 4000 km²
30 = 8000 km²
31 = 15,000 km²
32 = 30,000 km²
33 = 60,000 km²
34 = 120,000 km²
35 = 250,000 km²
36 = 500,000 km²
37 = 1,000,000 km²
38 = 2,000,000 km²
39 = 4,000,000 km²
40 = 8,000,000 km²

That probably goes further than necessary. 8,000,000 square km is slightly smaller than the USA – including Alaska and Hawaii. It’s slightly larger than Australia, which is roughly the same size as the continental US.

It’s important to bear in mind the “at 2m”). At 1m, the target is twice the size – a +1 modifier. At 0.5m – effectively point-blank – it’s twice that, or a +2 modifier.

So how about at 200m?

That’s a range modifier of 23. The size at 2m is +0. So you might expect that we’re talking a modifier of 23. But the range modifier is definitely more than the size modifier, by 23 – so we effectively shift 6 rows down the size table, effectively increasing the size of the target. So the modifier is actually 17.

Time

Time as a modifier has multiple functions. It can be used to determine the penalty for rushing through a task (i.e. taking less time than is required to do the job with care, accuracy, and precision, in the GM’s opinion), or a bonus for taking extra time over and above the minimum requirement, or it can be used to define the modifier for aiming based on how long you aim – and capped by the type of weapon.

That last is critical, because none of the others give us any clue as to the base or the scale.

Most people point at the target and shoot. Taking a second or two to aim with a pistol greatly increases the accuracy, but more time after that has a negligible effect. Taking five or ten seconds to aim a rifle will markedly improve the accuracy, but not much more. A sniper can take five or ten minutes or more to aim, and then spends time waiting for the target to get into the optimum position to make the hit when it happens as effective as possible. He might also spend as much as half-an-hour letting his eyes adjust to the natural light, but that’s not time spent aiming.

The Sniper Record Revisited

That brings us back to that record kill-shot by a sniper, which is a key metric for determining what the time modifier for “5 to 10 minutes” is. We want our hypothetical sniper to have a -9 on 3d6 chance.

There’s a 3500m range, which gives a 35 range modifier.

For a kill shot, we could be talking chest, but head/neck seems more likely. So there’s a base size modifier of -2. So that’s a difference of 37. And that’s an adjustment of +7 to the target size, so the total modifier so far is 30. Let’s assume that the telescopic sights are worth another -5, and that the sniper has a +3 from stats and +4 from skill – that’s quite a high score.

Roll required = skill + modifiers, or less.

-9 = 3 (stat) +4 (skill) -30 (range and size) + 5 (sights) + Aim, which is the one modifier that we don’t know.

3+4+5-30=-18. So Aim-18 = -9, or Aim = 18-9 = 9.

If we can identify one other value on the table, we can work out a progression. And we have one – spending 0 time aiming has to be the lowest entry on the table, because you can’t spend less than that. So “0 time” = -5.

But “0 time” is meaningless, because 0 multiplied by a number is always zero. What that actually means is “less than 1 second” has a value of -5 – and therefore, “1 second” has a value of -4.

The difference between -4 and 9 is 13. That means that whatever the progression is, 12 lots of it turns 1 second into 5-10 minutes, i.e. 300-600 seconds.

That’s a big difference. But let’s work out those values and then pick something convenient in between.

1 times x^12 = 300
log (x^12) = log (300)
12 log (x) = log (300)
log (x) = log(300) / 12 = 2.477 / 12 = 0.2064.
x = 10^0.2064 = 1.6085.

1 times x^12 = 600
log (x^12) = log (600)
12 log (x) = log (600)
log (x) = log(600) / 12 = 2.77815 / 12 = 0.2315
x = 10^0.2315 = 1.7041.

Anything in between those values will work just fine. Given that this was a record, we can assume that the value is closer to the high end, requiring more time to take the shot.

+1: 1.7×1 = 1.7.
+2: 1.7×1.7 = 2.89
+3: 2.89×1.7 = 4.93
+4: 4.93×1.7 = 8.35
+5: 8.35×1.7 = 14.19.

That’s not looking too neat, but there are a couple of alternatives there that leap out. x5 for every +3, or x10 every +4.

x^3 = 5
3 log (x) = log (5) = 0.69897
log (x) = 0.69897 / 3 = 0.23299
x = 1.71 – a fraction outside our acceptable range.

x^4 = 10
4 log (x) = log (10) = 1
log (x) = 1 / 4 = 0.25
x = 1.7782

…which is even more outside the acceptable range. Obviously, adjusting any of the factor results upwards gets us in trouble. The third-best choice is x8 ever +4:

x^4 = 8
4 log (x) = log (8) = 0.90309
log (x) = 0.90309 / 4 = 0.22577
x = 1.6818

that’s not an especially pretty number, either. Perhaps this approach should be scrapped, keeping only the identified value of, say, ×500 at +9, and fill in the rest through some other function of the table.

Spending Extra Time on a task

One of the applications of this list is to determine a bonus for spending extra time on something, and a penalty for rushing a task. Base time required is always +0.

It strikes me as appropriate that +1 should result from spending an extra 50% of the time required, and +2 from spending twice the base time. +3 could result from spending 4× the base time required, +4 from spending 8 times the base time. That gives us a number that’s very close to the 1.7-factor we were looking for. And base time ×15 at +5 sets up a neat progression. So the table would be:

+0 = ×1
+1 = ×1.5
+2 = ×2
+3 = ×4
+4 = ×8
+5 = ×15
+6 = ×20
+7 = ×40
+8 = ×80
+9 = ×150
+10= ×200
+11 = ×400
+12 = ×800

…but that’s not going up fast enough to give us ×500 at +9.

So, keeping the lower values, let’s try again:

+0 = ×1
+1 = ×1.5
+2 = ×2
+3 = ×4
+4 = ×10
+5 = ×15
+6 = ×25
+7 = ×50
+8 = ×100
+9 = ×200

… still not enough.

+0 = ×1
+1 = ×1.5
+2 = ×2
+3 = ×5
+4 = ×10
+5 = ×20
+6 = ×50
+7 = ×100
+8 = ×200
+9 = ×500

…bingo!

+10 = ×1000
+11 = ×2000
+12 = ×5000
+13 = ×10,000

… which is probably as far as I need to take the table.

And what of going the other way?

+0 = x1
-1 = 1×5 / 10 = 0.5
-2 = 0.5 × 2 / 5 = 0.2
-3 = 0.2 × 1.5 / 2 = 0.15
-4 = 1 × 1 / 10 = 0.1
-5 = < 0.1

That defines “the time it takes to point at the target and pull the trigger” as 0.1 seconds, and “the time it takes to pull the trigger indiscriminately” as something less than 0.1 seconds.

These have the opposite problem – they seem to decline too quickly. According to Wikipedia,

Mean Reaction Time for college-age individuals is about 160 milliseconds to detect an auditory stimulus, and approximately 190 milliseconds to detect visual stimulus. The mean reaction times for sprinters at the Beijing Olympics were 166 ms for males and 189 ms for females, but in one out of 1,000 starts they can achieve 109 ms and 121 ms, respectively.

109 ms is 109 thousandths of a second, or 0.109 seconds. Close enough to the 0.1 already in place, but with a -5 modifier. That gives me room for an extra entry.

+0 = ×1
-1 = ×0.75
-2 = ×0.6
-3 = ×0.4
-4 = ×0.2
-5 = ×0.1 or less

That works for me, time to move on.

Precision

Doing delicate, precise work can be just as difficulty as a physically challenging task requiring great strength or agility. Some people can never do such work, others are capable only by spending a great amount of time on the task. The ability to perform time-critical precision tasks, on a very small scale, under pressure, is pretty rare. Some electronics techs might have it; some surgeons have it, especially neurosurgeons; watchmakers have it to some degree; bomb disposal techs often have it in some measure; artists often have some capacity in this direction.

In practical terms, this is a two-fold issue: the delicacy of the task (based on the size of the target) vs the visual amplification or zoom factor and any tools that scale movement down. Zoom factor makes it easier to see exactly what you are doing, movement scaling means that a large movement in the real world becomes a small movement in dealing with the target.

In game system terms, this is all about setting the difficulty of a task. Some of these factors are under the control of the PCs insofar as they can increase the magnification of whatever microscope technology they are using, or acquire better technology if it’s available. Both of those factors have limits according to the technology of the era, and those limits define the limits of what is possible – with skill, natural talent, training, and innate artistry (i.e. skill level) having to bridge the gap.

That means that this will actually be three columns in the finished table. Assuming that zoom factor and movement scaling can use the same column, that can be simplified to two: Delicacy and Scaling.

Delicacy

This is similar to the range target but moving in the other direction – smaller gives a higher difficulty.

So the place to start is with the range column that I worked out earlier. The first few entries will match the negative values on that column; from there, it should be possible to take the reciprocal of entries from the range table.

So my starting point is:

RANGE:
0 = 1m
1 = 1.3m
2 = 1.6m
3 = 2m
4 = 2.5m
5 = 3.2m
6 = 4m
7 = 5m
8 = 6.4m
9 = 8m
10 = 10m
11 = 13m
12 = 16m
13 = 20m

… and so on.

Two observations strike me immediately: first, that I didn’t work out any negative modifier entries earlier, and second, that this progression rate is very small. Too small to be useful in this way, in fact; most modifiers would be so large that mental arithmetic would be hard-put to cope (that’s another reason why I’ve been trying to keep the number of entries in the table small).

So plan “A” is a washout. Back to square one.

Carpenters etc have to be accurate to within a mm in most tasks. Many amateur mistakes come from not being sufficiently precise – my dad has a setup on his workbench that allows for the thickness of his pencil, because that’s between 1 and 0.5mm thick – and if you cut on the wrong side of that line, you’re in trouble. He also has to allow for the thickness of the cutting blade, especially when using a disk cutter. That can be about 1.5mm thick. Again, it’s all about making sure that whatever is left when you finish cutting is exactly what you want.

So I want 1mm to have a small modifier, enough to distinguish between those with some experience or skill in carpentry and those who don’t – between him and me, in other words!

I think that a modifier of 2 would be about right.

At the same time, I remember some of the very rough-and-ready “furniture” that we knocked up at our field camp when I worked for the NSW Dept of Agriculture, essentially using a chainsaw and wire. Okay, there might have been a drill and some bolts on some of it, too. Anything within about 5mm was good enough. Instead of chairs with four legs, we used three-legged designs, because they won’t rock if one of the legs is a little short – it just means that the table or chair slopes a little. For chairs, in fact, we simply sliced a section out of a tree and left it to air-dry – a ‘one leg’ solution!

At the same time, though, I’ve known people who couldn’t do that, more because they had never thought about the practicalities involved. So that’s a modifier of 1.

I’m something of an artist, and have been for decades. I have done my best to adapt those skills to a digital medium, but have in fact ended up developing a whole new set of skills – at least to the point where ten or 15 minutes of effort produced the “dropping dice” illustration above. But there are a huge number of things that I can do with pencil and ink that I would have extreme difficulty replicating in an electronic format.

When I was doing the artwork for Assassin’s Amulet, for example this piece, I did pencil sketches at double-size in pencil, went over them (correcting) with 0.5mm marker, scanned them, and then “painted” over the top of them. Finally, the scanned “underlying image” was deleted when I was satisfied.

With such manual tools, I have a resolution of about 1/10th of a mm – which is to say, if a pencil stroke is 0.1mm away from where I want it to be, I can see the error. Well, I used to be able to – I haven’t done anything like this for 6 years, now!

That didn’t mean that the pencil or pen went where I wanted it to go, every time – just that I could detect it when it didn’t.

When doing the digital work, I also worked much larger than the final scale – the “raw image” of this work was about 2400×2400 pixels, as I recall. The image shown here is about 450 pixels wide, the one that actually appears in Assassin’s Amulet is more like 600 pixels wide – so that’s a 4x zoom. But to do some of the detail work – the ribs on the end of the bottle, the suckers and so on – I would have zoomed in perhaps another 500%. So 2400×5=12000, or about 20x zoom.

It meant that small errors – that might not have even been visible to others – became vanishingly small, enabling me to work at absolutely top speed. I was doing 3-5 of these illustrations a night while working on the text and maintaining Campaign Mastery during the day – giving some idea of the speed that was possible from these working practices.

Would I have liked more time? Absolutely. I would love to have been able to linger over one of these for a whole day or two – a week in some cases. But time and financial pressures meant that I had to churn them out at top speed. (I did the best I could – deliberately pairing complex pictures like “Ink Of The Squid” with a couple of simpler ones, so that I could lavish some more attention on it. But it was all compromised to some extent by practicalities.)

So, this illustrates both the zoom effect, the mechanical scaling effect (both of which are to be dealt with shortly) and gives another data point on the scale: 0.1mm. I don’t think the modifier that goes with that scale should be much more than the 0.5mm I’ve already allocated to a 2 modifier, so let’s make it a 3.

But that brings me to the question of progression. There is a clear pattern beginning to emerge, but I’m concerned that it won’t progress fast enough to give workable modifiers for really small operations. At the same time, I want to be sure that these are only possible if you have both the skill and the right equipment. Choosing a non-linear progression should solve these problems.

So let’s start with what we’ve got and extend the table from there, and see how it looks:

-2 = 1m (FM radio wavelength – included for completeness)
+0 = 1cm (microwave wavelength)
+1 = 5mm (ants, seeds, rice grains)
+2 = 1mm (pixels, grains of sand or salt, furniture tolerance)
+3 = 0.1 mm = 100µm (width, human hair, limit unaided vision)
+4 = 0.05mm = 50µm (thickness 1 sheet of paper, human skin cell = 35µm)
+5 = 0.01mm = 10µm (width of a silk fiber, white blood cell, 1971 Transistors, infrared wavelength)
+6 = 0.005mm = 5µm (cell nucleus, x chromosome, red blood cell)
+7 = 1µm (1 micron) (y chromosome, clay particle, e.coli)
+8 = 0.5µm = 500 nm (largest virus, red wavelength = 750)
+9 = 0.1µm = 100 nm (limit optical microscopes, HIV, violet wavelength = 400)
+10 = 0.05µm = 50nm (Hep B virus, infrared wavelength)
+11 = 0.01µm = 10nm (2017 Transistors = 25nm)
+12 = 0.005µm = 5nm (cell membrane, DNA)
+13 = 1 nm = 100 Angstroms (buckyball)
+14 = 0.5 nm = 50 Angstroms (glucose molecule, cesium atom, x-ray wavelength)
+15 = 0.1 nm = 10 Angstroms = 100 picometers (carbon atom = 340, water molecule = 280)
+16 = 0.05 nm = 5 Angstroms = 50 picometers (limit electron microscopes)
+17 = 0.01 nm = 1 Angstrom = 10 picometers (Hydrogen atom = 31, Helium = 25)
+18 = 0.005nm = 0.5 Angstrom = 5 picometers
+19 = 1 picometer (gamma ray wavelength)
+20 = 0.5 picometer
+21 = 0.01 picometer (uranium nucleus = 0.015 picometers)
+22 = 5 femtometers
+23 = 1 femtometer (proton, neutron, helium nucleus = 3)
+24 = 500 attometers
+25 = 100 attometers (smallest confirmed objects in existence)

That’s not bad!

Credit where it’s due: the examples are from The Scale Of The Universe 2 by Cary & Michael Huang. Have a play around with their interactive app, then get their email link from this page to thank them!

Scaling

The above also makes the scaling pretty clear. Because scaling modifiers are to be half the delicacy scale (leaving the other half for movement scaling technology), we get:

+0 = ×1
+1 = ×10 (magnifying glass, jeweler’s loupe)
+2 = ×100
+3 = ×1000
+4 = ×10k
+5 = ×100k (limit optical microscopes)
+6 = ×1M
+7 = ×10M
+8 = ×100M
+9 = ×1000M (limit, electron microscopes)
+10 = ×10G or more (sci-fi only)

Movement scaling is relatively new technology, though it was always possible to a limited extent mechanically. In fact, a lot of tools are intended to scale movement in a very limited way – teeny-tiny screws and screwdrivers, for example. These days, robotized tools controlled through a computer let us manipulate objects as small as 50nm or so, and we have processes that let us design and manufacture tangible objects as small as 10nm (the component parts of a 25nm transistor, for example).

Nanotechnology machines are the obvious next stage of development, the cutting edge. Again, we haven’t devised tools to scale our own movement that small, instead we have designed processes that create the components. We are only just getting to the point of being able to assemble these components – that will involve more processes. Fraser Stoddart, Bernard Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage shared the 2016 Nobel prize for their work in the field, especially the creation of a “nanocar”. But tracking down a size for these devices has proven incredibly hard – the best that I’ve been able to manage quotes “a few billionths of a meter”, which is around the +7 or +8 mark on the scale given above. It was just as difficult trying to find a freely-licensed image to illustrate it – the best image I was able to find is shown in an article on The Verge but the terms of usage don’t leave me any the wiser as to who the copyright owner is. So the best I can do is provide the link and let you check it out for yourselves.

So, what we have is the following:

+0 = ×1 precision tools
+1 = ×10 high-quality precision manual tools
+2 = ×100 limit precision manual tools
+3 = ×1000 primitive process-based designer tools, computerized scaling tools
+4 = ×10k generation-2 process-based tools, computerized scaling tools
+5 = ×100k generation-3 process-based tools, light/laser-based scaling tools
+6 = ×1M generation-4 process-based tools, energy-beam based scaling tools
+7 = ×10M virus-based nanotechnology, generation-5 process-based tools
+8 = ×100M true nanomachines, the nanocar
+9 = ×1000M process-based chemical tools (buckyballs)
+10 = ×10G or more (sci-fi only)

Each scale of tools permits – in theory – the construction of parts of roughly the size of the tool, and the assembly of those parts into a “machine” one scale larger. So tools the scale of the nanocar would permit the construction of virus-based nanotechnology.

Before I wrap up this section, let’s run a realism check: Designing and creating a custom computer chip at the limits of known precision manufacture in 2017:

Precision Modifier +11, – Optical Tools +5, – Energy-beam based scaling tools +5 + design difficulty gives an overall difficulty of 1 more than the design difficulty.

So, if the GM sets a design difficulty of 3, the manufacturing difficulty will be 4. If the character has a skill of 3 and +3 from stats – both reasonable for an expert in the field – he will have to roll 6 or less on 3d6+3. Which is, impossible. So we add a d6 to improve the roll required: 8 or less on 4d6+3. Which is the same as 5 or less on 4d6. That’s a 0.39% chance of success, or about 1 in 256. And the manufacture will be even harder – 4 or less on 4d6, or 0.08% chance, or about 1 in 1250. But manufacturers will typically put 1000 or more chips on a single manufacturing batch – so, if they can get 1250 on a sheet, they are likely to get 1 fully-functional chip from the process.

Compare that with a genius in the field with skill 5 and stats +4: that’s 9 or less on 3d6+3 for the design, and 3d6+4 for the manufacture: 9.26% chance of success for the design and 4.63% chance of success in the manufacture.

And both of those test-cases ignore the potential for spending extra time to get the design and manufacturing right. But the results I did get all sound reasonable!

Assistance

It also brings up another point that I don’t think I’ve addressed previously. How to handle multiple people working in teams. Going it along might work for geniuses and mavericks, but most R&D is done by teams of experts.

This is to be based on the non-linear size adjustment, enabling me to re-use the same table entry.

Number of assistants or skill 1 lower than the lead operator required for a given bonus

+1 = 1
+2 = 2-3
+3 = 4-7
+4 = 8-12
+5 = 13-18
+6 = 19-25
+7 = 26-33
+8 = 34-42
+9 = 43-52
+10 = 53-63
+11 = 64-75
+12 = 76-88
+13 = 89-104

For assistants of skill 2 lower, drop down one count. So 2-3 such assistants give +1, and so on.

Even unskilled assistants can be useful, taking care of the daily routine, for example. If we use “+3 skill” to signify “expert”, then laymen (by definition, those with +0 in the skill) have three ranks less, so 8-12 such assistants are still worth +1.

One expert, leading a team of half a dozen skilled technicians and another half-dozen trainees, and supported by a dozen unskilled people doing mundane tasks, is a reasonable small engineering firm in this sort of industry.

+3 from the expert, +3 from his stats, +2 from extra time, +3 from skilled assistants, +1 from the trainees, and +1 from the support staff, gives 14/- on 3d6+3 – a 62.5% chance of success. If the normal design process takes 1 month, that means that a first attempt will be ready in 3 months, and a second (if necessary) three months after that, increasing the chance of success in design to almost 86%. A third attempt is close to 95% certainty of success; a fourth gets that up to about 98%. A year spent in design and another in manufacture gives you that cutting-edge computer chip almost every time. Most experts would be secure enough in their ability to deliver taking a 2-year contract of this sort.

And all of those calculations assume that nothing is learned from the failures, that’s its all trial-and-error until you get it right; most design/engineering firms wouldn’t work that way. As a GM, investing a month in analyzing each failure would reasonably be worth another +1. So you could have four attempts totaling a 98% chance of success, or three of them – the first at 14/-, the second at 15/-, and the third at 16/-. Those are 37.5% chance of failure, 25.93% chance of failure, and 16.2% chance of failure, respectively – 98.4% chance of success, all told. And, if a fourth attempt was still needed, that would be at 9.26% chance of failure – a 99.9985% chance of success, delivering the design 3 months behind schedule, time that you might well be able to make up on the manufacturing side.

All of which sounds like it works to me.

To be continued…

So, the core table has now been designed, but I’m out of time for compiling it, and for looking at the other unanswered questions, like how combat will work. That means there will need to be on more in these posts, probably in a few weeks’ time.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of having a singular arch-enemy in a campaign. If anything happens to that enemy, it can leave the GM casting around for a direction. What’s more, having one central villain who is responsible for all that ails the world (and his flunkies, of course) is inherently a harder ‘sell’ in terms of credibility, especially if that villain is to be a string-puller behind the scenes – which always makes more sense for that kind of character.

It’s very easy to take the plans of one master villain and diversify the activities attributable to him or her amongst two or more “lesser” masterminds, with no diminution of the impact of the plans or the villain.

If you follow my advice on running a mastermind – which remains one of the most popular articles here at Campaign Mastery – you will find that one of the key pieces of advice is to perpetually ask questions along the lines of “what is the best thing that the villain could have set up to take advantage of (whatever the current situation is)”, then to assume that the villain has in fact done exactly that.

That advice, compounded with a point made a week or two ago – that when a story is about villain development, effects should precede causes in the awareness of the PCs – actually gives you all the tools that you need in order to have your masterminds proliferate.

One becomes two

The technique is simple; determine what the best possible change of circumstance is (in the villain’s favor) at some critical point in the adventure that is about to take place or is currently underway, then have a second mastermind manipulate events to create that circumstance.

This effectively splits what was one mastermind into two – one who is relatively overt and obvious, and one lurking behind the scenes and using the first as a stalking horse.

The Underlying Logic

The second, absolutely critical, step is to determine why. How does it advantage the second mastermind for the villain to benefit? Fortunately, creating villains in this way gives the GM a huge advantage: as of right now, the mastermind has no assigned motivation or objective.

That means that you can work backwards from their actions to assign the traits and characteristics to justify those actions, which is a lot easier than giving an objective and then scanning everything that happens looking for a way for them to benefit. That can be tricky when you have a completely open slate in terms of motivation and objective. The sheer variety of choice can lead to a sort of creeping paralysis and paroxysms of second-guessing. This technique totally bypasses that problem.

And it’s not a problem that you carry into future “appearances” of the mastermind, because the decisions of motivation and primary objective have now been made, reducing the vast field of opportunities to a very straightforward strategic decision.

Another weapon that you have is the relative simplicity of the questions being posed. The mastermind is doing something to advantage the “overt” villain but it’s not out of the goodness of his flabby black heart – it’s because he will benefit in some fashion even more significantly than the “overt” villain will do.

Benefits are relatively simple to characterize. They are either:

1. Direct;
2. Indirect, resulting from something the overt villain is or will do;
3. Indirect, resulting from something the PCs will do in response to the actions of the overt villain; or
4. Indirect, resulting from something that a third party will do in response to the actions of either the overt villain or the PCs.

Furthermore, benefits are either:

1. Gaining access to a resource that was previously unavailable;
2. Gaining information that could not be acquired in any other way;
3. Gaining a change in circumstances that will provide future opportunities for gain that were not previously available;
4. Gaining an alliance that would not be possible otherwise; or
5. Denying one of the above to someone who is functionally in opposition.

The term “resources” is applied very broadly in the above statement, ranging from something material to something quite intangible – it can be anything from a political advantage to an elevation in social position.

There are a lot of possible permutations, but they are relatively quick and easy to assess, and one particular combination usually leaps off the page according to the circumstances in the campaign at the time.

The Modus Operandi Restriction

Of course, there’s always a caveat, a sting in the tail, whenever things are so straightforward. In this case, it’s the fundamental similarity of the modus operandi of the masterminds that result.

That problem brings us to an utterly essential third step: redefining the problem, or in this case, the modus operandi into something that is absolutely unique in the campaign to the mastermind (and preferable unique to all your campaigns).

