Monica

True Dungeon

2019-07-01T01:54:21Z

Both last year and this year at Origins we played True Dungeon adventures (one each year). I don't want to spoil either of the adventures we played (which they continue to offer), so I'll speak here in generalities.

True Dungeon is something like D&D adapted for physical sets. An adventure consists of a story played out in a series of seven rooms. You play one of a dozen or so character classes and each has some special rules and abilities. Spellcasters usually have to memorize things (cleric: identify this prayer bead to successfully cast your spell, etc). To disarm traps, rogues have to manipulate a gadget that is akin to playing the old board game Operation (move a pointer through a maze without touching any walls). Combat is done on shuffleboards; monster hit areas, including vulnerabilities, are drawn on one end, and you slide disks from the other to attack. (I'm not sure if monster damage is pre-determined or randomized; I didn't get a good look at what the GMs were doing.)

Before the session starts, the players get together to choose classes (no duplication allowed) and equip characters. Equipment comes in the form of tokens; each time you play you get a bag of ten (most common, a couple uncommon, one rare -- this should sound familiar to anyone who's played collectible card games like Magic). Naturally, you can buy specific tokens from them. Both times we played, the assortment we got for that session was not, by itself, particularly useful (I don't think my bag included a weapon, for instance), so you're relying on the experienced players who show up with their vast collections who can say "sure, you can borrow this sword" or "hey cleric, here are some healing scrolls, just in case". At the end of an adventure you get a few more random tokens. "Equipping" consists of laying out the tokens you're going to use (armor, weapons, cloaks, rings, etc) for a GM who records your final stats on a sheet that is carried through the adventure and given to each GM. You can then put most of them away, aside from weapons and any expendables you want to have on hand.

The game can accommodate up to ten players in a group. Last year we had only three, which did not work well. In retrospect we should have asked if the next timeslot's group was also light and, if so, could we combine. This year when we signed up we looked for a timeslot that already had some people and ended up with eight, which worked much better.

An example of "worked better": some rooms have a subtle clue that, once you notice it, helps you in solving whatever that room's problem is. With more people there's more likely to be someone who notices subtle clues. Of course, the flip side is that with more players you can end up in "too many cooks" territory when solving puzzles, but our eight-person group worked pretty well together.

They bill this as a two-hour game, but it's actually both more and less. Each room has a time limit of 12 minutes, so the worst-case scenario for the actual playing is 84 minutes. (That might even be typical, as even if you finish quickly, you've got to wait for the group ahead of you to clear the next room.) But then there's the time you spend equipping; I didn't notice last year, but this year we entered our dungeon at least 45 minutes after our nominal start time. And they ask you to show up 20 minutes early. So while it's listed as a two-hour game, when scheduling at a convention, use a three-hour timeslot.

The game is dark. Rooms are generally lit in green, and when you've used half your time it switches to red. (That warning is a nice touch.) Players are issued small flashlights; I think they intend for you to clip them onto your character card (which is hanging around your neck), but since I needed to be able to read part of my card (the spell list) I ended up tying the flashlight around my wrist. I had a pile of one-use magic items in my pockets that I could in principle use in combat when needed, but as a practical matter, there was no real way to dig through them in that lighting. Anticipating that, I distributed tokens among different pockets in my jeans, but even so, I mostly couldn't use them. I've seen pictures of players with sashes full of tokens (not sure how they're attached), presumably to solve that problem. Last year our third player, who came in costume, had a big shield full of tokens. I've been thinking that something like a triptych might work better for me -- easier to use than a sash and easier to pack than a shield.

Last year I played a monk. The monk doesn't use much equipment but fights two-handed. Well, sort of: you get two disks in each round of combat instead of one, but you launch both with the same hand, one immediately after the other. (The second one has to be underway before the first one stops moving.) That was...ok, but I don't think I did a lot of damage, and actual two-handed combat (with weapons) sounds like a better idea to me (I'm probably about as good with either hand). That's the ranger's ability, and ranger was my second choice for this year.

This year I played a bard. I wrote about that a little before the convention, in particular the "bardsong" ability. They describe bards as jacks of all trades; a bard can fight, has some spells (D&D: like sorcerors, not like wizards), can use lore knowledge to get hints, and can sing during combat to give bonuses to other players. It turns out a bard cannot sing while fighting, even if a bard player can demonstrate the ability to do just that, absent a magic item that enables it. So I had weapons in my pocket but I ended up giving bonuses (and casting some spells) instead of fighting myself. I ended up feeling a little too much like a back-end support character without primary contributions, so next time I'll try something else.

