RPG Designers: Learn Your Java

So my first draft of the Tankards & Broadswords RPG is pretty much done. There are a couple of optional rules and a few little tidbits I still want to stick in there, but the core rules are pretty much set and written right now.

One of the rules that I've been mulling over for a while now is the special re-roll you get in certain situations, namely when using two weapons or when using automatic fire. Normally in T&B, you roll 2d6 and add your skill value (or whatever static mod you're using), and compare it to a Break Point. Under re-roll circumstances, you roll your 2d6, but if it's not a double result (2/2, 3/3, etc.), you re-roll the lower die and keep the new roll. So for example, say you roll a 2 and a 5. That's normally a seven. But with the re-roll, you roll the 2 again and keep whatever comes up, even if it's a 1 or a 2 again.

So my big question was...does it actually do anything for you? What I wanted was a mechanic that could give you a better result, and on average will give better results, but does not guarantee a better result.

This is where those ol' Java programming skills come in oh so handy. First, thanks to my good friend and Java guru Masakari for whipping up something on his own that proved my theory correct; on average the most common roll shifted from a 7 to 8, and there is a corresponding shift in the bell curve, with 12's showing up 2-3 times more frequently than 2's (2's averaged between 2.5 and 3%, while 12's were between 7.5 and 8%).

So this morning I whipped up my own little program, and ran some numbers. Here's a good representative spread from a cycle of 10,000 dice rolls:

Twos Rolled: 300.0, or 3.0%
Threes Rolled: 100.0, or 1.0%
Fours Rolled: 560.0, or 5.6%
Fives Rolled: 555.0, or 5.55%
Sixes Rolled: 1197.0, or 11.97%
Sevens Rolled: 1350.0, or 13.5%
Eights Rolled: 1702.0, or 17.02%
Nines Rolled: 1224.0, or 12.24%
Tens Rolled: 1415.0, or 14.15%
Elevens Rolled: 848.0, or 8.48%
Twelves Rolled: 749.0, or 7.49%

While on the other hand, here's a pretty representative spread of 10,000 rolls using a straight 2d6 die-throw:

Twos Rolled: 272.0, or 2.72%
Threes Rolled: 591.0, or 5.91%
Fours Rolled: 836.0, or 8.36%
Fives Rolled: 1072.0, or 10.72%
Sixes Rolled: 1334.0, or 13.34%
Sevens Rolled: 1740.0, or 17.4%
Eights Rolled: 1390.0, or 13.9%
Nines Rolled: 1101.0, or 11.01%
Tens Rolled: 837.0, or 8.37%
Elevens Rolled: 539.0, or 5.39%
Twelves Rolled: 288.0, or 2.88%

Of course, if you're good at math, you could have probably worked this out on your own. However, having a little skill at programming in something fairly simple like Java means you can whip up a little testing program in a few minutes and generate some good data that supports whatever theories you might have about the mechanics of your RPG.

I've also found it useful for feeding in character data and testing various theories about the progression of lethality as you add skill and / or better weapons to a character. For example, I learned that a PC with a Melee of 0 (unskilled), using a Light weapon (+0 damage modifier), rolling against a dead average unskilled defense roll of 7, will take about 10 combat rounds to kill another PC with a health of 24 (which all PCs start out with). On the other hand, a PC with maximum Melee skill plus skill focus bonus, wielding a Heavy weapon, can do the same job in 2-3 combat rounds.

Of course, this is no substitute for actual playtesting; putting the rules in the hands of real players is the only way to make sure your game "works". But being able to try out the mechanics of your rules and make sure that something does what you want it to do is very nice, and can solve a lot of headaches down the road.

Miniatures Month: Havard the Dwarf Warrior

About two years ago, while playing a Traveller campaign with a new gaming group, I was invited to sit in and "guest star" playing an NPC in one of the players' very-long-running Harnmaster campaigns. I gave it a go and while there wasn't a lot going on that night, I decided to keep at it and start up a new PC. The GM and I discussed at length what sort of character I should play, and as it so happened, I was reading the first volume of Games Workshop's Black Library Omnibus of the Gotrek and Felix saga.