In order to distinguish this character from the similar ones that will result from the repeated application of these principles, you need a modus operandi that is succinct, distinctive, and that restricts the mastermind from doing anything similar except under extremely restricted circumstances – that just happened to occur during the first occurrence.

What’s more, that modus operandi has to be rooted in the background and characterization of the mastermind, to the point of being the equivalent of a fingerprint – sometimes to the point where that modus operandi can (eventually, when it is sufficiently well-known to the PCs) identify the mastermind’s true identity.

For example, one villain in the Zenith-3 campaign specializes in identifying the weakest link in a process, the point where minimal exertion and exposure will achieve his objective. Through a stationery tracking-and-reordering system, he gained access to the sealed computer systems of the courts, then used that influence to manipulate trial outcomes – for a fee – and always within the bounds of what might have happened by chance. This practice was 15 years old before a piece of truly rotten luck led to his exposure.

This is a villain who is quite capable of meddling to benefit someone else if they benefit even more significantly in the process. But most of the time,, he wouldn’t – he is restricted completely by that modus operandi. His “fingerprint” is not that he manipulates situations from behind the scenes, it’s that he does so in a way that preserves both his anonymity and even the very secret of his existence as his first priority.

This is critical because it defines the restrictions under which the mastermind will operate henceforth. It defines – to the GM – his signature, a signature that the PCs will eventually discover.

Two becomes three

The first mastermind should get away with making life hard for the PCs long enough for them to become suspicious that there is someone working against them from the shadows, and to start speculating on who it might be.

It’s quite likely that they will come to the conclusion that the ‘overt villain’ is a subordinate of the mastermind, especially if you’ve done nothing to obstruct that conclusion. Your game has just acquired a fourth layer of plot:

• The superficial layer contains the day-to-day events that the PCs experience;
• The immediate layer contains self-contained adventures that are unrelated to the larger plotline.
• The Overt Villain layer contains the ongoing conflict between the PCs and the Overt Villain.
• The Subterfuge layer contains the shadow-war between the PCs and the mastermind.

Now, that’s quite a tasty recipe, but a fully rounded dish requires more. This is a little too pat, a touch unrealistic. And there is usually a little nagging inhibition against the GM really going to town and doing his worst, because without PCs, he doesn’t have a campaign.

There is a simple solution. Once the existence of the mastermind has been detected and progressed beyond a vague suspicion in the minds of the players, once he or she has become established in the manner described in the opening paragraph of this section, it’s time to complicate the situation.

One mastermind gaining an advantage in this way almost certainly means that he will be interfering in the plans of some other furtive manipulator. On the principle that the enemy of my enemy should be my pawn, the PCs should become enmeshed in the crossfire.

(For a fun variation, don’t reveal this second string-puller as an enemy right away, make that a plot twist for much later in the campaign – have them appear to be someone who is overtly on the PC’s side, a bona-fide ally).

Using this figure as a safety blanket and occasional escape clause for the PCs takes away any pressure to hold back, and lets the other villains revel in their villainy.

Of course, this third mastermind adds still another layer of plot and needs to have his or her own modus operandi that is just as binding, just as identifiable, and just as solidly founded on and justified by his background experiences and personality.

The Lieutenant Distinction

There are still a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross. It’s important to distinguish between things that the masterminds will not do and things that the masterminds are unable to do. Those distinctions are defining in terms of the relationship and attributes that the masterminds will seek in their lieutenants.

A smart mastermind will seek
out a Lieutenant who compliments there own abilities and who can be trusted not to cross any “lines” that the mastermind lays down. (That doesn’t mean that the Lieutenant has to agree with his boss, and won’t get frustrated with those restrictions, and certainly doesn’t mean that the lieutenant won’t cut the occasional corner if he feels it necessary.

It might seem that this relationship isn’t something that the GM needs to pay a lot of attention to, leaving it to evolve naturally. I disagree with any such analysis. First, the relationship will color every instruction that the mastermind gives the Lieutenant, and second, the restrictions placed upon the Lieutenant, and the relationship he has with his superior, will – over time – shine an additional light on the mastermind’s signature.

And that makes this critically important. The Lieutenant is a window onto his boss. There may be other relationships that the GM needs to think about, but few are this important. (A related and equally-vital set of questions: Does the Lieutenant know who the mastermind really is? Do they ever meet, and if so, where and under what circumstances? How does he receive his instructions, and how does he authenticate them? How does he report back to the mastermind?)

The Modus Operandi Integral

It can pay dividends to think of the ‘mastermind-plus-Lieutenant(s)’ combination as a unit. Is the whole greater than the sum of its’ parts? Because it not only should be, that is a great way of enhancing the adventure experience.

To put it bluntly, every combination where that wasn’t the case always seems to fall a little flat in comparison to those in which there is a dynamic that yields this sort of coalition.

It also means that losing that Lieutenant will seriously cramp the mastermind’s plans, which can be a useful plot card to have up your sleeve!

The Flunky Factor

Another point that I want to pay specific attention to is the difference between a Lieutenant and a Flunky. A good mastermind will have two or more of both.

A flunky can be just muscle, or it can be an extension of the mastermind. Flunkies should also never be completely interchangeable parts; there should be a difference between the flunkies favored by the mastermind and those who back up the Lieutenant – not to mention differences between this mastermind and that.

The Organizational Structure

I find it useful, from time to time, to look at these coalitions as a single organization. The mastermind is the CEO and thinker; the Lieutenants are the department heads; and the flunkies are the senior staff.

(As an aside, it can also be useful from time to time to characterize an organization as an individual. Internal culture becomes uncertainty and internal conflict within the mind of that individual, and you can often discern paths ‘forward’ for the organization while looking at how the ‘corporate individual’ would resolve his doubts and uncertainties).

Getting back to the point, identifying a ‘corporate culture’ helps characterize those who work for the mastermind, It can also help the GM understand how the presence of the mastermind influences the rest of society, and what will happen when the mastermind is gone. It might not be the prescription of universal peace that the PCs expect it to be!

And that’s how one Uber-villain becomes three

There are a whole host of benefits from this approach, as readers can see. Richness of plot and characterization, internal consistency, enhanced believability, It may not be the solution to every problem, but it’s definitely deserving of a place in the GM’s toolkit.

This is a somewhat unusual article for Campaign Mastery in that it is pitched as much, or even more strongly, at players than at GMs…

While planning the next adventure in the Adventurer’s Club campaign yesterday with my co-GM, I made an observation regarding the changing style of roleplaying.

Both my co-GM, Blair, and I, are old-school. We speak in character when roleplaying except when describing an action the character is making or attempting – and even then, we’re just as likely to say “I” instead of referring to the character in the third person.

When our characters have a conversation, we have a conversation.

Many newer players don’t seem to handle their roleplaying in the same way, or at least. not as often. Quite often, instead of speaking in character, they will describe what they want their character to say using the third person. And instead of using a character’s skills as a guide to how “clumsily” they should make their efforts, they rely on a roll against that skill to determine success or failure.

My observation was that we were having to accommodate this “modern” approach more and more often when writing adventures.

Is this a sign of player laziness? Absolutely not. One of the players in whom we have most noticed a tenancy in this direction (no names) works harder than just about anyone else at being a player.

No, we attribute the change to a desire to be sure the character gets the full measure of value from their investment in skills, and a reliance on the rules to interpret the meaning of a skill level of X rather than the player doing the interpretation based on guidelines.

I don’t think the change is an improvement. It makes some things easier – in particular, it takes the competence difference between player and character out of the equation almost entirely – but the price seems too high, because what is being sacrificed is immersion. Immersion of player into character. immersion of character into story, and even immersion of story into world.

Resorting to third-person roleplaying should be reserved only for the most difficult of conversational tasks. But, in order for that to become the case, players who have never been shown how will have to be educated in the techniques and processes of first-person roleplaying.

Modern games provide all the tools necessary. All it takes is understanding the systems sufficiently well to interpret a given skill level into playable expressions of capability. You, as the GM, will need to be the source of that education – a tough assignment if you haven’t been educated in the techniques of skill interpretation. And that’s the purpose of this article.

In order to make the article as universally-accessible as possible, I’m going to use Pathfinder as my example game system. But the same basic techniques, properly adjusted, work for any game system, and to demonstrate that, I’ll use the hero system as my secondary example. Why? Because Pathfinder is based around a linear die roll (a d20) while the Hero System is non-linear (based around 3d6). Between them, they cover the fundamentals of most game mechanics.

Finally, to ensure common ground, I need some skill that’s functionally similar in both game systems. Pathfinder has a skill, Diplomacy, which can be used to persuade others. The Hero System has a skill, Persuasion, which is specific to that function. And these are exactly the sort of in-game function that this article is talking about, making these perfect for the purpose. So, with everything organized, let’s get started.

The Pathfinder Example

Skills in Pathfinder work by adding the bonus from a stat to the number of ranks in the skill. The character then rolls a d20 and adds the result to this total, needing to roll a target number or better – the DC – in order to succeed. In addition, the GM may add bonuses or penalties to adjust the DC for specific circumstances.

So let’s assume a stat bonus of +2 and a skill level of 4 ranks, which is a total of +6.

The average roll of a d20 is 10.5 – call it 10. the minimum is 1, and the maximum is 20.

So the lowest result total is 7, the average is 16, and the maximum is 26.

In Pathfinder, the DC is initially set according to the attitude of the target:

• Hostile = 25 + target’s CHA modifier
• Unfriendly = 20 + target’s CHA modifier
• Indifferent = 15 + target’s CHA modifier
• Friendly = 10 + target’s CHA modifier
• Helpful = 5 + target’s CHA modifier

You need to succeed in a Diplomacy check to shift the attitude of the target on a temporary basis. Succeed and you get a one-step improvement; for every 5 more than the DC you get, the attitude can be shifted one more step, but there. is usually a limit of two steps of improvement that the GM can waive.

At the moment, you don’t know what the target’s charisma modifier is. It could reasonably be anything from -2 to +5 or even more. So let’s start with a CHA modifier of zero and see where those adjustments take us a little later.

The formula is: Roll + 6 >eq; DC. We can subtract 6 from both sides to get Roll >eq; DC – 6.

That lets me analyze the significance of the character’s skill in Diplomacy, which is the object of the exercise.

• Hostile = 19 + target’s CHA modifier, and the chance of getting 19 or better on a d20 is 2×5=10%. If the target has below-average charisma, that chance goes up by 5% for each -1 CHAR modifier, to a realistic chance of 20%. However, it doesn’t take a very high CHA modifier to make the roll impossible to achieve successfully. A CHA modifier of +2 and there is no hope of success – unless the GM can be persuaded to incorporate a bonus for circumstances that favor the character – warning of some imminent threat to the NPC, for example, or otherwise engaging his self-interest. Even then, the odds of success are going to be slim if you target anyone who deals in popularity – leaders, religious figures, entertainers, even a well-spoken educator might be out of the question.
• Unfriendly = 14 + target’s CHA modifier. The chance of rolling 14 or better is 35%. If the target has high charisma, that could drop by as much as 25% (from a +5 CHA modifier) to 10%. If the target has low charisma, the chance improves to almost 50%. Further adjustments are possible if there are circumstantial modifiers in the character’s favor, but declines equally quickly if circumstances oppose. So this is right on the cusp of success.
  • If the target has high charisma, the chances get pretty slim, so I would focus on achieving as many positive circumstantial modifiers as I could think of – gifts, flattery, the self-interest of the target – while doing as much as possible to undermine the relevance of anything that might give a negative modifier.
  • If the target has moderately high charisma, the same approach could make success almost a 50/50 proposition – enough that I would be confident of at least being heard.
  • If the target has average or less charisma, the odds are already fairly good. Rather than employing the “butter him up” approach, I would make a virtue of not doing so, focusing on his self-interest and being direct and matter-of-fact, with a prefatory comment about not wasting his time on hollow flattery. My focus would be on appearing honest and trustworthy. This approach is more effective because empty flattery turns people off when it’s recognized.
• Indifferent = 9 + target’s CHA modifier. The odds of rolling 9 or better are already over 50%. More importantly, there is a 35% chance – roughly one-in-three – of success even if the target has a substantial CHA modifier (+5). Success still can’t be taken for granted, but it is certainly within reach. Employing the gifts-and-flattery approach, and engaging the target’s self-interests, to hopefully get a +5 modifier effectively nullifies the CHA modifier, letting what you have to say stand or fail on its own merits. But unless I was dealing with a prominent leader or other high-charisma figure, I would focus on the direct approach described above.
• Friendly = 4 + target’s CHA modifier. The odds of success even with a high-CHA target are 50-50 or better even without flattery and circumstantial modifiers. If there was a pressing self-interest for the target or some mutual interest that we have in common, I would focus on those, otherwise politeness and making satisfying the request as painless as possible would be my focus.
• Helpful = target’s CHA modifier – 1. Any reasonable request is likely to be successful, so my focus shifts completely to establishing a longer-term relationship of trust and mutual advantage with the target.

The more leaning towards ‘helpful’ the target’s attitude is, the more I shift my approach from one in which the target may have to be ‘bribed’ with a service or the satisfaction of a very clear self-interest to one in which I offer a service that I hope to be of value to them, not so much to get approval of whatever request I have at the time, but to ensure that the attitude is protected and encouraged as much as possible.

A shortcut

Of course, in play, you don’t have time to perform this sort of intensive analysis. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut, made possible by thinking of everything in terms of shifts to the target needed for success. If you have a skill of +6 ranks (including stat bonus), that is how much operating room you have to overcome any reluctance due to attitude to get you back to a 50-50 chance. If that’s not enough, you need to work on improving the perceived circumstances to counterbalance the shortfall. All you need do is pay attention to who you’re “talking” to and it becomes
easy to assess (roughly) their initial attitude and charisma bonus. It only takes a second or so to select how much flattery and goodwill you need to muster to overcome a negative attitude, and to select an approach accordingly. Since there are practical limits to what you can achieve in that respect, any shortfall gets “paid for” in diminished chance of success.

In other words, I set a personal target for what modifier I need to get from the GM with my approach to the target and then roleplay accordingly. The goal is to make a die roll irrelevant, or more precisely, to enable the GM to interpret your actions and dialogue as a result rolled on the die and hence determine the outcome. It becomes a sign of failed or inadequate roleplaying for the GM to say, “make a Diplomacy check”.

The Realism Side-Benefit

It’s always possible to misjudge your target. Sometimes, you put a lot of effort into trying to force open a door, only to find that it was already ajar; sometimes there’s a cause for reluctance that you either didn’t know about or didn’t factor in, and what seems like a slam-dunk turns out to be dead in the water before you even opened your mouth. The variety of unexpected outcomes that emerge naturally make the game world seem more realistic, populated with real people.

That’s a potent benefit, but it’s not the primary reason for this approach – the reason is immersion, because that makes every aspect of the game more fun and less an intellectual exercise.

The Non-linear roll

The Hero system works by building a stat’s contribution directly into a roll required. GM modifiers are applied to the die roll, and not to the target. The formula is 9 +(stat / 5). To that, the character can add additional “skill levels” by improving their basic skill.

Unlike Pathfinder / D&D, the target’s characteristics don’t matter; instead, the predisposition and stats are just another factor that the GM takes into account when choosing modifiers.

For our D&D example, we gave the character a stat bonus of +2. That corresponds to a stat of about 15. While the stats in the hero system are different at higher values, below about 20 they are fairly directly comparable. The equivalent of that 15 would probably be a Hero Games stat of 13 or 14. Which one doesn’t matter – dividing by five still gives 2-point-something, which rounds in the character’s favor to 3. So the equivalent of stat bonus alone gives a base roll of 9+3=12.

On top of that, we gave the character 4 ranks in the skill, the equivalent of +20% chance. That’s harder to assess in terms of picking an equivalent, but a rough rule of thumb that works at lower values – up to, say, 8 ranks – is to halve the number of ranks to get the equivalent number of ‘extra levels’ in a skill that the character has, rounding up if necessary. So 4 ranks is roughly the equivalent of +2, giving the equivalent character a total skill of 14 or less.

Because 3d6 is a non-linear roll, the game system makes it easier to interpret a skill level in relation to a result.

Above is a graph of the chances of getting x or less on 3d6, which I sourced back in April from Anydice for the thematically-related article, Narratives Of Skill: How To ‘Improv’ Outcome Descriptions In Advance.

If you pick some key target numbers – 10% chance of success, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90%, – and analyze the graph, you get some very interesting results, as you can see from the modified graph below:

As you can see, the 10% chance happens with an adjusted result of 6 or less, the 25% at 8/-, the 50% at 10/-, the 75% at 12/-, and the 90% at 14/-! That’s such a simple progression that it’s easy to remember.

It also puts that 14/- into perspective: if there are no modifiers, or if the balance of modifiers is at least neutral or even in favor of the character, he has a 90% chance of success.

Every +2 to the die roll from modifiers drops his chances of success another bracket. So +2 to the die roll makes success 75% likely, +4 makes it 50%, +6 makes it 25%, and +8 drops the chances to a mere 10%.

It’s not going too far to equate each of those +2’s to a shift up the ‘initial attitude’ table – from Helpful to Friendly to Indifferent to Unfriendly to Hostile.

It follows that if you can estimate how the GM will interpret the circumstances, you can make the corresponding interpretation and choose your approach accordingly, exactly as described earlier. What you are actually doing, in Hero Games’ game mechanics, is trying to load in additional modifiers in your favor to neutralize or counter these modifiers.

Certainly, when I’m GMing the Adventurer’s Club, and I want to adjudicate something along these lines, I would use the margin of success over requirements to assess the shift in attitude on a +2-to-a-step basis.

How First-Person Roleplaying Fits In

The key here is to “sell” the notion of a circumstantial modifier in your favor to the GM. Simply announcing what you are doing, or trying to do, third-person style, lacks the impact of actually “doing” it through dialogue. As a player, you are far more likely to succeed in getting the bonus you are seeking if you can immerse the GM in what you are doing.

Getting the GM on-side in this way is far more likely to enable you to get the NPC you are speaking to on-side, because you are making the game more fun for the GM in the process. So many GM decisions are subjective and nuanced, getting the vision of the world slanted in your favor is always worthwhile!

And everyone has more fun at the game table! Now, I ask you – isn’t that worth a little fuzziness when it comes to exact numbers?

These two poker terms should have special relevance to RPGs. I’ll explain why in a moment – first, let’s make sure that everyone is on the same page as to meaning.

Bluffing

Bluffs are a rather broad subject. The traditional bluff in poker and other types of gambling is an attempt to make a weak hand look stronger than it really is, usually through a combination of a false tell and a betting strategy that would be appropriate if the hand was indeed stronger than it is, and the player is trying to conceal that fact.

But use of the term has broadened in recent years, to include any attempt at perpetrating a falsehood in a card game – from making strong hands look weak (to encourage rival players to bet more than they should, given the relative strengths of their hands) to mind games in general at the gaming table, which include the traditional usage of the term.

Tells

“A tell in poker is a change in a player’s behavior or demeanor that is claimed by some to give clues to that player’s assessment of their hand. A player gains an advantage if they observe and understand the meaning of another player’s tell, particularly if the tell is unconscious and reliable. Sometimes a player may fake a tell, hoping to induce their opponents to make poor judgments in response to the false tell. More often, people try to avoid giving out a tell, by maintaining a poker face regardless of how strong or weak their hand is.”
– text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(poker).

The term literally means “inadvertently telling the truth” through behavior, betting strategy, body language, expression, or whatever.

There is even a branch of study within the gambling world that looks at tells for online poker games, such as those found at an online or a mobile casino, which includes things like inconsistent speed of bet placement, size of bets, responses to batting counter-strategies, and so on. Testing has shown that these can improve the chances of winning a game by as much as 8-10%.

More traditional tells – and these will be relevant, shortly – include:
 

• Acting uninterested in a hand while still in it – Feigning disinterest while continuing active involvement in a hand is usually a sign of a strong hand.
• Shaking hands – This is often an involuntary response to a surge of adrenalin which indicates that the player has something to be excited about.
• Rapid Breathing – same cause, different physiological response. If the change in breathing pattern is sudden and mid-hand, it may also be a sign of panic, indicating that a hand is much weaker than the player is suggesting, and that they may be trying to bluff.
• Overacting – Making a big production of sighs and shrugs while offering weak statements such as “I guess I’ll call” are really bad attempts at feigning disinterest (see above), but some players simply become louder and more exuberant when attempting to “sell” a bluff. They are “trying hard” and unable to hide that fact.
• Looking away from the table immediately after placing a bet or checking one’s hand – often, the very fact that you are trying not to engage interpersonally signals very loudly that you are trying to hide something.
• Playing with one’s cards – rearranging them or repeatedly re-checking them – tends to be a signal that your hand is much weaker than you have otherwise indicated.
• There are those who would add Trash-talking and boasting to the list.
• Of course, the cliche tells come to us from Hollywood – trying to scope out the other players from the corners of your eye, raising eyebrows the first time you look at your cards, playing nervously with your chips, whistling, or humming.

(partially based on a list at www.Thoughtco.com).

I want to call out a couple of specific items that aren’t on the list above:

The double-bluff

Of course, sometimes players will fake a tell while pretending to bluff in an attempt to double-bluff the opposition. Most professionals consider this too prone to error to attempt it, and an amateur move. Most amateurs will do it anyway.

The deliberate poker face

Some players work a lot harder at assuming an expressionless “poker face” when they have a good hand, while being relaxed and sociable the rest of the time.

Better tactics

Ideally, as a player, you want to behave in exactly the same way regardless of the strength of your hand. Make the same small talk, express the same measure of interest in what others are doing, and so on. Almost as effective is picturing some other hand in your mind’s eye and playing, betting, and so on, as though that imaginary hand were really what you have.

The Tell and The Bluff

Clearly, a tell is the natural enemy of the bluff, undercutting attempts to provide false information with a direct line to the truth.

The GM’s Bluff

GMs have to bluff all the time in RPGs. We’re playing characters who know things they may be trying to hide – and we may or may not want the players to pick up on that. WE know things that we’re trying to hide so as not to influence the player’s choice of action. Or perhaps the players have discovered a major flaw in our plans and we don’t want them to know it.

A previous article that I wrote touches on the subject, and even offers some techniques. The Hierarchy Of Deceit: How and when to lie to your players. But that was more concerned with plot developments and how to hide the GM’s superior knowledge in that respect of the game.

But a GM needs to bluff on a lot more occasions than are discussed in that article. That’s not particularly difficult – what’s harder is doing it well, and what’s even harder is not giving the game away with a tell.

GM ‘Tells’

Most of the poker ‘tells’ have RPG/GM equivalents (told you I’d get back to that list). Let’s walk through the entries.

• Acting uninterested in what the players are doing – pretending to be disinterested only makes the players suspicious because the players know better – and would expect more from a good GM. So if you’re a good GM this won’t work, and if you’re not, you couldn’t pull it off anyway.
• Shaking hands – The stress of running a game is high, but not that high. It’s the stakes involved that cause adrenalin rushes when gambling. So this is an obvious fake, one that few GMs would even think of trying. But there is an equivalent that most GM’s will recognize: we get a little clumsier with our die rolls at critical moments or when we’re concentrating hard because what’s happening is important. Dropping dice off the table is an occupational hazard, and a lot of GMs use a tray or some equivalent to prevent it. But I would bet that few ever recognized the association – we roll so many dice that we consider it inevitable that some will go overboard, and so think nothing more of it when it happens.
• Rapid Breathing – this is one poker tell for which there is no obvious equivalent. But I have experienced a couple of GMs who spoke more quickly when important points came up in an adventure, which is a reasonable if inobvious point of equivalence.
• Overacting – While the outward behavior may be different, the same cause – “trying hard” and unable to hide the fact – still leads to the same umbrella behavior. But it’s not overacting a pose as ourselves, it’s over-enthusiasm in descriptions and overacting as NPCs.
• Looking away from the table immediately after placing a bet or checking one’s hand – there are two GM equivalents of this one. The first is pretending to be too busy with your adventure notes or with the rulebook to pay close attention immediately after delivering your misleading statement. The second is deliberately trying to distract yourself by demanding that a player make some sort of die roll for reasons that may be valid but flimsy in justification. In both cases, as with the poker ‘tell’, the very fact that you are trying not to engage interpersonally signals that you are trying to hide something, though neither signal is as clear or obvious as the poker equivalent. It’s still a way of focusing on something other than interpersonal interaction with the players, though.
• Playing with one’s cards – It’s not common, but I have seen GMs and players who could not stop playing around with their dice – sorting them by color, by size, in groups of 3, or 5, or 10, or whatever. Is that the equivalent? I suspect so, but I’m not certain.
• There are no equivalents that I can think of to the remaining examples of alleged ‘tells’, which is why I was more hesitant about listing them.

In the article I linked to earlier, I listed a number of techniques for deceiving the players when it was necessary or desirable. None of them are worth very much if you are sabotaging your own efforts with a tell.

