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Mazes and Monsters playtest: combat!

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

This entry is part 24 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Last week, we left our heroes down a player, thanks to Wal-Mart the Frenetic’s spectacularly poorly-timed suicide, and outnumbered by skeletons, facing long odds in a totally untested combat system. It was looking dire.

I quickly explained the combat system, which was fairly simple. No initiative, we just take turns clockwise. Tell the Maze Controller what you want to do, and he’ll roll all the dice.

The Cavalry Arrives

By the time I was finished with the explanation, the adventurers were joined by a new hero, Walmart Jr. the Frenetic! Son of Walmart I, and with suspiciously similar gear, Walmart Jr. had been rolled up in less than a minute, and, announced the player, was here to “take revenge.” Revenge on who? On the pit into which Walmart I had jumped? On his dead father, for throwing away a promising life?

We broke out the d12s and ran the first combat. A theme emerged that would characterize the entire session: a statistically improbable number of 11’s (critical fumbles) and 12’s (critical successes) were rolled. An 11 means that you subtract 10 and roll again; a 12 means that you add 10 and roll again. Frequently, people would roll an 11, roll again, and get a 12, putting them right back where they started. Once, someone actually rolled 11, 12, 11, 12, the odds against which are high – one in more than 20,000 – and the results of which are boring – a net of 0.

It’s too early to tell whether this was merely a freak of the dice, or whether some statistical principle of which I am not aware means that d12s always roll high when Tom Hanks is in the picture.

Despite having no particular dice advantage, Sir Robert the Fighter handily destroyed the skeletons, while the frenetics were quite ineffective throwing their mind-controlling fairy dust. This introduced another theme, which would continue throughout the night: Sir Robert was an unstoppable combat behemoth who could do no wrong, while the other characters missed more than they hit. This especially amused everyone because Sir Robert’s player is generally the most combat-optimized character in any RPG system. Even his extraordinarily simple Mazes and Monsters was dominant – entirely, I believe, through a psychic connection with his dice.

Combat against the skeletons was pretty simple, and felt a lot like D&D combat except with d12s. You needed to roll better than 6 on a d12 to hit, and then you rolled damage. Skeletons were resistant to pointy weapons, like thrown daggers, which meant that the damage d12s were rolled twice and the worst roll was taken. The frenetics were armed with daggers and bows, which meant their weapon attacks where fairly futile. Sir Robert soon put away his spear in exchange for a mace from a fallen skeleton. (Over the course of the game, he collected weapons from each fallen foe, until he ended up with one of everything.)

The skeletons had 10 HP each: on average, each took about two hits, so it didn’t take too long before the players were victorious. The frenetics and the Holy Man had taken a few points of damage. Brave Sir Robert, of course, was entirely untouched.

Traps and Treasure

After the combat, the players rappelled into the pit to look for treasure. I warned them, “You see what looks like the glittering of gold. It could be treasure – but it could be a trap.” They hesitated, but the lure of treasure overpowered them. They reached for the treasure, and —-

IT WASN’T A TRAP.

The players collected a sackful of Pieces of Twelve, and also found a magical glove. Cautious examination revealed that it was a magic power, “Read Strange Languages!”

Our Holy Man had seen a list of the Holy Man powers, and had been talking up the 2nd level spell, “Read Strange Languages,” all night. The word “strange” struck her as particularly funny. She was elated to discover that this glove was the trinket that let her cast this very spell! From this point on, she would be constantly asking if there were any strange languages in sight.

The party continued on. The came to a four-way intersection, with a lazy-susan floor plate that spun people randomly when they stepped on it. Each branch of the intersection (except the one from which they had come) led to a door.

I warned the players that the doors might lead to treasure, but “could be a trap.” They devised a complicated system for opening the doors that involved tying a rope to a door handle, spinning on the lazy susan, running up a perpendicular corridor, and then tugging the rope. It’s a good thing they did, because the first door they opened fired a spear down the hallway! The players’ paranoid precautions kept everyone safe.

The other two doors revealed a fight with some skeletons, which yielded a key, and a locked door, which opened to the key.

