Hipótesis

guest editorial by Jeff Wilcox

(The fact is, if we’re going to keep these games alive and well, we’re going to have to attract new players to them. Games at home, at school, and in public places can all help with this, of course, but going where the gamers are makes sense too. For this issue of Fight On!, I tapped my old friend Jeff, who has been gaming since the 70’s, running con games since the 80’s, and helping organize whole gaming conventions (most notably KublaCon) since the ‘90’s. Here are some of his tips on making convention gaming fun. These may not be the only techniques that work, but I’ve seen players give him standing ovations, even players who were just listening from the next table over, so they’re probably worth thinking about – Ignatius.)

A convention game is different from a home game in a number of ways. There is a set time limit, the group is unknown to you and to each other, and the home games the con-goers run in may use variant rules or locations, making their characters relatively incompatible with each other. Your task is to get the players to buy into your world, your adventure, and each other’s characters, while

still making them sweat and swear and triumph and work with each other, all in four, six, or eight hours. Pulling off a successful con game requires a different philosophy and approach than a home game. It requires you to organize the game and the gaming environment differently. If you do it correctly, you, and your players, will marvel at the outcome. Let’s take a look at some techniques that can help you master the con environment.

GMing: A home game can be a wonderful communal

story-telling experience, slowly built up over time to moving and meaningful resolution. But at a con game, you are creating a short story, not a novel. There is no “slow build-up”; these characters will rarely create shared his- tories. So how should you approach the game?

You are the sergeant, they are the privates.

You, as a GM, have a way of doing things. Quickly communicate this to the players. I recommend you make them worry from the start. They focus faster that way. My opening speech is something like: “Hello everyone. Thank you for choosing this game. I am the GM. My job is to kill you all. I will do that by the end of the game. If you are good enough, you will stop me. Good luck.” Now, I say all that as if I am greeting a group of friends at a party I am throwing. I am smiling. I am speaking lightly but seriously.

And I am ready to kill all their characters. They must know they are in trouble from the start – know their characters can, and probably will, die. Regardless of the encounters in the game, you are their enemy, and their only allies are the other players in the game. It immediately creates the start of the character to character bond that allows for great role-playing and great interactions between characters.

Story Creation: While the players’ focus is on completing

the adventure with their hides intact, your goal is to run a splendid adventure that runs as close to full length as possible. Players will be pissed if the 4-hour game runs only 1.5 hours no matter how l337 your GMing skills. How do you fill in an adventure running short? Minor encounters, scenery description, letting the players work through things via character-to-character discussion. Get poetic in your descriptions. Not Proustian, but detailed. An Elven God tapped an uppity paladin on the noggin during a game I ran. The paladin’s eyes turned green (and other things happened). The full description of the eye change given to the rest of the party was “His eyes fade to green; green the shade of the first new leaf on the oldest tree in your home town. Its vibrancy of color draws your

eyes and you feel the soft touch of spring and a gentle calm roll over you.”

This sort of statement expands the imagination of the players, makes your world deeper, and eats up time. Additionally, the description speaks personally to each character and player; it is the color of a leaf in their own town – wherever that happens to be.

Player Responsibilities: There are consequences to every

action. During your adventure, players may take actions that should have additional good or bad natural cones- quences. Remember these actions and at the end of game play outline them for the player(s). Let them all know it is their responsibility to determine if the game is to become “canon” for their character, and if so, they should take the good/bad consequences away with their characters.

In one game, the party slowly went insane. A paladin, slowly pushed over the edge during a four-hour slide into insanity, became a cannibal; actively role-playing his relish at the taste of human flesh. When the character was released from his insanity, and the player realized what his character was eating was but illusion, the player sighed as if to signal “Whew, I can shrug it all off.” I immediately turned to him and said, “You, paladin, feel swept away from your God, for you still remember the pleasure you drew from the savory flesh in your mouth, the grind of the organs between your teeth. You still remember the shiver of excitement you felt when biting into the wailing, and screaming, woman’s arm. You remember, and you still feel the pull towards it…” I paused as I watched his eye widen in understanding and shock. “It may be you will need to spend much time cleansing these thoughts and tastes from your mind, but while it was only illusion, it has the pull of a drug. You still have the craving.”

He nodded and then wrote “Enjoys the taste of human flesh” on his character sheet.

In the end, they, the players, determine if the story is "canon" - and if they accept it as such, they accept the good outcomes with the bad. And make sure there are both if you can!

