Encounter Design part I - White Wolf

So, over the last couple of days I've been working on a arc for my Pathfinder: Council of Thieves game and this process entails a lot of encounter design. For obvious reasons, I've had encounter design on my mind, really to such an extent that a couple of nights ago I actually dreamed that one of my players was confounding me by insisting on converting a 3.5 prestige class into Pathfinder (Aberrant Acid Mage: not real).

But I digress.

I thought I'd share some of my thoughts today about encounter design in Pathfinder but as I was organizing my ideas, I realized that you can't really discuss the present without a clear understanding of the past.

I used to play a lot of White Wolf. If you're reading this blog and you remember those halcyon days, please do chime in. Really, when I say "used to" I mean, right up until a few months ago I ran White Wolf games almost exclusively. This was for a number of reasons that I'm sure I'll touch on later, but for the time being I'll say that I have a pretty poor track record with anything outside of Vampire specifically.

That having been said, I'm pretty well known in my various friendship groups for my Vampire games. Vampire (Masquerade, Dark Ages, Requiem)is one of the few things that I'm willing to openly admit that I do pretty well. I've played with a lot of people over the years, and for the most part, they continue to come back to the table.

Now, the title of this article is encounter design, and that's something of a misnomer within the context of White Wolf games in general. Until very recently, White Wolf products didn't really have what you would call "encounters". In a White Wolf game you have a "scene". Now scene design doesn't really take a whole lot of explanation. In terms of advice for running a successful scene I guess I'd have two points of advice:

1.) Set the Scene. I couldn't tell you how many games I've played in where there was really no sense of place. You need to get across the impression of the scene very quickly, but in a way that is indelible in the minds of the players. I went through a phase where this meant exacting description, but I'll tell you now, that can lead to some very bored players and doesn't really translate well into other games that you'll eventually want to run.

When I create an impression of a place, I like to try and impart a feeling. Here's the thing: any player who's seen Blade or an Underworld flick or a David Fincher movie knows what the World of Darkness looks like. The novelty has really sort of worn off. Every so often I'll throw something in to remind the players like guttering florescent lights or rust encrusted exposed piping or something like that, but for the most part the players already get it. As a hint, I like to throw in impressions of smell. This may seem like one of those "Storyteller's Guide to X" type suggestions, but I've found that it can really move things forward. In terms of inspiration I recommend reading Dune by Frank Herbert. Herbert creates intensely detailed and alien landscapes without cudgeling the reader with excessive description.

2.)Create Dramatic Tension. I don't think that the PC's should ever enter an environment where they exist unopposed. Please don't take this to mean that I'm one of these guys who gets his sadism kicks through beating up your character. That's not my bag.

I do believe very strongly however, that the essence of drama is tension. Because White Wolf games trend against encounters, we have to push ourselves forward toward drama. This means that there should always be some adversary or obstical which the players must overcome in order to achieve their objectives within a given scene. This hindrance need not always be overwhelming. If a scene were like the melody of a song, and the level of difficulty were the notes, a pattern of rising and falling creates complexity for the mind and a sense of satisfaction in the participant. No one listens to music in which a single tone is repeated in the high register ad nausiem. Likewise with notes in the low register. Instead, juxtaposition creates feelings of tension, dread, elation, exhileration and melancholy.

Now that we've covered some of my concerns when addressing a scene in a White Wolf game we have set our selves up next time to discuss the structure of the chronicle as a whole.

Santa's Little Helper

So, this last weekend, my wife Rosa and I threw the 12th incarnation of this Christmas/holiday party that I've been associated ever since it's humble beginnings at the Red Lobster. Over the years the gift giving traditions have continued to evolve and a few years back we started doing what some people call a White Elephant gift exchange.

I'm sure you've tried one of these thing before, they can be pretty fun, depending on who's involved, but that's the case with pretty much any game am I right? So the basic idea is everyone throws anonymous gifts into a pile and people are able to draw and steal them based on a turn order and you know, you get the idea.

So this year my old gaming buddy Ben B. decided that he was never going to play Mage: the Ascension again and put everything he owned under the tree. It seemed like a pretty sweet haul to me, but it didn't end up moving around much (there was alcohol in play). I think that by the end of the night this pretty cool Irish guy who I had just met named Melvin ended up with the books.

