SIFT: A Free One-Page Role-Playing Game

So, I’ve been pounding my face against the keyboard for the last little bit trying to put together a role-playing game based on Avatar the Last Airbender. There’s a 4E hack for the series, but I don’t think that the D&D treatment really hits on what Avatar was about, so I’ve been trying to mash together a version that hails to some of the better narrative-centric role-playing games of the past little bit.

But, I’ve got writers block, mostly in the sense of “I don’t want to work on this project right now.” And partially because my work doesn’t exist until I show it to you.That’s part of why I started a blog in the first place, was to get writing for an audience instead of just putzing around on a project, not finishing it, and not caring because fuck it, no one was ever going to read it anyway.

So rather than languish in my feelings of “Writing conflict resolution chapters suuuuuuuuuuuuucks,” I decided to write a new game in the meantime. It’s just one of my little one-page role-playing games, and it’s here for your enjoyment. It’s a military-mystery game based on an alternate reality game.

The ARG itself was sort of poorly put together and didn’t make a ton of logical sense, but the people who were invested in it were invested to the hilt. I have some pretty hefty criticisms of it, and those criticisms were eventually responsible for my leaving the game, but this isn’t really the place to air those. In the role-playing game, a United States military operation has recruited civilian help to crack codes and gather intelligence on an important mission. This more-or-less mirrors the ARG (where the role the civilians played was much less clear). There is something crazy going on somewhere in the world, and it’s up to one agent, one strike team and a group of asshats from the internet to stop it.

If you’d like to take a look at the game, you can find it here.

If you’d like to take a look at the source material, you can find most of it here.

If you’d like to take a look at the source material for the source material, you can find it here.

One Page Role-playing Games

My friends and I like to come up with crazy game ideas all the time. Once in a great while, I'll throw down the gauntlet and challenge people to actually write a goddamn game. Not like, a seven hundred page monstrosity, just a wee little one-page or 24-hour game design. It doesn't have to be great, it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a role-playing game, and you have to finish it. 

So now I'm issuing the challenge to the rest of you: write a role-playing game in less than a thousand words and put it up on your blog. The Rules are only this: It has to be less than 1000 words, it has to have a mechanic I've never seen before (or a kick-ass variation of a mechanic I have seen before), and you have to send me a link, either in the comments here or to my e-mail at friggert@hotmail.com or to my twitter at @warpgames. Go create!  

Wee Little People 

A Role-playing Game in One Page

The Point: You and your friends play the tiny people that live inside your house. Your characters are roughly mouse-sized and must overcome many challenges to simply survive. Also, you must never reveal the existence of your people to the humans, as they will kill you or eat you or something. Humans are terrible.

Tell a Story: One of the players is the Storyteller. He or she describes the situation in which your Wee Little People find themselves. The rest of you play Wee Little People and try to do stuff while the Big People in the house are clumsy and oblivious. Doing Stuff can include collecting food, thiefing things, fighting with the cat, disposing of garbage discretely, pilfering Tim’s weed stash, moving dice to where they will be most likely to be underfoot, building shelters under cupboards, finding water, defending your home against cockroach attacks, invading mouse holes for their supplies… You’ve got options. Alternatively, you could try and tell an epic tale of adventure on a tiny scale. But you already know how to do those.

Character Creation: Choose a thing you are good at, a thing you are bad at, a skill you have learned, and an item you possess. None of these may be the same thing (for instance, you cannot be good at climbing and have that also listed as your skill). When you attempt an action that relates to the thing you’re good at, get a +1 bonus to the roll. When you attempt a thing that relates to the thing you’re bad at, take a -1 from the roll. When you attempt to do a thing that relates to your skill, once per session you can succeed on the roll automatically. When you attempt a thing that relates to the item you possess, you ignore any penalties on that roll unless that penalty comes from the attempt relating to a thing you are bad at.

Rolling Dice: Whenever someone attempts something and the outcome is in doubt, roll a six-sided die. If you roll five or higher (counting all bonuses and penalties), you succeed. If the result is four or less, you fail.

Failing is Bad: Whenever you fail at a thing, mark it off on your character sheet. You are only allowed to fail at something six times over the course of a single session. If you fail more often than that, Bad Things Happen. The Bad Thing is decided by the player to your left, and you are out of the game until the next session.