Music Maze

The next room contained my first test of the Maze and Monsters Issues system. According to my dungeon key, when the players entered, a drama mask on the wall would zap a random player with black lightning, and — something would happen. I would play it by ear, but it would involve the Issue that that player had written down on their character sheet.

The black lightning hit Lothar the dwarven frenetic. He confessed his Issue to the group: “Just the other day, I was wishing that, one day, a Led Zeppelin song would come on the radio, and my wife would say, ‘This is a good song! Who is this by?’. She just doesn’t like Led Zeppelin that much.”

Here was a meaty issue that could bear no end of psychological prodding! I just hoped I was up to the task.

I had a giant black dog appear in the room. It put its paw on Lothar’s shoulder and said, “As a boon, I will allow you and your friends to hear the greatest of music — forever.” Walmart Jr.’s lute burst forth into spontaneous electified rock music. At the same time, all the doors swung ponderously shut.

Lothar’s player, who really is quite a Led Zeppelin fan, had “Black Dog” on his iPhone, which he generously played for us… on repeat… for the rest of the scene.

As well as a test of Issues, this was the first test of the Maze system. Lothar was Mazed, which meant he was content to stay in the locked room listening to Led Zeppelin forever. (As was his player, I believe.) The other players had to snap him out of it: but each avenue of aid could only be used once.

Sir Robert had a Trait that allowed him to use a bonus Trait die when “convincing others of his good intentions”, so he gave a speech to the effect that he didn’t want Lothar to deny himself the full range of musical experience by fixating on one – admittedly perfect – song. Sir Robert rolled very well, getting a critical success (as was his wont), and this was really good enough to snap Lothar out of it and continue the adventure. The players, though, really wanted to get into the issue. They continued to discuss it for at least the length of “Black Dog”. Finally, everyone came to the (possibly false) conclusion that, as there is no light without darkness, you couldn’t appreciate a song unless there were people who DIDN’T appreciate that song.

As Maze Controller, I suppressed my belief that this conclusion was logically indefensible, and, in fact, made a mockery of the study of logic itself. The important thing was that Lothar, and his player, had met an issue in the maze, and had defeated it. And along the way, he had probably cleared up some engrams or whatever.

The doors unlocked, and the black dog gravely shook hands with everyone, except Wal-Mart Jr., who insisted on doing a fist-bump.

Next time: The playtest concludes with a bang! Or maybe more like a snap, followed by a prolonged scream.

Tags:mazesandmonsters
Posted in advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, game design, legacy D&D, news, other systems, play, RPG Hub | 5 Comments »

Mazes and monsters playtest!

Monday, February 7th, 2011

This entry is part 23 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Now that I have most of the Mazes and Monsters rules in some stage of completion, I decided it was time for a rules playtest.

The players assembled on a snowy Monday, ready to have their malleable minds molded or marred by the horrors of the Maze.

We watched a scene from Mazes and Monsters to get everyone psyched. Everyone seemed thrilled to be paying homage to this important film. Some of the players misunderstood and actually LAUGHED at it, like it was a comedy or something. Just a tribute to Tom Hanks’ irrepressible comic timing! He’s funny even when he’s not trying to be funny. That’s what made Philadelphia such a laugh riot.

One oversight we immediately noticed is that I didn’t bring the MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT, one thousand candles! We had to use stupid old light bulbs for illumination. I’ll have to remember to put a note to the Maze Controller somewhere prominent, like the back cover: “Maze Controller: Remember to bring candles!”

Character Creation

We ended up with a Fighter, a Holy Man, and two Frenetics. The lack of a rogue class was lamented. I know, right? If only there was some movie evidence of a rogue!

Based on the fact that Jay Jay’s frenetic was “the cleverest of all sprites”, the group decided that they could assign themselves fantasy races.

Character creation was very quick: after Hit Points were rolled, people just needed to roll for their Trait and Issue. One of the Frenetics rolled an 11 (a critical fumble) during Trait selection and got a negative trait: Bad Luck. The Good Luck trait lets you add a Trait die (essentially giving you a reroll) to one die roll per session. It wasn’t entirely clear what the opposite of that was, so I decided that it meant that once a session, the Maze Controller could demand a reroll of one of the player’s rolls and take the WORST of the two rolls. This led to an important rules doctrine for rolling a bad trait: “If it’s not clear what the opposite of a good trait is, the Maze Controller is encouraged to come up with the most annoying interpretation.”