Anyway, so, on Sunday morning Rosa and I are cleaning up the what remained of last night's empties and the remaining food and whatnot and underneath a pile of discarded wrapping paper I find Melvin's Mage books!

The collection contained:
Mage: the Ascension 2nd Edition
The Book of Shadows: Mage Player's Guide (essential to running the game)
The Book of Madness (really good book)
The Book of Crafts (not bad)
The Traditions Gathered vol 1 - Songs of Science (Virtual Adepts, Order of Hermes and Sons of Ether)
Technocracy Assembled - Volume One (N.W.O., Iteration X and the Progenitors)
and finally,
Mage: the Sorcerer's Crusade

I gotta say, I was pretty excited, which I found surprising 'cause I've been dogging Mage for years. There were a lot of problems with that game. For one, it felt like the Star Trek:Voyager of games, it took multi cultural political correctness to such a length that it felt dippy and revolted even a hard left liberal like myself. I also hated the whole Technocracy angle. I know this might seem like a hug critique on the game, but I felt like he game would have been better than fine without them. Remember how the World of Darkness was supposed to be about Gothic horror? What could possibly be less gothic than a freakin' cyborg jumping out of the shadows out at you? Or having to get together with your pagan wicca buddies to save the world from over enthusiastic accountant? See? It was Whedonesque to a ridiculously absurd level before there was such a thing as Whedonesque.

But, I did have lot of fun playing those old games. I had a lot of fun reading them too. And that was really the whole point wasn't it? I couldn't help but feel, as I held those old, purple soft-cover manuals in may hands (with their price tags still attached, ol' Ben never did see the point of taking those things off), a certain connection with my past that I wanted to rekindle. At tha moment I started considering what it would take to get me running that game again. And hell, it was a good feeling. In the past ten years, White-Wolf, and most of the other big game companies have done a pretty crap job of releasing anything that come close to the conversation starting, debate enraging, page turning goodness of the old World of Darkness.

So, I went ahead and sat down and flipped through a couple of the books and it didn't take long for me to realize the answer to my own question. A lot. It would take a lot to get me playing Mage again. Those books are definitely showing their age (the interior art is terrible), and I still really hate th Technocracy. In fact, I may even have less patience for the Traditions than I did 15 years ago. It's a real bummer that Mage: the Awaken was such a titanic flop, 'cause flipping through those old Ascension manuals, as poor as they were, still really gave me the bug.

But, that having been said, there would have to be some things done to really run it right, starting with finding a 3rd edition revised core book. And I really loved the Nephandi and Marauders, they were the antagonists the Traditions deserved, hopelessly sidelined during all the big plays. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas on what would make a great Mage Chronicle, old school style. I guess my first question would be: where does your optimal game take place? So, it's not off the table entirely, just yet anyway.

In the meantime, anyone want some Mage books?

Requiem Chronicler's Project I

While I have many plans for what I want to do with this blog, I guess the first thing I'll start out with is this. I want to write a city guide to Istanbul for a Vampire: the Requiem chronicle I intend to run starting in late 2010 to mid 2011. My goal is to not begin character creation or even chat this idea up with my usual gaming group until I have the city completely written.

I want all every vampire in the city fully detailed. An exhaustive history of both kindred and kine in the city along with histories of the covenants and bloodline of major vampiric groups still in operation. I want all the locations of note located on a map and described as well as write ups of competing supernatural organizations. Lastly, I want a series of plot hooks and twists to confound the characters as play begins.

It's starting to look like 2010 is going to be pretty busy.

To this end, if any of you out there have any great ideas for characters, locations or hooks, please send them over to me and I'll see if I can work them in. The first phase: city research, I don't know nearly enough about Istanbul to really start writing yet, so now it's time to study. If you find a cool article or historical tidbit, please send it over to me, I will review anything.

That's the long term plan, the first of many. I'll keep you posted as things develop. I hope to be posting soon about the Pathfinder game I'm currently running and I hope this blog will serve as a detailed series of campaign notes in addition to whatever else it may become. In any eventuality, I look forward to your participation.