This is Your House: Wee Little People is set in whatever place you happen to be. The setting is whatever is already around you. If you’re in your living room, for instance, that might include your couch, coffee table, TV stand, bookshelf, and the half-eaten pizza in the box on the floor. The antagonists are you. The Wee Little People cannot make their existence known to you, so whatever it is they’re going about doing, they have to try and sneak around you and your friends to do it. When Jim gets up to grab a soda, the kitchen is no longer a safe place. Scatter!

  

Discovery: If Bad Stuff happens to all of you, you’re discovered. If you are discovered, it can be safely assumed that you and your friends have cashed in on the existence of the Wee Little People and have left them to be tortured by scientists forever. You sick fucks. Or, you could spend the rest of the evening arguing about what you and your group would ACTUALLY do if you found leprechauns in your underwear drawer. Up to you, really.

Hat Trick

One of my all-time favorite low-level spells in D&D3.5 was rope-trick. The idea was basically “You occasionally need to run away, and sometimes that can be hard. So here, have a thing that will let you run away once per day, should the shit hit the fan.” It would create an extra-dimensional space that would house up to six creatures comfortably (though it was pretty unspecific as to the size of those creatures (an important point), and would last long enough that the wizard could recharge his or her dailies and everyone could heal a bit before heading back into the fray.

When we were running the Savage Tide adventure path, Jason Scott (who is lovely) invented a wondrous item for me that was a permanent Rope Trick spell cast in my hat. Placed against a surface, it would create a portal to an already-created rope trick dimensional pocket, one that was the size of six colossal creatures, and could thus house an entire apartment. I wore my whole house on my head, and could duck into it if things got really hairy. Also, it worked as a super-bag-of-holding, letting me carry as much stuff as could fit in a large apartment while weighing no more than a pound. It was pretty great.

Over at This is My D&D Game, the rope trick has been resurrected as a ritual. It’s a pretty sweet ritual, one that I will probably be giving my players access to when they hit level twelve (which should be in about four weeks). Also, for nostalgia’s sake, I’ve written up the Hat Trick as a Wondrous Item for those wishing to use it in a 4th Edition campaign.

Session Review

So I’m actually writing some of this session review before the session happens. I’ve got some pretty intense stuff happening this time around, and I figured it would be best if I could just get some of it down before the session goes live, and fill in the blanks when it’s done. Obviously, I’m going to erase this introduction before I publish the post, but it’s nice to have a draft to come back to when the session’s done.

The first thing to take a good look at is the Social Combat system. I’ve designed the Headmaster at the Extreme Library around this sort of encounter as a solo who will give up when he’s bloodied. With completely average damage rolls, it will take 19 hits to finish him off; not a ton, just enough to see how the system works and where it needs to be tweaked a bit. Here, have the whole encounter!

This is how things usually go at the Extreme Library:

 

1. You go to the front desk and request a book.
2. The bookaneers go and get that book for you. This can take weeks.
3. Depending on the level of difficulty getting the book, you pay a fee.
4. You get your book.

 

The player characters are on something of a time-budget, though, and can try and convince the woman a the front office to let them go after the book themselves. That will, of course, cost something, as the Extreme Library makes all of it's money from it's book delves. Determining whether or not the players will be able to get the books for themselves (and at what cost) will be a Diplomatic Encounter.

 

Roll Initiative: d20 + (half level + charisma modifier + misc. initiative mods)

 

On your Turn: Choose Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate as a Fight, Defend or Manouever action. Roll that skill vs. the opponent's Passive Insight. If the check is successful:

 

Fight: Deal 2d6 + Charisma Modifier damage.
Defend: Choose a creature. That creature may spend a healing surge.
Manouver: Opponent suffers a -2 skill penalty to Insight (save ends).

 

 

So looking at his stats, he’s got a social AC of 22, and a +14 to hit on most of his attacks. That’s pretty much in line with level 10 rolls, though he was hit a little too often, and didn’t do enough damage to be a real threat.

The player characters actually knocked this guy around pretty easily, and it was slowly turning into a slog at about the point he was bloodied. They were going on all-out attack, which is fine against a guy like this, but he simply wasn’t dishing out damage on a level to be a decent threat. I think the next social combat encounter is going to be a lot higher on the damage dealt, with a higher Insight check; I want to see people using Maneuver and Defense rolls as well as just straight-up attacking.

