The Numbers Game

I think you folks probably know by now that I look at each and every opportunity to play as an opportunity to also learn.

if nothing else, You can learn a great deal about human psychology...Ok. GEEK Psychology... by sitting down with friends and chucking some dice, or throwing some chops in anger at deeply unpleasant antagonists.

The only thing that can throw a real damper on this, are inequities in play. The sorts of things that can really rub you raw.

Let me give you an example: I play at a Javachat site. I have a character who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a combat character.  I mean, I have a significant amount of my points sunk into combat stuff. I am also playing a werewolf, and of the supernatural races in the games we’re playing they’re considered to be rampaging ravening engines of destruction. I am playing a member of THEIR warrior class. In fact, my character is built in such a way that I am perfectly capable of handing out a beating to other werewolves without having to change form.  Now granted, there are players that are capable of kicking my ass while in full on wolf-man form. But that doesn’t help them with a fight in public now, does it?

In some of the things I can do, I now have ridiculous dice pools. Been playing this particular game for better than six months. Love my fellows and I don’t have MUCH kick against the Storytellers there except for one thing.

I have yet to meet an antagonist on the field of battle that I could hit or damage much. And on those rare occasions when I could actually do some damage, the antagonist, invariably a spirit creature, would just fuck off for greener pastures not much the worse for wear.

There is a vast sea of difference between giving the players a hard-won victory and giving them a massive case of blue balls. And I think it’s high time that storytellers learned the fucking difference.

The Big Bad:

Frankly, it’s just goddamn lazy to have the main antagonist walk out into the middle of things and dare the players to mass fire on him. (And if you don’t think that players will immediately ignore their current attackers to mass fire on the main bad guy, you are very very new at this and adorable in the bargain.) But it’s also incredibly demoralizing to realize that even the combat dudes can’t hit the guy because you gave him a ridiculous amount of Defense. Or a ridiculous amount of Armor.  Sure, it may force your players to get more creative. But it also gets fucking old after a while.

   Never mind the actual problem of the fact that the antagonist may be able to mop the floor with your primary bad-ass PCs. What happens when you put all of them on the deck, and the only players left are not nearly as capable of fighting back?

Look: Throttle back on that shit. Make your enemies hittable but savvy enough to use cover and the battlefield conditions to his/her advantage. Perhaps the bad guy knows the terrain of his lair like the back of his hand and uses the choke points to his advantage.  Perhaps his running off is a calculated move designed to draw off some of the PC’s and maybe turn the tables back to his/her advantage. (Vampires are GREAT at that. Get chased down only to turn around and nail someone with Dominate and then fuck off while the rest of the party has to put one of their own on the deck.

Maybe your big bad has enough smarts to keep from revealing he’s actually in command and you don’t exactly know WHO is pulling the strings. Maybe your Big Bad has a lot of mooks but also has a goodly number of second-string baddies who are willing to cover his retreat. And those second stringers are CRUNCHY.

   You can even pull the old Anime switcheroo if you’re feeling particularly sadistic. Maybe the players get crazy lucky on a dice roll and wax your bad guy.  And he falls down...and then he gets back up, Maybe twice as powerful or at very least completely refreshed.

   You can do the “Toy Surprise” villain too.  Kill off the bad guy and as he/she/it dies, the creature explodes covering the PC’s in acidic blood, actively teratogenic or mutagenic chemicals, or even just pissed off scorpions. A satisfying win, but not without consequences.

Enemy tactics can also play a significant role in making the players sweat. Tactically savvy antagonists can make life hell even for vastly superior forces. Knowing the terrain better than the enemy can make an enormous difference. Hitting an enemy from one side and then once they’ve committed their force to that direction, hitting them from another direction is a great way to stress out players and make them feel very vulnerable.  Don’t feel all that great as a tactician?  Take a look at history for great examples of how a battle unfolds.  In fact, let me recommend a book.  “The 33 Strategies of War” by Dr. Robert Green.  Fascinating, and damned useful stuff for the basic principle of tactics and strategy.

Enemy forces:

Yes. this will mean more work for you but ratchet down how dangerous your average mooks are. But instead of having one mook per PC, have three.  Yes, this will mean that certain PC’s will mop the floor with your mooks. That is to be expected. However, it will also mean that they will be busy helping the other PC’s who aren’t as combat capable from getting themselves slain.

Let’s face it: I have yet to be in a game combat situation where the only players involved were combat capable. There’s always one or more players who are along for the ride, who frankly, have exactly no business being there. They figure that the only way to get experience or character recognition is to participate in fights.

And if that IS true of the game you’re running, SHAME THE FUCK ON YOU.

But that’s neither here nor there.