Avoiding Tells

Finding good advice on how to avoid poker tells is surprisingly hard. Finding such advice that can translate into an RPG setting is very much harder.

For example, some of the best advice for in-person poker players is to be consistent and follow the same routine whether you have a good hand or bad. That’s something that GMs can work with.

Another piece of advice that translates is to relax your face into a neutral expression, or better yet (when playing an NPC), into an imitation of the emotion that you want that NPC to be expressing (it really does help your “acting” performance).

Take at least one, and preferably two, breaths before speaking. In poker, the actual recommendation is to take deep breaths, but that isn’t appropriate for a game that’s based on communications. Nor is advice about not speaking to others at the gaming table.

At the poker table, the advice is to sit up straight and move steadily and purposefully, so as to avoid body language tells. That won’t work for an RPG DM, either. In fact, given the nature of the role, advice would have to be predicated on doing the exact opposite in many respects – being casual and relaxed.

The best solution that I have found is to decide in advance what the story is that you are trying to ‘sell’ as the truth, then concentrate on that as completely as possible. This works because both stories are essentially works of fiction of equal veracity so far as the players are concerned. Neither is a “true” story – not even in-game, until we decide to make it so.

Musing

That’s the ultimate difference between an RPG and a game of real-life poker, with real stakes. What we do is an entertainment, done for mutual fun. They play for sheep stations. If you’re feeling inclined to stretch your imagination, contemplate the way our game would change if the GM had to pay XP to players in real currency from our own pockets, with the players fronting the money to participate. I can’t think of a faster way to kill the fun, substituting a sense of competition. And there would always be a suspicion that the ‘house’ – the GM – was shortchanging the players to their own profit. Trust would quickly vanish, replaced by competition – a completely different form of excitement.

And that yields a (speculative) key insight into the competitive gaming that takes place at conventions, where there are prizes on offer. I’ve always been aware that there is a subtle but profound difference between convention gaming and the more common at-home gaming, but I was never able to quite put my finger on it. Now, though, the truth seems to be laid bare. And it posits the question: are the best convention games the ones in which the story is so compelling that the competitive aspects are forgotten by the participants? I tend to think so, but I’ve never run a convention game. Still, it sounds right to me. Can anyone who has done both confirm or comment?

‘Puzzle World’ from freeimages.com / B S K
has only marginal relevance to this article, it’s a leftover alternative illustration from Designing A Game System (for the Zener Gate campaign).

The Elephant In The Gray Room is a metaphor that I have created to represent Plot Holes.

These are matters of huge significance or importance that everyone is overlooking because they are not immediately obvious, but that once you see one, you can never forget that it’s there.

This is a series about methods of fix plot holes so that even when they get noticed, it’s just a spur to your creativity and not a complete calamity.

In this part of the series, I offer six basic ways of handling minor continuity problems. Between them, they should resolve up to one half the plot holes that GMs will encounter..

Minor Repair Technique #1: Ignore the problem

If plot holes can result from failures of memory, fixing them can be compared with plugging holes in a hull made from steel mesh – the ship is still going to sink. Or, to put it more appropriately, why bother making the campaign history pristinely perfect when it won’t be remembered correctly, anyway.

Minor Repair Technique #2: Acknowledge and ignore

At least, that’s the argument that would be employed to justify this approach, and – like all good arguments – it contains more than a little grain of truth. But it overlooks three very important considerations.

First, the fact that human memory has always been fallible, and so we have developed a whole range of devices and techniques for correcting those fallible memories – with the written word still at the top of that list. And second, the fact that future events will be planned around that past, using it as foundation.

That’s actually a more useful metaphor that it seems at first glance. The justification for repairing any plot hole should always be grounded in the damage to the campaign that is being experienced right now, or that will be experienced in the future. If the plot hole is underneath a hollow space in the plot infrastructure that is yet to be built, put some warning tape around it and forget it; but if a load-bearing structural member happens to get it’s support from that particular point, it needs repairs.

The third point is that plans change. While the plan might not be to pin the entire campaign on a plot development that is undermined by the plot hole, you also need to consider the likelihood that such a plot development might become necessary or desirable in the future.

If the hole is in the backstory of a character who is never intended or expected to reappear in the campaign, it’s probably safe to gloss over it and move on. The more likely it is that this is the case, even if it’s not completely certain, the less urgent repairs seem. So this may be a viable short-term or medium-term solution to the problem, even if it might not stay that way forever.

What’s more, if the repaired plot hole is never revisited in the future, any effort expended in repairing it is completely wasted. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t have the time to waste.

At the same time, though, the domino effect means that repairing the hole – depending on the technique chosen – can take an unpredictable amount of time to complete. You may not be able to afford to wait until you need the solution.

Which brings me to the second solution, which is not to ignore the problem, simply to ignore the need to solve it – until it becomes necessary not to, bearing in mind the limitations that come with the notion.

It’s my preference, as a safety net, not to implement this solution until I have identified the nature of the ultimate solution that will be required. That’s “relatively” simple after a proper assessment of the scale and impact of the problem. But, since memory is fallible (as already noted), I also prefer to make some quick notes as to the “shape” of that ultimate solution – what is clear and obvious now might not be so clear when the time comes..

Minor Repair Technique #3: Depth Of Character

People are full of contradictions. One of my favorite solutions to the problem of a character’s past actions being inconsistent with the conceptualization of the character is to make the character more complex and hence more human. A great many discrepancies in action and choice can be explained by giving the character who made the “mistake” a solid motivation for the choice they made, even though it didn’t make sense in light of what had been revealed about the character prior to that event.

Never be afraid to make your characters more interesting!

Minor Repair Technique #4: NPCs are humanoid, too

It’s a very rare human being who doesn’t make the occasional mistake. Some of these are so egregious that we are left saying “I don’t know what I was thinking!” afterward.

And yet, it’s quite common to hold NPCs to a different standard, especially if they are mastermind types. Why?

Or, to put it another way, why not state that whenever possible, a mistake by the GM is actually a case of the NPC making a human mistake?

It isn’t always possible. Logically, when a plan falls apart because of a mistake, that’s the point at which the character should realize what has happened, and should react accordingly. If no such reaction was evidenced, it might be because the character has successfully hidden his inner self-fury – but that needs to be consistent with the rest of the displayed personality, and strains credibility if it happens too often.

Still, this solution is so useful that I am very careful when conceptualizing non-human characters and races to examine the ways in which I can justify some analogue of human fallibility. I don’t care if I’m talking about artificial organisms, aliens, or ancient dragons with Intelligence and Wisdom in the 30s.

Using this technique does require that bit of advance prep by the GM. Some mistakes can’t be characterized appropriately, and so as soon as a mistake is discovered, I need to be able to judge whether or not this repair technique is appropriate so that I can have the NPC react appropriately.

Of course, if a mistake is not discovered in-play and at-the-time, you have more flexibility.

Minor Repair Technique #5: Retroactive Explanation

I only use this technique when it’s effortless. There are times when the moment of identification of a plot hole also yields a spontaneous retroactive explanation. When that happens, I generally go with my instinct and look to implement that solution – assuming that it holds up.

There are two litmus tests that such explanations have to pass. The first is that the logic has to hold up – there is no point in patching a plot hole with another one! The second is that the domino effect has to be minimal – within practical limits, let us say.

It is sometimes possible to add additional content to the “patch” that constrains or limits the domino effect, and whenever the second of those litmus tests is failed, I actively look for some way of doing so. If I don’t find one, then I reluctantly rule out the “obvious” solution.

But usually, that’s either not a problem or it is a manageable one. There are then three ways of delivering the “patch”: as a drop-in; as part of a planned adventure; or as part of a specially-written mini-adventure created for this explicit purpose.

Assuming that the guidelines presented on earlier solutions are being followed, a patch only becomes necessary when a plot point intended to be significant in the campaign’s future – near or far – is directly affected. That justifies the use of a mini-adventure if necessary. It also makes it far more likely that the “patch” can be delivered as part of the adventure in which the plot hole becomes significant – if it is scheduled to occur soon enough.

That last point is a critical consideration. It is always better to deliver the explanation as soon as possible after the plot hole comes to light; with every passing hour of play, the status quo becomes more firmly embedded within the collective memories of the players. If it’s going to be a while before the patch becomes critically necessary, it makes a drop-in more attractive.

So, what is a drop-in, for the benefit of those who don’t recognize the term? It’s not unlike the information that I often package in a blue text-box at the top of an article here at Campaign Mastery, containing side-notes, glimpses behind the curtain, contextual explanations, mea culpas… well, you get the idea. So, a drop-in is literally an inserted package of text, usually only a paragraph or two, delivered out-of-continuity at the start of a day’s play.

Minor Repair Technique #6: The Wisdom Of Players

I’ve spoken of this last technique on a number of occasions, in a variety of contexts and problems. During general chatter before play starts, simply mention that you’ve spotted a plot hole and are fishing for solutions, then describe the problem in terms of what the players already know (and not revealing anything that they don’t know from in-play). Then just sit back and listen.

Of course, you are aware of constraints that the players aren’t; you know parts of the story that they aren’t. So you might not get anything usable. Or you might get a brilliant idea. I use those parts of the story that the players don’t yet know as filters for selecting the best answer.

At the same time, anything that hasn’t been revealed in-game yet is subject to revision as necessary, and there have been one or two occasions when I have, on the basis of the discussion, completely junked the planned adventure in favor of something similar (i.e. cannibalizing whatever has been prepared) that incorporates their solution.

If I become aware of a plot hole in the middle of play, I have even simply pointed it out in-game as something that doesn’t make sense to the PCs, sometimes after a die roll, to make it seem as though I was prepared for it to happen, even expected it and had done it all deliberately, improvising the rest of the day’s adventure before formalizing the plot developments between game sessions.

I’m often so adept at this that the players often never realize that I have deliberately let them steer me off-script in order to solve a plot problem that had been overlooked until it was too late. The last time it happened, for example, was in the conclusion to the Mictlan-tecuhtli adventure (the link is to the Jan 2016 article in which I described the villain for others to use).

But it’s fair to say that I’m well-practiced in all these techniques. They won’t solve every plot hole problem – but they will deal with an awful lot of them, very successfully.

In the next part of this series: Structurally significant repair techniques!

So you’ve come up with a great character for your game and want to gain maximum value for your creativity? No problem. TV has been doing that in one-hour dramas for decades.

There are two paths to follow: the Good Guy path, and the Bad Guy Path.

The ‘Good Guy Path’ is all about establishing a connection between the character and the PCs, cementing the character into a long-term role within the campaign. The ‘bad Guy Path’ establishes a character as an antagonist of significance, though not necessarily one that will stick around for a long time.

Good mileage can sometimes be extracted by inverting the roles. Using the ‘bad guy’ path to introduce a new allied NPC sells the character as someone not to be fully trusted by the PCs and turns the revelation that the character is in fact an ally, possibly a hidden one, into a major plot twist. That can be tricky to handle properly – oversell or undersell that revelation and you damage the credibility of the character or the plot twist, which also damages the credibility of the character. But get it right, and you cement the NPC as a key element in the campaign.

Things are a little easier when using the good guy path to slowly build up and then reveal a hidden enemy. The sense of outrage and betrayal that accompanies the plot twist is almost impossible to deny, making both undersell and oversell virtual impossibilities, Play it down and the players will make up the difference; over-hype the significance and the players will simply assume that you are matching your rhetoric to the way they feel (assuming that you’ve done the job right so that they do in fact feel that way).

General Advice

Before I dig into the specifics, there are couple of points of general advice that I think need emphasizing.

Don’t Go Too Fast

At the very least, each stage in the character stories needs to be in a separate scene. If the character is to be important enough – a recurring character in at least one full “season” of adventures – one per adventure is a better choice. You want time for each encounter with the character’s story to sink and build up a cumulative effect that serves as a foundation for the relationship between the PCs and NPCs.

Don’t Go Too Slow

At the same time, you can’t go too long in between touching on the character’s story, and – ideally – expanding on it or reinforcing it. Certainly, no more than a single unrelated adventure in between each stage of the Character Story. However, as the number of past stages in the character’s story increases, the more the character becomes established within the campaign, and the more flexibility you have to violate this rule-of-thumb.

You can always defer a stage in the character’s story by an adventure if you incorporate some passing mention or reminder of the character into that adventure.

For example, if the next part of the character’s story is theoretically supposed to coincide with a plotline in which time is frozen for the character (amongst perhaps many others), it’s unreasonable to grant and justify an exemption from the time-freeze to the NPC. You have enough on your hands finding a plausible justification for the PCs being unaffected. Under such circumstances, or simply when an adventure is so busy that there’s no time to sneak the next phase in as a subplot, it makes sense to defer the next appearance of the NPC’s story. So drop in a plot sequence in passing in which a PC notices a gift from the NPC and realizes that the NPC is frozen like everybody else, or something of the sort.

You can always find some excuse to mention an established NPC in passing in this way. The less established they are, the less flexibility you have.

If an NPC’s last appearance was a more total involvement in the adventure than a mere subplot, you can usually add 1 to the permitted interval if necessary.

Keep the personality firmly in mind

Whenever part of the NPC’s story appears, keep the character’s personality firmly in mind. Consistency is utterly essential, especially early on.

Don’t confuse the two faces

Everyone has two faces – the one that they present to the outside world, and the more exposed one that people can see once the person grows sufficiently comfortable around someone that they can relax. As soon as a stranger enters the scene, the public persona with it’s barriers and self-protections reasserts itself.

Even though it may not be on display, and may not have been fully revealed to a PC, always keep both “faces” in mind. When a character acts on instinct, without time to think, it’s the private “face” that dictates the nature of those actions; when a character has time to think things through and respond intellectually to a situation, the “public” face calls the shots.

Contemplate a signature

A lot of GM advice advocates some sort of signature that becomes a mnemonic to the players of the character being played by the GM. It could be a turn of phrase, a way of speaking, a prop of some kind that is held or worn.

A lot of GMs use signatures of this sort, especially for important characters. What I’ve found, however, is that too many signatures become a confusing mish-mash that actually impedes the purpose of the signature.

So, while I will always contemplate a signature when preparing to introduce a character, I will rarely implement one. This is a decision that has to be made before a character first appears and that has to be maintained with scrupulous consistency thereafter.

… But don’t be too cheesy

What’s worse, a poorly thought-out signature, or a GM overestimating his ability to deliver the signature in a credible way every time, can transform that signature into a caricature of what the GM is trying to achieve, undermining the importance of the character.

For that reason, don’t think once about a signature – if you decide to go ahead with one, think twice about it. Save it for the most important characters only, and then underplay it. GMs frequently overact, so aiming for subtlety usually makes the signature have just the right level of presence.

Three Interaction Modes

Before I get into discussing the Good Guy Path that I have identified, I need to briefly discuss the three modes of interaction that are relevant. This is another key concept that the reader needs to understand before those discussions make sense.

Professional Mode

In professional mode, the characters (PC and NPC) interact because of the profession of one or both of them. This tends to be the easiest interaction mode to plan/write.

Personal Mode

In personal mode interactions, the characters interact through their personal or social lives. This is slightly more challenging to plan/write, but still easily manageable by a competent GM.

Casual Mode

Casual mode interactions have the characters coming together by accident. Which works fine once, but thereafter requires the GM to sell the players on the plausibility of coincidence – something that I discussed at length in ‘The Conundrum Of Coincidence. This is really hard to do successfully; coincidences happen far more in real life than seems credible in any sort of story.

One additional technique that works well for a limited number of interactions is to base the interaction on a personality trait of the PC.

For example, in a season 1 episode of NCIS, Tony Denozzo has an interaction with a jogger based on his personality trait of being a ladies’ man and her being physically attractive. When he later encounters her again, he is instrumental in bringing about a second interaction, attempting to move from the Casual Mode into the Personal Mode by scoring a date with the girl.

As a rule of thumb, one interaction in the Casual Mode is easy. Two is more difficult but quite possible based on the techniques discussed in the article linked to and the additional technique offered above. Three is really difficult to do credibly, but can be extremely successful at selling the NPC as “part of the furniture” of the campaign if you can pull it off. Note that doing three in succession is much harder than doing three with some other interaction mode in between.

The interaction modes are important in defining the nature of the relationship between the PC or PCs and the NPC. But the most successful interactions blend two of the modes – characters may come together professionally, but share a personal interaction in the process, for example. This imparts a depth to the interaction that adds significantly to the role of the NPC.

This becomes a problem when the NPC has attributes such as being “all business”, but it isn’t impossible. It simply redefines the non-professional interaction as being one-sided with a rebuff from the NPC – and then offering a subtle hint that the NPC was not quite as unaffected as they made out at the time.

This effectively amounts to a subtle redefinition of the restrictive trait “all business” to “all business when on the job” – but while the distinction may be small, it makes all the difference.

Each stage of the path that I’m about to discuss utilizes at least one of the modes, but which one or ones is entirely up to the GM and the individual circumstances.

The Good Guy Path

The usual structure of a story is to reduce it to three or four simple sections or acts. The pathways of plot that I am discussing are broader, more detailed, and more sophisticated, and lines can be drawn grouping the sections into the broader structure in various places.

These
stages or plot milestones in the character’s story may be small scenes, subplots, or integral elements of adventures. If the stages occur in isolated scenes, then all the comments about timing should be read as applying to the number of scenes before the next development;

It’s also possible to condense two stages into a single milestone event, or even to occasionally omit one. In some cases, the sequence can be reversed, for example swapping the “vulnerability” and “assist” stages. And some stages may require multiple interactions. So there is a great deal of flexibility available to the GM.

Something else that the reader will notice when they examine the list of stages is the degree of repetition. This is a process, not a plot outline per se, and the difference has to be clearly understood.

In an nutshell, the process involves introducing the character, establishing the character, exposing more information about the character, rounding out the character, getting the PC or PCs to care about the character, entangling the PC or PCs in the character’s life, and then… well, where the story goes from there is up to the GM, really. The steps that I’ve outlined do nothing but maintain the status quo that the preceding steps establish in a progressive manner, giving the relationships the opportunity to evolve over time.

This is the result of analyzing the development paths of a number of long-term supporting cast members in a great many TV series and comic books – too many to list individually. Everything from Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider man (#31 – #121) to Owen Granger in NCIS Los Angeles, from Max Klinger in M*A*S*H to several of the companions in recent seasons of Doctor Who, have gone into compiling this structure. The challenge has been integrating all these disparate sources without generalizing too far.

Here is the list that I’ve come up with:

1. Introduce.
2. First Impression.
3. Second Impression.
4. Appearance.
5. Vulnerability.
6. Appearance.
7. Assist.
8. Repeat the 4-7 cycle until character completely established.
9. Establish pattern.
10. Violate pattern.
11. Appearance within pattern (repeat until ready for 12).
12. Revelation.
13. Progression.
14. Repeat 11/13 cycle with occasional 12 recurrence until ready for 15.
15. Conclusion.

You’ll notice that 4 and 6 are the same thing, while 9 and 11 are also essentially the same thing, and three stages are essentially repetitions of multiple earlier stages.

Let’s walk through them briefly.

1. Introduce.

Introduce the character. This may precede their actual appearance, as in this sequence, or it may follow the first impression.

2. First Impression.

Tell the players just enough about the character for them to form first impressions. Pay particular attention to PC character traits and opinions, and key as much of the description of the person and their words and actions off those traits and opinions to kick-start character interactions at an individual level.

3. Second Impression.


A second impression can result from a change in opinions in the course of the first encounter with the NPC or from a different context in the second encounter. It can reinforce the first impression, or expose a completely different aspect of the character without contradicting the first impression, or even confine the first impression to describing only a limited aspect of the character. Whichever you choose, it is important for the NPC to reference and remind the player of the first impression, rather than the GM doing it via voiceover. That propels the personal engagement between the characters, whereas the latter undermines it by making the relationship seem artificial.

4. Appearance.

Appearance has nothing to do with what the NPC looks like; it has everything to do with the character making an appearance, i.e. appearing in an adventure as something more than window dressing. That doesn’t mean that their role has to be major, or even pivotal, but it does have to be important. For example, the NPC might give a PC a tip-off about something, or provide vital information – regardless of whether or not the PCs could get that information elsewhere, the fact that it brings the NPC into the plotline and gives them the opportunity to again showcase their personality and cement the relationship.

An appearance can also be simply an interaction of some sort – a phone call, a card, flowers, a gift, an invitation, sharing a piece of gossip. As a general rule of thumb, half of the character’s “appearances” should be of this type.

5. Vulnerability.

Someone needs to get into trouble in a way that prompts an interaction between the PC or PCs and the NPC. That could be the NPC, it could be a third party connected to either an PC or the NPC in some way, it could even be another PC. The purpose is, respectively, to make the NPC more fallibly human; to obligate one of the two parties in the relationship; and/or to show the NPC in a different context or light.

“Getting into trouble” can mean multiple things, and each offers something different to the development of the relationship. Being accused of something, for example, with the PC attempting to clear the NPC, is a great way for the PC to get behind the public face and see the private face, warts and all. Over-committing to helping someone else and getting in over your head is a great way to highlight the NPC’s humanity. Helping the PC get out of trouble means that the PC owes the NPC a favor, which can be either called in at some future point, or dismissed as “that’s what friends do for each other”. There are lots of variations – but what they all do is deepen the relationship between the PC(s) and NPC.

6. Appearance.

This is exactly the same as stage 4, but the significance has changed completely. In stage 4, it was an intensification and deepening of the relationship; Here, it’s more of a confirmation of the relationship, a place-marker and reminder.

Connections between characters are like whiskey, or wine – they take time to mature. But while they are maturing, you can’t let them become dated or forgotten.

7. Assist.

There’s a big difference between the NPC helping the PC or vice-versa, and one of the two needing the other’s help. This is the “give” to stage 5’s “take”. Or it might be both of them helping a third party.

Nor does the type of assistance need to be something earth-shaking. Conspiring to throw a surprise party for someone who has something to celebrate, for example.

8. Repeat the 4-7 cycle until character completely established.

The other purpose behind each and every one of these events is to give more information about the NPC, in small, digestible chunks, or to reveal to the NPC more information about the PCs with whom they have a developing relationship.

It’s a tricky decision to know when to close out the repeated instances of the 4-7 cycle. There are plenty of variations to employ, but the mere fact that they are all variations on a theme becomes fairly quickly apparent. You can never reveal everything there is to know about a character before that time runs out; so you need to prioritize and deliver the essentials within the limited window.

9. Establish pattern.

As soon as the essentials have been conveyed, it’s time to move into phase two of the process. That means putting the relationship onto the back-burner while keeping it ticking over until the players find it as comfortable as an old pair of shoes. Once you’ve achieved that status – and it won’t take as long as you might think – it’s time to plan the rest of phase two. This is very much a transition – the first time around.

10. Violate pattern.

When the opportunity is right, it’s time to break the pattern with an “unconventional” appearance – one that shakes up the status quo and evolves the relationship in some way.

11. Appearance within pattern (repeat until ready for 12).

This is simply repeating 9 to establish the new status quo.

12. Revelation.

Once everything becomes settled again, its’ time to shake things up, as one of those bits of background that you didn’t get to reveal (or that you deliberately saved for the purpose) becomes critically important. This could turn into a Vulnerability or an Assist.

13. Progression.

After every revelation, the relationship should progress. Sometimes that will be in the direction that the GM wants to be its ultimate shape, sometimes it will be away. Think of this part of the process as a romance – sometimes there are rough spots, but they get overcome in time.

14. Repeat 11/13 cycle with occasional 12 recurrence until ready for 15.

The notes on 13 make it clear that it is part of another repeating cycle. You might be wondering how to have a progression without having the revelation that causes it; the answer is that some events have delayed impacts, or domino effects. Some changes to a character’s life need time for the character to reassess their priorities; they might need to find a new job that reflects that change of priority, for example.

Progression doesn’t happen all at once; it’s about ripples. The character changes internally, and that then manifests in external changes to their priorities, which then manifest piece by piece in changes to their circumstances, all of which make changes in their relationships, which exposes them to new stimuli, which prompts a fresh evolution.

Although the ultimate outcome might seem inevitable in hindsight, life should never be so predictable looking ahead.

15. Conclusion.

All character stories come to an end, a conclusion. This pays off everything that has happened in getting to that point. It can either launch the characters involved into a whole new story or signal the departure of that character from the plotline – until the GM decides to bring them back, of course!

So we’re talking about NPCs becoming friends for life, or embittered enemies, or husbands and wives, or ex-partners, or rivals, or staunch allies, or something equally fundamental, But, in every case, looking back, there should be clearly identifiable turning points where the story could have moved in a different direction – opportunities lost, opportunities taken, mistakes made.

Some character stories are even more complicated – characters who are enemies on some occasions, allies at others. You can have characters who are required by politics to be enemies while maintaining a personal respect or friendship, or nominal allies who can’t be trusted – most of the time. You can have characters whose personal obsessions sometimes shift the relationship this way or that.

But the building blocks, turning points, and milestones of all these relationships bear a certain resemblance to each other, and that is what the pathway profile has set out to capture.

