Sandbox vs. Story

There's been a bit of a discussion going on the past few days that started with a post on the Mule Abides, and was picked up on Grognardia and Monsters & Manuals.  It seems that Tracy Hickman's penchant for story based games was something that he actually enumerated, as displayed in the original printing of his "Pharoah" scenario.

I work in the video games industry, at Bioware to be exact.  Bioware is known for story based RPGs.  These games are some of my favorites (Mass Effect 2 in particular).  The other big name in western RPGs is Bethesda.  They make the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 (for the record, Skyrim was the best game I played in the past year).  These are generally considered "sandbox" games.  Both styles of game work extremely well, though they deliver a very different type of experience. If you have a preference, that's great, but neither one is better than the other, when done well.

On the tabletop, I think things are a little different though.  The computer RPGs I mentioned are all single player games. Try developing story in a multi-player computer game.  It's a much more difficult proposition.  If you are going to run a story based tabletop RPG, all of the players must be willing participants in the story.  The better option, in my opinion, is to let the story develop out the actions of the characters and the world around them.  If you create a rich world for the characters to exist in, the story will write itself. As a player, I'd much rather play a game in which the story cam about because of things that or my group wanted to accomplish, rather than a game where the DM had some grand vision of some "meaningful" plot.

As a side note, I loved the Dragonlance novels when I was in 7th and 8th grade.  I found the modules to be unplayable.  They ended up in the same pile as the Indiana Jones RPG.

A tidbit from the Player's Handbook

"Co-operation amongst party members is a major key to success,
particularly when the characters are relatively low-level. Later, when
players have characters of 9th. 10th. or even higher level it will be a
slightly different matter, for then some adventures will be with but 
one or two player characters participating, and the balance of the group will be
made up of henchmen whose general co-operation is relatively assured."

Gary Gygax, AD&D Player's Handbook, page 107, Successful Adventures


One or two players plus henchman? It's very interesting to see Gary's take on how high level games could, or should be run.  It makes sense though.  As the character progress in levels, they develop as characters.  Their history grows, as does their place in the world around them. The game becomes focused more and more on the characters as they become more important in the world around them.  I find this an interesting adjunct to the Story vs. Sandbox debate.  There's nothing wrong with story in my opinion, as long is it comes from the characters and the players.

As a side note, I wish that we had used henchman and hirelings more when I played D&D as a kid.  I think of all the times we wanted to play but never had more than 2 or 3 players, so we did something else.  This probably occurred because TSR published so many tournament modules during the early 80's and because no published module I recall every made reference to the possibility of the party having retainers. More on tournament modules in a future post.

Armor in the campaign.

This isn't a complaint about RPG rules themselves.  My concern is more with the settings presented in many sourcebooks, or the implied setting in certain games.  It may be nice to have rules for all sorts of armor, but characters shouldn't have free reign to purchase any type of armor that was ever invented if you want to have a more realistic campaign.  There should be a few option available, based on what is locally available and currently made.

Using 1e as an example, Gary lists the following type of armor:
Banded
Chain
Leather
Padded
Plate Mail
Plate armor (full plate)
Ring Mail
Scale Mail
Splint Mail
Studded Leather

There has been some debate as to what types of actual armor these categories represent.  What exactly is "Banded Mail"?  Is it the classic roman lorica segmentata?  What about "Splint Mail" and "Ring Mail"?  Regardless, after some thought it would seem to me that this list is composed of various types of historical armor that was used in Europe and the near east over 1500 year period.  To me, the idea of a character being able to pick his armor out of this entire list seems fairly absurd once I really thought about it.

I was going to go on to say something about how silly it is for a character in a D&D game to be able to pick between 15th century style platemail and 11th century chainmail.  If plate existed, everyone would be using some form of that.  But I always go back to same winning argument that was made in a comic book store long ago: "It's a FANTASY game!"  So really anything could happen in your campaign, but I just wanted to mention it if you felt you wanted to run something with a little more historical accuracy, and to point out how Gygax might have gone a little overboard with the armor listings, though not nearly as bad as he did with polearms.

In the long run, it doesn't really matter what the armor looks like.  The particular construction of the armor is only really important if you want to use things like hit locations and to hit adjustments based on weapon vs. armor matchups.  As far as I am concerned, AC 5 armor could be chainmail, or it could be poorly made plate or very well made and thickened leather.  If you don't use hit locations then AC 5 might be plate without the helmet and greaves (I think 3e already does this sort of thing with the breastplate and chain shirt armor type).

I also began thinking about different sorts of armor that might be made out of the various monsters that are found in the game.  To my mind, we don't see that sort of thing enough in D&D.  Sure, from time to time you see things about making armor out of dragon scales, but what about giant insect carapaces?  I think Dark Sun had some rules for things like that, and it certainly adds some flavor to the game, and really that's what I'm aiming for.  Simple rules, lots of flavor.  That's the difference between Old School and 3e-4e.  In the new systems all the flavor is in the rules.  In Old School the flavor is in the fluff, and that's always easier to work with.

