Tag fkr

Play Worlds, Not Rules – What is a world and how do I play it?

kingbim 4 Comments

The Free Kriegsspiel Revival (FKR) is all about putting the world before the rules. The idea is that you play out the events of your game and refer to rules only when (and indeed if) needed.

I’m deliberately using the term ‘games’ as it is not specific, but typically we are talking about roleplaying games and wargames.

An FKR game can be contrasted with games where you use rules as a matter of course and then transition into free-play only when the rules do not cover the interaction.

This all leads to the big mantra of the FKR:

Play Worlds, Not Rules

What is a world?

Contrast Game of Thrones with the 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale (both of which star Mark Addy).

The Game of Thrones setting is a very gritty and grim place. Protagonists have all sorts of vile and cruel punishments laid upon them. Noble houses vie with each other for dominance, whilst backstabbing, assassinations and familicide are all par for the course. Heroic and noble intentions count for nothing. Realpolitik, and chance, will determine your fate.

A Knight’s Tale is set in a light-hearted and anachronistic version of 1300s France and England. Protagonists are injured whilst jousting, socially embarrassed and, at worst, put in a pillory. Nobles vie with each other for reputation, whilst dancing, flirtations and jousting are all par for the course. Our protagonist succeeds through his honour, sportsmanship and his hopefulness. The friends he made along the way determine his fate.

Both of these are worlds. Both worlds could use the same ruleset if they were run as a roleplaying game, just as many, many groups play D&D 5e and have wildly different experiences.

These are pillories – and the point where the protagonist is in one is the Act 3 low-point. Not exactly The Red Wedding, is it?

Playing the World

To make either of the worlds work, (regardless of the rules) the GM would have to make decisions so that the game have the desired feeling.

That is playing the world. Every single time the GM makes up a PC, or a quest, or a location. Every time they speak in character. Even when they describe the weather, they are playing the world.

The GM does it every time they make a decision (conscious or unconscious) so that the game has the desired feeling.

Whenever the GM puts that desired feeling before the rules-as-written (or even the rules-as-intended) they are playing the world, not the rules.

The non-GM players are also playing the world all the time. Every character decision, piece of dialogue, throwaway action. Every puzzle, problem or conflict that is solved is (or should be) done in a way that fits the world.

I recently read that the ISS will de-orbit in 2031, which makes me feel mournful.

Further examples of different worlds

The world is not just a planet – games set in Earth’s medieval period, and in the present day, are in different worlds.

The world is not just a time period – games set in 1944 New York and 1944 Berlin, are in different worlds.

The world is not just an approximate location – two games set in King Arthur’s court, but where one focuses on the intrigue and romancing of the nobility, whilst the other focuses on an elaborate heist by some near-do-wells to steal Excalibur, are in different worlds.

The world is all-encompassing. It is genre, tone, location, character traits, aesthetics, story beats: It is everything that makes a fiction.

The world can even change from session to session.

Season 7 Episode 4 of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (Take Me Out To The Holosuite) sees the protagonists take on the crew of a Vulcan starship in a game of baseball. It’s a classic sporting underdog story. The previous episode sees the crew’s therapist help a turncoat former(?) spy manage his panic attacks. Episode 8 of the series (The Siege of AR-558) centers on a gritty battle to hold the line in a war against an overwhelming foe.

These episodes follow the same characters in the same time frame, but vary wildly. They are all in Star Trek, but they are in different worlds.

Sometimes, worlds overlap within a given installment.

The Star Wars original trilogy has three main worlds. I’m not talking about Tatooine, Dagobah and Bespin.

  • World 1 = The Rebellion against The Empire – it’s the world of the Death Star, hidden rebel bases, secret plans and dogfights
  • World 2 = The Criminal Underworld – it’s the world of Jabba’s Palace, bounty hunters, cargo smuggling and greasy alien bars
  • World 3 = The Force – it’s the world of Ben Kenobi, lightsabers, Darth Vader and searching your feelings

This is something that Fantasy Flight seemed to understood – they made different core rule books for each world, designed at supporting that world, so that the world and the rules were in less conflict.

The three worlds overlap often. A great example is during the first Death Star run, which puts the rebels vs empire conflict at the front. Luke can only succeed because of help from the criminal world (via Han Solo) and the Force (via Ben Kenobi).

The story has masterful command of the three worlds that define Star Wars.

As a GM, and as a player, (or as a wargamer) the FKR tells you to strive for understanding of the world of your game. Put the world first, and use the rules only when it feels right.

Play Worlds, Not Rules.