The Bad Guy Path

The “Bad Guy” path is similar to the good guy path already described, but there are some distinctive differences. The “bad guy” path is all about a character who is normally antagonistic toward the PCs. He may be a mastermind, making chess moves to advance his cause; he may be a character-driven enemy, obsessed with, well, his obsessions; he may be a bureaucrat or a personal enemy, or he might even be a good guy who believes that the ends justify the means, or who thinks that the PCs cut too close to that ethical shortcut.

One of the major differences is that with the “good guy” path, cause is seen in-game preceding effect and consequence, while the “bad guy” path usually presents effects before the PCs discover the cause, even though the cause took place earlier in chronological time. Only one side of the ‘consequences’ is usually presented – the consequences for the PCs and their allies; it’s normal for consequences affecting the NPC antagonist to happen behind the scenes, only to be discovered in the ’causes’ phase of the next encounter.

There are stages in the pathway at which the GM can have a lot of fun. The “vulnerability” phase, in which the PCs need the Antagonist’s help, or vice-versa, is subject to all sorts of permutations – this could mean anything from the antagonist manipulating the PCs into doing his dirty work for him, or clearing the way for him to advance his cause, for example. It could mean discovering an area of common ground with the PCs that yields a temporary truce. There are endless possibilities.

Equally, there is great variety in the ultimate outcome. The enemy could be reformed, or destroyed, or might even destroy one or more PCs before being brought down in a Pyrrhic victory. He might fail after personal changes alter his priorities to something more socially or personally acceptable.

It can also be fun to run an enemy down the “good guys” path (making him seem to be an ally or even a friend, only for the PCs to be betrayed), or to run an ally down the “Bad Guys” path, making them seem to be an enemy.

Structurally, there isn’t a lot of difference between the two pathways. Events usually occur in clumps of two, three, or even four, all within the one adventure, so they are more compressed; that can make the Bad Guys path more rapid than the good guys.

A typical substructure is effect – cause – confrontation – consequence. Mapping one or more of the stages of the path to that substructure relates it back to the main structure already described.

For example, the mapping might look like this:

4. Appearance: effect, cause
5. Vulnerability: confrontation
6. Appearance: consequence (PC)

or it might be:

4. Appearance: previous consequence (NPC)
5. Vulnerability: effect, cause
6. Appearance: confrontation, consequence

or even,

4. Appearance: effect, cause, confrontation, consequence (PC)
5. Vulnerability: effect, cause, revelation of consequence (NPC), confrontation, consequence (PC)

or any of a great many other possibilities. All the permutations of Vulnerability and Assist are in play, though often inverted or twisted in meaning.

That usually means that multiple stages of the development path occur within a single adventure. That usually indicates a more active engagement between the two factions (PCs and NPCs), but slower, lower-key antagonism is also possible, which spreads a single development stage over one or even two adventures.

Take, for example, the role of the Crown Prince in the Zenith-3 campaign. Nominally an ally, he certainly smooths the waters for them and (mostly) enables them to go about their business with a minimum of external difficulties. He has been a generous benefactor to the team on more than one occasion. But he always exacts a quid-pro-quo, often without asking, and is prone to announcing policy positions that antagonize his enemies into thinking that the PCs are also their enemies. He uses the PCs to bolster his own political position, embedding them and sometimes pushing them into corners when they would far prefer to remain apolitical. Officially, he is a self-declared ally, but in reality he sometimes provides a short-term benefit for the team while incurring a long-term disadvantage for them. Every interaction that they have ever had with him has ended well – for him – and most have ended uncomfortably for the PCs. At the moment, they can’t even be certain whether or not he’s on the “good guy” or “bad guy” path, let alone whether or not he is intended to ultimately be an ally or an enemy. They would prefer the first, but the price might ultimately be too high.

Or take Voodoo Willy from the same campaign, who I described in Ally, Enemy, Resource, and Opportunist: The four major NPC Roles (Part 1) not too long ago. He’s nominally an enemy, but he often behaves as an ally – extracting a quid-pro-quo that is advantageous for him. He is far more clearly on the bad-guy path – but right now his ultimate destiny within the campaign, and the final relationship with the PCs as either an enemy or an ally, hangs evenly in the balance. They agree on a lot more than they disagree on, but the few areas of disagreement are subjects that matter a lot to the PCs.

Both these are characters who are likely to phone the team’s leader (a PC) out of the blue – and which usually evoke a metaphoric palm to the face and the rhetorical question, “what now?”

The long and the short of it

The pathways can, in theory, construct a permanent relationship with the PCs in as little as two or three adventures that are centered around the development of that relationship, or it can be a road map to years of complex interplay between PCs and the NPC. Use it as a planning tool, part of a process of ongoing NPC character and relationship development within your campaigns an you will enrich the game of your players,their characters, and yourself.

There are a couple of expressions that I frequently use as metaphors, simply because they express a concept in a really compact space and in a way that everyone can understand. One is ‘The Iceberg’ to indicate something that is a lot bigger or more important than it seems on the surface. Another is ‘The spotlight’, for things or characters that are highlighted relative to their peers. And a third is ‘The Elephant In The Room’, to describe something that is obvious but that everyone seems to be ignoring or overlooking.

The last metaphor works because an elephant is a big animal. But what if the elephant blended into the room unnaturally well? What if it was, literally, an elephant in a gray room? Something of huge significance or importance that everyone is overlooking because it’s not immediately obvious – but that once you see it, you will never forget that it’s there.

I’m talking about Plot Holes. Everyone can sail right over the top of them without noticing them – until you do, and once you do, you can never escape that awareness.

This is a series about plot holes and ways to fix them so that even when they get noticed, it’s just a spur to your creativity and not a complete calamity…

You may have noticed the “Part 1 of 5”. So, what’s the plan?

• Part 1, Introduction (the article that you are reading) will talk about plot holes – where they come from, how they are discovered (and why it makes a difference), how catastrophic they really are, how they can grow like a cancer if not fixed, how to correctly select a solution to thew problem, and how to shift your mindset when encountering one.
• Part 2, Minor Repairs offers six basic ways of handling minor problems, ranging from Ignoring the problem to dropping in a retroactive explanation.
• Part 3: Significant Repairs deals with plot holes of greater significance in the medium term, and offers appropriately medium-term and medium-sized solutions. There are only three of them on my list so far, but there will be occasions when one of the solutions from part 2 will also solve your problem.
• Part 4: Major Structural RepairsDeals with even more significant plot holes, ones that can only be solved by performing major surgery on the campaign itself behind the scenes. In addition to solutions from earlier parts of the series, this article deals with three even more substantial repair techniques.
• Part 5: Critical Repairs deals with the most catastrophic plot holes. Structural repairs (part 4) are like fixing a hole in the roof, replacing the guttering, or even repainting – some cosmetic details may change but the significant work is beneath the skin and the look-and-feel of the campaign are not significantly altered. That’s not the case with Critical Repairs – these are reserved for situations so cataclysmic that the campaign will never be the same again afterwards (though it may be very similar). I have four solutions to offer in this category, plus the usual smattering of solutions from earlier in the series. It will also wrap the whole thing up in a nice neat (metaphoric) blue ribbon.

For those wondering – yes, I probably could have made this series smaller. But I’m anticipating having quite a bit to say about some of those more serious solutions, so I’m leaving room, just in case. I’d rather post a short article than find myself too squeezed for time to look at things in the detail that they deserve.

Some of what follows in the course of this series will undoubtedly be familiar advice to readers. I make no apologies for that – good advice deserves to be repeated. But hopefully there will be something new for everyone to chew on in the course of the series.

That’s a fairly full bill of work, so let’s get started….

Sources Of Plot Holes

It’s too easy simply to state that a plot hole represents a mistake by the GM. In fact, there are 9 ways in which a plot hole can creep into a GM’s plans, and the cause can materially affect how difficult it is to repair and how big a problem the GM has created for himself – and what methods of repair are most effective are definitely dependent on the specifics. So let’s dig a little deeper.

The causes that I have identified (and there may be more) are,
 

1. Characterization-Event Incompatibility
2. GM Logic Error
3. A Failure To Simulate
4. Player Theory & Confirmation Bias
5. Factual Error
6. Flawed NPC Scheduling
7. A Failure Of Memory
8. Contradictory Considerations
9. Player Confusion

Each of these merits specific discussion.

1. Characterization-Event Incompatibility

This arises when an NPC has done something that is out of character. The ‘something’ can either be in a past appearance (more serious) or in their character history (less serious). The other factor that dictates the seriousness of the problem is the importance of that break in character, taking into account domino theory, in shaping the current (and recent) world as experienced by the PCs.

The consequences of this type of plot hole range from trivial to a combination of both these factors being in the worst-case condition, which can potentially rate this problem all the way up in the Critical range, undermining the foundations of the entire campaign, though the more usual extreme result would be class-3, structural.

This is a trap to which GMs who do their job more off-the-cuff and less planned-in-advance are especially prone, and usually result from the characterization being formulated after the historical role played by the NPC, though it can sometimes result from the GM falling in love with a characterization that explains most of their past actions (overlooking the critical one or ones) and which is particularly fun to play, either for him or for the PCs to play against.

2. GM Logic Error

Of course, GMs are human too, and prone to the occasional mistake. A lot of game prep is – or should be – about giving the GM the chance to spot such errors before they enter game canon, presenting the opportunity to do something about them. The more a GM relies on improv basing adventures on a seed and knowing the characters involved, both player and non-player, the less they are prone to this particularly fallacy – in theory.

In practice, because this means that decisions are made off-the-cuff, it can be argued that GMs employing this style are even more prone to such errors, though when they occur, they are more easily dismissed as human error on the part of the NPC. The real problem that results is that these error rates are not always accurately reflective of the theoretical capabilities of the character, being more of a reflection of the GM’s personal limitations. The bottom line, then, is that improv doesn’t make you less prone to making these mistakes, it merely changes them in interpretation from a strict failure logic to a characterization failure. But when it comes to selecting the best remedial action, it’s better to call a spade a spade, which is why these causes of plot holes are being presented in the sequence shown.

Logic errors span the entire gamut of possible degrees of severity. If anything, they tend to be top-heavy on the scale, more likely to be more critical than less.

3. A Failure To Simulate

Which brings me to actual cases where a character says or does something in play – either pre-planned or unplanned – that contradicts what would be appropriate for that personality in that situation, or where the GM makes an error in adjudicating the complexities of cause-and-effect when there are multiple factors influencing events.

In fantasy campaigns, the latter don’t matter too much, because physics is subjected to such simplification that superficial accuracy is all that’s required. Inaccuracies in the interpretation of game physics within this genre are less important than other forms of failure.

More modern styles and genres, including pulp, can have a somewhat more demanding requirement of accuracy in simulating classical physics, simply because the fantasy wallpaper-over-the-cracks excuse holds less sway. Still, it’s generally enough for the physics to sound plausible, no matter how rubbery it might be in comparison to the real world.

Science Fiction campaigns come in three basic varieties – the post-apocalyptic, the Space Operatic, and the hard sci-fi. Post-apocalyptic campaigns generally regress technology while presenting fantasy as pseudo-science; so far as this subject is concerned, the constraints are somewhere between those of a typical fantasy campaign and a modern campaign. Space Opera campaigns are deliberately distortive of physics but in a very controlled and purposeful manner; sometimes, they need to achieve modern-campaign-setting standards, and at other times, they need only fantasy-level physics.

That leaves only the really serious sci-fi, which I have labeled as “hard” – though, in truth, it may deserve that label only in comparison to the other sub-genres discussed (certainly, literary purists will have a far more strict interpretation of the term). This is a realm in which the physics is so intractable that plots have to yield to it, and not vice-versa. Failure to accurately model the physics can be catastrophic to such campaigns, which is one reason why they are relatively rare. The reality is that most hard sci-fi campaigns are really dressed-up space-opera which pay greater lip service to physics – but that is enough to escalate this failure mode in seriousness.

These plot holes also span the gamut of possibilities, but tend to cluster more toward the middle of the range.

4. Player Theory & Confirmation Bias

I’ve been bitten by this one a time or two, myself, as I mentioned when first discussing the problem in “I know what’s happening?: Confirmation Bias and RPGs. What happens is that the players come up with a theory to explain current events, and then forget that it was just a theory, while the GM – who knows what is really happening, and so has paid little attention to the theory tossed out by the players beyond any immediate consequences of their mistake, forgets that the players ever had such a theory. As a result, when the subject becomes relevant once again in the campaign, months or years later, the players react in a way that accords with their theory and for which the GM has failed to prepare, or an NPC does something that makes sense in light of the “real” situation but which the players can’t understand because their theory has been blessed as campaign canon within their memories. It’s even been the case where a theory persisted at the game table for so long that it is misremembered as ‘fact’ even after it has been disproved.

Even worse, sometimes the players get “clever” and decide not to share their theory with the GM, or even the other players.

Ultimately, and at it’s worst, the players and GM are playing in two different campaigns with a superficial similarity – and, from time to time, the disparity catches one or both off-guard.

This, once again, is a more of a problem for the strict-planning school of GMs. It ultimately comes down to the PCs making an invalid assumption (from the point of view of the GM) and haring off down a rabbit hole in pursuit of the consequences of that assumption, or the GM making an invalid assumption about what the PCs will do in an in-game time-critical situation (from the point-of-view of the players), or – worse yet – reinventing history to get the PCs caught in a wringer and undo one of their past successes.

The net result is that even though there isn’t actually a plot hole there, a “virtual” plot hole comes into existence that can be even more pernicious and difficult to manage than a real plot hole would have been. The solutions tend to have to be in the upper-middle range, and sometimes, even higher up the scale. That’s because the problem itself might be amenable to a smaller solution, because you have to reset the campaign in the player’s minds – or reset it in the GM’s plans – you need to amp up the drama and impact of the solution.

5. Factual Error

In ‘Lessons from the Literary Process‘, I described an event from early in what was to become the Zenith-3 campaign, when I had a mental blank and forgot when the Communist Revolution in China took place. So, in answer to a question to which I didn’t know the answer, I mentioned the Emperor Of China.

Of course, I was immediately pulled up on that, but was fast enough on my mental feet to resolve the resulting plot hole at the time, using one of the many techniques to be discussed in later parts of this series. As I said in the article cited above, Factual Errors don’t have to be fatal; in fact, this one turned into the foundations of a major structural element of the campaign, an incident that was inspirational in devising this entire series.

If you commit a factual error, it produces a plot hole, but they tend to be relatively easy to resolve.

6. Flawed NPC Scheduling

If you don’t maintain a very clear timeline, and refer to it often, you can find that you have the same NPC in two places at once. This is especially easy in fantasy and modern and space opera campaigns because it’s easy to underestimate – or completely forget to allow for – travel time.

This can be a lot harder to fix than it sounds because there aren’t very many solutions and its easy to overuse them. It’s not impossible, but expect to be seriously stretched if you can’t employ one of those obvious solutions – for example, I had to once insert a public holiday into the calendar that didn’t get counted in the days of the month to give a villainous nobleman the necessary travel time to get from A to B.

The obvious solutions are doppelgangers, faster travel modes, time travel and proxies and magical simulacra or android doubles. Introducing any of them after the fact can turn one plot hole into several, because you may invalidate handicaps that the character respected on those occasions.

I’m actually going to highlight one in-obvious solution that I implemented in the early days of my TORG campaign (before the reality invasion when a common timeline became possible using modern technology): propagating dates.

Let’s say that an event happens in the capital on the 131st day of the fourth year of the reign of Pella Ardinay. What’s the date in Zesther, 200 leagues (about 690 miles) away? Using my usual scales (refer What Size Is A Kingdom?, that’s a minimum overland distance of 19 days travel. It could be more, but when I was drawing my maps for that campaign I made the conscious decision that things would be depicted not as they would have been geophysically, but by overland travel time. Distances on the map were described not as a measure of length, but as a measure of time, and locations in mountainous terrain were often depicted as further apart than they would have been on a more traditional map. so let’s assume that there’s as much downhill as there is up, and that the 19 days is a fair estimate.

So, if an event takes place in the capital on 131-4-PA, the date when word of that event reaches Zesther is also 131-4-PA. If an event took place simultaneously in both Zesther and in the capital, Zesther would record and report the event as occurring on 121-4-PA. The seasons change on different dates. Taxes are due on the same date everywhere, which is the date the taxes all arrive at the Capital.

So let’s say that I’ve made a mistake in my timing and to fix it, I need an extra two days of travel time for the Dwarven Horde. Let’s further suppose that the season is Summer. All it takes is a river swollen with flood waters from heavy rain in the mountains to move the date of arrival out by those two days, because the trip took two days longer If I needed him to get there two days sooner, unseasonably good weather can do that.

What it meant was that I could date an event and have that date be relatively meaningless with respect to any other date relating to events in any other location.

It’s not something to do with every campaign – it’s too noteworthy and too contrary to the way we’re used to things working – but when the campaign setting is sufficiently isolated from historical Earth, it’s another trick to have up your sleeve. But it does need to be implemented during campaign design, it can’t be imposed after the fact.

In terms of the seriousness of these plot holes, they span the entire range. As indicated, the obvious solutions can often have knock-on effects that are more disruptive than the original problem was, so these problems tend to cluster toward the extreme ends of the spectrum – either trivial to resolve, or really major, as a result.

7. A Failure Of Memory

I’ve been caught by this source of plot holes more than once, too. That’s why there have been two articles on the subject – ‘The failure of …urmmmm… Memory‘ and ‘In The Footsteps Of Footprints: how to document game events.

Well, that advice may mitigate the frequency of the problem’s occurrence, but it doesn’t obviate it completely; there will always be things that didn’t seem important enough, or that seemed memorable enough (at the time) that a note didn’t have to be made.

It’s like putting something in a safe place – which is another of those expressions that my social circle all use; you can never find it when you want it. Quite often, whenever we can’t find something, we will say that we obviously “put it in a safe place”.

Solutions to this type of plot hole tend to span the lower three categories fairly evenly. It’s relatively rare for them to escalate into the most severe category, though it does happen from time to time.

It’s always important to consider multiple solutions to this problem when it does arise; it can often be the case that a more substantial ‘fix’ has less future complications than a smaller solution that starts a chain of falling dominoes. While small solutions are generally to be preferred, that principle can be violated in this case.

8. Contradictory Considerations

There are lots of factors that go into most decisions made by the GM when it comes to plot. Sometimes, priorities change between designing the plot and actually implementing it, and sometimes they change on the fly. These contradictory considerations can create a change in direction in the plot as actually executed, resulting in a plot hole.

This can often happen when the PCs do something brilliant about a problem that the GM hadn’t considered – either he shuts them down despite that brilliance (risking allegations of plot trains that may or may not be justified) or he adjudicates fairly, bypassing some of the key stepping stones to later plots that the entire adventure was intended to justify.

These can be amongst the most catastrophic plot holes to resolve, certainly amongst the top categories of severity, or they can be relatively trivial. They demonstrate that
there can be times when no-one does anything wrong, but the campaign still ends up needing remedial action, and sometimes drastic remedial action.

9. Player Confusion

It’s one of the core truths of plot holes that GMs aren’t perfect. Sometimes, we have trouble communicating clearly to the players what’s going on in our heads; when players grow confused, they can roar off in strange directions.

When that happens, you have a choice – give them their heads, and try to make it work, or bring them back into line, even letting them backtrack on key decisions made on the basis of the misunderstanding.

It’s not too extreme to suggest that the decisive consideration in the GM’s mind when making a decision in such matters should be the scale and difficulty of the remedial action that will be required – if it’s minor or trivial, let the PCs have their heads. If it’s more substantial, but easily incorporated into the existing plans, let the PCs have their heads. If it’s a little more serious than that, then you might or might not choose to live with it – depending on the circumstances, and how soon the confusion becomes apparent – but it’s time to start seriously considering a backtrack. Certainly, anything more severe and the backtrack becomes far more enticing.

But sometimes, it’s not clear that the players are confused, at the time – that discovery only comes out later, and the GM can find himself presented with a fait accompli, and needing to right the ship.

So there are two pathways by which player confusion can lead to a plot hole. And those plot holes can cover the entire range of severity.

Discovering A Plot Hole and why the ‘how’ matters

There are lots of uncommon ways to discover a plot hole, and one or two really common ways.

Thinking about the game in between sessions? An uncommon way.

Doing game prep, and planning the day’s play? Those are uncommon ways.

Just before the plot hole gets read into campaign continuity? Another uncommon way.

Immediately the players assess what you’ve told them, and it’s too late? All too common.

Days, weeks, months, or even years later? Also all too common.

It makes a difference. Those uncommon ways offer a chance – however brief, however slim – to fix things before the GM is committed to a plot hole that needs repairs. Sometimes, that’s all you need, but it’s important not to implement a half-baked solution. If you’re sure that you aren’t actually digging yourself in deeper with a quick fix, go for it – but if there is any hesitation or doubt, you may be better off taking the time over a proper fix after the fact.

Sometimes, the awareness that there’s a problem can lead you to tinker with the pacing, deferring the problem point for a game session, giving you more time to implement a fix while never committing to the plot hole.

These rare opportunities when the stars align are priceless gifts; embrace them. Most of the time, though, you will find yourself in plot repair, usually because the players have just told you something doesn’t make sense – or because you’ve stumbled across an inconvenient truth long after the fact..

Scale Of Plot Holes

Before you can think about a solution, you need to identify the scale of this particular plot hole, in terms of how much damage it will do to the campaign. Small problems – as a rule of thumb – need small solutions.

Problem scale comes from three factors:
 

• the Damage done;
• Interval until the damage becomes apparent; and
• the Persistence of that damage.
  

  The Damage Done

  Plot damage comes in three types. There’s damage to the credibility of the campaign, damage to the credibility of the GM, and damage to the adventure potential of the campaign.

  Damage to Campaign Credibility

  When you expose an adventure to the willful exuberance of the players, you need them to invest in the plot as totally as possible, and not spend time second-guessing you. But guess what? They will do both, anyway, whether the occasional plot hole gives them reason to do so. So I discount this type of damage, and recommend that you do likewise.

  Damage to GM Credibility

  If you want to project an image of GM infallibility, this is important to you. I don’t; I know that I’m human and can make mistakes, and don’t care if the players know that, too. I would rather that they know that I care about the campaign and the entertainment that it gives them, and that’s enhanced by fixing the problem, not hiding it. So I recommend that you ignore this damage category.

  Damage to Campaign Adventure Potential

  Ah, now here’s the rub. This is why plot holes matter. Any campaign is a house of cards; it can collapse at any time. Its internal coherence, the credibility of its characters and plotlines, these are the glue that binds those cards together. The stories, interest, intrigue, personality, and – above all – the fun, are what the cards are made from. Take away some of that coherence, and you can still have a pretty good campaign – but take away too much of it, and the whole thing falls in a heap.

  Everyone’s tolerance level is different. Mine is very low – I work hard on my plots because I’m not satisfied unless they are great (fortunately, I think I also have the plotting skills to be able to meet those standards). Other GMs are more easygoing. But it’s not just the GM who needs to be satisfied; each player will also have a credibility threshold, and its something that can vary over different aspects of the game. Some players will let the GM get away with plot murder if the combat tactics and personalities shine. Others are content with fairly bland combat, but demand strong and interesting personalities amongst the NPCs and solid, solid, stories. Everyone’s different.

  It’s critical that you know where you have some leeway to play with and where you need to adhere to the highest standards. Until you do, it’s best to simply aim to be the best that you can be in every area, to play to your strengths, and to do your best to satisfy the only person who can give you instant and totally honest feedback without asking – yourself.

  Plot holes undermine the story. They undermine character reactions to events within that story. Only if your players and yourself are totally zoned in on the personal combat aspects of an RPG can you afford not to deal with the inevitable plot holes we all experience.

  The Interval until the damage manifests

  The second factor deals with the urgency of finding a solution. Plot holes can exist (so long as no-one notices them) for years before they assume significance within the campaign, and even if they do get noticed, you can get away with it through sheer chutzpah by promising that there is an explanation that will emerge in due course.

  That, however, commits you to actually finding and presenting a solution, so you are a lot better off if you already have some inkling of what it will be and what it will require.

  The shorter the interval before you need to have an answer, the more justified you are in being as drastic as necessary, and hence the more severe the damage from the plot hole will potentially be.

  At the same time, though, it can be a bad thing to have too great an interval, because it permits you to perpetually delay actually committing to a solution.

  Damage Persistence

  Some characters are hotel guests, here today and gone tomorrow. Plot holes related to those character’s actions or history can be ignored without ongoing damage for long periods of time.

  Some characters are lodgers, present for a substantial period of time before shuffling off to the plot graveyard, their stories told – at least for now. Plot holes related to these characters often can’t be ignored, but can be deferred if the plot hole in question never influences current events/actions.

  And some characters are furniture, present and involved frequently or even continuously. Plot holes related to these characters have to be resolved ASAP because the characters are so pivotal to the campaign.

  (As an aside, before I continue, I should point out that resolving a plot hole is the GM finding and documenting a solution to the incongruity; it doesn’t actually have to be presented to the players right away. Until that takes place, however, it will continue to cause structural damage to the campaign).

