Flow of Information

The issue of Perception and how it grants PCs information in TTRPGs has been a popular topic in the blogosphere lately.  It's also one that I've struggled with personally.

To start with, most players consider Perception to be the most powerful/useful skill in D&D 4E.  I know I would train it with virtually all of my characters.  But then a funny thing happened; I started reading and researching more narrative-centric RPGs with their fail-forward philosophies and what-not, and my character ideas began to deliberately ditch Perception.  For one thing it's often not an "active" skill, but rather one that the GM calls upon PCs to roll, and second things can simply get more interesting (albeit more difficult as well) if you fail a Perception check.  I'd rather have to claw my way out of a tight spot that I could have avoided if it was memorable as opposed to getting some piece of information that basically tells me what's up.

Unfortunately this doesn't always work in practice.  In the Pathfinder campaign that I'm currently playing in there was a lot of "roll Perception" results as we were exploring a dungeon.  Failure came with its typical problems; players knew something was up and then either got no information, or got a surprise scythe-blade trap to the back.  But success was equally boring.  "Rogue, you find another trap there."  "I roll Disable Device."  "Ok, you disabled the trap."  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I'm glad the Rogue got to be useful (he certainly hasn't been in combat), but it still wasn't very exciting.

A while ago there was an article on Thought Crime that explored this very issue.

Dungeon World

Since a lot of the blog articles reference Dungeon World, we'll step back for a second and examine how Perception is handled in that system.  One of the Basic Moves in Dungeon World is "Discern Realities."  You roll (2D6) +Wis and on a 10+ you can ask 3 questions, and one question on a 7-9 (the "partial success" ubiquitous in Dungeon World rolls).  The list of questions is as follows:

• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What should I be on the lookout for?
• What here is useful or valuable to me?
• Who's really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

By reading the list of questions it should be apparent that Perception is a very player-driven process.  It's also worth mentioning that a Move in Dungeon World can only be triggered by the fiction as described by that player.  The player says what he's doing, and the GM may say "sound's like you're trying to Discern Realities; roll + Wis."  Or the player can specify that, but it won't work unless his description of the PCs actions also match up with the Move's trigger.  For Discern Realities, you have to "closely observe your target," and it's also called out that you "can't just stick your head in the doorway," but rather you have to closely examine the surroundings; pick things up, get up close and personal, etc.  A really helpful clarifying statement from the book:  "Discern Realities isn't just about noticing a detail, it's about figuring out the bigger picture."

That's a key difference with the classic Perception check - the GM isn't just going to tell the player "you find a trap," but rather they're answering a player's specific question.  The detail of "there are traps here" might still be included, but the specifics will vary depending on what question was asked.  Furthermore, if the player succeeds they will learn something even if the GM didn't plan for anything; by asking the question they are injecting a fact into the narrative based on the GMs response.  As a further carrot for the PCs, when acting on the answers they get a +1 forward (bonus to a future action).

This sounds cool and all (I haven't actually played Dungeon World yet), but rolling a 6 or less is still a null result, and the player doesn't get to ask any questions.  It's easy enough to incorporate a "fail forward" philosophy, which leads back to another blog post.

Query-Based Perception Hack

Yesterday there was a heavily Dungeon-World inspired article over at Mystic Theurge about Query-Based Perception.  The hack draws questions from several *World games and applies them to several different systems, including 13th Age.  In some ways this sub-system is more interesting than Dungeon World's.  It doesn't offer the "ask 3 questions" option, but it does let PCs ask a question regardless of whether they pass or fail, and either way they'll gain a +2 bonus to any actions while acting on the information.  On a failure, the information is wrong (or incomplete), but interesting results are sure to ensue when players risk acting on misinformation to get the +2 bonus.  It's a clever way to inject fail-forward into the system.

Clues and Mysteries

Thought Crime posted an interesting sub-system that might serve investigative style games quite well.  Ephemera are like temporary Backgrounds in 13th Age, and one such type is the "Clue."  Clues can be earned through a Perception or other investigation-related check much like the above system (or Discern Realities in Dungeon World), but they can also be gained from Icon rolls or as loot.  Though it's only orthogonally related to the Perception issue, I LOVE the idea of handing out Clues as loot, since they come with a built-in mechanism to entice players to play with the information (the ephemera bonus, which stacks with Backgrounds).  A later post outlines how a GM can structure an adventure around these mechanics with an example mystery.

