Ode to a Fat Bandit

I bought my first paper miniatures back in 1986 or so, but I never really used them in at the table much until I started playing Savage Worlds a few years ago.  I had a player who really benefited from the ability to see the relationships (and especially distances) between characters that miniatures provided.  That it took me 30+  years of gaming to determine that this was a good idea probably speaks volumes about my lunkheadedness.  <--- That is a word right?  The minis were part of a series by Steve Jackson Games called Cardboard Heroes.  The originals are long out of print, but you can buy them in PDF form from their web store. The first sets were fantasy based, but they expanded over time to include some Autoduel minis, Science Fiction, and eventually a couple of Horror based sets packaged with some floor plan maps in the late 90s/early 00s.  In the modern age there are a number of companies that make paper miniatures both in PDF and as print products.  Some of them are quite good.  In my old man's heart, however, the Cardboard Heroes will likely always be my favorites.

While I did not use those first miniatures at the table, they did become part of my gaming experience in another way.  The art on many of those first miniatures was inspiring.  These little dudes (and dudettes) were less than two inches tall, but they were incredible line drawings.  They had real personality.  What is more, they were much more detailed than the crummy lead miniatures of the day and  a load less expensive.  The Cardboard Heroes were so detailed that I found myself using the miniatures as models to create NPCs in the fantasy games I ran.  I found myself even creating adventures specifically to include the creations these minis inspired.

Size isn't everything.
  This guy looks awesome
when he is 2" Tall.

My favorite of the original Cardboard Heroes was named Fat Brigand by the company.  With great affection, I dubbed him Fat Bandit (for versatility dontchaknow?) and he became a regular fixture in my fantasy games. Looking back on things, I don't wonder if bandits didn't become one of my favorite It's-ok-for-the-players-to-just-kill-these-guys enemies because I got to include Fat Bandit in the ranks of the enemy.  Fat Bandit was so much more than... er a fat bandit to me.  He has been a pirate captain,  a travelling merchant with an attitude, urban criminal overlord, and more.  Other minis in the series provided the same sort of NPC inspiration.  Only rarely, back in the day did I ever get to play as other than the GM, but at least once I created a PC based on one of the Cardboard Heroes as well.

When I went on my no-fantasy hiatus, this practice of minis as NPC generator fell a bit to the wayside.  When I started running traditional fantasy again a few years ago, I found that paper minis were far more available than in the good old days.  I have purchased a bunch of those, both fantasy and modern, since I started using miniatures at the table.  I have even found a way to make some of my own which has been a great addition to the game.   If there is any interest in my process for that, sound off and I might make it a future blog entry. Even with all the other options, however, the Cardboard Heroes still figure prominently in the mix whenever I run a fantasy game.

Remember that lunkheadedness I mentioned before?  It was only as I wrote this that I considered the notion of creating a PC for Fat Bandit.  Now if I can find a fantasy game to play him in...

Five Internet Resources for Your RPG Game

Life has intruded on my blog creation opportunities this week.  An unplanned trip out of town has forced me to be a little more resourceful in carving out the time necessary to commit something to pixels.  As a result, the amount of new creative material that I could produce was sparse.  Still, I wanted to provide something of value to my readers even if it could not originate from my own creativity.  In today's post, I have decided to present five of the many cool game related websites I have found over the years.  Some of these may be familiar, others, I hope, are a surprise.  Many of them pertain to running games in the various editions of the all-time best selling RPG, but the information can be easily translated into your system of choice.

First up is, Meatshields!, a very quick henchman generator for OD&D.  This simple little program takes the size of the town and produces a list of available henchmen for hire.  Some of them are pretty worthless, even to bear your torch.  Others have more than a bit of training to recommend them.  The best part of the generator, however, is the equipment and personality that it attaches to each potential sidekick.  Rather than a nameless man-at-arms, I could get someone like Gar, a human man-at-arms who has some of his own gear, is a former gravedigger with a hatred of Goblins and 4 ounces of Wolfsbane in his backpack.  Now that is an NPC who could make an interesting addition to the party!

There are a number of online dice rollers out there.  By far my favorite is the Hamete Virtual Dice Roller.  This powerful little application allows you to chose what type of dice you need, and even allows for exploding dice.  In  addition, it provides a way to email the results to other players, very useful for online gaming.  I really to use this program when I am using random tables while doing adventure creation.  Sometimes breaking out the real dice is just inconvenient.  At those times, this program really fills the bill.

Speaking of Random Generators, one of my favorites can be found here.  The Donjon is packed with useful tools.   Name generators, random adventure generators, a pretty good dungeon creator and ton of additional valuable tools, including a number for non-fantasy games.