  Plots are like characters, as described above. Some are fireflies, there briefly and then gone; sometimes, a plot exists purely as a vehicle for some key revelation or character development. Holes in that plotline that don’t affect that lingering content don’t matter much, and can be resolved with a trivial solution. Others have a more substantial impact, serving as foundation or foreshadowing for future events within the campaign. The deadline for resolving those problems is the next development within that plotline. And some have an immediate and ongoing impact within the campaign, constraining PC choices from that time forward; these need to be resolved strongly, compellingly, convincingly, and as soon as possible.

  Of course, those four criteria are often incompatible; but it is better to wait until all four can be delivered, provided that the damage will not be catastrophic in the meantime. So you can’t wait forever, but can invest time in finding the most effective solution and implementing it properly.

Plot Hole Escalation

Even if the preceding section indicates that a deadline has been reached, it doesn’t necessarily force your hand if your solution isn’t yet ready to go. So long as you are aware that the unresolved plot hole undermines the adventure you are about to run, and that the damage won’t cause the whole plot to sink into the hole, you can cope with a little temporary subsidence.

Every event in a campaign has an ongoing persistence, becomes part of the campaign’s history, and becomes the foundations for the next level of plot structure, just as the ceiling of the second floor of a building is also the foundation that supports the third floor.

Every time the flawed event or plot development is referenced within the campaign, it does damage to the campaign. Every time a damaged event is referenced, it does secondary damage. And that causes tertiary damage, and so on.

What does “referencing” an event look like? It means that it influences or shapes the decisions or actions of a character, either PC or NPC, or that a consequence of the event does so.

Below is a graphic representation of a typical strong-continuity campaign for four players. Each has their own colored mesh of plots and subplots that occasionally link into the main plot that’s driving the campaign, but the campaign is still 75-80% character driven. And beneath that, a depiction of the worst-case scenario of the corruption caused by a single plot hole – the dots show where the corruption jumps from one plotline into another. It also shows the GM doing his best to treat the problem, but he is dealing with symptoms and not with the real problem. click on the image to open a larger one in a separate tab (1024 across)

The damage spreads through the campaign like a cancer, eating away at its credibility, a little at first – a sort of nagging afterthought – but slowly becoming all-consuming. I doubt if such a campaign would ever run to it’s conclusion – by the time the corruption is half-way through its growth cycle, it has become a dominant feature of the campaign, by the time it’s 1/3 of the way, half the campaign content has been tainted. Somewhere between those two points is where I would expect the campaign to begin to collapse.

I repeat, this depicts the worst-case scenario. It shows just how bad the problem can be.

Matching Solution Scale to Problem Scale

Obviously, if you were faced with such a situation, you would be justified in drastic action to correct the problem. Most are nowhere near this severe, and can be defeated with a correspondingly mild treatment.

The sooner you detect and remedy the problem, the milder the treatment that is necessary – most of the time. Worst-case cataclysms are rare.

The scale of the ‘treatment’ should match how significant the problem is about to become – not how serious it is now, though that’s a constant temptation, and not how chronic it might eventually become.

An untreated plot hole is like a cancer spreading through your campaign. If you’re lucky, it will be benign; but the most serious cases are malignant, and require drastic surgery if the campaign is to be saved..

If, for example, the villain of the campaign is a mastermind who makes a series of silly, out-of-character choices, driven by a poorly-thought-out character trait that doesn’t make sense in light of his background; had it been part of his makeup, that background would be entirely different, and he would never have become the threat that is supposed to drive the campaign forward. Every silly choice that he makes spreads the taint until every character’s plotline is infected. Those silly choices include ignoring obvious direct paths to achieving his ambitions before the PCs can get into a position to stop him, and wasting time and resources pursuing irrelevancies and illogical side projects.

If the character had been designed from the start to be driven by passions, the GM might have gotten away with this behavior; but you can’t be a part-time mastermind and a part-time egomaniac obsessed with trivia, the melange is completely unpalatable.

This situation is not unsolvable. It would entail drastic surgery on the NPC mastermind and his story, turning him into a victim of the real villain of the piece who has been mentally destabilizing him, perhaps in the belief that the end justifies the means. The entire campaign going forward would be reshaped accordingly, split into two dominant threads (one per villain); whichever one the PCs chose to deal with first emerging as an even greater threat than he already was. If one of the PCs had the appropriate mind-set and could gain the abilities, the second enemy might even be his future self from a world in which the PCs failed to stop the unfettered, undamaged, mastermind.

But discussion of actual treatments is premature – consider the above a preview of the fifth part in this series!

Opportunities in Adversity

It’s not all doom-and-gloom. Plot Holes may be a challenge to creativity, but it’s entirely possible for the solutions to strengthen a campaign. Every challenge, after all, is also an opportunity. You can strengthen weak elements within the campaign, reinforce the structural integrity of your house of cards, and ramping up the enjoyment that all concerned derive from their participation.

Those are side-benefits, but they also paint a vivid illustration of the way to differentiate between the different solutions that are to be offered.

The minimum requirement is to contain the damage, stop it from spreading. Solutions that do that in the least disruptive manner are obviously to be preferred – you don’t nuke a gnat. And the very best solutions will offer such side-benefits on top of these achievements, providing new opportunities for adventure and a richer, more interesting, and more fun gaming experience.

Counterbalancing those considerations is this: some solutions are a lot more work than others. Some require a higher standard of applied creativity, others require more time and/or more effort. And time, as I’ve shown, is definitely a factor. So there are multiple criteria to be satisfied when choosing a solution to the problem – enough that in every case, I would expect a single best solution to present itself. The one right answer that does the most for the campaign as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Every GM , every campaign, every plot hole, and every circumstance will be different. There are too many possibilities for any series of articles to make the decision for you. But this series can put the tools in your hands; what use you make of them is then up to you.

The next part of this series will look at techniques for fixing minor plot holes.

It’s still not certain which game system will be used for the Zener Gate campaign, but discussion with one of the players clarified many of the concepts of the original game system that was forming in the back of my mind as an option.

As I thought the process and ideas might be of interest to readers, I’ve decided to set them down – and my thoughts – for all to see.

This is not a finished game system – just a rough blueprint of the content that will be incorporated into the game system if I go ahead and write it. The goal is to be mechanically fast, with a flexibility that comes from being relatively abstract.

Stats

Not sure how many of these there will be yet, nor what they will all be named in the end, but some are fairly clear.

• STR – Strength, i.e. physical force.
• CON – Constitution, i.e. health.
• END – Endurance. Starts equal to CON.
• RES – Resistance to physical harm, assuming maximum defensive armor. Lighter armors will subtract from it.
• NIM – Nimbleness. Heavier armors will subtract from it.
• HP – Hit Points. Equal to 2 x CON + RES + NIM.
• SHK – Shock Threshold. equal to 1/5th HP, round up. If an attack does this much damage or more in one round, the character must make a CON save or be rendered unconscious for d10 time on the universal scale (see below). For every point that the shock threshold is exceeded, there is a -1 penalty to the save and +1 modifier to the time roll.
• ACC – Accuracy with aimed weapons.
• MEL – effectiveness with Melee weapons & unarmed.
• DEX – overall measure of manual dexterity, used for manipulating tools and keyboards. The stat rolled is averaged with NIM to get the actual stat value. Hand protection will subtract from it.
• PRAC – the character’s aptitude for Practical skills.
• THEO – the character’s aptitude for intellectual/analytic/Theory skills.
• ENC – Encyclopedic Knowledge, the character’s knowledge bank of facts and processes.
• LAN – the character’s capacity for quick-learning Languages. Discussed below.
• INT – Intelligence. Equal to 1/4 of (PRAC + THEO + ENC + LAN), + 1d6, -1d6.
• AWA – Awareness of the environment around the character, used for “spot” and “listen” checks.
• PERS – Personality, a combination of Presence, Charisma, and Persuasiveness, the foundation of any interpersonal skills.
• KARMA – The universe’s debt to the character’s good fortune. Initially 10, -1 for each stat with a score of 17 or better, +1 for each stat with a score of 8 or less. Karma can be sacrificed in-game to gain a lucky advantage or to buy off a restriction placed on the PCs by the campaign background, the latter at prices to be determined by the GM. Some penalties must be bought off collectively by all PCs contributing to a pool. The GM can also throw unlucky circumstances at the PCs which turn into a Karma boost if the PCs overcome the circumstance indirectly, i.e. without directly countering with PC Karma, effectively adding to the XP that the characters get for the adventure.

There may be more, but those 18 seem adequate for now.

Rolling Stats

Stats are populated in four steps.

1. Generation

To generate a character, the players roll 4d6, re-rolling sixes, until they have a list of results half again as long as the number of stats. Presently, there are 18 stats, but INT, HP, SHK, and Karma don’t count because they are handled as calculations, so currently 21 rolls would be needed; list the results on some scrap paper.

For the record, the potential results are 4 to 20, the average is 12, and the chance of each result (out of 625) are: 1-4-10-20-35-52-68-80-85-80-68-52-35-20-10-4-1.

2. Selection

Characters must select the single highest result AND the results immediately above and below that roll. Assume the list “wraps around”. If there’s a tie, the player can pick which one to use. Copy selected rolls to a separate list and cross them off.

Characters must select the single lowest result AND the .results immediately above and below that roll, pretending any results crossed out are not on the list. If there’s a tie, the player can pick which one to use. Copy selected rolls to a separate list and cross them off.

Characters must select one 13, 14, or 15 result AND the results immediately above and below that roll, pretending any results crossed out are not on the list. If there’s a tie, the player can pick which one to use. Copy selected rolls to a separate list and cross them off. NB: Ordinary NPCs must use 11-12-13 for this step.

The Character can pick any one remaining result. The rest of the original list are then discarded.

3. Allocation

The player should already have selected a profession for the character. The stat rolls are allocated to the different stats as the player sees fit, to reflect the proficiencies required for that profession.

4. Calculation

Finally, the INT and HP scores are calculated (round in the character’s favor).

An Example

Although the language I?ve used above is slightly different, and (I hope) somewhat clearer, one of my players had trouble understanding the process until I did a quick back-of-an-envelope example to illustrate the procedures. So let?s do a quick example for anyone who hasn?t quite followed.

I start by generating a list of 21 rolls of 4d6, re-rolling all sixes:
&nbsp:

	2, 3, 3, 5	2, 4, 5, 6 → 2	5, 5, 5, 6 → 2	2, 2, 3, 5	2, 3, 4, 6 → 4
	=13	=13	=17	=12	=13
	1, 3, 5, 5	3, 5, 5, 6 → 3	1, 1, 3, 6 → 6 → 2	1, 2, 4, 5	2, 2, 3, 4
	=14	=16	=7	=12	=11
	4, 6 → 3, 6 → 4, 6 → 2	3, 3, 4, 6 → 3	1, 3, 5, 5	5, 5, 5, 6 → 5	2, 3, 3, 4
	=13	=16	=14	=20	=12
	3, 3, 4, 5	1, 1, 4, 6 → 5	4, 4, 5, 6 → 6 → 3	2, 3, 5, 6 → 4	1, 3, 4, 5
	=15	=11	=16	=14	=13
	2, 4, 5, 6 → 2
	=13

 

(Practical Advice Note: I found it a lot easier to roll the dice in batches of 5 lots of 4 dice, exactly the way it?s shown in the table above).

 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13.

 
(It’s necessary to imagine these in a column running down the page).

The single highest result is the single 20 result. Immediately ?above? that is a 14, and below that, a 12. So that?s our first trio of selected rolls, which are crossed off the original list:
 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13. 14, 20, 12.

 
The single lowest roll (by miles) is the 7. Above that is a 16 and below it is a 12. So we copy those three rolls into the selected rolls list and cross them off the working list:
 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13. 14, 20, 12, 16, 7, 12.

 
There are lots of 13, 14, and 15 results to choose from. The decision has to be based on the rolls above and below it.

• The first result is a 13. Above that (wrapping around from the end of the list) is the last result, another 13, while below it is a third 13, for a group 13, 13, 13. Their total is 39, so that?s the score to beat.
• The second result is a 13. Above that is the first result, another 13, while below it is a 17, for a group 13, 13, 17. This has a total of 43, so that?s the new best result.
• The fifth result is a 13. Above that is a 12, and below it is a 14, for a group 12, 13, 14. This has a total of 39 ? as good as the first choice but not as good as the second.
• The sixth result is a 14. Above that is 13, below that is an 11, because the 16, 7, and 12 have been crossed out. So that?s a group 13, 14, 11. They have a total of 38, which is a new low.
• The eleventh is a 13. Above it is an 11, and below that is a 16, for a group 11, 13, 16. This is a total of 40, making it the second-best choice.
• The thirteenth result was a 14, but it?s been crossed out and can?t be used.
• The sixteenth result is a 15, Above it (ignoring the crossed-out numbers) is 16 and below that is 11, for a group 16, 15, 11. These add up to 42, becoming the new second-best choice.
• The nineteenth result is a 14. Above it is a 16, and below it a 13, for a group 16, 14, 13. They total 43, matching the best choice on offer.
• The twentieth result is a 13, but the numbers above and below it are 14 and 13, so the resulting group isn?t really in the running.
• The twenty-first and last result is a 13. Above that is another 13, and below it (because the list is treated as wrapping around back to the beginning) is the first 13. But a 13, 13, 13 combination won?t cut it.

So the choice is between 13, 13, 17 and 16, 14, 13. Since the next step is to cherry-pick from the remaining answers, it?s best to pick the one that has more high scores, even if one of the scores is less than the best In the other group. So the choice is the 16, 14, 13 group. Add it to the chosen results and cross them off the list:
 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13. 14, 20, 12, 16, 7, 12, 16, 14, 13.

 
With nine of the 14 stat values now selected, there are two different philosophical approaches to consider for the remaining 5 scores. Some players like to add color to their characters by deliberately choosing one or two of the lowest remaining scores on the list ? the roleplayers. Power-gamers will simply pick the five best scores that aren?t crossed out. If I assume that I?m rolling up an NPC, I?ll usually tak the first approach except when designing a villain. For the sake of the example, let?s pick one low score and the four best, something of a compromise between the two philosophies.

There?s an 11. In fact, two of them ? those are the lowest scores. The four best are 17, 16, 15, and 14. Not used are an 11, a 12, and a bunch of 13s. So the final list of stat rolls are:
 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13. 14, 20, 12, 16, 7, 12, 16, 14, 13, 11, 17, 16, 15, 14.

 
Or, if I list them from low to high:
 

13, 13, 17, 12, 13, 14, 16, 7, 12, 11, 13, 16, 14, 20, 12, 15, 11, 16, 14, 13, 13. 7, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 14, 14, 15, 16, 16, 16, 17, 20.

 
Next comes allocating the scores. I would normally select which two were going to be my dump stats (the 7 and the 11) and then prioritize from the high roll down ? the 20, the 17, the three 16s, and then the 15. From the stats that are left, pick the ones that are to get the 12s and the ones that are to get the 14s, leaving the last one to get the 13. But how a player might choose to handle that is up to them.

Stat Checks

These will be relatively rare but not unheard-of, especially when the character doesn’t have an applicable skill. To make a stat check, the character rolls 3d6 plus a modifier from the GM that reflects any circumstantial modifiers and the inherent difficulty of the task. The total must be less than or equal to the character’s stat in order to succeed.

Skill Foundations

Divide each stat by 2, rounding up. Add 2. That is the base value of any skill that is used with the stat for the basis of skill checks. Since stats have a maximum value of 20 (as rolled), that gives a range for skill foundations of 4-12.

Skills

Characters start with skill points equal to their INT x 2.

Characters define their own skills. Their profession must be the first such skill listed. Skills are Holistic in nature, not precise.

Skills are classified by the GM as Specific, Narrow, or Broad, depending on how much is implied by the label applied by the player. Specific skills are only useful for one small, closely-related set of tasks; Narrow skills are useful for a somewhat wider variety of tasks; and Broad skills are useful in a wide variety of applications. These cost 1, 2, or 4 skill points, respectively.

For example, the first four skills listed by a character might be:

Homicide Detective
Boy Scout
Fisherman
Park Ranger

While ‘Homicide Detective’ is a Narrow skill-set, it implies experience as a general police officer, which is a broader skill-set. So it’s a 4-point purchase.

‘Boy Scout’ implies a lot of practical experience, so it is also a 4-point purchase.

‘Fisherman’ is very restricted in what it can be used for, so that’s a 1-point purchase.

‘Park Ranger’ is also fairly restricted, but clearly broader than ‘Fisherman’; it’s a 2-point purchase. So these four skills total 11 points.

Purchase gives the skill a base value of 5 ranks in that skill.

Skill Checks

When the PC attempts a task, he lists any skills he feels are relevant. The GM selects a stat basis that he thinks is most relevant. The player adds his ranks in the skill and the stat basis value to get the target value. He then rolls 4d6 and must get less than or equal to the target to succeed.

Secondary Bonuses

If a character has more than one skill that might be relevant, he must select the most relevant one, breaking ties in favor of narrowness. Each additional skill, if the GM agrees that it is relevant, adds 2 to the target value for the check.

For example, when Fishing, a character’s Fisherman skill and DEX are the logical foundations, but Boy Scout is potentially relevant as well. The GM agrees. “Fisherman” is a narrower skill than “Boy Scout”, so “Fisherman” is the primary skill for the check, and “Boy Scout” adds 2 to the target that must not be exceeded.

This means that it’s beneficial to list both a general skill and any more specialized skills in which the character wants to have additional expertise over and above his general proficiency. The idea is that the general skill provides a definitional ‘safety net’ for all the things that the character doesn’t have a specialist skill in.

Weapon Skills

Characters can take weapon skills. These are broadly defined, and cost 2 skill points each, or general category skills, costing 3 skill points each. “Gun” is a general category, and so is “Firearm”. “Handgun” or “Pistol” or “Rifle” are broadly defined weapons types. If characters want to waste their points, a specific skill in a specific model (1 point) can also be applied.

Unproficient

If a character attempts a task in which his only skill is incorrectly specialized and he doesn’t have a general catch-all – for example, using a 44 Magnum when his only firearms skill is “.33 special” – he is considered to have No ranks in the relevant skill and his chance of success is defined by the relevant Skill Foundation alone, +1 for each indirectly-related skill the GM deems appropriate.

Improving Skills

Characters can buy additional ranks in skills at the price of 1 skill point per rank. Because narrow-focus skills take usage preference over broader skills, the benefits of improving a broader-application skill are counterbalanced by the frequency of occasion when that improvement won’t actually apply to the skill, permitting the one-price-fits-all simplicity.

Improving Stats

During Character Generation, Stats can be improved at the rate of +1 to the stat for 3 skill points. Stats can also be reduced by 1 to obtain an extra 2 skill points.

Disadvantages

These are ranked in terms of applicability of circumstance by the GM and awarded values of 1, 2, or 4 points, (specific to general). Specific disadvantages cause a reduction in proficiency in one particular skill or similar area of activity. Two points affect a broader range of activities, while 4 point skills affect a very wide range of activities. For example, “Poor at Mathematics” is a 2-point disadvantage.

If the Disadvantage is one that isn’t readily/directly applicable to skill checks, the impact on the character’s life and freedom of choice should be assessed and a value chosen based on a skill penalty of similar impact.

Multiple ranks can be taken in a Disadvantage; each confers the equivalent of two negative ranks. Each additional rank reduces in value by 1 point to a minimum of one point.

So, for example, five ranks in a Disadvantage is worth:

• 1+1+1+1+1=5 points for a specific disadvantage;
• 2+1+1+1+1=6 points for a narrow disadvantage,
• 4+3+2+1+1=11 points for a broad or general disadvantage.

Karma Limits

There is a limit to the total number of ranks that a character can have in a given disadvantage equal to his starting Karma.

There is a limit to the number of disadvantages that a character can earn points from that is equal to his current Karma.

Removing/Reducing Disadvantages

Before a Disadvantage can be removed, it must be reduced to a single rank. Normally, only one rank can be removed from a given disadvantage per adventure but this restriction can be varied by the GM if it seems appropriate.

To remove a rank in a disadvantage, the character expends 1 point of Karma, reducing his Karma total accordingly..

Karmic Debt

If a character’s Karma drops in the course of an adventure to the point that he is forced to reduce one or more disadvantages because they would exceed the Karmic Limit described above, he is forced to experience a Complication. This is a player-invoked setback that worsens one or more other disadvantages by one rank for each rank in the Disadvantage being nullified. If he can no longer do so because his disadvantages are at the maximum permitted level, another stat is semi-permanently reduced as a consequence of the setback. Note that this has to happen in-play. For example, a minor stroke might impair one of his intelligence-deriving stats, or a torn muscle or cracked bone might impair his Nimbleness, or he might contract a disease that impairs his CON. The nature of the setback offered by the player and the number of stat points lost determine the value of the Complication – minus one point in one stat is worth one rank in the setback. That means that the scale of the Complication should be set to match the total unpaid Karmic Debt accrued by the event. Another form of setback that is acceptable is for the player to deliberately blow a mission-critical roll for his character and refuse a re-roll.

Setbacks are treated as “negative-karma disadvantages” and can be paid off when the GM deems it appropriate by the expenditure of earned Karma, i,e, XP (see below).

Karmic Starvation

If a reduction in disadvantages means that a character has expended more on skills than his disadvantages can pay for, he experiences Karmic Starvation. This mandates a Complication, as above, but instead of reducing ranks in Disadvantages, it reduces the amount of skill points expended by two skill points per rank in the Complication.

Other uses for Karma

Karma can be used to re-roll a failed roll at the player’s discretion, or to give another character a +5 in a mission-critical roll. These applications consume one Karma.

Karma can be converted into additional Skill Points at the rate of 2 Skill points per point of Karma consumed.

Karma can be converted into a stat bonus at the rate of 2 Karma per +1. Once a stat exceeds 25, this cost doubles, and for every +5 to the limit, it doubles again. Note that this is far more expensive than adjusting stats during character construction.

Karma can be expended during character construction to modify rolled stats. Every point of Karma consumed permits one stat to be reduced by 1 and another to be increased by 2. Note that this also affects the character’s Starting Karma.

Karma can be expended to obtain a stroke of good fortune in the course of an adventure. The player tells the GM what “good luck” he would like to have and the GM counts the number of successful rolls that he would normally require in order to achieve the same outcome. That count is the cost of the stroke of good fortune in Karma. If the cost is more than the character can or is willing to pay, the GM may propose a lower-cost variation that gives the PCs some or even all of what they want; the GM is expected to work with the players in this respect.

Karma can be expended to reduce or remove a limitation placed on the characters by the campaign setup or background, for example to expand a character’s Meitner Field Radius, permitting them to carry more equipment through a Zener Transition. An explanation for this change will be incorporated into the next adventure by the GM, and the benefit will take effect from that time, NOT immediately.

Finally, Karma can be expended to delay the next Zener Transition long enough for the PCs to complete their current adventure.

Experience

Experience is earned for surviving an adventure. More experience is earned for helping the locals deal with whatever problem they are experiencing when the PCs arrive – +50% XP for a solution to be implemented by the locals following PC advice, double XP for a solution to the problem that is put in place by the PCs, and these are doubled again for a permanent solution to the problem. Example: Catching a killer might be worth 2 XP if the characters simply deduce who it is and let the locals apprehend him, 3 XP if the characters do some investigation, or 4 XP if the characters capture the killer themselves and hand him over to the authorities for judgment. Behaving in a selfish or amoral fashion normally reduces whatever the XP award is by 1 point, but this can be waived if the whole purpose of the plotline is to benefit the PCs in some way.

XP is paid in additional Karma, and based on the length of the adventure and the difficulties that had to be overcome.

If the GM chooses to, he can introduce an additional complication into the adventure, at the cost of immediately giving the directly-affected character or characters 2 Karma, or he can give an NPC +10 to a roll (GREATLY increasing their chances of success) and increasing the Karma of one or more PCs by 1. He can do this AFTER a roll is made, turning a failure into a success . These immediate payments are in addition to any Karma earned in the course of the adventure. Increasing the difficulty can also increase the Karmic Reward at the end of the adventure. However, setbacks and complications from Karmic Debt or Karmic Starvation do not affect the Karmic Payout.

If a PC chooses to, he can sacrifice Karma to nullify or redress this interference through a stroke of good fortune, as described earlier; doing so means that the complication introduced by the GM also doesn’t count toward the end-of-adventure bonus.

Unspent Karma is always a handy thing to have – but spending it improves the self-reliance of the PCs. Having too much unspent Karma effectively reduces the effectiveness of the PCs, having not enough can induce Karmic Debt or Karmic Starvation. The margin that a player considers safe is up to him!

As the PCs discover the situation that they are in, the GM may choose to symbolically reflect each piece of bad news for the players with a token representing an increased XP value for the adventure. The more impossible the situation seems to be, the more Karma he makes “up for grabs” – if the PCs are clever enough to earn it!.

Equipment

Equipment in general is defined in the same way as skills (broad, narrow, specific) but is never the basis of a check. They do count for the purposes of “other appropriate skills” or “indirectly-related skills” however, provided the equipment is actually being used for the task – actually having a “.33 special” doesn’t help in firing that 44 Magnum.