Now, I've always had a fondness for dwarves. Sturdy little buggers who never forgive a grudge, who like fighting and drinking and put their faith in good hard steel and stout stonework over fickle magic and uncertain enchantments. And while I've had a Warhammer Fantasy Battles Dwarf army for some time, and I've run dwarven NPCs in campaigns I've GMed over the years, I had to admit, much to my shame, that I'd never played a Dwarf PC before.

So, when I cautiously put forth the idea of playing a Harnic Dwarf (I had no what Dwarves were like in the Harnworld and Harnmaster system), the GM actually thought this was a good idea. He'd never had a Dwarf PC in his campaign (all 24 years of it) either, and since there was an Elf PC in the party, we all agreed the by-play would be a lot of fun. So, I rolled up Havard, my doughty little Dwarf fighter, making his way down out of the mountains accompanying the silver caravan, finding his way to the "big city".

Although the GM didn't use miniatures in his campaign, I thought it would be a nice way to commemorate the occasion of my first Dwarf PC by making my own mini. Here is the result (click on the pic for a much bigger version):


He is mostly stock Games Workshop WFB Dwarf Warrior parts (from the previous boxed set, not the one currently available). The only conversion work was swapping the axe head, since I created Havard to match an illustration I had found online of a Dwarf that the GM wanted to use as my PC's portrait (I cannot find the web page I first pulled this image from, so apologies to the owner, if you're out there):


Note the shape of the axe and the loop at the back, as well as the helmet (sorry, no spike) and especially the beard, which I was lucky I could reproduce with a stock head. I think all in all, the mini turned out pretty well, a heck of a lot better than the campaign did - I stuck around for six sessions and quit after a lot of frustration and confusion as to what I was expecting from the campaign versus what I was going to...be allowed by the other players, some of whom had been playing since the very beginning.

Anyhow, long story short, I came away with a fun little miniature. I like his beer stein and his pipe, and his no-nonsense, well-worn adventurer look. One of these days, Havard might even get himself into a brawl or two...

November is Miniatures Month

So I have been thinking of what to do this month, now that Halloween's over and the contest is past. October was the highest post count of any month in the roughly year and a half I've been writing this blog, and I know this month is going to be slow for me, both because of work as well as graduate coursework.

I've mentioned it a few times in the past, but I am a pretty big fan of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 Sci-Fantasy miniatures wargame. I know a lot of wargamers consider 40K to be the Burger King of wargaming - popular but kinda crappy when you get right down to it - but there's something about the game and it's ability to cherry pick a lot of really cool elements from just about anything you can imagine that hooks people and doesn't let go.

My original 40K army was the Necrons, essentially soulless robotic undead who have awakened from millions of years of slumber to stalk the stars once again harvesting the life forces of the living. A fun army to play, but eventually I got hooked by the Orks (that's right, Orcs in space...), a race that's a crazed mish-mash of Tolkien-ish orcs, post-apocalyptic biker/trucker gangs, madcap scientists, and celtic/gaulic barbarism. My Ork army has grown steadily for years now, and it's at the point where I've got more of pretty much any kind of unit than I can legally field in a battle. Lots of fun, great conversion work, and just a really characterful army in general.

But back when I was looking for a second army to play after the Necrons, one had caught my eye - the Space Wolves chapter of the Space Marines. These guys are, dare I say it, Vikings in Space. That pretty much sums it up. Blend in a little lycanthropy for good measure, and that's the Space Wolves. Great background fluff, good rules, great looking models - it has it all. And I had actually gone out and bought a box of minis for them as well, but a friend of mine at the time was looking to get into 40K, and I gave him my Space Wolf rulebook and he immediately took to them, so I sold him my minis box and abandoned them for Orks

That friend has since moved out of our gaming area, and with the release of the new rulebook for the Space Wolves and a new model range, and with my Ork army having achieved pretty much critical mass to the point where buying new models would just be for the sake of taking up shelf space, I decided to take the plunge and start a third army. So over the last few weeks, I've been buying models and assembling them, and planning out how I want my army to come together.

Which brings me back around (somewhat) to gaming in general. I've never been huge into using miniatures in RPGs. Some of this is because I'm always annoyed by using minis that don't properly represent the PCs, and also because there are so many D&D (or other RPG) monsters out there worth trying that you'd be spending all your time (and money) on miniatures for the table that there'd be little time for actual game preparation. But I do like making miniatures and painting them up, and I'd like to do this more beyond wargaming miniatures.