We had, I think, three combats (maybe four? I think three). I sang a variety of medieval and renaissance songs not in English, to minimize distraction. (In one fight with a sort of demonic character, I switched to singing psalms. I don't think anyone noticed.) But because the other players and GM needed to communicate about hits and damage, I ended up standing back and singing quietly. Meh on the bardsong ability; I wasn't able to make it sufficiently fun.

I invoked "lore" two or three times. The way this is implemented is that, before the game starts, you're given a set of labeled glyphs to memorize. When you use the ability, the GM shows you a glyph and if you can name it, you get the clue. I thought there would be a lot fewer of these! For some reason, in advance I thought there were 14; there were actually 24 and many of them were not at all intuitive. (I wonder if they randomize the labels for each adventure, or if playing the same class repeatedly lets you build up knowledge.) Nonetheless, I got one or two right immediately, and in one room I initially said I didn't know and then 30 seconds later said "wait, that's X" and the GM gave it to me.

The spells I had were interesting but not optimal for this adventure. In particular, the bard's highest-level spell does mass damage, and we never faced groups of opponents. Last year there was one group.

Half or more of the adventure was puzzles. This year's puzzles were well-done. (Last year's were a mixed bag, though we also had fewer players and thus fewer brains to tap into.) Two of this year's were especially fun to solve and made good use of props and actors. (I think those facts are related.) In one room, the GM said that since we didn't have a rogue, our bard could try the rogue gadget to get a clue. This confirmed my initial impression of the rogue gadget. :-) I gave it a good try, but...not my strong suit. Also, it takes enough time and focus that you miss out on what else is going on in the room at the time, so I suspect playing a rogue would feel somewhat isolating.

The sets were well-done, including the animated big-ass monster in our last room. Another monster was represented by an actor. Last year I think the GMs (each room has one) were also actors; this year there were GMs who were not actors (and not in costume). Of course most of the players aren't in costume either (some are), but it's something I noticed anyway.

I think the GMs had some latitude to make tweaks on the fly. This makes sense; nobody enjoys an adventure where half the party gets killed before the end, after all, and people are paying (substantially) to play. Keeping it challenging but achievable with highly varied player abilities and group sizes seems hard, especially when each GM only sees a group in one room. I wonder if they're issued any heuristics or if it comes down to individual GMs winging it. (An example: in one of our rooms I bumped into a bucket on the floor and looked inside. It seemed empty, but the GM told me it contained holy water and the person who'd been lobbing flasks of same at an undead monster could refill them instead of turning in the tokens. Actually, the GM told me, there was a leak in the ceiling and that's why the bucket was there.)

I had fun. I'm still looking for the character class(es) that will be the most fun for me, but I have ideas. It's expensive enough that I'm not going to play a lot, so equipping is likely to continue to depend on teammate bounty. Which is fine; the hard-core players seemed ready to equip others. If our tokens were organized we might have been able to make some trades, but when what you've got is a bag of misc, it doesn't seem practical.

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bards, simplified

2019-06-05T16:01:39Z

At an upcoming gaming convention we'll be playing in a session of True Dungeons. This is, sort of, RPGs meet LARP -- you go through a series of (actual, physical) rooms and face challenges (monsters and puzzles). But instead of actually fighting with weapons like in LARP or rolling dice like in RPGs, the combat system uses something like shuffleboards, and each round you slide a disk (representing your weapon) down the board and where it lands determines what happens. One of the advantages of taking a fighter class is that you get to practice with this shuffleboard first. Mental abilities including spellcasting are implemented through a system of symbols that you have to memorize -- to successfully cast this spell, tell us the name of this rune (or whatever). I've only played once and we didn't have a spellcaster in our small group, so I haven't seen that part in action. In each room, there is a (human) GM who manages the events in the room and adjudicates as needed.

One of the classes you can play is bard. One of the bard's abilities is "bard-song": everybody else gets a combat advantage while you're singing.

I have questions. :-)

Does the song need to be topical -- for example, do you get better bonuses if you sing a song about fighting a dragon while fighting a dragon? Does the song need to be of a particular type, like inspirational battle songs or ballads about heroes? Does the song need to be in English? Does the song need to have actual words or do fa-la-las and niggunim count? The character description is silent on these important matters. (In the back of my mind I wondered if I could just prepare "Horsetamer's Daughter" or "Maddy Groves" and be good for the whole two-hour game -- just pick up where I left off in the previous battle. :-) )

Last night I found the detailed rules and looked it up. Most bards sing, they say, but you can play an instrument (not a loud one!), recite poetry, or even dance. And then, it says, there is no actual requirement that the player really perform; you can just say you're invoking bard-song.