Unless noted otherwise as part of the circumstances, a skill implies having the appropriate terms and equipment; buying the equipment specifically in addition to the skill implies that the character has something that’s been customized or modified to suit them. So “Fisherman” implies having a rod and reel, or the needs to improvise something equivalent, actually buying a Fishing Rod in addition is unnecessary (but does provide a bonus to your fisherman skill checks).

If circumstances have left the character without those implied tools, that’s a factor that the GM takes into account with his circumstantial modifiers.

There are three exceptions: weapons, armor, and Campaign MacGuffins.

Armor

Armor is slightly different to other forms of equipment. It costs skill points in the same way as other equipment, but has multiple factors that have to be purchased.

• Hardness (1-10 scale) – each step on the scale increases the protection provided by the armor in the form of bonus Resistance.
• Coverage (1-4 scale) – each step on the scale increases the amount of protection provided by the armor by approximately 25%, so one-quarter coverage, half-coverage, three-quarters coverage, or whole-body coverage.
• These are multiplied together, The penalty imposed to Nimbleness is then decided based
  on what the GM considers reasonable; the difference is three times the cost of the armor in Skill Points.

This cost is halved (round up) if the character takes an appropriate skill in the armor’s use.

Note that there are currently severe limitations on the armor that can be worn while experiencing a Zener Transition. Armor that is only available for the one adventure and has to be “obtained” by the PCs in the course of the adventure is free.

Weapons

Weapons are also handled slightly differently.

• Base Damage: 1 point for 1/3 d6, 2 points for 1/2 d6, 3 points for 1d6, 4 points for 2d6, 5 points for 3d6, and so on. The base damage inflicted by a weapon is up to the GM. As a rule of thumb, most melee weapons will be 1d6 or smaller, most handguns will be 2d6, most rifles will be 3d6, most shotguns will be 4d6, most grenades will be 5d6, most anti-vehicle weapons will 6d6 or more.
• Rate Of Fire: 1 point for 1 shot per round, 2 points for a short burst per round (conferring an extra d6 on the damage), 3 points for full auto (confers an extra 2 1/2 d6 per round).
• Additional Damage: 1 point for each +1 to damage.
• Maximum Range: The above costs are added together and compared to the universal index table (see below) to determine the base range. The GM can then restrict this to an “effective range”, reducing the cost of the weapon 1 point for every 2 steps up the table. Weapons defined as “Melee” automatically have zero range, but additional range can then be bought as “reach”.

This cost is halved (round up) if the character takes an appropriate skill in the weapon’s use.

Note that there are currently severe limitations on the armor that can be worn while experiencing a Zener Transition. Armor that is only available for the one adventure and has to be “obtained” by the PCs in the course of that adventure is free.

Campaign MacGuffins

Some of the campaign limitations are so “big” that they have to be bought off in stages, for example constructing a reliable communications link back to Zener Command. Less-reliable comms will become available as plot devices in the meanwhile. Each point of Karma expended for the purpose by ALL PCs adds to the total invested in “Campaign MacGuffins” and is translated into a component of the whole or a refinement of the design or construction that will be incorporated into the next adventure. These tangible Campaign MacGuffins will be given suitable names in-game, e.g. “crystal radio set”. When the GM feels that the characters have accumulated enough of them, an improvement will be made in one restriction. These amounts are being left flexible for now, but the rough scale is intended to be 4 points for a minor improvement, 10 points for a new capability, 20 points for the complete removal of a limitation..

The Universal Scale

This is an idea being lifted directly from TORG. It consists of a number of values arranged in a table in geometric sequence and given a unified common index. Look up a character’s STR on the index, and you get how much he can lift. Look up the distance to a target and you get the range modifier to hit that target with a ranged weapon. If a skill roll is “failed” but the PCs should be able to succeed, given time, looking up the amount by which they failed on the index and getting the corresponding time value tells the GM how long it will take for them to succeed. Similarly, looking up the difference between two indexed time amounts states the penalty for a character rushing, looking up the area gives the bonus to attacks for the size of the target, and so on.

Hit Location

A hit location system may or may not be used.

Outstanding Questions

There are a number of questions that I have not yet made decisions on.

• Initiative is a big one.
• Whether or not to roll attacks using a d20 is another.
• Radiation Damage is a third, though I have some ideas that aren’t yet fully worked through.
• Language Handling is a fourth, though the inclusion of the LAN stat hints at my still-incomplete thinking.
• Critical Hits and Fumbles are a fifth.

In fact, I have vague ideas on all of these but have not yet had time to think them through – that’s why there’s no section on “Combat Resolution” yet. But, as you can see, an awful lot of the work is done already; it only took a couple of hours’ discussion and one evening of typing to set it all down. And, stripped of explanations and presented as concisely as possible, the in-play necessities should all fit on a page, maybe two – which is part of the design objective.

I’ve seen all sorts of ways to ignite your creativity, nudging your mental capacities into a completely different orbit to their usual.

I’ve even offered a few, myself, here at Campaign Mastery, that work best when you have some idea of what it is that you’re trying to create. They don’t work that well, however, when you’re looking for something as abstract and flexible as a concept for an adventure.

I call this technique “Buzzstorming” because it has two purposes: to get your brain buzzing with ideas, and to filter those ideas through a literary filter that churns out raw “nuggets” of Surrealist Adventure. These can then be refined using my old standbys, Iteration and Domino Theory until they fit any style that you want or need.

I actually have two variations of this technique, “basic” and “advanced” (though there isn’t a great deal of difference between them, as you’ll soon see).

Basic Buzzstorming

Buzzstorming works best with good old pen-and-paper, making it something that you can use just about anywhere under almost any circumstance.

It has three simple steps (not counting the refinement process, which I will deal with after discussing Advanced Buzzstorming)::
 

• Phrase,
• Mutate, and
• Curate
  

  Phrase

  Create a dozen simple phrases. The only restriction is the format: they must be structured,

  Noun – Verb – Noun

  …which means that they are all descriptions of activity. You can create these from looking around you at activity, from watching the TV, from reading a book, from ideas in music or songs, or from whole cloth and sheer imagination.

  Write these down.

  Mutate

  Starting with the first phrase, cross out the noun at the end of the phrase and write in the noun at the end of the second line. Keep going until you get to the end of the list; since there is no phrase under the last entry to steal a noun from, use the leftover one from the first phrase.

  Curate & Re-mutate

  Go through your list and note any that spark your imagination. Write these in a separate list, crossing them out as you do so. Re-mutate the rest, as above. If any phrase ends up with its original last noun, swap the first and last nouns in that phrase. Then curate the good ones again, and repeat.

  Eventually, you will end up with a list of as many ideas as you originally had phrases, or perhaps slightly less, with a couple of starting phrases that would not yield a good idea no matter how much you twisted them. That’s fine – throw them away.

That’s it. Easy, right?

A Quick step-by-step example

Let’s do a quick example with eight phrases – note that in reality, this would take up a lot less room:

Start

The sausage fries in the pan.
Two birds fly across the sky.
The critic complains about irony.
A dog wags its tail.
A moving pen writes on the page.
Sand falls through the hourglass.
Rain collects in the bucket.
Moon-rise banishes the dark.

First Pass

Mutated, these become:

The sausage fries in the sky
Two birds fly across the irony.
The critic complains about its tail.
A dog wags the page.
A moving pen writes on the hourglass.
Sand falls through the bucket.
Rain collects in the dark.
Moon-rise banishes the pan.

Curate: I like

The critic complains about its tail, and
Rain collects in the dark,

but the others leave me cold.

Second Pass

So, mutate the rest again:

The sausage fries in the irony
Two birds fly across the page.
A dog wags the hourglass.
A moving pen writes on the bucket.
Sand falls through the pan
Moon-rise banishes the sky.

I curate that last one, and mutate the rest again:

Third Pass

The sausage fries in the page.
Two birds fly across the hourglass.
A dog wags the bucket.
A moving pen writes on the pan.
Sand falls through the irony

Nothing there, so go again:

Fourth Pass

The sausage fries in the hourglass.
Two birds fly across the bucket.
A dog wags the pan.
A moving pen writes on the irony.
Sand falls through the page.

I can work with the last one, so I curate it, and then again mutate:

Fifth Pass

The sausage fries in the bucket
Two birds fly across the pan.
A dog wags the irony.
A moving pen writes on the hourglass.

Still nothing exciting. But observe that if I simply mutate again, the first phrase is back to where it started, while the third and fourth are variations that we’ve already tried. So it’s time to do the first-to-second swap in those three cases:

Sixth Pass

The bucket fries in the sausage
Two birds fly across the pan.
The irony wags the dog.
The hourglass writes on a moving pen.

Check those: no inspiration, so Mutate again:

Seventh Pass

The bucket fries in the pan
Two birds fly across the dog.
The irony wags a moving pen.
The hourglass writes on a sausage.

I like the third one, I can use it. So curate it and again mutate the other three:

Eighth Pass

The bucket fries in the dog.
Two birds fly across the sausage.
The hourglass writes on a pan.

No joy, and the first two about to cycle back to something already rejected, so swap its nouns around:

Ninth Pass

The dog fries in the bucket.
The sausage flies across two birds.
The hourglass writes on a pan.

and then mutate:

The dog fries in two birds.
The sausage flies across a pan.
The hourglass writes on the bucket.

Nothing yet. Mutate once more:

Tenth Pass

The dog fries in a pan.
The sausage flies across the bucket.
The hourglass writes on two birds.

Still nothing. My subconscious is teasing me that there’s an idea involving the hourglass there somewhere, but the combinations are few enough at this point that I can quickly dismiss all of the ones involving the hourglass in first or last position. So I scrap the other two and save the “The Hourglass writes on two birds” for the next Buzzstorming session.

Results

That means that my final list of ideas is:

The critic complains about its tail.
Rain collects in the dark.
Moon-rise banishes the sky.
Sand falls through the page.
The irony wags a moving pen.

Advanced Buzzstorming

This works in almost exactly the same way, but there are three differences.
 

1. The Phrase structure is different: use Noun – Verb – Adjective(s) – Noun.
2. During each Mutation round, you take the adjective from the Phrase below and the noun from the Phrase below that.
3. During the Curate and Re-mutate step, you have an extra option:
    
   • Move one or more of the adjectives to before the first Noun, crossing out the original appearance.
   • Insert a comma after the adjective and insert one of the words “On, In, To, At,” or “When” so that the resulting phrase is grammatically correct.

Because the process is so similar, I won’t put up an example. However, thinking about one, and the remaining phrase on the original (mutated) list gives me,

When soft, the hourglass falls through time,

which I happily add to the curated list.

Refinement

The refinement process is one of making sense of the statement in terms of the campaign and genre, then tossing basic questions – who, what, why, etc – at the result until it is transformed into a sensible plot outline.

Let’s at least make a start on the curated ideas so that you can see where I’m going with this. I’ll do so in a high-level D&D/Pathfinder context:

• The critic complains about its tail: I had an immediate vision of a critic, one of those people who is never satisfied by anyone or anything, who happened to be a Dragon. With old-style glasses-on-a-stick. And a top hat. The personality and visual was so strong and unique, ripe with subtle implications (e.g. Humanophile) that I needed go no further. He needs only a name and a role in the adventure.
  • I get the first from thinking of Faust, and the love-hate relationship any non-human Humanophile must have for the human race as a Faustian Bargain, the source of equal parts pride, satisfaction, and frustration; so I choose a name that evokes that context without being too obvious about it: Thaust Draco Infernus.
  • What if our Draconic friend feels compelled to tell people what they are doing wrong – and, when sufficiently vexed, to instruct others to do something about a situation to which they should be paying attention, but aren’t (or not enough, anyway)? That means that he is the instigator of the adventure and the NPC giving the PCs the briefing. “Your mission, should I choose you to accept it…”
  • That last phrase, thrown in more to be cute than to be meant seriously, seems to fit so well that the nature of the Adventure immediately begins to take shape. An emergency situation of some kind that he has noticed, but no-one else has, in which he wants the PCs to intervene.
• Rain collects in the dark: This also inspired a visual image. It rains, and the drops collect unnaturally into pools, which animate as Water Elementals or a sort of Water Elemental Golem.
  • “The Water Elemental Who Fell To Earth” then lept out at me as a phrase, and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”.
  • Ideas from that point began to fall like dominoes: A deity-level Water Elemental whose machinations threatened to destabilize the Elemental planes, and who was exiled from reality, who has found a way to launch his minions through the inter-dimensional barriers into the Prime Material Plane, where they can work his will, eventually to bring about his return from wherever he has been exiled.
  • So now I have the kernel of the adventure. Details remain to be filled in – how these minions will secure the release of the Water Elemental, his identity, how the PCs can
    interfere, and the signs that the Critic has spotted but that humanity has not. Before I turn to answering those, I’ll look at the remaining ideas to see if any of them hold nuggets of gold to inspire further answers. But that’s enough to demonstrate the principal.
• Moon-rise banishes the sky: Again, a visual notion: the moon rising at night, and in it’s wake, no stars, no darkness, nothing but white or perhaps gray. But, that was before I had reflected on the two previous ideas; the new context inspired a new interpretation:
  • The moon rises, leading a solid band of clouds, internally lit somehow, that obscures the entire sky. When the moon sets, the clouds begin to reshape themselves, drifting this way and that, until they form a part of a mystic sygil of some sort, with nothingness in between.
  • That alone is enough to tell everyone that hears of it that this is an arcane effect if some kind. Mages who analyze the effect claim that it is clerical and not arcane in nature. Worryingly, the most powerful clerics and druids cannot dispel it, and claim that the Mages must be lying. Thus, petty squabbles distract humankind while the world continues to plunge headlong toward disaster.
  • A hexagon is the simplest shape that is reminiscent of a ring (a triangle’s corners are too acute, as are those of a square; a pentagon would work but is too closely associated with demons and devil-worship – it might be more accurate to say, “the simplest available shape”). So, over the next five nights, in widely-separated locations, this same pattern repeats itself. On the seventh night, the patterns converge, and the portal behind to open, either releasing the big bad himself, or a bigger, more powerful minion, or an avatar of the Big Bad.
• Sand falls through the page:
• When soft, the hourglass falls through time: These two go together, I realized. This is a visual for some sort of temporal spell – a sandstone rock is placed on the page bearing the spell, and erodes over a period of seconds into sand which falls through the page as though it were a sieve. This is visually reminiscent of the behavior of an hourglass, the seemingly solid aggregation of sand in the top become a thin stream of soft particles, which fall through time, opening a portal to the remote past, to a time before time itself.
  • This sounds like the perfect place to exile a godlike elemental creature. You could even be forgiven for thinking that the creature would be helpless, unable to affect the “modern world”. It fails to account for the divine nature of the proposed being; although greatly weakened, it is capable of generating it’s own temporal field. Not enough to permit it to break free on its own, but enough to create his minions and boost them into the future in an uncontrolled manner.
  • There is an obvious association between “soft sand falling” and falling rain. So that gives more information on what the minions are doing – and implies that the PCs have to recover a copy of the spell being used by the minions and ultimately use it to travel back in time to confront the imprisoned Big Bad. When they succeed, a rebound effect of the cessation of the Big Bad’s personal time field will permit them to ride its own spell back to their local time – each appearing within one of the minions, perhaps!
  • Bonus idea: What if it is the destruction of the Divine Elemental and releasing of his temporal field that kick-starts time in the universe? What if this is the D&D equivalent of the Big Bang?
  • In many mythos, Dragons have access to magics that are older and more powerful than those practiced by Human Mages. That suggests that maybe the Spell is Draconic in origin, and that instead of providing the hook, the Critic is the final step the PCs have to make before confronting the Big Bad, and that finding (and rescuing?) him is another of the preliminary quests that they have to complete on their way to solving the main problem.
  • This further suggests that it was the mythic dragons of the past who exiled the Water Elemental in the first place; this would not only be internally consistent, it would explain where the critic got the spell from in the first place, passed down through the generations of Draconian offspring. It also implies that modern Dragons don’t have the knowledge, power, or skill of the originals.
  • Which suggests another idea by free association: That it is the Draconic lust for Gold and other precious metals that has weakened them, poisoning their bloodlines through the generations, a form of addiction with an impact over multiple generations. Which is why the Critic needs the PCs. “It took you long enough. This is your world, now. You took it from us when you began to mine and refine Gold. Now, you must live up to that responsibility.”
• The irony wags a moving pen: There’s a certain irony in that last idea, given the situation, which makes this idea relevant as well. The interpretation that came to mind when I read it was the exact phrase given above, minus the initial “the”: Irony wags a moving pen.
  • That gave me the idea of a God Of Irony, but until I had done the earlier refinement work, I had no idea of his role. Now it’s clear that he sets the quest to find the Critic and rescue the spell that the minions have captured.
  • There is also a certain Irony in the notion of the death of the Celestial Elemental being the D&D equivalent of the Big Bang.

The Adventure

The basic idea of the adventure has now taken shape. It still needs some details and polish, but here’s the outline:

Act I

1. One night, it begins to rain. The rain pools unnaturally, forming dozens of Elemental Water Golems. The PCs encounter one, and (barely) manage to defeat it in a suitably-public confrontation. That marks the PCs out.
2. Over the next few days, they hear that a lot more of these Elemental Golems appeared at the same time as their encounter, but others who confronted them were not as skilled or lucky, and the Golems escaped. Where they are now, and what they are doing, remain unknown.
3. Given the seriousness of the situation, A King/ruling noble to whom at least one PC is obligated, summons the PCs to serve as his strong right arm during the crisis.
4. The PCs barely managed to defeat one, they will have no hope of defeating a group- not unless they can obtain some sort of advantage.
5. The night they arrive, the minions “steal the sky”.

Act II

6. The next day, they are sent to find out what a particular Mage has been able to determine about the situation. He claims the magic involved is not Arcane, it’s Clerical, and directs the PCs (and the royal representative who has accompanied them) to the Temple Of (Athena?).
7. The High Priest Of The Temple has attempted to dispel the strange clouds, and even begged his (Mistress?) to intercede directly, without success. Perhaps the Great Druid will have more success; weather magics are amongst his specialties, after all.
8. The Great Druid reports a similar lack of effectiveness over the phenomenon. He suggests a summit between the Religious leaders, Mages, and himself – “Perhaps if we all put our heads together, we can make some progress….”
9. The PCs & escort return to the city, and the King orders to convene the Summit the next day. He puts the PCs in charge of it.
10. The next afternoon, the High Priest challenges the accuracy of the Mage’s findings and the Summit devolves into a mess of accusation and counter-accusation. An early dinner break is eventually called to let people cool off.
11. During the meal, a breathless and exhausted messenger arrives from a neighboring city; he has ridden three mounts to death since midnight to bring word of a strange event in the skies over his city. The second part of the sygil has appeared, and if the pattern holds true, a third city will be visited by this phenomenon tonight.
12. After the meal, the King issues direct instructions to each of the factions: they are to use every skill at their disposal to learn everything they can, overnight, and report back to the throne tomorrow morning.
13. The next morning, the Summit reconvenes with grim news. The priests appear to have been cut off from all divine advice and interaction, and are in a deep Funk. Spells seem unaffected but have proven unable to learn anything more about the phenomenon, only that it appears to be incomplete. Any request for advice, guidance, or information from the Gods merely returns the phrase, “Tua quaestio est, leva planctum non sufficit ad respondendum irrisorie,” which is a language that none of the priests know. Even requests and spells to translate the message have failed. “The Gods have abandoned us.”
14. The Druids have learned that that the Magic appears to have some sort of Temporal Component, that the animals and plants within their domain have all expressed fear, but that a few brave ones observed men of water working a ritual of some kind near a third city, which last night suffered a similar phenomenon.
15. To the PCs, that should confirm paranoid suspicions about the Elemental Golems and their activities.
16. The mages fared somewhat better, using Scrying to observe the pattern which materialized over (third city) last night, and over the second event which began the night before. Combining the three shows clear overlaps and connecting lines. By their estimation, the complete pattern is a magical sygil of some kind being erected in six
    parts, and that they have been able to identify one word clearly, written in Draconic. Loosely translated, it means “The inevitable consequence of yesterdays and yesterdays” – Draconic is a very concise but flowery language.
17. That suggests to the King that the PCs should consult a Dragon. The nearest one would be the most convenient. “Does anyone know where to find one?” Once again, instructions are handed out by the throne. The Mages are to continue monitoring, compiling each new part of the magical construction and attempting to interpret it; perhaps more clues will be revealed. The Priests are to snap out of it and search through their archives for any previous occasion when the Gods fell silent – there may be a connection. In particular, they should search archives that were so old that their content is forgotten and anything deemed so incoherent that it was set aside – the smallest fragment might suddenly make sense in this new context and provide a valuable clue. The Druids are to send word out through their network of animal friends – where is the nearest dragon? The PCs are to accompany the Druids, and as soon as the nearest Dragon is found, they are to travel to it and bargain for its aid.

Act III

18. The PC’s accompany the Druids back to their grove and watch as clouds of birds and fast-running creatures are summoned and tasked with discovering the whereabouts of the nearest Dragon and returning, as quickly as possible.
19. That night, the Mages send word that a fourth city has been visited. They are working to assemble more of the completed message, but there appear to have been no great revelations.

.

20. The following afternoon, their winged agents begin reporting back to the Druids. Every Dragon in [name of Kingdom] appears to have gone to ground in hidden bolt-holes when the first sign appeared in the sky. Some abandoned half-eaten prey or turned aside from a raid. Their reactions indicate that they know something, that it’s not good news, and there are even suggestions that they were afraid. What could scare all the Dragons this way? The site where the nearest one was last known to live – all the local animals knew to avoid it – was not far away. The PCs could travel there and back again in less than a day, though it’s probably too late to set out now; if they leave immediately, they might reach it before sunset, but would not be able to return until tomorrow.
21. If the PCs dare to brave the lair of a missing dragon, with the intent to linger overnight, they can travel to it and discover that the Dragon has abandoned its hoard, and is something of a poet, scratching verse into the walls of the cavern regarding its love-hate relationship with the precious metal; “it shines with such beauty but gets into the blood”. This will probably be misinterpreted to refer to the love of collecting such valuables, treating “gets in the blood” as a metaphor. This is also the PCs opportunity to power up for their next encounter with the Elemental Golems, three of which appear to be guarding the hoard. With the power-ups, they should be able to again eke out a narrow victory. If they choose to ignore the Dragon’s Lair or the Hoard, they will barely manage to escape with their lives when the trio attack.
22. If they chose not to brave the lair, another opportunity for them to power-up will arise later.
23. When they return to the Druids, they find a message waiting from the High Priest, which reads only, “A Miracle has occurred! Come immediately.”
24. When they reach the Temple, they learn that in desperation, one of the acolytes undertook to ask the advice of each individual deity that he had ever heard of. This would normally be cause for severe disciplinary action, but the lapse will be forgiven and forgotten this time, because he got a response from one, an obscure deity named Momus, god of Irony, Satire, and Mockery. In fact, it seems that all the obscure responses received before they left were from him, it seeming amusing to him to communicate in a form that made communications impossible. It actually said, when he deigned to translate, “Your question is, ironically, not ironic enough to answer.” He won’t answer questions put to him by the Priests, because their task is to interface with the Gods, making his position ironic; he will, however, deign to speak to the people who have been charged with acting and not listening. That, in his opinion, is you.
25. Roleplay the encounter with Momus, who dresses like a medieval fool or jester. His avatar is always capering about, and telling jokes (often with a wry observation at their heart) [these may need to be prepped in advance].
    • When asked about the other gods, the PCs will be told that they are in hiding, in fear for their lives, and so unable to guide those on whom their survival depends. Ironic, isn’t it?
    • When asked about Dragons, he will tell them that the one they seek is not far from them; he is the Critic, the Dissatisfied, the Poet Of Critique, and heir to the Draconic Legacy; but before he can rescue them from their situation, they will need to rescue him; he is guarded by six of the minions of the enemy. This is no coincidence; it was his presence that caused the first appearance of the Minions to occur in and around the city of [name], and that, ironically, is what caused you [the PCs] to become entwined in this situation.
    • When asked outright what the situation is, he will answer that he could answer, because it would be ironic to get the aid they need from The Guide so that they no longer needed him, only to find from the answers that they needed him anyway, but there is, ironically, a propriety involved that inhibits him. All that he can do is to give them directions to The Guide; he is the one who would die to protect the information that he holds, even though it is worthless if he cannot give it to them. Momus will then fade out except for a Cheshire-cat smile, vanishing with a final, “Ironic, that…”.