Lorefinder

We're getting a little further from straight Perception here, but that's ok because Perception is only one facet of the bigger issue - how the GM doles out information to the players.  I've been eyeing a third-party supplement for Pathfinder for a while now; it incorporates the GUMSHOE system (which is the system that games such as Trail of Cthulu and Ashen Stars uses), and is called Lorefinder.  As I understand it, the way that GUMSHOE/Lorefinder works is that simply having an investigative skill is enough to give you some basic information in a situation that relates to that skill.  Your proficiency in an Investigative skill (which works differently from your standard skills like Climb, etc.) grants you a number of points that you can use per session rather than a modifier to a d20 roll.  You can use one or more of these points from the pool to gain additional information beyond the baseline.  The basic information will usually be just enough to get by without grinding the plot to a halt, while the "extra" information will obviously be more useful.  The GM will just give the PC the information, no roll required.  But the PC will have to decide when to spend those limited points, because some information will obviously be more useful than other.

What to Take Away from all of these Systems?

Clearly a case can be made for facilitating the flow of information between GM and PCs that minimizes both the tedium and roadblocks of straight Perception or investigative skill rolls.  Query-based Perception (including that used by the *World games) allows players to steer the details a bit by framing the information they obtain in the form of specific questions.  This works best when combined with a fail-forward philosophy, and a bonus when acting on the information further promotes player engagement and can lead to interesting consequences if the information is wrong or incomplete.  Expanding the idea of such bonuses (or "ephemera") to investigation in general, temporary Backgrounds (13th Age style) in the form of Clues provide a tangible reward above and beyond the information itself, as well as possibly being used as a limited resource ("spending" clues to move toward solving the mystery).  Lorefinder (and GUMSHOE in general) also does a great job of giving players a limited-use investigative resource, and is perhaps the most well-known system for handing out relevant information.

Have I used any of this in my own games?  Not directly, no (aside from general "fail-forward").  But I can see the promise, and I wish something like this were in place for the Pathfinder game I'm playing in.  Having spent much of the last few hours reading up on these various options, I'm not even sure if everything has really sunk in yet.  Using everything would be redundant and, more importantly, overly complex, and I'm not quite sure what would suit my needs best.  If my curiosity gets the best of me and I end up purchasing Lorefinder, I may have more to say on the subject.

So 13th Age and Dungeon World walk into a bar...

Recap - Last Session
The last time I posted about my 13th Age campaign the party was still in the middle of a living dungeon.  During our session after that they continued onward, at a somewhat slower pace than I'd anticipated.  Two encounters away from a full heal up, the party was beat down pretty good.  The Barbarian had only a single recovery left, and was right around Staggered.  I let the player rebuild him because he was noticeably underpowered (lesson the first - don't use a shield as a Barbarian!), but it was impossible to tell how much that really helped given the disadvantage the character was already at. 

Their next fight was really tough; a trap-filled room that could be somewhat circumvented by climbing up 20 foot tall mushrooms and jumping from one cap to the next in order to reach the door out.  Unfortunately, an earth elemental fell from the roof onto one of the mushrooms, blocking their way forward.  I used a slightly modified re-skinned ogre, which is a tougher opponent than I'd realized for a 1st level party of mostly weapon users (go figure).  The environment was against them, multiple people were dropping every round, and the Cleric was funneling his own recoveries into the Barbarian thanks to the Healing Domain feat that he'd snagged for an incremental advance after the last session.  Eventually I finally hinted that the players don't necessarily need to kill the elemental to progress, and that they should probably just go for the door.  So they did, and survived - barely.