How disappointing. Fighters need to actually aim. Spellcasters need to actually remember stuff. Rogues (I didn't mention this before) need real dexterity to manipulate certain puzzles. But bards don't need to sing, even if they accept any song at all? Huh. Perhaps this is defense against people who sing badly off-key -- "no no it's ok, we believe you, here's your bonus"?

I won't know what class I'm playing until I get there; it depends on available equipment (each player gets a bag of tokens) and party balance (each class can only be represented once). But bard is on my short list because it sounds like fun, and I will ignore the nerfing and sing actual songs if I do it. They might be 13th-century French songs or 15th-century Italian songs because, hey, why not? But there will be actual singing.

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disabilities in RPGs and other fiction

2018-02-08T21:32:05Z

madfilkentist recently pointed me to this article about writing characters with disabilities by Kari Maaren. It's a thoughtful piece, well worth reading. Here's a taste:

So when I see fictional disability, I recognise the tropes. I’ve heard Matt Murdock described as “a blind man whose power is that he can see,” and yeah, that’s a common one. The “blind seer” is a particularly frustrating trope because its purpose is so dazzlingly clear: you want a blind person in your story because that’s so tragic, but you also don’t want the inconvenience of, well, having a blind person in your story. So he’s blind, but it’s okay! He can really see through his magical powers! He’s been compensated for his disability! Yay!

I tweeted a link, and somebody replied there asking for tips on including disabilities in role-playing-game systems without being disrespectful or creating broken player incentives. I said a few things there, but I think my readers are likely to have useful thoughts on this and why should we do it in ~~140~~ 280-character chunks? So please comment, share useful links, etc. I'm going to share a link to this post.

Game (or other fictional) characters have a variety of traits. We gamers sometimes over-focus on a few stats, but a real, rich character is much more than ratings for strength, intelligence, endurance, dexterity, and so on. That's true whether the extra richness comes from the character's family background, formative experiences in wizard school, handicaps, affinity for fire, compassion for small furry animals, or whatever. So to me, three-dimensional characters depend on the players wanting to play that kind of game. I think these tend to be the same players who are interested in story-based games.

That's not all players. That's ok. You can't, and shouldn't, force richer characters where they're not wanted.

Regardless of game mechanics, players who want to play characters who are disabled in some way -- really play them, I mean, not use them as jokes or sources of offsets for abilities -- will do so. I had a player once who played, well, a vision-challenged character -- a challenge that the player proposed as a logical consequence of the character backstory he'd invented. He wasn't looking for any offsetting benefits.

Now, the game system can help or hinder this, and the person I'm talking with is interested in developing game systems that support disabled characters in a meaningful way. Game systems, like players, come on a spectrum. At one end it's all about optimization; at the other end it's all about good story. At the optimization end, you get players saying things like "I'll take the blindness penalty in order to get extra points for spellcraft". Champions was like this. I never actually played; I went through character creation once and decided it wasn't my style of game. But people did (and I assume do) play, and not all of them are only focused on points optimization, so I'm interested in hearing how they roleplay rich, sometimes-disabled characters in that kind of game system.

At the other, story, end of the spectrum you get games like Dogs in the Vineyard, where characters are nothing but collections of interesting backstory, traits, and growth. I only played a few times and not recently so I might have this wrong, but I don't think there even are stats for things like strength. What you have is things like "I had this formative childhood experience that made me really afraid of guns" (minuses to shooting, panicking under fire, etc), and during the campaign as you have to interact with guns that characteristic might gradually change. You know, just like people often do. Meanwhile, during the game you have other experiences, which might be character-affecting too... There's not a lot of bean-counting, of tit-for-tat -- I took fear of guns, so I'm allowed to be extra-good at riding. It works if the group wants it to work. Dogs has a system (and I'm told there's a broader "Fate" system that uses the same mechanic, if you're not into the setting built into Dogs), but it's not a very pushy system. When we played Dogs, we were mostly telling a collaborative story with occasional dice-rolling.

A story-oriented game system can support character disabilities well. Willing players can support disabilities in any system. What I don't know is how game systems not already at the story-oriented end of the spectrum can facilitate good treatment of character disabilities. Or is this something that is best left out of rules systems and placed in the hands of players?

Thoughts? (If my Twitter correspondent is reading, you can log in using any OpenID credential, create a Dreamwidth account (easy, no spam), or comment anonymously.)

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