Further Reading

All of the above is my interpretation of ‘Play Worlds, Not Rules’. Some other folks have views, and some of those are below.

Schoolyard Pokémon Battles

kingbim 3 Comments

I’ve talked before about children playing Among Us on the schoolyard by making up the rules and trying acting within genre expectations.

I recently saw a schoolyard Pokémon battle in the same style.

The kids, who were about 11 years old, stood opposite each other a few meters apart, and took it in turns to summon or attack with their mons. It went something like this:

Child 1: (Throws pokeball) Go Litten!
Child 2: Oh its a fire pokemon! I know, Gyarados I'm choosing you!
             (Picks a pokeball off an imaginary belt and throws it)
Child 1: (looks up into the sky at where Gyarados' head should be) Oh no. Litten, Scratch!
Child 2: Gyarados DRAGON RAGE!
Child 1: Oh dang it. Come back Litten)
             (mimes holding out a pokeball to retreat Litten from the battle)

I was loving this.

These children aren’t being immature – they were simply comfortable enough with themselves to openly play imaginative games without any concern for derision or mockery.

Though they were taking turns, there was no strict set of rules, just an unspoken understanding that they would conform to the idea of a Pokémon battle as much as possible.

Then something happened.

Child 1: (throwing pokeball) Pikachu, I choose you! 
Child 2: Awww it looks so cute!
             (dodders closer to Pikachu, doe-eyed, then leans down to pat the Pikachu)
Child 1: Pikachu, Thundershock!
             (Child 2 jolts around, mimicing being electrocuted by a mouse)

I gave them a cheer and a laugh in approval.

They were so genre-aware.

They were engaging in unbridled imaginative play with no concern for the social optics.

They were playing the world, not the rules.

True, pure free-kriegsspiel.

Ballamb, a legally-distinct-mon, air type. My concept, art by Becca_3D.

Character progression in games III: The Flag system of development

kingbim Leave a comment

In part 1 I discussed some things I do and don’t like about character progression in games.

In part 2 I wrote a criteria to examine character progression with: Is it appreciable, qualitative and distinctive?

Character progression often comes out of the blue.

You suddenly know countercharm because you are a 6th level bard.

We generally just handwave this away as the character having gained experience, but the experience generally doesn’t match the new progression.

Below are three ways of improving on this.

Critical Role’s system

In lower-level episodes of Critical Role, when the players level up and are in a city, they often spend part of the next session playing out downtime vignettes showing how they obtained their new features and abilities.

For instance, the wizard and the arcane trickster might play out a scene where the wizard teaches the trickster how to cast their new spell.

Or the Monk goes to a monastery in the city, spars with her superiors and can now do a punch which stuns opponents.

I like how the progression is represented in world, it’s preferable to suddenly getting new features, because the events in the fiction are matching the changes in the mechanics.

But its a bit cart before horse.

The mechanical changes have primacy, and the fiction is played out to explain them.

An Eastern Han pottery horse and cart, in the correct order

The Montage System

One of the first games I ever played in was an excellent homebrew mess set in Ravnica. When we leveled up we told the GM what sort of new feature we wanted the character to get. There would then be some collaborative discussion to make sure the feature was not too over/under-powered. Then we played out as a montage a series of short narrations representing how we had gained that feature.

The GM gave us prompts and we would improv off of them.

For instance, if I wanted my character to get a new poison attack we might spend a couple of minutes describing:

  • Chasing a lizard around the laboratory with a giant net
  • Swirling a purple chemical in a flask as I pour some green goo into it
  • Using a pipette to drop the poison onto a slab of meat, which sizzles and deteriorates at its touch

and at the end I have a new ability.

You can also put a short 2 minute song on in the background to act as a timer, it will make things more frantic.

This is better than the critical role system because it is quicker, more fun, and the progression is player directed. I don’t get a new feature because “the rules say that when I get to 6th level I now know countercharm”. Rather I get a new feature because that is what the GM and I both agree fits the character at this point in time.

I think we can still do better though.

The progression here is not flagged in advance. It doesn’t necessarily flow logically from the recent actions of the character.

A montage of various coins from the Novgorod Republic in the 1400s

The Flag System

Put a piece of paper in the middle of the table with all the player character names on it. Write Development Goals at the top.