The second thing I’ve done today is fuck with movement a bit. I incorporated a bunch of notes that constitute something of a miniature skill challenge; success on the skill challenge means you don’t take boatloads of damage.

The Extreme Library is built into the side of a huge ocean-facing cliff. It falls thousands of feat, hangs miles over the ocean (held up by the Cage Spires), and some say that the bottom is some sort of dimensional rift to where every book ever made in every language, written on every possible material has come to rest. It is an insanely dangerous place, due to the huge number of dangerous creatures that guard the various tomes of incredible value here and the certain doom that awaits anyone who falls.

 

The "broomsticks" that the party has are basically useless here; you can only fly a number of squares above the ground equal to your speed, and the number of squares between the ground and the Library are "infinite."

 

To get around on the walls here, they will need climbing and rappelling gear. The DC to climb down, using appropriate equipment, is 5 (just with half their level, every PC makes it); the shelves make for easy climbing, as there are plenty of hand and foot holds, but it is exhausting work (DC 22 Endurance check every hour, or lose a healing surge).

 

The combat map will be flipped on it's side, today, with one side being "Up," the other "Down." You can move up to your speed Up with a DC 25 athletics check or half your speed Up with a DC 15 athletics check. You can move an extra two squares Down with no climb check.

 

With a DC 20 athletics check, you can also "swing," which allows you to "fly" up to half your speed side-to-side (and diagonally down), but you need to begin and end your move action on the "ground."  While swinging you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action once any time during movement, without provoking an opportunity attack. You may swash your buckle at any time during this movement or attack.

 

Attacks that require two hands CAN be done, but provoke an Immediate Interrupt from Gravity that slides the character two squares.

 

If you fall prone, fall ten squares and take 2d10 damage. Your rope will save you from most of the damage, but not all of it.

The party made it through the first encounter using these rules, and while they didn’t look any different on the map, the shift in perspective from top-down to side-scroller resulted in a few moments that couldn’t have happened otherwise. Things like “falling as a charge” or “jumping on the gargoyle’s back” that would be completely ridiculous in a top-down map orientation.

We fought some bookend gargoyles, and a bookworm (just normal gargoyles, and a scythejaws that had its speed reduced to zero). Good times were had.

How to Make it Metal

In our introductory session, we did some things that were pretty kick-ass. We took down a level-five Solo without losing anyone. We busted through level two, straight into level three. We killed a dude with a scalpel, and that's always a fun experience. And while some of that stuff seems pretty Metal (and the events themselves were very metal within the framework of the game), none of those things are, in and of themselves, indicative of the genre we're trying to invoke with the game. A lot of the Metal flavor came from the set dressing, the player's descriptions of characters and actions, and the role-playing that happened around the table.

It can be pretty tough to run a game within a particular sub-genre of fantasy with Dungeons and Dragons. Honestly, the game is rather poorly set up to do setting-specific things. It's in nearly every way an Epic Fantasy Game, and that comes with a certain amount of baggage that can be difficult to shake off when you're trying to do something a little more unique. Making a game that tries to emulate the stylings of the Heavy Metal music movement is a little more unique than that, and it requires a bit of help from the players to really make it happen.

The first major step in making a game that fits a genre is understanding what everyone wants to do with that genre. Role-playing games are a collaborative thing; they require input from all of the forces that are making the game what it is, so bringing the players into the brain-storming is never a bad idea. At the end of the first session (which was, to be honest, only half-good), I sat down with my players and asked them what they wanted to see from the game, what sorts of things they'd be interested in playing through. There were some suggestions batted around, such as increasing the importance of the music in the game, stealing fashions and styles from various metal movements when creating the cultures of the various races (the Femural Forest elves, for instance, have adopted Hair Metal as their aesthetic; it should probably be noted, they're still bad-asses).

But catering to the players' expectation isn't where it ends. You have to involve them in the creation of the genre story. I can establish the dramatic form, and the players will ham to that naturally, but if you want a game to be truly effective in establishing a genre tale, you need to get players pushing the envelope. I need my players to push themselves, to see just how fucking Metal they can be. And that means I need to reward them for playing in a way that advances the themes I want to advance.