Introducing the World/The Pre-Game Talk: This is

your moment to set the tone of the game and the limits of the world. I already spoke of the “I will kill you all” opening bit. And the “here is why 1 silver is a butt-load” explanation of the more restrictive currency of my fantasy world. But there is more you may need to cover. You are, after all, setting expectations.

Quick world overview: This overview doubles as setting the scene for the beginning of the game. Stay fairly macro, such as: “This is an agricultural-based world, with little in the way of magic items, but many people can cast spells.

[Insert note about the value of a silver piece here. And then…] Resurrections are common as long as you have the gold to pay. Or in this case platinum. Two platinum (60 years wages) will resurrect any one person, so as long as at least one of you survives, and brings back a finger from everyone, then you are all okay.”

A statement like this sets the tone of the game, lets them know how money works, subtly tells them you will kill them all, and then gives them the “final saving grace” action (in this case “if one person lives then all will live”.) In a perfect game, I do kill all but one person… and that person is down to under ¼ hit points at the end of the final battle with sweat caused by fear running in torrents down their faces!!!! Ahem, let us continue…Nothing gets people to support each other better than when the dead characters’ futures are in the hands of the lone survivor fighting to complete a battle.

How rewards work (XP and Magic Items): No one likes a surprise. Be clear from the start.

What we will ignore (system changes, social changes): If you use spell points for all spell casters, let the group know. If you allow technology (laser carbine, sonic screw driver, any- one?), let them know.

But also let them know they, the players, are to ignore any character trait/element that might cause character-to- character fights or lack of cooperation. “Yes, I realize you are a Drow, and those three are High Elfs, but we are in a con game. For the duration of this game, please use any rationale you can to allow your Drow to join a party with them. We don’t have time to role-play through that mess.” And you really don’t have time. During a home game that sort of limitation is wonderful. It might be the basis for a whole series of adventures. At a con game, that sort of thing is a waste of time. Ask the players to ignore that sort of thing before the game even begins.

Story: There are three main elements that can make a great

con game: Sincerity (of NPCs), real (yet mundane) implications, and a clear goal (at least at the beginning). When I was in junior high, I went into a cave, down a hall, opened a door, and found a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ room filled with more orcs than physics allows. Really.

Anyone can draw some lines to make a map, and then shake a die to add random monsters. Sure, it is an adventure, but it sucks. What brings an adventure to life is the sincerity of the NPCs requesting help. It can be a heartfelt plea of a father requesting help finding his missing daughter, or the sincere worry of a King over the loss of a (mundane) family heirloom.

In a game I played in, a small village (no more than thirty huts) pleaded with us to stop the oncoming army from destroying their village. The army was simply moving from one place to another, but they would ravage the land and probably steal everything from the villagers as they passed through. Maybe even kill the men and abduct or rape the women. The village just happened to be between the army and where they were headed to invade. It was a mundane (meaning non-fantastical/magical) situation filled with real horror and drama. The villagers wept. The mayor had already killed himself in despair before we arrived.

As a group of fourteen 16+ level characters, we were to be paid in bags of grain. We took the job.

The Start: There are two traditions in con games: the

character description and the role-played “meeting”. Tak- ing a few minutes to allow character descriptions still works. Each player gets to quickly describe what their character looks like and what their character is – though I usually outline what I expect: “Please take a moment to describe your character, and then quickly outline your character. An example might be: ‘Grom stands 7’ 2” and is as broad. He wears what looks to be thick leather armor, but the leather (for those that can discern) isn’t of a known beast. He carries a large stone club and occasionally drools on himself when he forgets to close his mouth. Grom is a 1/2 – giant 7th level fighter. He is slow in intellect, but powerful in hand to hand.”

But the second tradition must be ignored: the role-played “meeting” of the characters. Nothing wastes more time than having the characters try to justify why they are hang- ing out with folks they would never actually hang out with. You, the GM, need to force the issue – start the game at the point when all the characters are together already. Take a second and let the players know how they can justify it, but then move on rapidly.

When starting a group in a bar, I might open with: “Over the past three weeks, you have all wandered into this small city to discover their harvest festival is about to begin. You have, for your own reasons, decided to stay on for those festivities.” Next I put them all in the same room with: “You discovered others of your ilk, adventurers such as yourself, in the Eye and Gut Spittoon House, and though not all of them are people you enjoy, they are the most interesting folks in town and you discover you are all in the Eye and Gut at the same time this evening when…” But there are many ways to do this. Two others I have used are dramatic, forced grouping and the humorous, forced grouping.

