Getting the Most Out of Your Writing

(2 Part Series)




One of the big questions I used to hear allot: How do you make your games so entertaining? The answer is really simple... Depth.


A game is only going to be as exciting and entertaining as the imagination of the GM. Now that's not to say a boring person can't be a good GM, but if they do not have an active imagination they should probably stick mostly to published campaigns and adventures. However, imagination is only going to get a GM so far. An Idea is great, but unless you are able to proficiently translate it into a playable game, nobody is going to notice.


So how does a person transpose an idea into an game ready adventure? How does a GM make the story as exciting for the characters as it was in their head when they thought about the idea in the first place? You may be surprised but very little of the transposition has anything to do with the rules of the game you are playing. In fact, your greatest asset will be your ability to utilize writing structure. Of course no GM writes out their games or game notes in the same exact way. Others don't even write their games down and still manage to have spectacular games even while playing “off the cuff.” However, while these styles are all different, in the big picture they are all using the same basic method (although, the best GM's are able to do it mentally on the fly.)


The Very First Outline
This article is assuming that you already have a group set in a particular game. If not, this article can still help you out, just adapt it to what you are doing with your group. As with everything I write, it is only an opinion. Take from it what you want and ignore the rest. I also welcome any feedback or alternate methods that you might use.


So you have this great idea for a game. Maybe it's a few games. You will either want it to stay that way or expand it out into an entire campaign. This part you can decide later, but you may want to keep an idea in the back of your head how long you would “like” your game to be. This all happens before you even pick up a pencil.


Example 1 “ Game A”: Your group is playing a sci-fi space exploration RPG. After watching a zombie movie one night you decide to add in an element of horror by planning an zombie outbreak on their smuggling ship. You think that because of the cramped conditions of the ship, isolation of space, and the lack of anywhere to run it could make for a really tense game.


Example 2 “Game B”: Your group is playing a fantasy type RPG. After reading a really cool book, you decide that it would be cool to play a character questing after the fountain of eternal life. You also think that even if the characters have no desire to live forever, their enemies do. The characters will either be tempted by it's power, or want to destroy it before it falls into evil hands.


To start the process, begin by making your first (broad) outline in a linear format. Only touch on the key elements of the story that have to happen to make the story go forward to the end.


Game A: For the zombie scenario you decide that it actually make more sense with the sci-fi genre that the “zombies” are actually “infected” with a virus. For the most part the plot remains the same. The characters are trapped on a ship full of “infected” and must somehow survive without getting infected themselves. You decide that you only want the scenario to last for one game, maybe two if things run slowly for some reason.


Broad Outline:
1) Group encounters a derelict space ship.
2) Characters are trapped on ship when "infected" break out and attack.
3) Characters finally escape to their own ship to get away.
4) One of the crew is starting to feel sick. (Cliffhanger open ending)


Game B: After thinking a little bit about the scenario you decide that it will fit into your currently existing campaign well over the course of a few games. With a little behind the scenes tinkering, you decide that the plot of this adventure fits in really well with your groups arch enemy Lord Voradin, and evil cleric bent on ruling the realms. Note that even though you decided that this adventure would last over the course of a few games, the broad outline isn't any longer than the one-shot adventure. This is because you are only touching on the key elements of the game that have to happen in order for the story to take place. In fact each step of this outline may take place in a different game, while each step of the other plot may happen within a few rounds.


Broad Outline:
1) Characters overhear a rumor that Voradin has started excavating to the East in the forbidden zone. A rumor is circulating that he is looking for a powerful artifact that will make his army invincible.
2) Characters follow clues and spy on Voradin to figure out the truth behind what he is looking for.
3) Characters find the fountain before Voradin's army can. Must decide what to do.
4) Voradin finds the characters (and the fountain if they haven't destroyed it.) Huge final battle.


Giving the Idea "Depth"

Okay, so now you have a decent idea of what you want your group to do. Now it's time to transpose your “idea” into a playable format. To add depth to a game, the players need to feel like they have options. Your game may only really have one ending, but your players need to feel like they helped create it by the actions that they took. A really good GM will adapt as the game progresses to add in extra options that they did not previously write in and sometimes even multiple endings based on what the characters did. Players will always find a way to do something the GM did not expect so think of your game plan as more of a guide line that your plot will stick to, not your players.