I'm a lead-with-the-carrot kind of Game Master, regardless of the game I'm playing. As much as I may love to kill people on a weekly basis in D&D Encounters, I'm not really out to get my players when I'm playing a story-based game. I'll kill them if I have to, or if the dice are particularly mean, but I try to avoid it when I can. People work hard to create those characters, they invest a lot of emotion into making those people "live," and they've invested quite a bit into making the story those characters are playing in pretty fucking awesome. I would rather not punish my players for not playing to type; that isn't going to make it any fun for anyone. Instead, I want to give them something tangible for doing the things that make the game "better." In this case, "better" equals "Metal."

So I'm going to be adding something to my game that is going to reward my players for doing things that are specifically in-genre. Much like the Favors rewarded players for acting within the genre of a cop drama, I'm going to craft a system that allows players to get a kick-ass reward for doing something that is incredibly, amazingly, perfectly Metal. This isn't something I've used yet, but I'll be introducing it on Monday as a way players can get more from the game.

Brutality

Brutality is measure of your character's reputation as a complete and total fucking bad-ass. At the beginning of the campaign, there are a few major players who know that you're the person to call when shit gets serious, but you're not generally well-known. As you progress in Brutality, people will come to know that you mean business, that you are not to be fucked with, and that the shit that you do is some pretty important shit.

When you do something that is 100% pure Heavy Metal, the DM may reward you with a Brutality Point. Brutality Points can be allocated to one of two stats on your character sheet: Fame and Import.

Fame is how well known your character is. A person with a Fame of one or two may be recognized in their hometown or by people in his or her field of work. A person with a Fame of 15 is known the world over. A person with a Fame of 20 is known by the Gods themselves.

Import is a measure of how seriously people take your character. A person with an import of 1 or 2 is generally considered to have a pretty important job in the community, the equal of a sheriff or a low-ranking officer in the army. A person with an Import of 15 is generally considered to have responsibilities on par with those of kings. A person with an Import of 20 has a job as important as making sure gravity still works, something that shakes entire planes of existence.

These are, of course, rough guidelines. You can fill them in however you like. A person with a Fame of 5 but an Import of 8 works behind the scenes for the most part, but the people who know about her respect her as the equal of the mayor of a minor city-state. A warrior with a Fame of 10, with an Import of 6 is known throughout the countryside as a monster-killing machine, and the country-folk respect him for it. As you gain Fame and Import, you can discuss with your DM how those things manifest themselves. They may result in requisitions for powerful magic items, free room and board, all the whores a woman can feast herself on, or even the attention of a God...

Penalties in Skill Challenges

I really like running Skill Challenges. I like how dynamic and different they are from normal combat encounters. I love how they represent a story complication rather than Yet Another Battle. I love how much role-playing goes on during one, and how players come up with new and creative ways to use their skills ("I'm going to use my Thievery to try and 'steal his heart.' Kay?"). They get players invested. They get players thinking. Most importantly, they're fun.

They also a ton of fun to write. Trying to think about how a particular skill may relate, especially skills that are peripheral to the challenge, is an interesting mental exercise for me. For instance, in Social Encounters, I've come to reorganize Intimidate in my head. It isn't just about scaring people; I mean, it's really good at scaring people, but that's not the whole of it. Where diplomacy is about the art of persuasion and bluff is the art of conversational jujitsu, Intimidate is about force of personality. From now on, Intimidate is the skill I go to for performance, for stealing a crowd, for being a force of nature that people just cannot ignore. I expect that, as I delve deeper into the system, I'll begin to do likewise with other skills as well.

Part of the problem in dealing with a skill challenge, though, is coming up with new and interesting penalties for skill checks. DMG2 gives us some ideas for penalties on a failed skill check, but they're pretty narrow, really. Coming up with a penalty for failing the whole challenge is actually pretty easy ("That thing you wanted, you don't get it."). Making each skill check hold different weight in the challenge is pretty important. It makes failure carry a consequence beyond being one step closer to failing the encounter.

I've been trying to come up with a list of penalties for failure that I can throw into a challenge as I'm writing them. Below, you'll find what I have so far.