Therefore, this month, I want to try and make an effort towards talking about miniatures, both for use in games and modeling in general. I've got a few minis I'd like to share, and welcome any comments people have about their own miniature collections.

Halloween One-Shot Adventure: The Winner

The weekend was a busy one and kept me off the computer most of the time, so I was unable to post the contest winner on Halloween. However, below you can find the winning adventure proposal, "Wolves in the Throne Room", by Zak Smith, author of the "Playing D&D With Porn Stars" blog. A violent, surreal, festival of horror in a terrorized castle overrun with demons, witches, and just whacked-out craziness.

And very many thanks to the other adventure submitters. While I didn't get enough submissions to warrant putting them all together and publishing them as some kind of supplement, their entries were greatly appreciated.

Thanks again everyone, and I hope you all had a great Halloween!

Wolves in the Throne Room

Three-Part-Summary:

Hook-

It is winter. The dead of night. The PCs return home after a battle, adventure, border skirmish, Goblin War, etc. As they approach, lights flicker on in dark windows all over town—the townspeople shout : “They have returned!”.

The PCs are received as heroes and carried on the shoulders of the townspeople to Castle Vornheim for a banquet with the lord of the city. (Possible variant—one of the PCs is the lord of the city, and when s/he returns home, the banquet celebrates his/her homecoming.) During the feast the PCs meet various noble-type NPCs, (high priestess, head chef, lord’s three comely daughters, advisor, jester, juggling dwarf—tiny human entertainer, not an actual Dwarf—minstrel,court painter, etc.) most of whom quickly beg off and go to bed before the banquet ends (it’s the middle of the night). There are rumors among the superstitious commoners about how The Hunter Has Come.

The PCs and the lord finish their meal surrounded by a handful of tedious sycophants. Then the lord and some of the PCs are poisoned (they don’t immediately die, they just get woozy and occasionally have hallucinations that one or other of the guests at the table has a wolf’s head. After a while, if the lord is an NPC s/he goes into a coma, if a PC, s/he is just saddled with disturbing hallucinations and occasional vomiting at inopportune moments.) Everyone seems shocked. However, after careful questioning, torture, or spell-induced confession, most of the sycophants will turn into wolf-headed demons and attack the PCs. (They’re immune to normal weapons but, luckily, the cutlery is silver.) The remainder are innocent and will cower in the corner.

Line-

Someone’s tried to poison the Lord. The various NPCs in the castle all act confused. Some actually are, some are magically disguised agents of The Hunter—who is, of course, responsible for the poison.

These agents include but are not necessarily limited to:

-a grey-haired witch named Thorn who controls evil creeping plants and wild animals (boars, stags, ravens, etc.) and is always accompanied by a wolf (or, when disguised as a daughter of the lord, an annoying lapdog).

-a blond witch named Frost who controls cold, wind, and ice and who is always accompanied by a snowy owl

-a black-haired witch named Dread who creates fearful illusions (her attacks, for instance, always appear to do much more damage than they actually do—players should be fooled “the dagger rips your arm off, lose 12 hit points”) and is always accompanied by a raven

-all the castle guards, who refuse to open the castle gates or let anyone out. They turn into wolf-headed demons under stress.

-a few random important-seeming NPCs who turn into Deceivers (Stag-head, snake-arms, goat-legged minor demons) when under stress. (When you hit a deceiver, save vs, spell or else you’ve been deceived and are hitting one of your own party members).

-various magic creepies who stalk the corridors spying for the witches and attack the PCs in their sleep if they try to rest while in the castle, such as (for example) Eyes of Fate: human hands with snake tails and eyeballs set into their palms which cause anyone who look into them to go temporarily blind or insane. When slain they turn into gloves—grey if they belong to Thorn, black if to Dread, white if to Frost. The glove will fit the offending witch, even if she is magically disguised, but no-one else (Likewise, any other foe appearing in the middle of the adventure should, when defeated, provide a clue to the identity of the witches and demons, a piece of information that will help the PCs in the "sinker" battle, or a magic item that will be useful at the "sinker" if used properly.).