Characters rolled Issues secretly, and jotted down their privatemost secrets on their character sheet, right under Hit Points.

Shopping worked pretty well. I had a list of gear and spells for sale, and people coordinated with each other to make sure the party had at least one rope, axe, awl, chisel, and basically one of everything that was for sale.

Introductions

As in the movie, the players each introduced their character in the most deadpan monotone possible. I’ll recreate the introductions as well as I can remember:

“I am Lothar the Frenetic. I am the toughest of all dwarves. My main power is a magical bag of fairy dust, which I may use to control my enemies and make them kill each other.”

“I am Wal-mart the Orcish Frenetic. I am very impulsive, and my bad luck will be my downfall.”

“I am Sansange, a Holy Man with excellent dental hygiene. I have many spells and powers by which I maintain that hygiene in myself and others for the glory of Marcia and Neville.”

“I am Sir Robert the Fighter. I wander the earth righting wrongs. I am irked by people who exhibit bad manners.”

Shall ye enter?

I described the maze as follows:

“You stand before the Tomb of the Twin Kings. It is said that the Twin Kings, one good, one evil, stand guard over a royal treasure. It is also rumored that mystical skeletons patrol the tomb’s winding passageways. Thus warned, shall ye enter?”

With one voice, the players cried, “AYE!” — which was a relief, let me tell you, because I didn’t have a backup plan for the evening.

The first room in the maze contained nothing but a book on a lectern.

I had explained to the players that, in Mazes and Monsters, traps were extraordinarily deadly, but the Maze Controller was required to note that any trap “could be a trap”. In other words, if you’re not warned that something is a trap, it isn’t a trap. The players, though, were taking no chances. They turned pages with the tips of their swords and finally pushed the book into a sack via a carefully-described remote-control Rube Goldberg maneuver. Clearly, 1st edition D&D had scarred my players’ psyches. They were in luck, because shit was about to get PSYCHODRAMATIC.

After ascertaining that the book was not trapped, the players wanted to know what it said. It turned out that every page had a single nonsense sentence, in the form
A man holds two doves
A goat jumps two valleys
A Holy Man blesses two beggars
A candle holds two flames.

Etc.

Etc. was not actually enough for the players, though. They kept turning pages and asking me what else they read. I came up with

A trap takes two lives
A wolf eats two sheep
A coin has two sides

all the while hoping they would not keep on turning pages and come up with HUNDREDS MORE SENTENCES, which it looked like they were planning to do. Luckily they finally ran out of interest before they finished the whole book.

The player running the Holy Man reported that she had sort of forgotten I had to make up all these sentences; she thought she was reading a real book. The lines of fantasy and reality? Successfully crossed! The rest of this playtest would be spent in the liminal realm between sanity and madness.

The next room had three doors, each opened by a pressure plate on a mysterious altar. The players correctly decided, based on the ample evidence provided by the book, that the number 2 was important in this dungeon, and chose to open Door Number 2. This was too bad, because I had cool stuff behind the other doors, including mind mazes and deadly traps that were sure to have wiped out several players!

In the next room, things got really weird – and it wasn’t entirely the game’s fault.

The room contained a vast pit spanned by a bridge. Walmart the Frenetic, whose player was in despair over rolling a negative Trait, HURLED HER CHARACTER TO CERTAIN DEATH in the pit.

Because Walmart’s characteristic was bad luck, everybody decided that Walmart should roll to see if her bad luck prevented her from ending her life. I rolled two dice for her Jump roll and took the least favorable. Fortunately for Walmart’s player (and unfortunately for Walmart) she succeeded, and fell to her death! Walmart the frenetic… was dead!

Death, Dying, and Skeletons

I explained the death and dying rules: When you died, you immediately started rolling up a new first-level character, and as soon as you were finished you could rejoin the others. The player of Walmart the Frenetic quickly started work on her new character, Walmart Jr.