The issue is that if you’ve made all of the bad guys on the board super crunchy, and then there are people involved in the plot that aren’t terribly combatty.   Or maybe they have combat skills but tend to get mentally passive in battle or aren’t really tactically wise.  People bring a wide breadth of experience to each and every conflict.  There may be even PC’s involved in your game, who can actually end the fight without using violence.  NEVER stifle this impulse. They paid some fucking points to be able to do that sort of thing, you should let them and not jack them up just because you wanted a fight.  That’s as bad as not letting the combat character’s hit anything.  It’s just blue balls of another shade.

The Dice/Dice Roller/Chops

In any given sortie group, there is likely to be at least one player that suffers from the vagaries of chance. I’ve been that guy. 15 successes to pick a lock, can’t swing my bat to save my life some nights.  (if you’re a player and you’re having this problem, the best thing you can do is go to the defensive/support end of things. You might just save the day THAT way.)

But sometimes the GM has that problem. 

So cheat.

Oh, come ON. You KNOW you’re going to. But if you do so, then do it with an eye towards at least being fair.

Ok. Say you’ve done like I suggested.  Let’s say, Captain Jones, The Great Bandini, his girl Friday Della Overstreet, and Sabai Khan are all set upon by the Peruvian Mantis people.  And instead of having them tackle the Mantis King and his royal guard, You’re having them set upon by enough of the Mantis people to have at least 3 of them attacking each player.

And let’s say, and why not, that the Dice roller is fucking hating you tonight. and you want them to sweat a little, but they flatly aren’t.   

   So simply do it like this. Simply assess each player one bashing or one lethal per round of combat NO MATTER WHAT. until the Mantis people are either slain or chased off.  There are three attackers on each. Each round the Mantis people will knock off at least 2 defense of each player so it’s not impossible that they’ll hit and maybe they won’t do much damage. but if the dice roller gives the player a little hate too and the combat drags out, It will make them sweat and after the fight, use up some of their healing resources. After all, The Mantis King is still out there.

The goal here is to make it a challenge without fucking them over because you went overboard or don’t know what you’re doing. People don’t play games because they like to LOSE.

Pacing:

Pacing in combat is super-important. Anything that is supposed to happen in the combat, that is actually NOT combat itself ought to be pre-written. In fact, you might want to create a flowchart for your combat. indicating the decision tree of thing that will take place if the players kill the bad guys, fight them to a draw or get trounced. because ALL of these are possible.  

You need to have your act together as much as is humanly possible, and not only that you have to keep the players from bogging down the pace of the fight too.  In the place I play, we have a thing called the “3 Minute Rule”  From the moment the ST calls you in the Init Order, you have 3 minutes to post your actions and dice roll or get yourself skipped.

It is the ONLY thing that can keep a combat scene that involves 15 people from slowing to a crawl.

    if you’re a player and have a question about how something works, you should ask it before your turn. Preferably in Private messages to the Storyteller.  If you have flavor text you intend to add to your dice roll you should type that stuff before your turn comes up.  The only time that you ought to write from scratch as a player is when the person right before you makes your action moot and you need to do something different.  In THAT case, Brevity over color.

Now, of course, there may be times when the fight bogs down anyway and maybe the only way to fix it is to go “Cinematic”  And that’s fine.  Let the players describe a cool thing that their character gets to do before something cinematic happens.

And when you do something cinematic, try not to make it a big fuck you to the people who have chosen to come play in your scene. Like having your favored set of NPC’s show up and make everyone look bad.  Far better to have those NPC’s show up and do support for the PC’s.  Buffing the FUCK out of them will do the trick.

Can’t do that?   Why not have the Big Bad grasp his head and go. “By The Thrice-Damned! They’ve begun the ritual. I have to stop them. YOU! Take command and destroy these striplings!” and then he fucks off for the high cotton.

“Oh, my. Look at the time...”

Villains split. They just do. They turn up at inconvenient times. (Weddings, funerals, affairs of state) and get all Ig’nant and then when people take issue with them and turn the tide of villainous behavior. They usually want to bugger to bother the players another day.

As I’ve written before, this is another form of NPC’s favoritism and it’s largely pointless and is another source of Player Blue Balls.  Sometimes it’s ok. Just don’t do it EVERY fucking time. That’s all.   Instead of having the favored NPC roll in and kill steal. How cool would it be if the NPC rolled in while the monstrous spirit was discorporating and stopped it cold? Then turned to the players and said, “Dudes and Dudettes, I can only hold him so long him. FINISH HIM!”

That would be a fun story to tell another gamer some time down the road. And that’s what you want.

Be flexible

Recognize that you’re trying to create and good and memorable story.

Encourage the players rather than demoralizing them.

And someday, they may tell tales of the stories you’ve run.

Wouldn’t that be something?