After traveling through some eery tunnels filled with purple tentacles they finally reached the "heart" of the dungeon, but not before their enemy had gotten there first!  A dark cleric was "plugged into" the dungeon, connected to tentacles which allowed him to "drive" it.  A mage guarded by two knights proclaimed that they were driving the dungeon straight to hell, and then ordered the attack.  The Ranger managed to hit the mage with two ranged attacks early on, one of which was a crit, and also applied Cruel.  In one round he nearly one-shotted him (but not before the mage got an Acid Arrow off), and the ongoing damage then finished him off two rounds later without anyone else having to attack him.  This made the fight significantly easier, and the Barbarian very happy.  After killing all of the enemies, the Barbarian stabbed the "heart" of the dungeon, killing it but sending it flying through the earth at breakneck speeds.  It shot them out on top of a mountain (the psychic, rune-inscribed door appeared on a cliff on that mountain), along with the Derro that had lived there and the Gnome, Nilku.

Enter Dungeon World
Sort of.   No, we didn't play it, but I decided I would test the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World in my 13th Age game.  I used the sample front in the infamous Dungeon World Guide, The Great Wyrm Axtalrath.  For such a short write up (6 pages of fairly large print, with half of one page consisting of new races specifically for Dungeon World) there is a LOT of useable information packed in here!  I'll probably use Fronts, or a modified version of them, as my GM organizational tool for pretty much every game I run now.  Granted, a Front doesn't provide the same level of detail as a pre-made adventure; it doesn't have stat blocks, dungeon maps, etc.  But I suck at running published adventures.  They're usually a lot of reading relative to the amount of game time I'll get out of them.  A Dungeon World Front is minimal reading (with text that's organized VERY well for reference), and you can get many sessions worth of game time out of them.  Dozens, in this case, I think. 

On overall background summary sets up the premise.  A list of points of interest, accompanied by a map, provides enough inspiration for getting a picture of each place in your head, without overwhelming you with details.  Fill them in as needed, and leave room for expansion (the Dungeon World mantra "play to find out what happens" fits very well with 13th Age's narrative, icon and background based design).  The Dangers provide the main players that might oppose the party.  Simple description, short motivation, and some "Grim Portents" which are events that will transpire without any PC intervention.  They're basically well-organized plot points that give you some options for where to "go next" when your players are stuck or you've played out a different option.  These, of course, can be altered or change depending on what the players do so the whole structure of the narrative is affected by PC actions.  Which is how a roleplaying game SHOULD work.  The Front is rounded out with some Stakes (miscellaneous questions and handy reminders; I like to think of these as things unrelated to the Dangers that could become major plot points) and a short cast of NPCs.  I quite simply assigned each cast member an associated Icon, and then created more NPCs for Icons that didn't yet have any associated with them.  I detailed those that PCs had a relationship with more heavily, but given random Icon influence it's helpful to have at least an idea for who might act on behalf of other Icons. 

Ultimately, I think Fronts are going to help me improve my improvisational skills by providing just enough of a safety net.  There's plenty of room to build upon each and every short description in the front, and there's always a few things going on "in the background" (or just "waiting" to be incorporated later) so that the narrative won't ever really grind to a standstill.  

Session Summary
So how did all of this work out in play?  Beware that there are SPOILERS for the Great Wyrm Axtalrath in this section, though because of the flexible, sandbox-y nature of the Fronts you can probably play through the whole thing and have an entirely different experience. 

Well, the first major issue was the Derro.  The PCs destroyed their home, and even though they convinced the Derro that this was better than plunging into hell, they still demanded reparations.  The party led them down the mountain, left them under the canopy of the trees (since it was daylight, which they hate), and went into the town of Rockbreak.  Being midday, most of the citizens were either working in the mine or logging, but the Cleric found the local temple and they had a nice chat with the priest there.  He gave them all of the background info that they'd need to know (dragon destroyed all the roads, all the boats, but left the townspeople alive, Monolith glows every quarter moon, etc.), and seemed concerned about the prospect of a whole village of Derro refugees looking for a new place to settle. 