The rest of the heroes had other problems. Attracted by the meaty thump of an orcish frenetic falling to her death, emaciated shapes began shuffling across the bridge. Skeletons — four of them! Just enough to give the combat system its first shakedown in a fair fight against four heroes!

Against three heroes, though, who knows what could happen!

Next week: The rest of the playtest!

Tags:mazesandmonsters
Posted in fluff/inspiration, game design, legacy D&D, news, other systems, play, RPG Hub | 8 Comments »

traits in Mazes and Monsters

Monday, January 24th, 2011

This entry is part 21 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Traits

In FATE, you can make up your own traits, and apply them whenever you want. That’s fine for modern games, but in Mazes and Monsters, that kind of heady authorial control is reserved for high-level characters. The technology of the 80s is all about charts.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

Every character starts the game with one Trait. A Trait is a special characteristic that makes him or her unusually good (or bad) at certain activities.

To determine your Trait, roll a d12 and consult the following chart. Each die roll has two or more possible traits listed next to it: choose the one you want.

1 ARMS: Choose one of the following traits:
strength: Add a trait die to melee weapon damage (including unarmed combat). Carry up to 2 bulky items. Also, gain a Trait die on any check that requires strength.
throwing: Add a trait die when throwing a dagger.
2 LEGS: Choose one of the following traits:
quickness: When not wearing armor, your Protection RONA is increased by one. Add a trait die when running.
stealth: Add a trait die when sneaking or stealing.
3 MIND: Choose one of the following traits:
cleverness: gain a Trait die on any check that requires cleverness or trickery.
Spellcraft: Choose a spell. Gain a Trait die on any RONA check required by this spell. Also, its spell cost is halved.
4 HEART: Choose one of the following traits:
serenity: Add a trait die when escaping or resisting emotional attacks.
courage: Add a trait die when escaping or resisting fear attacks.
5 SKILL: Choose one of the following traits:
Weapon skill: Choose a weapon to specialize in (including unarmed combat). You gain a Trait die whenever you and your target are both using this weapon.
Athletic skill: Gain 10 bonus Hit Points. Gain a Trait die on any RONA involving athletics or toughness.
6 GUIDANCE: Choose one of the following traits:
luck: Once per session, add a trait die to a roll of your choice.
direction sense: Add a trait die when finding your way. Once per maze, you may ask the Maze Controller whether a door or passage will lead the party closer to the treasure.
7 EYES: Choose one of the following traits:
sharp eyes: Add a trait die when looking for something.
aim: Add a trait die when attacking with a bow.
8 EARS: Choose one of the following traits:
hear through walls: Add a trait die when listening for something.
intuition: Add a trait die to escape the Mazed state when talking to a nonexistent person. Add a trait die when determining people’s motives.
9 TONGUE: Choose one of the following traits:
persuasiveness: Add a trait die when convincing others. You may buy items from town at half price.
bardic music: If you play an instrument and sing while casting a Trick, add a trait die.
10 SOUL:
piety: Add a trait die when attacking undead. Also, gain a Trait die on any check that requires divine aid.
power of light: You may create illumination with no light source.
11 Roll again on the Traits table, rerolling 11s and 12s. Choose a Trait. You are unusually BAD at this trait: when it comes up, the Maze Controller rolls 2d12 and takes the WORST of the two rolls.
12 You may choose any trait you want.

I notice that w’ve sort of reinvented D&D3e feats here. That’s fine. It’s inevitable, I think, given the character sheets we’ve seen with their non-numeric character descriptors like “courage” and “throwing”. Again, it’s not us inventing, it’s Rona Jaffe guiding.

Next week: spells!

Tags:mazesandmonsters
Posted in advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, game design, legacy D&D, news, play | 2 Comments »

Jump into the Soup!

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

Sometimes in D&D the stupidest ideas are the most delightful. Amusingly, they are often still the most stupid.

In my last D&D session, 3 members of the party were sneaking around a Keep inhabited by Giants looking for the phylactery of a lich we believed might be hidden there. They were going down a corridor when ambling along came a strong giant woman carrying a massive tureen filled with piping hot lamb soup.