Not all of the best sites are random generators though.  S. John Ross was at one time one of the best writers working for Steve Jackson Games.  They parted ways somewhat less than amicably several years ago and he began putting most of his creative efforts into The Blue Room.  Ross is a bit of an eclectic sort, and provides a wide array of usually useful, but always interesting content.  Of especial interest are his Big List of RPG Plots, big stories that a GM can add his own details to in order to create detailed and compelling games.  Also of note is his article on Medieval Demographics, which provides a useful way to create realistic fantasy kingdoms.  I plan on using his figures from this essay to formulate the population centers for The Colonies.

Finally, I am going to mention a site that I have plugged to my friends on Facebook before.  Still, it is really useful and deserves another mention.  Recently, I have become a big fan of paper miniatures.  In this, I am fortunately not alone.  One web citizen has created a huge resource of art for paper miniatures across genres from Fantasy to Super Heroes.  7 Wonders is truly massive with THOUSANDS of minis ready to download.

Hopefully you will find some of these useful.  If you can think of a site that I might be interested in, be sure to drop me a note in the comments below.

Learning the Rules from the Bottom Up

Where Man Meets Magic... and is totally
confused.

I have a run a number of different game systems over the years.  Learning a new game can be a very enjoyable part of this hobby.  It can also be a hugely frustrating process.  New rules systems can be confusing even when they are well written.  Concepts that are easy to practice at the table can be ridiculously hard to put into text.  The learning curve is steeper for some games than others as well.  This becomes a barrier to entry for some games.  I have mentioned before, but it is germane to the point:  I really like the concept of Shadowrun, but the magic rules, and the hacking rules to a lesser extent, were so dense that I gave up on them years ago.

The game master needs to know how the rules work.  I, as the GM,  must be able to explain them to my players. Without a solid grasp of the rules, I cannot properly create material for the game.  As the final arbiter of the game, I must fairly apply the  rules to determine what happens when a player takes an action.  So that begs the question:  how is the best way to learn the rules of a new game?

Yup.  This guy is my welcoming committee for
every new game.  

The best way I have ever found to learn the basics of any game is to create a character in the new system.  Not just any character, I always design the same one: a basic thug.  The genre of the game does not really matter for this to work.  In every game, there is someone that the players, especially beginning players, are going to pound on.  Most games provide the stats for this type of character already, but I always go back and do it myself anyway.  By using the character creation system to generate this basic cannon fodder, I learn some interesting things about the system.

The first, and probably most important, thing that creating a very basic fighting character in any system teaches me is how the character generation system will work for my players. Once the players have accepted your campaign pitch, creating  characters is often the first time that the players will encounter the new game you are proposing.  For many players, the character creation process is one of the great joys of the game.  A new character is a blank canvas, one full of possibilities.  If the players find the character creation process difficult, however, it can sour them on the game before the first session begins.  Taking a trip through the character creation process ahead of the players can alert me to the problems that players may encounter when they generate their own heroes.

The second reason to create a thug is to see how the character stats work within the rules.  Until I understand the rules, a pre-generated character is just a bunch of numbers on a page.  By engaging in the character creation process, I can see how the character stats mesh with the task resolution systems.  The most important things that a rule system can do is provide a method for PCs to do stuff and fight stuff.  By creating my own character, even a violent and not very bright one, I can use each step of the process to see how the various attributes, abilities, and skills work within the system to allow characters to achieve both these things.

Or... at least I will when I finally
level up.

Finally, drawing up a new fighter from scratch gives me a good idea of the power level the system allows to new characters.  This permits me to scale challenges, both combat and otherwise, to the abilities of my new characters.  If the statistics for my generic thug will likely struggle with a challenge, then the (presumably more competent) players likely find it challenging as well.  If my beginning bruiser cannot succeed at all, then my challenge may be too difficult for new players who do not yet know how to optimize their characters.

At the end of this process, I have learned quite a bit about the system.  Less than I will likely learn in the first session of play, but certainly more than I will learn by reading the rules alone.  In addition, I have some idea of how to utilize the character creation process.  Since I will be using that system to create NPCs throughout the campaign, that is a very useful byproduct.  And, if nothing else, I have a new useful stat block for an NPC that I can throw at the players any time there is a need.  

       

The Method in My Madness

I have been a moderately successful GM.  Certainly some games have been more successful than others, but most of my players seem to enjoy whatever I am running most of the time.  In the past few years, I have felt like I had far more hits than misses, which is about as good a track record as I could hope for.  Even some of the misses, like the AD&D TPK three sessions into the campaign, have been illuminating. One of the reasons for the recent success ratio, I think, is that I have been practicing a campaign planning scheme of my own design.  At least, I do not think I have cribbed it from somewhere else.

"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen."
  -- Way of the Gun
This is doubly so of detailed session notes.

Despite the evidence I have presented in the last month, when it comes to the actual act of gaming, I am not an over-planner.  I usually come to a campaign with an idea of how long it should last and the overall story arc, a handwritten list of scenes that I anticipate taking place by the end of the next session, and usually the stats for the various foes I expect the players to face.  I have found that writing copious campaign notes before the game begins is  a really good way to waste a lot of time.  Now sure, you can force your players to go where you want them to go.  Rarely, however, is that where they seem to want to go.  My system for individual sessions is usually to set the scene for the day, let the players go in whatever direction they desire and figure out a way for that to tie into whatever I wanted to do by the end of the night.  That system seems to serve me pretty well.