In pure reckless fashion, the potionless PCs didn't bother to look for any shops or anything, but returned to the Derro, who demanded the PCs scout out some possible caves (they'd do the same after nightfall).  Their first lead was a bust, but they noticed fires approaching from the coast.  They investigated, and I invoked the Grim Portent "Magmin appear on the western coasts," thanks to a roll of 5 for the Diabolist last session.  The party didn't attempt to ambush them and didn't make use of any good tactics whatsoever.  My homebrew Magmin beat the snot out of them (to be fair, auto-damaging fire auras were more powerful than I'd anticipated).  They only attacks that they landed were on minions (they destroyed 2 of 4), and the Cleric went down early removing the party's only source of healing.  PCs were dropping and hoping for death saves to bring them back up.  Nobody ever rallied, though the Barbarian used his Dwarf racial power.  I advised them to use the Retreat rule several times but they didn't.  Eventually after being VERY generous with the results of the Ranger's Terrain Stunt power I had the Magmin simply move on after everyone in the party was knocked out.  The Fighter rolled high on his death save just before the Barbarian was about to fail his last one, and he was able to stabilize him.  The party then fled toward Port Taramos, and I had no choice but to advance to the next Grim Portent under the Magmin danger (to be fair I would have given the PCs one last chance to beat back the Magmin, since they had a river to cross before reaching Rockbreak). 

A botched direction-finding roll from the Ranger (a fumble) led the party right into the swamps.  They were ambushed by Lizardmen, but got very lucky (in that I couldn't seem to roll higher than a 9, and Lizardmen get really nasty if you have a string of good rolls in a row).  After 2 of the 5 were killed, one of them told his allies to stand down, and demanded to know why the party broke the truce (here the party learned about the truce, obviously).  The Lizardman had his allies back away slowly, and eventually they swam off, and the leader asked the party to leave him gold and leave the swamp immediately.  Otherwise, they wouldn't leave the swamp alive.  The party cheaped out (left 1 gp each), which may come back to bite them in the ass later. 

They arrived in Port Taramos, learned of the Dragon Cultists, and bought some potions.  The Fighter (who had pocketed some gems back in the dungeon which melted - around all of his coins!) sought out an alchemist to help free his coins from the block of gem-glue (attempts to smash it earlier were met with the realization that the glue had seeped into the gold, making it impure and brittle).  And with that, the session ended.

On Sandboxes
Most of my attempts at running more sandbox-style games with this group have failed in the past.  The players just don't seem to want to take the initiative to go out and explore on their own; they simply wait for my next obvious hook.  When they've taken turns at the GM seat, they've very much resisted any attempts by me (as a player) to "go off the rails."  Well, this Front kind of forces them to do stuff, especially with the added pressure of the Derro refugees at the beginning.  They all want to get off of the island, but they recognize that there's no way they're facing down that dragon.  They're very interested in the Monolith, and they need some cash really badly, so there's two possible directions that they can take things next time.  I'll also need to remember to throw some fights their way that they're likely to win, to boost morale a bit and give them a shot at some loot.  I think they learned their lesson about dismissing basic tactics, so hopefully I see some smart playing in the future.

In other news, I'm starting up a game of 13th Age with my other gaming group as well.  And I'm starting a game of Edge of the Empire with this current 13th Age group, starting with the Beginner Box.  So stay tuned for developments on those fronts!

Unification of Fiction and Mechanics in Combat

A couple weeks back I picked up the PDF for Dungeon World.  There's been quite a lot of buzz about this game ever since the Kickstarter, and now I know why.  This is not a review article, however (perhaps I'll write one later, but this is one game I'd like to actually play first).  The game's most salient feature is that it not only emphasizes the fiction of the game world over mechanics, but defines the mechanics through the game's fiction.  There is a very simplified list of "moves," and these can only be triggered by events described by the player (namely what a character does, and often the intent of that action as well).  My curiosity is certainly piqued; it seems like play boils down to a conversation between GM and Players, with the rules helping to move that conversation along (giving the GM plenty of tools to do the same).  It really got me thinking.

Well, actually Dungeon World caused thoughts that I was already having to snowball, thoughts inspired by the 4E D&D supplement Combat In Motion (reviewed by me here).  Combat In Motion seeks to solve certain issues in 4E combat where the mechanics don't accurately represent the fiction, or needlessly break up the narrative.  I'll simply quote the book's author here regarding 2 of the new off-turn actions (he was kind enough to provide a lengthy email commentary after reading my review):

"OUT-PACE

This rule was initially developed to address what I call the "Sir Lancelot" problem. 