The person playing the Kobold Rogue turned to the rest of the party and asked, “Should I jump into the soup?” (more…)

Posted in play, RPG Hub | 10 Comments »

More Gamma World? YES

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

So Paul and I actually played a solid 5 hour session of Gamma World on Monday, just the two of us. So really that’s the equivalent of like a 15 hour session with 5 players and 1 DM. We took turns DMing the basic adventure from the back of the book. It was pretty fun! Some thoughts:

Death!: It strikes us that death is probably a lot more common in Gamma World than in D&D. The primary reason, I think, is probably lack of healing. The only reliable source of healing is Second Wind, which granted only takes a minor action and restores your bloodied value in HP. This certainly helps, but probably doesn’t make up for the party cleric and multitude of potions in D&D. And when you die, you’re actually dead, since there’s no resurrection. The end result is that you probably don’t feel as attached to your character, which is fine, because the game is pretty silly anyway and doesn’t seem to have a huge focus on nuanced character development (Prove me wrong?).
No Healing Surges!: While we’re on the subject of death and healing, did I forget to mention that healing surges are dead and gone too? No healing surges? CRAZY! Except not so crazy. Healing surges are probably not the coolest mechanic of D&D. They’re sort of necessary if you can have as many healing potions as you want, but they aren’t the most interesting of resources. It’s a lot more fun to be in the situation of only having one really cool daily left than it is to be in the situation of only having 1 or 2 healing surges left. That just means you’re more likely to fall unconscious in a fight and stay that way. In any case, I did not miss their absence in Gamma World.
No Charging?: The Gamma World rulebook is a relatively slim trade paperback. As such the chapters on actual basic rules are relatively scant. It’s unclear whether leaving out rules on charging, readying, and delaying was intentional or was just a decision made to cut down on space. When we played, we kept rules on readying and delaying since they seem pretty essential, but we left out charging since it favors ranged combat, which definitely seems to be a bigger part of Gamma World than in D&D. I’d be interested in seeing whether charging is brought back in with any errata in the future.
No Soft Cover: So a definite change from Gamma World to D&D is that there’s no longer any cover granted from other characters, even enemies. This is pretty cool as it definitely encourages more use of guns and other ranged attacks, which tends to make for more dynamic combats and fits the theme of a world filled with firearms and strange super tech.
Alpha Mutations: These were a bit of a let down since more often than not, they don’t actually fit with your character very well. If I draw an attack that uses charisma and I don’t have charisma as a primary stat, I probably won’t use that attack. Also, despite it being cool to change them out every encounter, it also meant reading (and remembering) a new power every encounter! (more…)

Posted in 4e D&D, play | 5 Comments »

wading by torchlight

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Here’s a fun dungeon room:

The room is a pool: everyone is kneedeep in water. On the other side of the pool are hooded enemies who, among their other attacks, shoot a ray that they use to dispel or suppress magic light (Light spell, sunrods, etc). The PCs must use torches or lanterns in order to see. It’s dark and shadowy and the light of the torches shines off the swirling water, making the room’s floor invisible.

The front-line enemies have an attack that disarms PCs. If you are disarmed, you have to waste time feeling around the bottom of the pool for your weapon. If the enemies disarm you of your torch or lantern, the room is potentially pitch-black.

In the middle of the room is a pit (invisible by torchlight because of the light conditions). The enemies avoid it, staying at the edges of the room. If someone falls in, they are swimming while everyone else stands, and must use move actions to climb out. Their light sources are extinguished.

Are there things in the dark water? Teeth that clamp onto swimming PCs? Maybe.

When I ran this encounter, I put away the minis. I described the blackness, the torchlight, the hiss and smell of water, and the echoes of combat in the room. No one wanted to be fighting in that room in the dark. And no one stayed in the water long enough to find out if they were alone.

Tags:thursdaygame
Posted in fluff/inspiration, play, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

antics

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

Read Jeff Rients’ hilarious description of one of his best D&D sessions ever. You’ll notice it involves the PCs DECIDING, FOR NO GOOD REASON, THAT THEY NEED TO BE IN A PARADE.