Act IV:

26. The fifth night will come and go before the PCs can start their rescue mission.
27. Following the directions given to them by Momus, the PCs can find and rescue the Critic, who is chained in chains of hardened ice that cause his limbs to lose mechanical control, because he is a creature of Fire (a Red Dragon). To rescue him, they need to break his chains and hold off the six Elemental Golems until more than 200′ away or the PCs destroy one of them.
28. When one of the Golems is destroyed, or it becomes clear that they can’t recapture the Critic, they will merge into a larger Elemental Golem and attempt to kill him. Ironically, because the merged being is only about 3 times as powerful, though restored to triple the hit points no matter how damaged any or all of them were, and with some new abilities (stretchable reach, for example), the merged being is actually more vulnerable than the individuals were, and is slower-moving. The PCs may or may or may not be able to defeat it, that doesn’t matter; they will be able to (eventually) escape it.
29. The Critic will then critique their performance while leading them to his nearby lair, and learn their story. He will invite the PCs to help themselves to anything that might be of assistance when they get there, because things are about to get a lot more difficult. He will also discuss the ironic tragedy of the Draconic condition, because it’s relevant. NB: This is the same lair that they were given the chance to visit/loot in scene 21.
30. When the PCs get to the lair, they can power-up, and rest and recover overnight (night six; the spell’s parts will now be complete).
31. That evening, they will then be briefed on the history of the Elemental God, and his exile by the Greater Dragons, and the danger that his escape poses to all existence, and informed that it is their duty as representatives of their race to deal with the menace.
32. He will instruct them on how to use the unified spell being copied down by the Mages back in [city].(without their knowing that this is what they are doing) to launch themselves back into the Time Before There Was Time to confront the mad God while he is weakened and before he can escape.
33. The next morning, the PCs return to the Capital and report to the King and the slowly-unifying Summit what they have learned. Each of the participating groups – will offer the PCs anything further that they have which might improve their chances of success. The mages present a rendering of the spell that has been constructed by the Elemental Golems, and preparations are made in to invoke it; the PCs need to wait until the Elemental Deity does the hard work, because the more that he does, the weaker he will be when confronted.
34. That night, the six patterns are brought together and activated. The PCs activate their spell, and are sucked into the past…

Act V

35. The PCs travel into Pre-time. Describe the journey. Describe the Destination.
36. Meet the Mad God. He thinks it only appropriate that there are witnesses to his triumphant return, and will not initiate combat. However, he will be arrogant and condescending toward less life forces like the PCs.
37. The PCs realize (if they haven’t already) that the Mad God can succeed simply by waiting; he has no need (in his mind) to initiate conflict. The first move belongs to the PCs.
38. They attack, discovering that the Elemental God is like having one greater elemental wrapped in another, wrapped in another, wrapped in another, and so on – all kinds, not merely water. He is an undifferentiated elemental, just as the elemental planes
    were undifferentiated when he held sway. It was the creation of the Prime Material Plane that forced the elemental planes to differentiate, and that act is what he is intending to undo. Give the PCs the fight of their lives.
39. With the defeat and destruction of the Mad God, time starts, and reveals that contrary to the claims of every religion since the start of time, the creation of the Prime Material Plane – and of the Gods, and the Greater Dragons, and the differentiation of the Elemental Planes – took place spontaneously, triggered by the shock-wave created by the death of the Elemental God. And that’s the last thing they see, as they are rendered unconscious by that same shock-wave.
40. They awaken back in the Kingdom from which they departed, surrounded by the King, his advisers, and the newly-permanent Summit, which intends to meet weekly to discuss issues that may arise. End of Adventure.

So that’s it – an adventure in 39 scenes, somewhere close to being ready-to-play. From eight lines of direct observation:

The sausage fries in the pan,
Two birds fly across the sky,
The critic complains about irony,
A dog wags its tail,
A moving pen writes on the page,
Sand falls through the hourglass,
Rain collects in the bucket,
Moon-rise banishes the dark.

– and the power of Buzzstorming.

P.S. – A couple of final notes

That’s where this article was originally supposed to end. But while formatting it for publication, I was required to re-read sections of it multiple times, and had a pertinent afterthought or two.

First, even though the example is D&D-related, the process works with any genre. It’s all in the way in which the curated phrases are interpreted. You could start with the same phrases and end up with a completely different adventure, or with one that is more-or-less a direct translation.

Second, it’s easy to incorporate any metagame or big-picture campaign content by listing it in bullet-point form at the top of the curated list. For example, if one of the PCs – let’s name him Darvon – had announced that he wanted to get his armor repaired, cleaned, and polished at the end of the previous adventure, that’s easy enough to write into the opening scene, and gives some guidance as to where the PCs are and what they are doing at the start of the adventure. If there was some ongoing villain lurking in the shadows – one of the King’s advisers – it would be easy (once prompted to do so) for him to complicate various scenes that take place in the capital; all you need is the reminder of his presence as a complicating factor. Because there is none of that, this is a very standalone adventure.

Third, I wanted to call out the way the example incorporates big-picture campaign background and concepts. These may not make a whole lot of difference in terms of this adventure or any other, but if you can do that in virtually every adventure (even if it’s just a historical figure here or a famous landmark there), you keep expanding the game world in the eyes and minds of the players, keeping it and the campaign set within it, more fresh and exciting. The only trap to beware of in doing so is to make sure that you don’t introduce anything whose presence would (a) have made a difference to an earlier adventure; and (b) will contradict anything else already incorporated. For example, though no opportunity arose to bring it out in the plot outline, there was an implication in the adventure that the differentiation between the different types of magic – Clerical, Arcane, Druidic, and so on – is both profound and also a result of the “Big Bang” effect initiated by the PCs. This may yield insights that matter later in the campaign, but it seemed to be a distraction, one too many background elements for that part of the adventure to bear.

Another point to highlight: just because the tradition is for PCs to get most of their rewards for an adventure at the end, there can be advantages to handing them out in the middle. For one thing, where they represent a significant power-boost, they can bootstrap the PCs into a position where they are ready to face the challenges that were virtually impossible before that upgrade.

Fifth, it might seem like a lot of the adventure proposed is a railroad track. That’s because I always find it easier to draw a straight line between problem and solution through the story when planning; but just because that’s the optimum path to the solution, that doesn’t mean it’s the only one; it simply gives you a basis for comparing what the players want to do with that optimum so that you can assess the consequences of PC choices. Just because you’ve backstopped an idea into the mouth of an NPC, doesn’t mean that a player can’t make an intuitive leap and get the kudos for his insight. Where there’s one solution to a problem, there are usually several, and some may be even more effective than what you had thought of. Nothing wrong with that, in fact that’s half the fun for the GM. This sort of GM’s plan is nothing more than a series of best-guesses of how the adventure will turn out in the end. In fact, in a real campaign, I would have some idea of the capabilities and styles of both players and PCs and have incorporated that knowledge into the plan to “customize” it for that particular group, ensuring an even distribution of screen time.

And finally, I wanted to call attention to the most remarkable thing about Act II: that Act I sets the players up to expect a particular challenge and then completely subverts that into a completely different type of problem with completely different skills required. This is another way in which to enlarge the scale and interconnectedness of the game universe, showing that EVERY problem usually has multiple facets and approaches. This is the plan that assumes the least, leaving the maximum scope for player innovation and insight, nothing more.

“He skulked down the alleyway, blending into the shadows and taking care to avoid the occasional patche of loose cobblestones…”   Sounds good, doesn’t it. Sounds literary, the way you would read – or write – it in a novel or short story. Let’s translate that into typical Game dialogue, and see how well it stacks up.

Image courtesy freeimages.com / Thomas Pate Note that this image has been heavily modified by Mike for illustrative purposes.

 

Player: “I sneak down the alleyway.” GM: “Give me a Stealth roll.” Player: “I get a 17.” GM: “You sneak soundlessly down the alleyway.”

 
Sounds lifeless, doesn’t it? Perhaps if we also incorporate the bit with the cobblestones, by continuing the scene:
 

GM (continued): “Give me a Spot check.” Player: “My Spot skill is 8. I roll 12, plus 8, is 20.” GM: “There are some sections where the cobblestones are loose. Make a DEX save to avoid them.” Player: “My DEX MOD is +3. I roll a 12, plus 3, is 15.” GM: “Okay, you skirt the danger zones.”

 
No, that’s just made the problem bigger by having more of it.

Juicier Narrative?

Perhaps if the GM takes some advice from my 2014 series, ‘The Secrets Of Stylish Narrative‘, and from the more recent article, Narratives Of Skill: How To ?Improv? Outcome Descriptions In Advance? Let’s try it.
 

Player: “I sneak down the alleyway.” GM: “Give me a Stealth roll.” Player: “I get a 17.” GM: “You skulk soundlessly down the alleyway, flitting from shadow to shadow and avoiding the occasional pools of light where the moonbeams break through the clouds. Give me a Spot check.” Player: “My Spot skill is 8. I roll 12, plus 8, is 20.” GM: “There are sections where traffic and poor maintenance have left the cobblestones loose; stumbling or kicking one will make noise and defeat your efforts at stealth. Make a DEX save to avoid them.” Player: “My DEX MOD is +3. I roll a 12, plus 3, is 15.” GM: “Treading warily around or across the dangerous footing, you approach the mouth of the alley. Hugging the red-bricked wall, you cautiously look out in an attempt to spot your target…”

 
Well, that’s definitely better. More immersive, it paints a picture for the player and even sneaks in a lot of background information and setting description. The player now knows that it’s night (he probably did already), has a graphic sense of it being overcast with moody breaks in the clouds through which the moon occasionally shines, knows that the walls of the alley are made of red brick, has a bit of information on city maintenance practices, and has received a hint that this alley has seen unusually heavy traffic – perhaps from wagons making deliveries, perhaps from something else.

The word count is revealing: The GM’s dialogue in the initial example was 38 words; in the revised version, it has risen to 98 words. So 38 words conveyed the necessary instructions and basic information to the player, and 60 more have been used to convey both the added color and all that extra information.

Precision Skill Definitions

There is nothing technically incorrect in the dialogue. The GM is using the character’s skills and abilities to assess success or failure, in a way that’s appropriate for those skills and abilities. But do you really need to ask for three die rolls for such a simple sequence?

That necessity has arisen from the way the GM is interpreting the rules. He is assuming that each skill or ability does exactly what it says on the tin, or in the Player’s Handbook, to be more precise, and no more.

His way of thinking is, “Fishing is the skill of using a rod and reel, and/or a net, to catch fish. If you want to know how to clean and filet them for cooking, you need a cooking skill. If you want to make your own lures, that’s a craft skill. If you want to repair a broken fishing rod or torn net, and it’s not explicitly included in the fishing skill, that’s a couple of different craft skills.”

This is an example of Precision Skill Interpretation, and there are game systems that expect the GM to take this approach. There are even times when it’s advantageous to the simulation of reality; this is especially true in modern and futuristic times.

Take, for example, the rules system that I use for my superhero games.

• Stats come in two varieties: Primary, which are simply bought with character points, and Secondary, which have base values calculated from Primary stats. (There is a third category, “Tertiary”, which are calculated from both Primary and Secondary stats, but that isn’t relevant here).
• Each of these generates a stat check value which the character rolls against to make, say, a STR check.
• Stat Check values are also used to calculate base levels in Aptitudes, which represent a character’s innate ability in certain broad areas, e.g. “Linguistic Aptitude”, “Numeric Aptitude”.
• Aptitudes are used to calculate base levels in 55 specific Fundamental Skills, place limits on how much those skills cost to improve, and determine how much such improvements cost. These are skills that everyone has to some degree, like “Digging” or “Running” or “Draw Weapon”.
• Basic Expert Skills, also known as Common Expert Skills, are skills that not everyone gets. They have a base value, improvement limits, and costs, that are derived from a combination of Aptitudes and Fundamental Skills. In fact, what defines an Expert Skill is that it is based on a Fundamental Skill. They include things like Acting, Bureaucracy, Seduction, and Persuasion.
• Advanced Expert Skills are just like Basic Expert Skills except that they derive, in part, from one or more Basic Expert Skills, in addition to Aptitudes and Fundamental Skills. Characters rarely have very many of these.
• All expert skills also have the option for the character to buy a specialty, which is a bonus in a specific subtopic within the skill. A historian might buy a specialty in 19th century France, for example, or in the 19th century in general, or in France in general. All specialties cost the same price, but the definition (by the player constructing the character) dictates how big a bonus the specialty provides in answering specific questions or accomplishing specific tasks. In theory, it’s possible to buy specialties in Fundamental Skills as well, but we’ve never found a case where it wasn’t more useful to define such as new Expert skills.

The reason for the multiple layers is to firebreak each layer. In the past, every time a stat was improved, all the skills had to be recalculated; now, such improvements are restricted in impact to the immediate level below. It takes a far bigger change than ever occurs during normal stat improvement in the course of play to have an impact large enough to transmit further down, except in terms of increasing what the lower tier can be improved to.

All told, the system lists more than 1,000 skills, and is capable of distinguishing between a character with Applied Organic Chemistry specializing in Pheromones or Perfumes and an Industrial Applied Organic Chemist who designs chemical manufacturing plants and processes, defining how much knowledge they have in common, and how much knowledge and expertise is only possessed by one of them.

For campaigns where scientific specialties are important, such a system works very well, compartmentalizing and categorizing every task or field of knowledge (the details were actually derived from the course structures laid out in my University Degree Curriculum references).

For campaign settings where that is not the case, Precision Skill Interpretation is not the right answer.

Holistic Skill Interpretation

Let’s go back to the Fisherman example. What if skill in Fishing implied that you not only knew how to use rod and reel, but how to make your own lures, fix a broken rod, know how much fishing line should cost, and how to clean fish ready for cooking?

The skills are bucket lists that contain everything related to the subject that is not explicitly defined as being part of a seperate skill.

A Stealth Check includes things like awareness of the environment and any hazards to successfully achieving the goal of moving covertly from one place to another, especially if it is an environment and location that the character knows well.

Those three rolls in the Alleyway example described earlier become one, reducing the unnecessary verbiage and delays to play, heightening the experience and the immersion within it.
 

Player: “I sneak down the alleyway.” GM: “Give me a Stealth roll.” Player: “I get a 17.” GM: “You skulk soundlessly down the alleyway, flitting from shadow to shadow and avoiding the occasional pools of light where the moonbeams break through the clouds. You nimbly cross several sections where traffic and poor maintenance have left the cobblestones loose and reach the mouth of the alley without attracting any attention. Hugging the red-bricked wall, you cautiously look out in an attempt to spot your target…”

 
A far more cinematic and engaging result. The player has time to digest what he’s being told without being distracted by additional die rolls, can focus more on what the character is trying to do, and look at the bigger picture being painted in words by the GM. The game will run more smoothly, more quickly, and be more satisfying to everyone involved.

In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass

We’ve all encountered situations in which a player has made a catastrophically bad roll. There are two ways to look at the original three-die-roll situation: either as inherently limiting the scope of one bad or good roll, so that overall performance more closely matches the overall capability levels of the character, or as increasing the opportunities for such extreme outcomes three-fold.

Both interpretations have a kernel of validity, but make assumptions that simply aren’t universally valid.

Let’s say that the player makes a catastrophically-bad roll for his initial “Sneak”. First question: will running with that result destroy/ruin the campaign? Second question: will running with that result destroy/ruin the adventure?

If neither answer is yes, run with the “comedy of errors” that results. And if the player complains, tell them to thank their lucky stars that the catastrophic roll didn’t happen on a more important occasion.

Even if the answer to one of the questions is yes, we’re still not at battle stations. Third question: can you think of a way to avoid these cataclysms while still permitting the player the full “catastrophically bad roll” experience?

If the answer to question three is yes, there’s no problem – simply put your contingency plans into effect (even if you’ve only just thought of them). But, if not, you still aren’t up the creek without a paddle.

You can always shift gears to a multiple-roll plan – in the case of the example, Spot + DEX save – in the event of a catastrophically bad (or good) result, limiting the impact only when you really need to do so.

The Lazy GM

It’s not often the case, but there is one interpretation in which the term “Lazy GM” can be a compliment. It can mean not doing anything more than you absolutely need to. Drop the PCs in an area that is adventure-potential rich and let the players write the adventure with their choices. Do a lot of broad outlines and bullet-point ideas, catalog and structure them so that you can quickly find the right one, and only develop the ones that you actually need just before you need them.

The less time you spend on irrelevancies, the more time you have to spend on polishing the things that really matter, or taking care of the real-world tasks that might otherwise get in the way of game prep to the point that you feel it necessary to give up the hobby (don’t tell me it will never happen, I’ve seen it more than 50 times, and can safely presume that it’s happened in at least another 40 cases – out of 102 gamers that were active in the hobby a couple of decades ago. Heck, I’ve been forced to ask the question myself a time or two in the last 40+ years of gaming).

For other ways to deal with emergencies and catastrophes like critically-bad or good die rolls at exactly the wrong time, check out A potpourri of quick solutions: Eight Lifeboats for GM Emergencies.

Big-Picture Memoranda

There’s one tool that can help answer those questions: Big Picture Memoranda. Look, I don’t know how you structure your adventures, in general terms; I use a structure like that shown to the left, at least most of the time.

For a long time, I’ve advocated and used the one-line synopsis as an adventure-development tool (and for just about everything else that I write – refer One Word At A Time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post. So I start with a one-line synopsis of the adventure, from which I produce one-line synopses of the introduction, each part or phase of the adventure, and any epilogue or afterword. I then use the one-line summaries of each part to write one-line summaries of each act of the main adventure. Then I use the one-line adventures of each act to break that act down into scenes, and finally, use those one-line summaries to write one-line summaries of the different elements of the content – who, where, and so on. The only things that might not be self-evident on the structure shown are “flags” and “bits”. “Flags” are content that only happens under certain circumstances, for example a PC asking a key question or making a skill roll, and “Bits” are instructions to the GM, for example to go directly to a scene if “X” happens. Oh yes, “GM’s Notes” deal with any setup (such as taking a specific book for a photographic reference) and “Metagame” is dealing with any rules questions that came up during play and handing out XP and things like that.

Once the entire adventure has been broken down in this fashion, it’s relatively easy to actually write, because you have detailed information on how each building block fits together to create the adventure.

Unfortunately, once you’ve finished, it can be hard to find the forest for the trees. If you’re like me, you’ll have preserved a copy of the one-line synopses, but trying to go through that to find what you’re looking for can take too long.

The solution is to preserve copies of some of these one-line synopses at the top of each building block. How does this adventure relate to the campaign big picture? How does this act relate to the adventure as a whole? How does the scene relate to either of these things? I don’t preserve them all – just the ones that are significant, as reminders. So that if any scene takes an unexpected turn, I know how that scene is supposed to fit into each of these bigger pictures, and can immediately assess the impact of the unexpected event. That’s a “big-picture memoranda” or “BigPic Memo” for short.

It means that if a scene is supposed to introduce an NPC who will become a significant enemy down the track, but who is a relative nobody right now, if the PCs do something significant with the potential to change their relationship to the NPC, I can adjust plans accordingly. It’s a cliche but not far from the truth: No plan survives contact with the PCs. Not theirs, and not yours!

A Holistic interpretation of the skills within the game permits a temporary retreat into precision when you need to use it to save your metaplot-bacon. Starting off from the precision interpretation removes that weapon from your arsenal; there are other benefits in some campaigns that justifies that cost, so a precision interpretation should not be ruled out, out-of-hand; but it should always be part of your GMing approach for a reason.

But too many GMs, and too many players, seem to think that it’s the only game in town. Well, now you know better – spread the word by making intelligently justified choices in your games!

“Lessons From The West Wing” is a series of occasional articles inspired by the Television Series. I have several of these tucked away in development, and every now and then, prompted by watching the series for the umpteenth time or by relevant world events, I will dust one off and put it out there.

I doubt that the title of this article will mean anything to most readers at first glance, but once you’ve read it, I hope that it is a sufficiently memorable phrase that you will never forget it!

Let’s start, as usual, with some context. Bear with me, it’s relevant.

There’s been a major debate over energy policy taking place in Australia recently. I won’t bore you with the ins-and-outs, but the ideological stance being taken by the party in government, based on something called the Finkel Report, included the statement that electricity should be as cheap as possible for business, so that they can remain competitive, protecting the jobs that already exist as well as increasing the prospects for future expansion. Oh, and “by the way,” the recommended policies would also reduce electricity prices for ordinary consumers – if the report is truly the holy grail of energy policies that it claims to be.

And that got me to thinking, and to playing Devil’s Advocate. Why?

One of the problems that we face is that despite everything looking relatively rosy and prosperous, economically, wages growth and employment growth have stagnated, retail confidence remains poor, and standards of living are actually starting to fall. In such a climate, protecting the status quo is the defensive move of a government paranoid about the winds of economic fortune, a government that knows that it is in trouble, electorally.

They are right to be concerned. Their popularity is at an all-time low, the level of trust in the government similarly catastrophic, and the only thing offering hope right now is that the opposition party have, of late, fallen into the trap of playing partisan politics, of being an opposition first and true to their ideology second. Nevertheless, were an election to be held tomorrow, polling (usually pretty right in this country) says there would be a massive swing and a profound change of government – to an opposition that is looking less and less ready to function in that capacity.

So, what’s the alternative? What would happen if, as a former Prime Minister from the same party (and equally as unpopular as the current leadership, politically) has advocated, the primary focus should be about making domestic electricity prices as low as possible?

Well, consumers would have more money in their pockets, and a lot of that would then get spent, stimulating the retail economy. But higher electricity prices for industry would mean that products that are energy-dependent, especially manufactured goods, would rise in price, and some industries might even become unable to compete with overseas sources. Overall, though, wages would go up, and then – right after people got used to having more money to spend – prices would go up by the same amount. Cash flow through the economy would tick up, though, and that would enable wages growth claims to have some justification. On the whole, every area of the economy that is currently in trouble would be given a kick-start, with the big picture changing not all that much – the amount of money going into the energy providers would remain about the same, but instead of dividing the cash flow up into two separate strands – industrial and domestic consumption – the result is a longer but economically stronger single strand in which money flows to consumers, from consumers to retail, from retail to industry, and from industry to power supplier.

Our much-reviled former prime minister might just be right, this time – for all the wrong reasons, as usual – but because he’s the one espousing this position, no-one is listening seriously enough.

The problem is that everyone’s position has become ideologically entrenched – provided that you accept the notion that opposing the government, no matter what they do, is an acceptable opposition ideology.

The Bigger Picture

This is by no means a problem confined to the Australian shores. From the time of the rise of the Tea Party in the US, Republicans increasingly adopted that ideological premise, no matter how hard the Democrats tried to negotiate an acceptable compromise. Increasingly, they opposed and blocked almost everything simply because it was coming from a Democrat-held White House. I was quite astonished to read, during coverage of the recent budgetary discussion over HR 5235, how long it had been since the US had passed an actual budget instead of a continuing resolution.

Some readers might not know or understand the difference. In a nutshell, a budget spells out exactly how much the government can actually spend in the coming year, subdivided by purpose into different government departments. A continuing resolution is a watered down temporary emergency budget, with various departments often funded at a fraction of what they would expect to receive in a full budget. It provides money for a quarter, three short months. I understand (but don’t quote me) that most government departments got about 92 or 94% of their estimates from the last continuing resolution, the bill (HR5235) mentioned above. Continuing Resolutions are a political stopgap intended to keep the government functioning until a full budget can be passed – so there is an inherent assumption in the very concept that a budget will be passed.

The last budget that was fully passed by a US Government, so far as I can tell from this Wikipedia Page, was either in 2011 or 2013!

You actually see the hardening of ideological entrenchment in country after country as you become aware of their politics. I saw it in the Greek Government Debt Crisis, in the positioning over Brexit, and on and on.

In RPGs

I’ve seen something similar happen in RPGs when it comes to politics, as well. The PCs are confronted with a problem, but the politics are simplified to the point of being monochromatic black-and-white.

There’s an evil half-brother to the King, plotting to seize the throne, for example. Half-brother bad, King Good, end of story.

Real life is never so black and white.

If you’ve read and followed the advice from this blog (and others) over the years, you may have nuanced a little smudge of gray here and there – for example, making the King in question less able in some critical policy area or areas than the half-brother. This not only makes the half-brother more credible as a possible ruler, it provides an area of distinction that justifies his belief that he would make a better ruler than the incumbent. This leads into a deeper exploration of the limitations of the monarchist system and hereditary nobility, creating additional interest for the players, and enabling the NPCs to be involved in adventures in more than one way – the half-brother, usually an enemy of the PCs, who align with the King, can show up in one of the other four iconic roles of the AERO structure, making him more an element of the world at large, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but never something to be ignored, and enlarging the storytelling tapestry no end.

But even then, it’s easy for GMs to fall into the same trap of ideological entrenchment projected onto a situation or character within the game.

No Easy Answers

In politics, both in-game as in real life, there should be no black-and-white, no 100% right answers. That’s too easy, and makes things to simple – and too simplistic. Whether or not a given policy, response, position, or opinion is right or not should depend on how it impacts the individual voicing the opinion, the nation they govern or wish to govern, and the citizens that they represent. Every point of view should have at least a crumb of credibility, no matter how deeply buried.

But achieving that is often not easy, because the GM will always have his own personal opinions, and doing this properly inherently challenges the GM to justify those opinions to the themselves, and potentially to others.