I was asked to run a game at a friend’s birthday and I used the dramatic, forced grouping. The players quickly made

characters and I began the game: “You all have your hands bound tightly, and your ankles are tied to heavy-looking bags of rocks. The nooses are in place and your crimes, being known to the enraged mob surrounding your platform, have just finished being read. The lever is tossed and you fall downwards…” This got their attention. As it was, each was levitated at the end of the rope so the rope was tight, but they didn’t die. Some caught on and immediately faked dying. The local governor, having set the party up, then saved them at the noose, later gives them the choice – complete task X for him, or he will let the party go... and let the populace know where they characters are…

When I ran for 18 players all running 18+ level D&D characters, I used the humorous, forced grouping. “You all feel yourself grabbed and teleported, and in some cases plane shifted, away from where you were and now find yourself stand in front of a small shack next to which there is a massive, intricate summoning ring. Standing between you and the shack and ring is a tall, red-skinned man who finishes reading his scroll of summoning. He glances towards the party, frowns slightly, and then quickly scans over the just-read scroll. He sighs, sets aside the scroll and says, ‘Well, I expected better from that spell, but since you are all I got, I guess you will have to do. Hopefully you are tougher than you look…” He goes on to explain a large creature with a reality warping nature wandered by at the tail end of the man’s 47-year long ritual, disrupting the ritual and pissing him off. Their task was to kill the creature who accidently wandered too close.

Regardless of the method used, always quickly get past the “meeting”.

Game Organization: The raw time-vs.-game-events

calculation is easy: Prepare 3 major events for a 4-hour con game. Prepare 4 major events for a 6-hour con game. Prepare 5 major events for an 8-hour con game. An additional event should be on hand in case you get a fast group. You should be prepared to skip one of the major events with a group is slower than expected.

The First Event/Encounter: A long-time friend and

convention GM reminded me of the “first encounter” rule – the “shake out” combat scene.

Getting a group to gel, working and planning together, is important but in a con game you have little time to let it grow a casual pace as you do during a home game. There are other things you can do to quickly get that to happen beyond letting the players know you will be killing all their characters. The most effective tool is the “first encounter”, which should be combat.

The rules of the first encounter are these:

• The combat should be straight forward. The enemies are obvious and the goal is clear.

• The combat should leap upon the party with the party having little-to-no planning time.

• It should be real, Not just a gratuitous smackdown, but a real combat that moves the plot. It is, after all, one of the 3 events in a 4-hour game.

This type of combat allows players to show off their characters (which players always enjoy) and shakes out how the mechanics of your world function in a live situation. If you have a good crew, this might be when they start collaborating and relying on each other.

There were 14 mid-level characters sitting in the Eye and Gut Spittoon House at the start of one game, when a man, an obvious servant/butler, walked in and asked the group to come outside – for his master had need of such a stout crew. “And if I might add, his need is great and your help will greatly encourage the fates to allow Master to continue to breathe.” The butler’s manner was impeccable, but there was an undercurrent of dread and fear that came with the words.

The party wandered outside to spot “Master”, a 5-year old child with tears in his eyes. His words, as they came out between cries, were, “Please make them not kill me!!!” “Who?” asked one party member. The child turned left and pointed down main street where, much to the horror of the party, a wild menagerie of creatures, all hell-bent on destruction, came running towards them and the child. A beefy warrior in the group called the other warriors up to form a wall, while a mage began grouping the spell casters behind. They quickly began casting spells as some others fired bows as they could. I had, by the end of the combat, a leader of the fighters, a leader of the mages, and a leader of the “others” – and a central character as party leader; all without voting or squabbles.

Now they just had to figure out how a 5-year-old could piss off so many creatures all at once…

NPCs/Encounters/Creatures: It is easy for a player to

jump out of character and argue rules if you use monsters and creatures from the books. If you can, use creatures in new ways, or use variations of creatures from the books. It adds to the uniqueness of the story you are telling and minimizes the rules-lawyering that can, at times, occur. I ran a 12-hour adventure for 24 players based on Irish mythology. When the group came upon a faerie building it was guarded by two giants. Not the giants of the Monster Manual, but two Irish-myth-based giants; 95-foot tall behemoths with 90 foot swords alertly standing over the structure. No one in the group knew what other powers

these massive foes might have, as they were Irish giants, not Storm Giants.

Suggested Rewards: Here are some examples of other

rewards you might use to make the game interesting, enhance the uniqueness of the characters, and satisfy the treasure lust of some players:

Permanent Powers: Nothing makes a character unique faster than a small, sometimes useful natural power. I have had characters walk away with the ability to create flame on the palm of their hand (1/2 light of a torch, can burn wood, but not melt metal, and the flame only forms on the open, palm up right hands.) Or the ability to get water from rock