Retrospective: Mordheim

I have a love/hate relationship with Games Workshop.  I could go on for hours about the hate side of it, but I think everyone is aware of the normal criticisms of GW by now.  I do love the Warhammer universe though, and from time to time they put out some really cool games.  It seems that their best games aren't always the most popular though, and they aren't given the long term support that they deserve. Necromunda, Epic 40k, GorkaMorka. Adeptus Titanicus all fall into this category, as does Mordheim.

If you aren't familiar with it, Mordheim is a skirmish level fantasy combat game, fitting somewhere in between an RPG and wargame.  Each player has a warband of about 5-20 models.  The game centers on the city of Mordheim which has been destroyed by a comet, and the bands of adventures that have come to plunder the remains of the city and gather the precious magical warpstone from the comet.  The warbands are themed units based on different troop types from around the Empire, and some more more monstrous units like beastmen and skaven.  Over the course of time, official and unofficial warband lists have been created for just about every sort of Warhammer army and troop type.

What I love about the game is that it doesn't require a lot of work or time, yet is very fun and has a lot of replay value.  Collecting an army of over 100 miniatures is a daunting task, not to mention expensive.  15-20 is great for a beginner or those that are short on cash, space and/or time.  There are also plenty of ideas for scenarios, and the campaign rules give the game depth and purpose.  The rules are fairly simple, being a slightly modified version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the major difference being that units don't "form up" in blocks, thus removing the need for a lot of the movement rules.

In short, Mordheim is everything Battlesystem Skirmishes could have been.  With a focused and detailed setting, thematic army lists and campaign rules, Mordheim is a complete game, not just a set of rules.  Yet, if you wanted to, you could take he skeleton of those rules, and use it for a different purpose, say an RPG?

GW lists this as a Specialist game, which mean they aren't producing new material for it, and most of the rules and miniatures have to be ordered online.  It also means they aren't running games in the stores, which is a shame because I think it is a great way to introduce people to the hobby.  Fortunately there is still some good fan support for the game, and a revised set of rules named "Coreheim" is freely available.

Bloggin ain't easy...

I've tried twice today to put together a post about armor types in the campaign.  While re-reading them I thought that they tended to ramble.  The I thought that the subject matter was dealt too much with a quest for "realism" in the campaign.  It's something that I am prone to get bogged down in.  So please forgive me if some of what I post is over the top.

In a related note, the more I write about making a game more "realistic", the more I realize that simple solutions can work much better than complicated ones.  I'm gaining a new respect for Warhammer.  Not WFRP, but regular old Warhammer the wargame, 1st and 2nd editions in particular.  The idea of categorizing armor into Heavy, Light or None, actually works very well.  So does cutting down the weapon list and having a category called "hand weapons" that includes most 1 handed weapons such as swords maces and axes.  It seems to me that those rules, along with the original "Rogue Trader" 40k rules were designed to be used with small battle scenarios with a handful to a couple of dozen miniatures, rather than the pitched battles and scores of miniatures that these games have used for the last 20 years.

Now that "John Carter" is officially a flop, this will never happen

"Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - Ill met in Lankhmar" as a 'buddy' movie.

But what would a Welsh Longbow REALLY do?

I just spent the last 2 days looking at videos on youtube of people hitting various types of armor with various types of weapons.  Why?  Call it my obsession with the "Weapon Types, General Data, and 'To Hit' adjustments" table from the PHB.  Say what you will about that beast, I think it is much more accurate than "table 52: Weapon type vs. armor modifiers" from the 2e PHB.    So what did all of this video viewing get me?  Some insights, but probably not the sort of things you'd think.

As it relates to D&D, after viewing all of these weapon videos I realized that it really isn't worth the time to simulate all of this.  In fact, simplicity is probably better.  The OD&D idea of everything does a d6 really isn't a bad idea.  As hit points are supposed to represent "immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck" in higher level characters, a bigger axe really shouldn't do a lot more damage. Instead the skill of the user and magical properties or the weapon would seem to be more important.  However, you do have to account for hit points representing the overall physical toughness of larger monsters and animals.  Rather than handling it the way 1e does , I'd rather use what's available in B/X.  Maybe use a d6 for all weapons vs. human and demi-humans etc, and the variable weapon table against larger monsters?  Could work.  Rather than have variable weapon damage against "human" targets, you might grant to hit bonuses against targets in heavy armor. That would probably need more details to work out, but it's the general impression I got from watching the videos.

So what did I learn? (not directly related to RPG rules)

• Nobody used "butted" chainmail in combat.  Only reenactors and LARPers do.You have to rivet the links closed in order for the armor to offer decent protection and not fall apart when hit.
• Good chainmail is really good.  To cut through it or pierce it take a really serious blow.  You're more likely to suffer broken bones and severe bruising that cuts or punctures.
• 15th century style "full plate" is almost impervious to arrows.  Seems like you would need one of those wind-up style heavy crossbows to get through this stuff.  
• Fantasy axes are kind of silly.
• I'm surprised that the Estoc has never been more prominently featured in a game.
• Some of the videos are very entertaining, and usually more accurate than the History Channel.  Not tough to do honestly.