The following are examples of how I write out my main plot line for games.
Example Game A: http://www.rpgx.org/Acid_Burn/infected.pdf
Example Game B: http://www.rpgx.org/Acid_Burn/voradin.pdf


While not all GM's may choose to use this format, all will agree that they are doing some form of it either mentally or in just another format. These examples show how multiple options can derive the same results. Notice that the main plot points are marked as “Scenes” and the different paths they take are “sub-scenes.” You may decide to write in more or less options, but you should never limit what the player can try because of your lack of imagination. Always try to adapt a players actions to fit in with your plot without forcing the player to take different actions. By letting your players try different things and failing or succeeding, they will feel that the world is reacting to their presence in it. This will make the world they are playing in have depth and seem more real.

Also note that example "B" is actually a tighter and shorter outline. That's because each element of it is only a part of a large scale picture. While in example "A" the entire outline will happen over the course of one game, in example "B" the characters may only move one or two progressions in each line per game (most likely while questing for something else.)


Stay tuned for part II, on detailing your scenes. Part II will teach you to expand on your plot points, plan for unexpected player choices, and add even more detail to the world you are creating. I will also explain how to integrate your long term plot (example B) into a pre existing adventure.

Graphics Changing Gameplay

There are some that say graphics do not matter. For most of my gaming days I have been on the band wagon that graphics are great, but game play is the ultimate factor in my opinion of a game. But what if the graphics actually alter the way a game is played? Now that high definition gaming has become the new standard, the increased resolutions and high res textures are actually altering game play.

Hi def gaming is the way of the latest generation of console gaming. Of course with every new generation of systems to hit the market, each new machine has been able to boast better graphics over its predecessor. While this has been the selling point for many a gamer, I have always just wanted to keep up with the latest system so that I could continue to play the latest games. While I have always enjoyed jaw dropping graphic effects (I own an 8850 GTX GPU) I have always just thought of them as, for the most part, a gimmick.

With the next generation of gaming consoles, graphics are no longer just eye candy. They are an integral part of the game. The high def graphics are being used to exploit special features in the games. With the ability to show higher amounts of detail, programmers are actually able to do more with the game. For example, a high def graphic game can display enemies in the background much clearer than a standard digital TV can. With this kind of detail, you would be able to target an enemy that would otherwise not have been able to hit. Higher level of detail is making it possible for game developers to put in elements of a game that they might otherwise omit due to lesser functionality.

Other special options are becoming more and more common as games have "regular" and "high def" modes. One rumor that was circulating about the upcoming game "Assassin's Creed" was that climbing features in the game would be hindered for anyone using a regular display. While the rumor turned out to be false, it did make sense. The game is designed so that your character is able to climb on any extruding surface that was 3d rendered, including brick, rocks, and trees. With high def turned off, these textures would have not been as predominate or defined thus keeping a player from being able to use them as the physics system would normally allow.

With all the next gen consoles there is an option to play with high def turned off. It is interesting to see the difference in game play when comparing the two side by side. I have two friends who are rabid Halo fans, so you bet that they were both in line when Halo3 hit the shelves. One has a high def display, while the other does not. For the most part each game mode has a similar over-all experience, but if you are paying attention there is much missing from the "standard" game. For example, on the second "mission" of Halo3 there is a corridor containing a secret room full of pickups. We found it playing through with the high def settings. The lines for the door are clearly visible. Shoot the door and you're in. However, in the "standard" version we went back to the exact same location. Not only could you not see the door lines, the room is not there. We wasted pretty much all our ammo up and down the corridor trying to open up the door, only to find that it was unavailable.

So is this a ploy to have everyone go out and buy expensive plasma TV's? I don't think so. I think it's just another step in the evolution of video games. With greater technology to utilize games are destined to become more in depth, in story and in visualization.

Gaming: "On the Grid"

I have been an avid Dungeons and Dragons fan since my very first experiences with the game when I was 13. If you know anything about my personality at all, it wasn't long before I started DMing and tinkering with the mechanics of the game. Allot has changed in the world of D&D since the glory days of TSR. While I am referring to the rules by which the game are played, I am addressing a less obvious change in the system.