I make no pretense about my personal inclination toward socially-progressive politics and policies, for example, though you would be reasonably hard-put-to-it to be able to determine that from most of my articles, which are as politically-agnostic as I can make them. In the US, I would probably vote Democrat 90% of the time or more.

You achieve that political agnosticism by continually asking, “what’s the price?,” “what’s the downside?,” “what are the assumptions?,” “how can they be tested?,” and “what’s the kernel of truth in positions in opposition?”

Every political position or policy espoused by a character in an RPG should have to run this gamut. These always represent a choice, from which some will benefit and others suffer. The question is always how to reconcile these divergent opinions.

It’s easy to suggest, for example, that free speech should be absolute. But with that position come a number of thorny questions that aren’t so easy to resolve. Religious opinions expressed in classrooms. Texts that promote violence, prejudice, and intolerance. The social media “echo chamber”. “Fake News” and the ability of commentators and editors to manipulate public opinion in the guise of reporting facts.

It’s also easy to suggest that as a defensive mechanism against such manipulation, one should operate from the perspective that every news report lies, or is (at best) slanted in this direction or that. Sometimes, there is such distortion – Fox News is notoriously perceived as pro-conservative, for example – but that doesn’t mean that they are .always right or always wrong. In Australia, we have Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, and Steve Price, and our own version of Fox News. It’s rare for me to agree with Bolt, slightly less rare for me to agree with Jones, and more frequent for me to be forced to concede that Price has a good point to make on an issue. My opinions more frequently align with, or are shaped by, Waleed Aly, who represents the other side of the political debate. (If you haven’t seen his “What ISIS Wants”, I can’t urge you strongly enough to . It reshaped and developed many of my opinions on Terrorism and how we should respond to it, and in the world that we continue to live in, the insight it offers is something we can all use.

Each of these broadcasters has their ardent admirers, and for many, the balance of credibility falls in the other direction.

Lessons From The West Wing

As GM, you have an omniscient and omnipotent position with respect to your game world. You should not cheapen that power and authority by demonizing one perspective universally.

This is a lesson that I learned from watching The West Wing (Wikipedia Page, Complete Series on Amazon. Although the overall slant of the series was Progressive, the only Conservatives (and Democrats, for that matter) who were actually demonized within the series were those who ideologically entrenched themselves or placed themselves ahead of their offices in importance.

As one Republican notably said when reviewing the series, “I hate the politics but I love the show!” (or words to that effect).

No political faction held a monopoly on the truth. No political party was all bad, or all pristine. What mattered more was the individual – were they ethical, were the honest, were they trustworthy, were they honest representatives of their constituency, did they make an effort to see the big picture, were they willing to listen and give a fair hearing to opposition positions?

Issue-By-Issue Decisions

And it wasn’t just person-by-person. Everybody had their blind spots, everybody had their ideological foundations, everybody had positions on which they were right and positions on which they were wrong – and couldn’t necessarily see it.

That’s the sort of mindset that the GM needs to hold with respect to every NPC in a game when it comes to their politics.

But that is easier said than done.

The Real Challenge

It’s not really all that difficult to get this far. There may be a stretching of your mental muscles, a certain opening of your own political awareness that comes from deliberately exploring for the validity of the opposing position, but it’s not that big a step from what you are (hopefully) already doing.

The real challenge is creating this diversity of perspectives within a character while still keeping that character internally consistent as a character.

Characterization is the Key

My secret to doing so is to have the perspectives on an issue derive from the characterization of the character.

A character who is a strong believer in military preparedness and preemptive force – a ‘hawk,’ to use the 1970s vernacular – will be Conservative in orientation on military issues. If the rest of that character is more progressive in attitude, then that’s enough for him to stand out; if he is principally a conservative already, then this needs to go further to achieve the same distinctiveness, which opens the character up to having a blind spot on the issue, an inherent belief that the military can do no wrong and if an intervention fails or misfires it’s the fault of excessive restriction placed on them by a civilian authority.

In effect, consistency of characterization is an emergent property that results from viewing the character from a metagame perspective that incorporates more than is shown in any single appearance in the course of play.

Another Example

Here’s another example from just the last couple of days. One of the most divisive and populist Members of Parliament in Australian Politics is Pauline Hanson. Yesterday, while announcing that her party had done a deal to pass a divisive school funding bill, she called for Autistic Children to be removed from mainstream school classes, suggesting that teachers spend too much time caring for such children when they should be teaching at a pace the majority could cope with, while the children themselves should be classed seperately and given special attention.

As you can see from the randomly-selected page of twitter comments in response below, this did not go over well with a lot people.

Today, she commented that people were misinterpreting her statements because of biased newspaper headlines which employed selective quotation to distort her views. This prompted a further series of attacks, pointing out that most people got their information from television news, which showed her actual statements, and that others had obtained the full press release of her statements to form the basis of their opinions and that those opinions did not differ from those who had not. So this defense doesn’t stack up, and only damages her already tarnished credibility.

But that’s beside the point. Let’s look at this policy suggestion critically, as you need to do if you want an NPC to pronounce something similar, or even to have a government contraversially enact it within your game.

Do autistic children require additional attention? Yes, undoubtedly. Does this additional attention impact on the teacher’s ability to educate the other children? In terms of a curriculum, it has to – a teacher has only so much time to go around. A regular debate in politics in Australia (and elsewhere, I’m sure) is “what is an acceptable classroom size?” based on the premise that a teacher has only so much time for one-on-one attention to students. So there is some rational basis for the position, no matter how loathsome anyone might find it.

Pesumably, then, those opposing the proposal (and, for the record, I’m one of them) see some other educational value to integration. Like tolerance and social experience – and that totally ignores reports that I think I remember showing that such children learn more effectively and more quickly in such an environment, while placing them in “specia classes” slows their education to that of the least able student in that classroom. Nor are there any studies of which I’m aware proving significant reductions in educational breadth and quality from the inclusion of such students.

Anyone with an informed opinion on the subject is therefore prioritizing one outcome over another as “more desirable.” My personal opinion does so, too. Understanding that validity permits me to attack more robustly and to defend my position more effectively. It certainly enables me to GM an an NPC who advocates such views in spite of any contrary opinions I might personally have. Remember, too, that the NPC’s reasons don’t have to be sound ones; they might be misinformed, bigoted, corrupt, loathsome, or simply employing flawed reasoning or poor sources of information. But my presentation of such an NPC is more effective even if that’s the case if I’m aware of the nuggets of underlying truth.

Bilateral Political Incorrectness

Which brings me back to the title of this article, and my hopes that it will encapsulate these principles in a single mnemonic.

Bilateral – applies to both/all sides when it comes to any single issue or policy or political party or organization…

Political Incorrectness – …are equally capable of being right or wrong, depending on the circumstances, and from the point of view of someone who is personally affected, one way or the other.

An infusion of Bilateral Political Incorrectness into a campaign embellishes it with richness, depth, complexity, nuance, sensitivity, logic, issue awareness, and personal growth. It can be difficult at times when a character adopts a position that you personally have a fundamental disagreement with, but when that happens you have to “dig” until you discover the underlying truth, the kernel of “rightness” that makes that position rational, given the character’s experiences and how they have shaped him or her. But those rewards are worth a bit of effort.

Sorry to everyone for the delay in posting – I got so caught up in writing another article that this one completely slipped my mind!

This is being written a little under the deadline pump; I’m still playing catch-up from my week away at the Family Reunion / 40th Birthday party for my nephew. So it may not quite live up to my usual standards, but I’ll do my best.

Actually, I’m cheating for a lot of this article, which is clearly a sequel to last month’s “Improvising An Adventure,” which was very well received. As a result of the experience that was discussed in that article, I’m currently looking at doing a campaign that’s all improv. I’ve started work on it, and this article will walk both readers and the players though at least some of the thought processes involved.

Game System

I have to admit that I still haven’t decided what game system to use. In fact, I haven’t ruled out writing a 1-2 page original on which to base the campaign. But I have thought about the selection criteria.

I don’t want the game mechanics to intrude on the game play. That’s the big thing for me at this point. I want simplicity and elegance and a lot of flexibility.

The game system is to be a vehicle for implementing the campaign concept, nothing more.

Campaign Concept

The basic notion is something of a cross between “Sliders” (Wikipedia page, Box Set via Amazon) and “Quantum Leap” (Wikipedia Page, Complete Series Box Set via Amazon). Two, or possibly 4 PCs, two players. The essential idea is that the PCs will be part of the test program for a time machine that goes horribly wrong because temporal theory is all wrong, or at least mutually contradictory. As a result, the characters will find themselves “bouncing” from one time period to another, getting involved in whatever is going on, and then moving on to the next adventure, which will take place in a completely different setting.

Character Fundamentals

My first thought was that the PCs would represent members of a team something like that in “Stargate SG 1” (Wikipedia Page, Complete Box Set on Amazon), but quickly realized that the military foundation would confine the scope of the roles open to the players, so I discarded that concept.

My second thought was that at least one of the characters would be an expert in temporal science, either an engineer or scientist. I definitely didn’t want that. I don’t want the campaign to be about the technology, or about the physics of time travel – I want all of that to be a black box, PCs go in, adventures come out.

So a key part of the Campaign Background will be addressing that restriction, justifying it. My inspiration for handling the issue comes from a relatively unknown TV series that I quite enjoyed (having stumbled across it by accident), “Seven Days” (Wikipedia Page, Box Set – probably unofficial, it has never been released officially according to this thread at GateWorld Forum – , ).

Unfortunately, the restriction in question isn’t described by the Wikipedia article, so I’ll have to do it here for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t seen the show. In a nutshell, not everyone can survive the trauma of time traveling – there’s a complex navigational challenge, the equivalent of flying a jet aircraft on a precision course while being subjected to extreme buffeting, high levels of G-forces, and random electrical shocks causing convulsions and involuntary muscle contractions. Most people, even most test pilots, can’t do it – in fact, at the start of the series, only one person has ever successfully functioned as a Chrononaut. In the second season, a second, backup Chrononaut was identified and the concept was repeatedly eroded thereafter in the interests of heightening the melodrama.

Beyond that, the characters need to be highly self-reliant because they are going to be cut off from home base (at least part of the time, I haven’t decided on the big picture in full yet).

Setting

This is to be pretty contemporaneous with the world around us. I might set it in 2018 or 2019 just to give myself some flexibility, but a key figure in the background and campaign introduction is going to be President Trump – I couldn’t resist the notion of exploring what he might do with a top-secret research project that, if it works, could give him a mechanism to reshape the world as he sees fit (or as he sees it).

At the same time, I don’t want this campaign to be about politics or anything like that – this is to be an action-adventure campaign.

Game Prep

The whole concept of this campaign is that there isn’t going to be any. I want to come up with the day’s adventure and any NPCs on the day, off the cuff. Part of the campaign concept is designed to absolutely minimize continuity.

The Alien Concepts

There are so many concepts involved in this campaign that are completely unlike my usual style and practices, and that’s a large part of the excitement. I don’t have a big finish pre-planned, in fact I don’t have anything planned! Everything exists as a linking element that ties together whatever situation I think of.

Technology Limitations

One of the key concepts required was going to be that each adventure would start with a clean slate, or close to it. Whatever the local technology that was available would be what the PCs would have to use, and they would have to acquire it locally. Time Travel was going to involve several limitations on what they could take with them, and one of the key decisions the players would have to make early on would be what their basic equipment was going to be.

Initially, I was going to be even more extreme in this area than I now plan to be – I was going to have the PCs go through the time warp (or whatever the framing mechanism was called) practically naked. I have retreated slightly from that line – they can now carry anything that makes direct contact with their bare skin or a metallicized uniform provided that it does not rely on chemical reactions of any kind, which behave abnormally during the transition process. No guns, no explosives, not even a match, no batteries or advanced electrical devices, and nothing that protrudes more than half an inch from their persons.

All this restriction has a key impact on the game system, in that an awful lot of most of them won’t be needed.

PC Motivation

Why should the PCs get involved in whatever is going on? This was a key question in Quantum Leap and the answers in that series never satisfied me. In Seven Days the missions were all emergencies or matters of extreme national security, but that doesn’t work unless there’s some communications mechanism between the agents in the field and home base, and the base concept I was working from had no such communications possible.

Again, I have moderated that position slightly as the campaign has taken shape. And PC Motivation is the key. In the beginning of the campaign, it will be all about the PCs coming to terms with their situation. Once that becomes settled, over the course of the early part of the campaign, the PCs are going to gather what they need to restore very limited communications, and their ultimate goal is going to be building what they need in order to stabilize their situation, get them involved in attempts to ‘rewire’ history, and eventually, to get them home at the end of the campaign whenever the players get tired of it, or I run out of ideas.

Fantasy Elements? Sci-Fi elements?

At this moment, I haven’t completely ruled these out, but intend for them to be exceptions and oddities, not the norm.

Game System – again

The last major decision that will be made is the one that I started with – what game system will I use? No decision has yet been made. All my thinking along these lines has been more about what I don’t want.

The current options under consideration (and not all of them seriously) are:

1. Triumphant
2. OVA The Anime RPG
3. Maid The RPG
4. Star Trek TNG RPG
5. d20 Modern / d20 Future
6. Thrilling Tales 2nd ed
7. Villains & Vigilantes 3
8. An extremely stripped-down variant on Pulp Hero
9. TORG (1st Edition)
10. A custom-written Home System
11. Something else…

These are all systems that I, or one of the players, have on-hand. I don’t intend to take very long over the decision – I’ll be skimming them looking for a reason to reject them. The last five are the most interesting, and have additional reasons to recommend them, so unless one of the others seems pretty perfect, that’s the most likely choice. So let’s look briefly at those relatively “hot” options.

7. V&V 3rd Edition is the game system being recommended by one of the players based on what I’ve told him about the campaign. But I haven’t looked at it yet.
8. A stripped-down Pulp Hero is an option because it’s a system that we’re all familiar with. But it’s likely to be too complex as it stands for my needs, and not quite cinematic enough in mechanics.
9. TORG is a system that I like a lot. I’ve actually GM’d it before (years ago), and at least one of the players has played it. I also have lots of supplements for it – just about the complete bundle, in fact – but they are all in storage where they will be slightly inconvenient to access. I am also concerned that the whole “possibility energy” concept would be too
   integral to the rules system, but must also admit that renaming it appropriately would be a convenient reflection of why the PCs are able to succeed as “Chrononauts” (a term that I don’t intend to keep, but that is better than nothing for now). So there are pluses and minuses.
10. An option to which I am giving serious consideration is a simple, custom, game system. This has the advantage that it will be a perfect match for what I want the game mechanics to represent, but the disadvantage that I haven’t written it yet, and it certainly won’t have been play-tested. If I decide to go down this route, I will almost certainly have to publish it here, as turning it into a post at Campaign Mastery is the only way that I will have time to write it. I have two months, so wait and see… if I do, it will probably involve a conceptual tip of the hat to some of the elements of TORG that I like.
11. Heading the “Something Else” is another story-based system, such as FATE, about which I have heard good things – but the player who is recommending V&V doesn’t like it and has actually tried it, which I haven’t, and I don’t have a copy of it, both strong negatives to take into account.

Campaign Background & Player Briefing, second draft

I wrote this up on the train on the way back from the Family Reunion and offer it here in its final form, for use by whoever wants it.

Who are the PCs? The Government attracted heavy criticism in the decades after the moon landings for such a heavy military involvement in the space program. As a result, when the Zener Gate was discovered, and a NASA-like project initiated to explore the phenomenon, it was decided that this would be primarily a civilian programme. However, as with the nascent days of the Space Programme, no-one knew exactly what would confront the first explorers to another time; while, in theory, they would be launched and “snap back” seconds later, as had been the case with every test animal sent through the Zener Gate, there were a dozen different competing theories as to how the Gate worked, and not all of them were so predictable. The result was a manhunt for the most able, most self-reliant individuals. They were then tested to within an inch of their lives for resilience in the face of stress, calmness in the face of danger, resourcefulness, trustworthiness (the Zener Gate was a very highly-classified project, after all), and any other quality that anyone thought might make the difference between survival and death, success and failure. Ninety-nine out of every hundred candidates washed out. Then they began assigning them to groups, according to the best judgments of the behavioral psychologists, and testing the resulting three-man squads for stability, capability, and group functionality. 40% of the candidates who had made it through the first screenings washed out – they simply didn’t play well enough with others – and many of the teams were left incomplete, on stand-by until a complimentary third member could be located. Twelve three-person “Go” teams were established, 36 men and women were stable and compatible and possessed of complimentary skill-sets, the best 36 that the United States had to offer, code-named Chronosquad Able, Chronosquad Baker, Chronosquad Charlie, Chronosquad Delta, Chronosquad Eagle, Chronosquad Foxtrot, Chronosquad Golf, Chronosquad Halo, Chronosquad Indigo, and Chronosquad Juliet. Chronosquad Juliet were killed on a routine training mission when their transport aircraft crashed in bad weather off the coast of Florida. Chronosquad Able were scratched from the programme following a security violation. Chronosquad Baker were killed in the systems overload the first time an electronic device was sent through the Zener Gate. Investigation of the incident led to the discovery of the Meitner Field Radius. Chronosquad Charlie were scrubbed when an inappropriate personal bond arose between the two male members of the team. Chronosquad Delta focused on animal testing of the Zener Gate, and established the existence and parameters of the Meitner Field Radius. Chronosquad Golf were scratched when one of the team members contracted Malaria. Chronosquad Eagle were thus the first set of human subjects to transit the Zener Gate. President Trump himself spoke to them via sat-phone to tell them how great he was for ‘making it all happen’ before the gate was activated, enveloping them in it’s quantum-field-shredding energies. As predicted by theory, they were “elsewhen” for 12.3 seconds, verifiable because they drowned in salt water whose chemical makeup had not been seen on earth since the early Cretaceous period. This also verified another operational parameter that had been only theoretical previously – no-one drowns in 12.3 seconds; the duration experienced “elsewhen” by Chronosquad Eagle was hours or days (depending on how long they were able to remain afloat). Whether or not this value was completely independent of the event duration recorded at Zener Control was unknown and would remain so until far more data was collected. Chronosquad Foxtrot followed; they were absent from local space-time for 13.12 seconds, returned to describe a tremendous ice-field as far as the eye could see and no signs of human activity. Whether the was some long-past ice-age or one yet to come, they could not say. Suffering from extreme frostbite, they stated that they had experienced more than 8 days in the other time, but that the days had seemed to last longer than normal. Chronosquad Halo departed local space-time for 11.4 seconds, and returned having been mauled by some form of wild animal, dead of blood loss. The directive came from on high – each team was to devise their own personal weaponry, bearing in mind the Meitner Field Radius, and become proficient in its use prior to embarkation. That directive was issued eight weeks ago; and now, it is the turn of Chronosquad Indigo! The Meitner Field Radius The one characteristic that all Temperanauts have in common is that they are possessed of unusually dense Meitner Fields, sufficiently intense that the fields rise about half-and-inch from the surface of their bodies. Meitner fields are something similar to Kirlean Fields, energy patterns created by intracellular electrical activity. Not much is known about them at this point, and much of that knowledge has been bought at the cost of human life. If an organism does not have such a high-density Meitner Field, that organism suffers complete biochemical breakdown as the chemical processes that create and sustain life go awry, some running rampant, and others coming to an almost-complete halt. Anything surrounded by an intense Meitner Field can be conveyed through the Zener Gate by a Temperanaut, but there are certain risks and shortcomings that Temperanauts must be aware of when selecting their equipment. Anything which relies on a chemical reaction in order to function will tend to misbehave, the reactions either inhibited or dangerously accelerated. In a nutshell, they either become chemically inert or explode. It is believed that electron orbits have a Temporal Component through one of the 10 non-space dimensions postulated by Quantum Physicists, but the reasons are ultimately irrelevant – the phenomena happens. Anything that projects outside the field is sheared off during Zener Transit. Atoms are literally cut in half, as are subatomic particles. This creates a field of radiation (mostly gamma) that surrounds the Temperanaut and can quickly reach lethal doses. Since protection against such radiation requires dense metals such as Lead and the thickness of such materials must be measured in feet or meters, not fractions of an inch, radiation exposure is a constant problem that the Temperanaut must be aware of. Air molecules represent a relatively negligible exposure, about equivalent to 24 hours of television viewing or six hours in space beyond the protection of the Van Allen belts; but the density of material is a factor. Air has an atomic density of 0.02504 x 10^27 atoms per meter cubed. A Meitner Field Surface has an area of approximately one square meter. Only at the edge of the Meitner Field is there atomic disruption, so effectively we’re talking about 85.6 x 10^16 atomic breakdowns. Half of these will be directly away from the organism and another 10% or more will be at an angle that does not intersect with the biological structure, e.g. near vertically. All this reduces the resulting exposure to relatively safe levels. Water has an atomic density 1332 times that of air, and produces a radiation field that is 121 times as intense. This is enough to substantially increase the risk of radiation poisoning with repeated exposure, equivalent to having 121 whole-body x-rays. Diamond (and most other solids) have an atomic density 5 times that of water, which doesn’t sound like much – but it produces a radiation field more than 6000 times that of air, the equivalent of having 605 whole-body x-rays per exposure. Accordingly, Temperanaut uniforms must be snugly fitted, suitable for all climates, completely free of loops and other projections, and anything thicker than 0.25 inches is unsafe. Electrical Devices, unless hardened against EMP, are completely fried by the process of transition unless protected by a Meitner Field. Batteries and other such power sources are particularly affected because the electron flows are massively disrupted by transition. What’s more, the electron flows in such devices are known to disrupt Meitner Fields even when no current is flowing. Accordingly, no electronic devices of any kind are permitted to be in an actively-powered state and no Temperanaut may carry an electrical power supply of a chemical nature. This does not preclude the use of solar cells, however some theories of time travel warn against introducing technology foreign to the era, and so these power sources are also prohibited. It follows that power supplies for any electronic devices must be sourced from the local environment without being witnessed by local inhabitants. Temporal Dangers Durations experienced on the far side of the Zener Gate are known to radically differ from those recorded at the Zener Control end. To date, no pattern has emerged, it is only known that seconds of absence may translate into hours or days on the far side. Zener Gate openings are uncontrolled, it is not yet known whether or not the degree of durational impact is in some way related to the temporal separation between times. Accordingly, Temperanauts should always remain in close proximity to each other, and local sources of food, clean water, and shelter must be obtained. You may have a long wait. Paradoxes may be impossible to initiate, or impossible to undo. We don’t know. Interaction with the locals is considered high-risk, but may be necessary. The more important the individual, the greater the risk involved. It is also true that under at least one temporal theory, any attempt to create a paradox or alter history will result in the offender being excised from existence. Environments may be harsh. Survival precautions should be taken when necessary. There is much we simply don’t know. Hence selection focused on self-reliance and an ability to improvise.

Adventure Format

It is anticipated that adventures will come to fit a standard pattern or format.

Pre-game: Spend XP and update characters.

Arrival Recap: The PCs will emerge from a Zener Transition and be able to make an immediate assessment of the local conditions and time-frame.

Baseline Resources: The PCs will obtain or identify local resources – food, water, shelter. For the first few times, this will be roleplayed in full, thereafter it will be assumed to have happened and relevant details provided by the GM in between scenes unless a specific challenge is represented.

Engagement: Something will happen that will involve the PCs in whatever the local situation is in a rational and sensible way. Initially, these will involve avoiding situations forbidden by Zener Control Standing Orders; over time, these will evolve into specific objectives that require interaction with the local environment or indigenous personnel. It will become quickly apparent that not all is as it was presented to them in the briefing provided pre-transition by Zener Control.

Impending Transit: A means will quickly be developed of realizing how long a time-span is available for the adventure in game time. This will be an amount sufficient for the PCs to resolve the engagement but still place them under some time pressure.

Resolution: The adventure is completed or time runs out to do so.

Transit: When time runs out, the PCs will involuntarily make a new Zener Transit, departing the local timeline. Care will need to be taken to avoid long-term radiation damage by carrying items they shouldn’t. The decision of what to take and what to leave behind will be a critical one for the players, as they will be strictly limited in this capacity.

Teaser: It is anticipated that most of the time, the adventure will wrap up with a teaser for the next arrival sequence.

Experience/Post-adventure: XP will be awarded immediately based on the success or failure of the characters in achieving their objectives. XP may also be awarded in the course of play. Long-term damage will be tracked and will semi-permanently impair the characters thereafter. From time to time, in-adventure circumstances will permit medical treatment of long-term damage, restoring the characters to partial or complete health.

The ?pilot? adventure will differ from this somewhat as there will need to be some foundations laid. I anticipate starting the game as the PCs from Chronosquad Indigo are suiting up just prior to their expedition through the Zener Gate.

Adding New Players / Replacing Dead PCs

I have some ideas, not yet fully developed, to enable both of these to occur should they become necessary. It is anticipated that PC death with be a rare event and a Big Deal if and when it occurs, and it is not expected that other players will want to join the campaign, but I think it important to prepare for both contingencies.

So that’s the plan

…we shall see how closely the reality measures up! Everything except game system choice and creating the first adventure is now done…