Some of the NPC nobles will know legends about The Hunter, and the villains will confess some information under duress. They say things like “Horned is the Hunter”, “The Frost is his shield, Dread is his strength, The Thorn is his fist” and imply he is an avatar of the demon Belphegor, there to usurp the power of the city’s lord and overwhelm civilization with wild things. Also, some kind of ceremony is coming.

Sinker--

After the PCs have gathered some useful information, or killed some of the beasties and witches, or it’s starting to look like a player has to go home so they can feed the dog or get up early for work, a friendly NPC (I recommend the juggling dwarf or the jester) tells the PCs that “The ceremony is beginning, we must hurry!”

On the roof (or in front of the castle if they’ve already been on the roof), in the snow, the Hunter (10-foot tall human stripped to the waist in a mask with stag horns—looks just like the Master Of The Wild Hunt from the original “Deities and Demigods” book—strong, fast, scary, axe-wielding, massive AC, HP, damage), surrounded by the surviving witches and minor demons is performing a bloody pagan ceremony in a circle of candles mad from the fat of virgins in order to bring forth a major demon--Belphegor The Untamed. (If the PCs are high-level, have Belphegor himself already be there—three heads—stag head, wolf head, crow head--snakes for arms, goat legs, generally unpleasant.)

They fight the PCs. The Hunter is really just one of the NPC nobles artifically bolstered by the witches’ magic. Killing the witch named Frost lowers his armor class to reasonable levels, killing Dread lowers his hit points considerably, killing Thorn reduces the amount of damage he can deal. In turn, killing the witches’ respective animals blinds the witches.

For extra fun, have the snow on the roof slippery enough that PCs fall off the roof into the (ice-covered) moat and have to crawl out before getting back to the melee. For extra extra fun, have the (touchingly loyal) juggling dwarf and jester help out and follow the PC’s commands—the jester is actualy an apprentice low-level wizard with some cantrips (mostly useless but they might do some good against the witches’ birds).

When and if the Hunter is slain, he dwindles and changes and, if unmasked, is revealed to be one of the noble NPCs (probably an advisor but if someone else comes to the fore during the adventure, feel free to make it whoever the most interesting choice would be.) He may or may not mention that he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for “you meddling kids”.

System:

I’d use AD&D 1e to run it, but that’s mostly by default. First off, I wouldn’t necessarily want the players to know they were going to play a “scary” scenario from the beginning-running Wolves In The Throne Room in a horror system would make it less scary and the feast less surprising (since the PCs know to expect horror and rituals and poison), running it in Warhammer would be like running it in a horror system since the PCs would be expecting cultist-type activity from the beginning, later D&D systems—and other, more “modern” systems--might involve the DM in having to weight the adventure to balance out or route around a lot of skill checks (negotiate, interrogate, pagan lore, sense intention, climb, avoid-dropping-weapon-in-snow-after-witch-cast-a-spell-that-covered-it-in-ice, etc.).

I definitely prefer to just have the PCs question the villains and NPCs “manually”. The actual rules of AD&D don’t really privilege investigation-type problem solving over cold-steel-based problem-solving or vice-versa, so the players can basically try to figure out what’s going on however they want—by threat or by wit. If the system had a lot of rules governing character-interaction then the players might find talking to the NPCs to be mechanically determined and be forced into either talking to them or threatening them by rolls of the dice. Also, a more heavily skill-based system would require the DM to stat up every NPC’s mental stats and store of knowledge beforehand to anticipate questioning by the PCs, rather than just allowing the DM to role-play the castle cast in whatever way seems right at the time. Also, the way the adventure is written, the PCs might end up wanting to talk to any kind of person that might be in a castle, from head torturer to waitstaff, so it would suck to have to stat up everyone’s Bluff and Sense Motive scores in advance. All that having been said, I think it’s a fairly system-agnostic adventure and could actually see it being run in any fantasy system.

Characters:

First, it should be noted that the GM should probably decided in advance whether s/he wants to run with the whole “the-courtiers-think-maybe-one-of-the-PCs-did-it” angle. This is only recommended for role-playing heavy groups. Otherwise, this adventure is designed to be flexible and can be run with almost any number of players.