From the DMG2

The first set of penalties I want to look at are the ones covered in the published material already. The second Dungeon Master's Guide goes into pretty deep detail on skill challenges and how they can fuck with your players, which is nice. On page 87, they talk about "stages of failure," which is something that I think should be in every skill challenge forever. They suggest the following as ways to penalize players during a skill challenge:

Lose a Healing Surge: This is pretty intense. This is what made me fall in love with Skill Challenges during D&D Encounters. I mean, I'd used them, but I didn't make them nearly as important as I have in recent adventures. The basic idea is that, if a character fails the skill check he or she is attempting, he or she takes damage. That damage is healed with a Healing Surge, so we're just going to do damage directly to the Healing Surges.

Spend Time or Money: So you failed at a thing you were trying to do. You went down the wrong path, talked to the wrong bookie, took an hour examining runes that had nothing to do with what you thought they did, or just hit up the wrong sheriff for information. Now you're going to need to backtrack, maybe grease some palms, and get back on track.

You Broke the Skill: For the rest of the encounter, no one can try to use that skill. You broke the last beaker in the lab, used the last of the gauze, none of the drug dealers will talk to your crew anymore because they think you're a bunch of snitches, whatever.

Take a Status Ailment: This is usually for in-combat skill challenges; you're dazed or immobilized or stunned or helpless or blinded or something. You fucked up, and the thing you fucked up fucked you up even more.

Take a Penalty: You screwed up, and the fact that you screwed up makes the next attempt at the skill even harder. You pissed off the mayor and now you're going to have to convince him to like you again, you sprained your ankle on that last somersault, you pulled a muscle in your arm and still have to lift this thing, your attempt at stitching your buddy up made him bleed more, etc.

My Own Additions

Now, these are pretty solid, but I like a little more variety in the ways I fuck with my players. So I'm going add to this list the following:

Extra Failure: When you fail at this skill check, it counts as two failures against the skill challenge. This effectively cuts the number of possible failures in half, assuming they try (and fail) this skill multiple times. I usually use this on a "limit 1 success" secondary skill, but it's still scary when you lose an extra failure.

Time-Delayed Failure: Failing doesn't actually count against the skill challenge, but the next time you fail a skill check, you accrue an extra failure. If you don't fail again, there's no downside. If you do, it becomes extra-devastating. Again, I usually put this one on secondary skills that normally don't count against the skill challenge when you fail.

Everyone Takes a Pentalty: Rather than just fuck things up for yourself, your failure at this skill check fucks with everyone. Nothing makes people hate you faster. ^_^ This one I usually reserve for primary skills that you can succeed on a few times, with a pretty low DC. It gets frustrating if it's used too much, but it's fun to watch players squirm when they give all of their friends a -2 on their next skill check.

Defense Penalty: For the rest of the day, you take a -1 challenge penalty to your AC, Fortitude, Reflex and/or Will. Failing this skill weakens you, slows your reactions down, frustrates you, and makes you more vulnerable to attack. This lasts until your next Extended Rest.

Speed Penalty: Until the end of the day, you take a -1 challenge penalty to your speed. You have honey on your shoes. You're moping. You're lost in thought or caught in a crisis of faith, and you're just not moving as quickly as you normally do.

Initiative Penalty: As above, except that instead of hindering your mobility, you're just not reacting as quickly to danger as you usually do.

Lose a Daily Power: Daily powers are massive feats of awesome. Sometimes, when you screw something up, it shakes you to your core. Your awesome isn't there, you just can't call on it to get the job done. If you fail this skill check, lose one of your daily powers as though you've used it (and hit with it, in the case of Reliable daily powers).

Lose an Action Point: Like most of the resource-deprivation penalties I've listed here (and that's pretty much the theme of these penalties; you're losing access to a thing you're usually able to rely on), this one steals something from you for failing. In this case, it's an Action Point. If you do not have any Action Points to steal, it will take a Healing Surge instead. I feel like this one should almost always be attached to Arcana for some reason.

Attack Penalty: For the remainder of the day, you take a -1 penalty to hit. This is devastating, people. Don't over-use it. Probably related most often to Acrobatics or Athletics. You've hurt yourself trying to do that cool parkour thing you saw that guy do the other day, and you just aren't as good at hitting people as you could be.

Grant Combat Advantage: For the rest of the day, you grant combat advantage. To everyone. I have a feeling that this one should be attached to Stealth and Streetwise. You've failed to be sneaky, and now the sneaky people are taking advantage of that for the rest of the day.