Let me tell you about two of my best D&D sessions ever.

THE RATLING PLAY

I occasionally run a one-shot “ratling game”, where everyone plays anthropomorphic rats. By unspoken consent, everyone always makes wisdom their dump stat (or plays like it). It always devolves into lunacy.

On one occasion, the ratlings discovered that their home city did not pay proper reverence to Smidanoonan, the Rat God. Smidanoonan’s statue was (pointedly, they felt) absent from the row of statues on Godsbridge.

The ratlings decided they needed to construct a Rat God statue and stick it to the bridge with a dot of Sovereign Glue. For some reason they decided that they needed to do this WHILE PUTTING ON A PLAY. I think the play was part of a previous plan that was abandoned, but by then they’d already printed up the posters.

The session culminated with the performance of the play. The capstone of the entertainment was the raising of the statue to the bridge: the statue was too heavy for the ratlings to lift, so they decided they’d tie one end of a rope to the statue, the other end to a horse, and then get the horse to jump off the bridge.

I, the DM, was privately sure they would not be able to get the horse to jump off the bridge. I didn’t have enough faith in my players. At the critical moment of the play, one of the ratlings used a fear-based attack to spook the horse; another, a Beguiler, created an illusion of a green field off the side of the bridge. The horse jumped over the bridge’s rail and fell into the river, raising the statue of Smidanoonan to amaze and horrify the assembled human audience.

Not only did this game session involve no combat encounters, it involved almost no DM work at all. The magic was all due to the players taking the bit between their teeth and doing whatever the hell they wanted to do: I just handled some light adjudication.

THE GOD MACHINE

I was involved in another D&D play, this time as a PC. A troop of hobgoblins had captured the children of the village. When we tracked the hobgoblins to their lair, we discovered that the children actually liked the hobgoblins better than the villagers and didn’t want to go back! We DECIDED, FOR NO GOOD REASON, TO PUT ON A PLAY to win back the children.

I believe the hobgoblins put on a rival play, but I don’t remember it. I do remember that, as the wizard, I provided special effects and lighting. The rogue and paladin performed some impressive stagefighting: the play was a morality play about the battle between good and evil, and the outcome was decided by an actual combat between the players. (I think evil won.) Meanwhile, the dwarf, again FOR NO GOOD REASON, had built a device meant to shoot fireballs. (Maybe it was a stage set for Hell?) A few natural 1s on skill checks caused the device to backfire and incinerate the dwarf and several nearby PCs. I think that actually helped us win the play contest.

All these sessions – Jeff’s parade floats, and the two games I described – involve what can only be categorized as “antics”. Here’s what they all have in common:

The players chose the goal.
It was a bad goal (something not worth doing in the first place).
Neither the DM nor the players had any plan beforehand: everything was improvised.
Every game involved public performance by the PCs.
Every game involved construction by the PCs.
Every game ended in chaos and mayhem.

The above list is not necessarily a formula for how you should run every D&D session*, but it might be a reminder, for both DMs and players, that the DM doesn’t always need to lead. When the PCs decide they want to go off-course, they can lead the way to a Best Session Ever.

The horse passed his Swim check, by the way.

* Unless it is!

Posted in advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, play, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

every book’s a sourcebook: African Civilizations: Ballana

Friday, August 13th, 2010

African Civilizations by Graham Connah

Last week I mentioned that I used a tomb from the Nubia chapter of African Civilizations by Graham Connah as the centerpiece of a dungeon delve. I recommend you do the same.

(The illustration is below.)
(more…)

Tags:everybook
Posted in fluff/inspiration, news, play, RPG Hub | 1 Comment »

Mazes and Monsters retro-clone 3: meet the characters

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

This entry is part 3 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

After last week’s extremely informative introduction to the game system, we get a shot, from one of the players’ point of view, of a character sheet and a corner of the game board.

Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to read the character sheet. So much valuable rules information, lost, just because of lousy screen resolution! Squinting, I can sort of convince myself that the second word on the character sheet (after the character’s name?) is “strength”. The fourth word seems to end with “ing” (cunning?) and the fifth word looks like it ends with “ge” (courage?)
(more…)