The most important thing to remember is that this adventure will only truly be scary if the players like their characters and get attached to them and so don’t want them to die. (Most of the encounters in the adventure should be dangerous enough that the PCs might die, but ominous enough that they’ll see it coming.) Therefore, the players should be given considerable latitude in making their PCs.

If this adventure is run as a one-shot, the characters can be anything, though one of the characters (someone who would enjoy the role) should be designated “the lord”. If you want to go all out and think the players would enjoy it and you have time to prepare, the players can actually be pre-generated members of the court—wizard/jester, juggling dwarf, high-priestess, etc. The middle road would be allowing the characters to be whatever class and race they wanted, then assigning them jobs in the castle. Another middle road would be to write up a few characteristics and abilities for the jester, dwarf, etc. and attach them to whatever character the PC who wants to have that job rolled up.

The only tricky parts are:

1-There should be a mechanism by which the players have forgotten the exact layout of the castle—it’s been remodelled since they were gone, spell-damage has taken its toll on his/her memory, there’s a creepy enchantment on the castle that makes it confusing, etc. This will explain why the players don’t already know where everything is even though they live there. (The actual layout of the castle needn’t be terribly complex, just big, it can be from an off-the-shelf module. The important thing is running into the villains and NPCs.)

2-The witches’ and monsters’ power levels should shift to scale with the original number and power level of the PCs.

3-If the players are members of the court then that’s x number of new NPCs you have to make up to replace them as possible suspects.

(Note: “Wolves In The Throne Room” can also actually easily be run in a pre-existing campaign: if so, the characters can just be whoever the players happen to already be running, as long as they are at a low enough level that they can’t cast some spell allowing them to easily escape the castle whenever they want or instantly find out who poisoned the lord. You can also, if it fits your campaign, tell a PC that his or her noble brother has just died and s/he was elevated to the throne his/her absence.

“Wolves In The Throne Room” can also be used to kick off a campaign—while the lord and the PCs were away, the Hunter was spreading his baleful influence and many of the city’s treasures were looted, someone needs to go get them back, etc. If so, the same rules as for the “one-shot” apply.)

Mood:

You will need very tall white candles. They should be the only light source.

You will need a picture of the Master of the Wild Hunt from Deities and Demigods—if you can’t find one, find something close in a Walt Simonson Thor comic.

You will need a throne. If one of the characters is the lord, s/he can sit in it, if not, you sit in it. Also, if one of the players is the lord, you should prepare for them a stupid and embarassing crown, preferably of cardboard and from Burger King.

When you start the game, you should actually serve a feast. (You can cook while the players generate characters.) When character generation is over, bring out the good silver, a roast beast, potatoes, wine, goblets, pumpkins, pheasants. Give slices of suckling pig to passing trick-or-treaters. Eat, drink, and be merry. Pick a certain dish on the table that you know not everyone will eat and that you know the “lord” player (if there is one) will eat, write down that it has been poisoned. Role-play all the way through the feast, then, when the players have finished eating, tell everyone who ate the cranberry sauce (or whatever) that they don’t feel so well.

When the wolf demons first appear, play the opening chords of “Raining Blood” by Slayer while telling everyone to roll initiative.

Thereafter, play “Winter” by Amebix, play anything by Wolves In The Throne Room or Burning Witch. If your players don’t like doom metal…well, this is a philosophical problem much too vast for me to properly address in a D&D adventure.

Why does this adventure represent Halloween?

Halloween is a day when we, in our technologized, rationalized modernity, recognize all that is fanciful, primal and irrational. Like the Hunter, it stands in opposition to civilization. Further, this adventure includes: pagan rituals, witches, darkness, demons, death, people in disguises, and tasty treats that are bad for you. Other than fighting The Great Pumpkin, I’m not sure how it could possibly be more Halloweeny.

Putting Some "Real Magic" in Your Gaming?

And no, I don't mean "real magic" like the Viagra commercials claim they'll put "real magic" back in your marriage. I'm talking John Dee, Aleister Crowley, The True Art, Witchcraft, yadda yadda yadda. And I'm not talking about trying to actually practice magic while gaming, either. I'm talking about taking the proposed tenants and practices of "real magic" and applying them to your campaign setting's take on magic and the supernatural.