Each player writes by their character’s name the next bit of development they want for their character. Like this:

Development Goals

  • Dillon, Sorcerer Supreme: Magic which will allow me to infiltrate the halls of the Archmage Candlestick
  • Jango the fighter: A magic axe
  • Thrasos the Biomancer: A way to hear better that will synergise with the screeching ability I already have to allow echolocation
  • Jessop: An audience with the Mayor
  • Sally: Access to the restricted section of the town library

By writing down development goals you are flagging for the other players, and for the GM, content that you want to appear in the game.

As a GM, this is useful because it makes prep easier – just look at the Development Goals and see if there is a way to work them in.

It also makes improv easier for the GM – have the development goals on your GM screen and use it for inspiration.

It also gives the party five self-made quests/goals.

When you complete the goal, you get the progression.

You can be very precise or a little vague. The more vague, the quicker you might complete the goal but the less precise the result. You get a magic axe, but you don’t get that particular one with that particular ability.

The fiction has primacy, and the rules and mechanics follow them. The horse is before the cart.

The Flag of Mercia, or as close as it got to having a flag

Design notes

This system could be used on top of a comprehensive rule system like 5e. That wouldn’t stop the features you get from character advancement in the rules just appearing. However, it would still be useful for other progression. You could use it in tandem with the montage system.

This could also be used wholesale as a character progression system in a rules light game.

I’ve used the word development here instead of the word progression. There was a post by Dreaming Dragonslayer about development, wherein the terms development vs advancement were discussed. I think development fits the flag system better than the progression I was using before. Progression gives me an image of a continuous march towards an overriding goal. This is more haphazard than that. I’ve been thinking about this flag system for a while but reading that post gave me the push to write it up.

How to use Pokémon cards and tabletop slither.io

kingbim 3 Comments

I saw a group of four or five 8-year-olds playing with Pokémon cards recently. The kid who owned them poured a bag of a hundred or so onto the table and they picked six cards each. The kids took it in turns playing cards onto the table (regardless of the evolutionary stage of the card) and then attacking other player’s cards (completely ignoring the mana costs for doing so).

Obviously they had a vague idea how the game was played, but were making up most of it

I let them get on with it.

At one point somebody had played a poison Pokémon, maybe a Nidoran? We’ll assume it was this exact card:

Source: Bulbapedia but I guess its copyright Nintendo?

The kid played the card and attacked with it.

What should have happened: Assuming the card had sufficient energy cards attached (a poison and one other energy card of any type), it would have done 20 damage (before applying weaknesses and resistances). Additionally there would be a 50% chance the target would be poisoned, meaning it would take an extra 10 damage each turn until it feints.

What happened:

‘I attack that one with my sting, it does 20 so its dead’

‘Nooo that’s not how it works, because he is poisoned it means every time he is attacked he takes an extra 20’

No flipping coins, no initial 20 damage, no weaknesses and resistances.

Was it balanced? No

Were they having fun? Yep

Tabletop slither.io

I also saw a group of six-year-olds the other day playing with multilink cubes

These things. From wikimedia

They scattered the cubes out across the surface as unconnected singles. They then each chose a cube and began hoovering around the table, and whenever they connected to other cubes they added them on.

At one point one kid accidentally knocked the front of their snake into another kids and then had to dismantle it into its constituent pieces and start over.

So they were playing slither.io. But they could choose how quick or slow to move their snakes with only “hey, that’s too fast” as a mediation tool.

Was it balanced? No.

Were they having fun? Yep

Playground Among Us

I would’ve thought that a social deduction game with randomly assigned traitors would be about as immune to adaptation for the playground as any game could be but boy oh boy, was I wrong.

It was a group of ten-year-olds this time.

Yes, your assumption is correct, I work in education.

On the playground they gathered and closed their eyes. One person secretly chose a couple of others to be the imposters.

Then they all went around doing ‘jobs’ on the ‘ship’ until someone ‘died’.

But it was a playground without pipes and tunnels and vents, where they should’ve all been able to see each other and keep track of who might be the imposter.

As canny as ten-year-olds can be, they can also be oblivious.

Inevitably one of three things happened

  1. The imposters were found out after the first two murders
  2. The imposters positioned themselves near a group and fake-shanked them all before they could call a meeting
  3. Some non-imposters got bored, decided that they had been imposters all along, then piled in on option 2.

It was the least successful of these games. Its rules made the least sense and were adhered to the least.

And yet they keep on playing it.

Is it balanced? Dream on.

Are they having fun? Yes

Here’s a reward for reading the above ramble

Glog spell: Misremember

Range: Touch

Target: Person

Duration: [dice] hours

The person will misremember a rule, law, instruction or regulation from within a body of rules, laws, instructions or regulations. You can add, revoke or rewrite up to [sum] sentences.