For the most part when running any game I have run the majority of my scenarios "off the grid." By that I mean that my games are heavy in role playing and not as much in combat. Because of that I am usually able to get away with not pulling out the trusty hex map every time I tell the group to roll initiative. Not that I don't enjoy a good grid battle (I am a dedicated Heroscape player) it's just that most of my scenarios either aren't epically elaborate or it's an ambush and I don't particularly want the players to have a knowledge advantage by being able to meta-game the map accidentally. (Such as seeing a blank area on the map not drawn yet, but instantly knowing the dimensions of the building just by running around it in combat.)

However, as much as I like running games off the grid, I also love running games On the Grid. In my experience in allot of cases (especially with allot of things going on) it helps solidify what a character can and can't do, in some cases speeds things up (players don't have to constantly ask what their surroundings look like in detail) and with the most recent rules for D&D, helps everyone understand exactly how attack of opportunities work. Also, I get to draw maps which is always a plus.

First off deciding to run a game on a map board is a big deal when most combat is run without one. Why, you ask? Because almost completely destroys the GM's ability to fudge combat rules in terms of mechanics and especially with attacks of opportunity. Since everyone can see what's going on, it's like putting a giant magnifying glass on the GM showing exactly how everything is working in their head.

So recently I planned and ran a game using a map board for the first time since 3.5 was introduced. I had noticed before that the standard for the game had changed from hexes to squares [from second edition to third edition] but never really cared until last weekend. Not that big of a deal, just flip the map over and boom, I got squares. What did surprise me is how well the rules work and react with squares rather than hexes. I had always figures the six sided space would be more accurate for combat, but WOtC really improved the standard grid combat. As a side note, I do think attacks of opportunity would be better served on a hex map since a character would only have 6 adjacent spaces to them rather than 8.

I had decided to go ahead and run the scenarios on the grid because of the sheer amount of combat that I was going to be putting into the game. Because of where the characters left off last time in the story (right before a surprise attack in the prison district of Neverwinter) and the events that would follow (because of decisions made by the characters in the previous game.) Using pre-fabed maps were obviously the way to go.

So three weeks, a pirate ship map (covering four pieces of poster board), a market square map, an underground sewer map, and a brand new vinyl roll out map board later I was finally ready to call the group out to play the next game that I had labored over three weeks to create. I was psyched. I knew all my rules, had my bookmarks ready, made some house rule notes, and we were ready to roll. I thought it would be the game of the year. Plot, combat, miniatures, and caffeine.

In theory the game was great, unfortunately after almost 10 hours of real time only 15 minutes of game time have passed. Because of the tedious nature of the beast, six seconds [one round] of combat managed to take almost 20 minutes. By the end of the night we had only managed to make it about a quarter of the way through the second battle of the scenario. The group and I were so worn out (at about 3:00am) by the end of night, as the DM I finally just cleared the three remaining baddies off the map pf the ship deck the characters were exploring [so we wouldn't have o place them again when we picked up the following game] and called it a night.

In the experience I have learned a lesson about map campaigning. Do not run two combat scenes back to back on the grid. While the grid takes all of the guess work out of combat it seems to slow combat to a crawl, and heres why. Since the technical aspect of the game is sped up due to visual confirmation of surroundings and measurements, it allows the entire group more freedom to utilize special rules that give their PC's and NPCs abilities that aren't normally considered as options. This means more time is spent going to the books checking to see exactly how tasks are resolved, spell effects, special abilities, feats, and exactly what provokes AoO's (Attacks of Opportunity.) Because of the more technical approach that the game was taking, the group followed suit with their play style. (Somehow the grid even managed to bring table chatter down to a minimum.)

In the past I have run back to back combat without a problem. It has served as a good medium for teaching over confident characters a lesson about depleting their "combat stock." It's always interesting to see what a group can accomplish on half health, low ammo, and a depleted spell list. However, not in a technical game. Looking back I should have ran the small encounter off the grid and only brought out the maps afterward for the larger second encounter.
One comment that was made by myself and later by one of the players is that we should have used an egg timer to limit the turns. While i think the idea has merit, I don't know that this would help as it was not always the decision making process that was taking forever, but the time it took to decipher the effects the actions would have after being filtered through the D20 system.