If you have never seen the comedy film, "Monty Python's Holy Grail" -- see it! There's a strange sequence in the movie where Sir Lancelot can be seen running toward the camera from a great distance. Two sentries at a castle gate watch his approach. He is miles away yet the sentries do nothing. Lancelot keeps running yet never seems to get closer. Still the sentries are unmoved. Suddenly Lancelot is there and decapitates them both. 

How did he do it? 

Lancelot must have been a player of 4E!

As you note, in D&D 4E, a creature can cross a vast distance and the targets of its charge can do absolutely nothing about it. In Enhanced 4E, it's different; a humanoid creature of speed 6 can sprint a maximum of 17 paces before his enemies may flee or move to engage him.

Of course, Outpace can also be used by a group of allies to advance together: An option that is now especially valuable when advancing against an enemy force with ranged weapons. 

INTERDICT

This action too was an outgrowth of the Sir Lancelot problem. Now when Lancelot charges the castle, the defenders can riddle him with ranged shots while he remains on open ground. 

In standard 4E, defenders could do this only if they were prescient enough to "ready" a ranged shot---and once they took this shot it was gone. So to hold off a would-be charge, the ranged defenders would have to keep their standard action readied and never actually use it. Moreover, because of the hit point system, the one shot they did get wasn't terribly dangerous to most player characters---so it failed to discourage crazy charges. By making a hit from an interdict slow the progress of a moving creature, it gives ranged defenders the potential to hit multiple times a creature that foolishly allows itself to get caught in open ground."

While I'd already supported the introduction of these 2 actions after reading the book, the author's rationale really made them "click."  These weren't simply rules that were "kinda neat" from the perspective of tactical play.  These were rules that support the fiction of the game!  Ultimately, the draw of a Tabletop RPG is that your character can attempt anything, as opposed to a video game where characters can't interact with certain objects or can't enter certain areas because the designers never coded those possibilities.  A lot of times RPG rules act more like computer code, restricting player options, unless the GM is skilled enough to put the rules aside in certain cases.  Many times players won't even think about it, though (I know I never thought about how absurd it was that 4E creatures could cover such vast distances without fear of a reaction just because combat is designed to be turn-based).  

Admittedly there's no "one true solution" for making game mechanics that fit as seamlessly as possible into the game's fiction.  Dungeon World takes it to a bit of an extreme, and some players will prefer more structure than that system offers.  For example, there are no combat rounds, you simply continue your conversation, triggering "moves" where applicable, and your fellow players are expected to jump in and react to the unfolding story.  Combat In Motion seeks to patch 4E, eliminating the most egregious offenders in terms of rules that contradict the common sense of the fiction.  

To put forward another example from a game that I've been talking and reading a lot about lately, 13th Age uses a turn-based structure for combat but introduces rules for a lot of free-form elements.  One of my favorite new rules from the Escalation Edition ver. 6 is Situational Weapon Use; basically, if the narrative suggests that a dagger would be more useful than a big greataxe (for example, fighting while grabbed or in a confined space) then the damage dice get reversed (daggers would gain a higher die and bigger weapons would deal d4s).  Many classes also gain free-form resources allowing them to improvise elements of the fiction for mechanical gain.  

Obviously game mechanics are necessary to arbitrate outcomes and to somewhat represent the physics of the game world.  Otherwise it's less a game, and more the players simply making up a story as they go along.  But adhering to the rules even when they don't make sense is undesirable, and some rules can do a better job than others at providing the flexibility needed to work around these conflicts.  

Ultimately, humans have an intuitive sense of how the world works by virtue of the fact that we live in it and interact with it every day.  Rigid, complex simulationist rules might seem like a fair way model the game world, but not all corner cases can be covered.  Sometimes simple mechanics that play off of the fiction and appeal to common sense can be more realistic.  As a player and especially as a GM, it pays to scrutinize rules and ask "why does this rule work the way it does?"  "Is this rule doing what I need it to do?"  "What alternative rules might work better?"  Knowing how to answer these questions will go a long way in deciding what system is "right" for your group.