"BUT!," you may ask, "How do you let them do their thing and then eventually get them where you want them to be?"  Campaign prep is the answer, but not the sort of intensive detailed delving that some GMs undertake.  Please note, however, that I am not knocking that sort of preparation.  In fact, quite the contrary, I have a certain admiration for the dedication to the craft that such prep can represent. A carefully constructed campaign with reams of notes can be a thing of beauty.  I, however, prefer a more free form construction: One in which the architecture is present, but fluid and adaptable.  To do this I have taken to using what I like to call my Ten by Ten Method.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have a song entitled 10X10.  That has
nothing to do with this, but YYYs are amazing, so here they
are. 

The Ten by Ten Method strips down the campaign creation process into component parts and then allows me to configure (and reconfigure) them as I need to on a session by session basis, with an eye toward incorporating as many of them as I need to for the overall campaign.  The beauty of this method is that It allows me to re-skin elements that I think are important on the fly.  If the players don't go in the direction I think they will (and when do they ever?) then either the component I was planning on using can be moved to the where they have gone or I can draw on a new, more appropriate component and use it instead.


Before I begin each game, I make a list of important categories of components.  I shoot for ten, but that number may be bigger or smaller depending on the needs of the game and my levels of inspiration.  Some of the categories are the same from game to game:  Friendly NPCs, Major Opponents, Villainous Lieutenants, Cool Places to stage a battle.  Others change from game to game.  The Freeport game was the first campaign in which I used this system and it included categories like:  Unusual Monsters, Unique Magic Items, and Secret Agendas.  In my Savage Mars game there were no magical items so that got changed to Weird Technologies while Secret Agendas morphed into Odd Signs that perhaps Mars was the forerunner of Earth's humanity.

Once I settle on categories, the "by Ten" part of the process begins.  If the category is important enough to BE a category, then there should be no problem in coming up with ten (or more) different items to fill it.  These NPCs, nifty gadgets, and scurrilous minions may have connections, but they are not always necessary.  In the Freeport game, for example, I tried pairing a Major Opponent with a Villainous Lieutenant on a one for one basis.  In the end I found that I did not need all the Major Opponents but the ones I did need sometimes required more than one Lieutenant.  Note that it is possible, indeed probable, that you will not use every one of the items in the category by the end of the game.

After I have my ten categories with ten representatives, I think of ways that they can work together.  If one piece can work with more than one of the other pieces, so much the better.  In fact, that is the best way for this system to work.  I pick a few of these items and construct my first adventure of the campaign with them.  From there, as the players go about their business, I can incorporate the items as need be.  As the campaign continues, the elements I have already used have become part of the narrative and I can continue to incorporate the other items as we go along.

If my plan was for the PCs to befriend the kindly innkeeper who then tells them of some important goings on, but the PCs decide they would rather find their own lodgings, then the innkeeper will suddenly become unimportant.  Rather than letting the innkeeper's info go to waste, perhaps it could just as easily come to the players from a villainous lieutenant that they interrogate after his capture.  When the PCs decided to suddenly leave Freeport, the ocean trading captain I had hoped to link them to in the mid-game was suddenly moot.  When the hit mainland, however, that trading captain became a caravan master many of the unused plot elements just ported right over to the mainland without much fuss.  The focus is on the important elements instead of their method of delivery.          

This guy.  You know you would
have wanted to shoot him too,
had you been there.

Another benefits of this method is how it allows me to adjust to what the players to determine is important.  One of the beautiful things about roleplaying is when the events at the table take on their own "life."  For example, I give you the instance of the man in the shiny shirt.  In a Savage Pulp game I was running a couple of years ago, the PCs encountered some thugs in a nightclub in Miami.  The thugs were completely run of the mill, I thought.  What I did not anticipate, however, was the violent reaction the PCs took to one of the miniatures I used, a nightclub patron in a red open collard shirt.  The players took an instant dislike to that guy (an incidental endorsement of the use of visual props BTW), and dubbed him "Shiny Shirt."  Very quickly, Shiny Shirt took on the personality and stats of the henchman that I had planned to introduce later and a new villain was born.

What I am ultimately advocating for here is flexibility.  As a GM, when I write down a bunch of notes, it becomes a lot harder to allow for things to happen that do not match the work that I have already put in.  With the Ten by Ten system, I am doing some of the prep work that goes into a campaign session without attaching that work to predefined events that might never transpire in the game.  When it is time for something important to happen, I draw the most appropriate element(s) from the list and run with it.  The players get to interact in the environment in a more natural way, I still get to incorporate the plot elements that I created and everyone gets a fun game.  Which is the point of all that prep work anyway, right?