There are some things that can be done to make combat run a bit more smoothly. First off, in my experience in many private groups, tournament groups and my own personal groups is the use of the secondary initiative rules where each round requires an initiative roll. While I really enjoy the realism that this method reflects and recommend using a variation of it in any "Of the Grid" combat scenario, grid combat for sake of sanity might should take a different approach. Rolling initiative order only once may not be realistic combat, but would significantly speed up the time it takes to count down turns. By making this predefined combat order list, a GM can simply go down the same list every time streamlining the turn taking process. It should also help your group to be more ready for their action knowing exactly when their turn will come again. This is just another situation where maybe sacrificing a little realism for the sake of easy mechanics isn't such an unbalanced trade-off.

Another great technique for keeping a game moving is breaking up multiple actions. This one sounds a little strange. It would seem that if a character has two attacks that by rolling them one after another and resolving them together would be quicker. This isn't the case. A round is only 6 seconds long. By resolving both actions together you are using the characters FULL ROUND ACTION. Any character acting after that one basically takes a step back in time causing a pause while the DM resolves the action in their head to explain the scenario. If multiple actions are broken up into turns, it gives the effect of freezing every second to add something else in as it goes. Thus a scenario where 4 people attack the same monster are resolved allot faster as the creature is actually pummeled WHILE being knocked down, rather than being knocked down and the next character rethinking his attack action in response to what WILL happen at the end of the round. Also this will help a DM with damage resolution managing HP in smaller doses, making the over all effect a more precise, clean, and quick combat round.

My final bit of advice for the DM. Creatures can run away. I have seen many a DM make the mistake of forcing their creatures to fight to the death. I have no problem ending combat when a creature has realized it's defeat. Awarding the characters experiencing for defeating a creature has just as much merit as killing it. Combat can end much sooner when bad guys retreat. not to mention it can add an element of realism to the game, especially if the characters insist on chasing it down to kill it after it has given up. Murdering anything that has given up and is no longer a threat to the character can always be considered an evil act. Of course if your running an evil campaigns, this doesn't much matter, but a creature at the point of retreat should be killed quickly out of the combat phase.

So while there is merit to playing a game on the grid be sure that you take the steps involved in managing your game well. My case should prove that while great preparation is the key to streamlined gaming, even that can fail at keeping a game from dragging. The only things a DM or player can do to keep a game moving are done at the table with the help of the players and DM alike.

Living Together in Harmony

Which is a better platform: PC Gaming or Console?

While there is no question that PC's can out perform ANY console in all aspects, many have contended that the console is so much simpler and cheaper to use for the everyman, that it out weighs the benefit of decking out a PC for gaming. Either way you slice it, one thing has always been true; PC Gamers and Console gamers have never been able to play games head to head. Until now...

Since the video game "Shadowrun" hit the market, there has been much debate over whether or not the cross-platform format would take off. While many said it was a fantastic idea, others said that it would never work or that there would just be too many obstacles to overcome. Of course, it doesn't help that the otherwise solid shooter pretty much sucks. While the game was a solid multi player shoot em' up FPS, it's total lack of depth, plot, and game modes/options completely cut it's balls right out from underneath it. If the cross-platform experiment was a success, nobody knows it because nobody wants to play the garbage that FASA has shoveled out from behind the outhouse. Not to say that the game wasn't pretty, or it didn't have (some) solid game play. The turd just needed a few more nuggets of corn in it before they tried to polish it so well.

However, there is another hope. Unreal Tournament III. Epic games has taken great leaps and bounds with the development of it's newest game, not to mention a page straight from FASA's play book. Not only will the game work as a cross platform multi player. Those wonderful XBox/PS3 boys and girls who were to scarred to venture into the PC platform will be able to have access to ALL of the same online mods that will be available for the PC users. To sweeten the deal even more, the PS3 version of the game will be Keyboard and Mouse compatible!

It seems that Epic is trying to make the line between it's PC gamers and it's console gamers (at the very least) fade a little. Unfortunately, I will no longer be able to blame my bad aim on my inability to use an analog controller at my next console tournament.

UT3 will ship for the PS3 and the PC this holiday season, with an Xbox360 version following later.