Magic in RPGs has mostly been about pzazz. Fireballs, invisibility, walking through walls, illusions, mind-control, fun stuff like that. Even in games that try to treat it a little more seriously, magic is something that can, in certain situations, create the 'big boom". It's Hollywood's version of magic, pulp fiction's version of magic; sorcerers casting spells and making Big Things Happen Right Now with relatively little preparation.

I've got a modest but decent collection of reference books on the subject of the occult and "modern magic". Some of them are pretty benign; back-country farmer's magic, magical herbs, that sort of thing. But some of them have really creepy stuff in there - rituals for conjuring demons and spirits and all the stereotypical trappings of "black magic". While I'm not a "believer" or a practitioner in any way with regards to this stuff, it does make for fascinating reading and being able to draw from some of it for the purposes of descriptions within games can be really helpful.

However, I know that RPGs, and especially D&D, have fought long and hard against the perception that they are somehow tied in to "devil worship" or the occult, and I can see the backlash any RPG might get if it actually tried to draw on "real" magical ritual and the like to build its rules and guidelines for magic. Also, as much as we don't want to admit it, many of us are still just a leeeeeetle bit superstitious, and the thought of "messing around" with "real" occult practices gives a lot of people the creeps.

Of course, taking the idea out of the realm of published RPGs and into the back room of real players gaming and creating on their own, I can completely see someone either writing their own home-brew or retro-fitting into another RPG rules that involve PCs practicing what would essentially be "real world" black magic or a more benign form of historical magic. It would actually put magic firmly in the hands of most any PC with some occult knowledge, because a lot of these little spells and charms and rituals would be something that anyone could do (since they originate from a lot of peasant beliefs and the wardings used to drive off witches and spirits and the like).

Furthermore, to put a much darker, edgier cast to it all, when we're talking about "scaring the PC by scaring the player", incorporating into your campaign setting rituals and practices that actually "creep out" the player, as long as they are ultimately comfortable with being creeped out, may add that element of edginess some players and GMs look for. I'm not advocating you bring occult practices to your gaming table and try to re-enact them live, but if you can work enough of "the real thing" into what happens in-game to make the hairs on the backs of your player's necks stand up a little bit...

So my day-before-Halloween question for all of you is, would this idea appeal to you as a player, or you as a GM, or does this concept totally weird you out? Even if you have no belief in the powers of the occult or real-world "magic", would it bother you if your in-game PCs were practicing what would in the real world be considered Crowley-an occult magic? What about more benign things like peasant spells and practices, real-world magical herbalism, alchemy, divination, and the like? During my aborted experience playing Harnmaster, my Dwarf PC did have some skill at divination and rune-reading (on paper) and to represent this, I actually went out and bought a set of runic stones and a guide to interpreting them, and I would actually "read the runes" during our sessions when my character made a roll. I thought it was fun and everyone liked the idea, but that's a far step from cracking open some real-world book on the occult and having my PC sorcerer go through the rituals within.

Comments, questions, protestations?

And happy early Halloween salutations, everybody! Some time tomorrow morning I'll announce the winner of the Halloween One-Shot Adventure Contest. If you haven't submitted yet and still wish to, get it to me before midnight tonight and you can still enter the contest.

72 Hours Left in Halloween Adventure Contest

Just a heads-up that there's three days left in the Halloween One-Shot Adventure Contest. If you have an idea for a Halloween-themed adventure, or an adventure that you think fits your vision of the spirit of the season, check out the link to the upper left of this column and submit me an adventure pitch by the end of the day Friday. The winner gets a $31 online gift certificate to RPGnow or somesuch online RPG distributor.

Over the weekend I caught Night of the Demons. This is a "bad" 80's teenage-party-turned-bloodbath horror film, but it was completely and utterly watchable. A bunch of teenagers decide to hold their Halloween party in an old abandoned funeral parlor (site of a horrific bloodbath years ago) that happens to sit next to a cemetery and resides on land considered "tainted" by the Native Americans who used to live in the area. As you can imagine, this doesn't end well.

I've embedded the trailer for the movie below. This was obviously meant to be a theatrical trailer as it has some "adult content" (i.e., a couple of quick boob flashes). So just keep in mind that it's not "safe for work". I caught it on Comcast's On Demand under FearNet, so if you happen to have this as part of your cable network, I highly recommend it.

Edit: Looks like Youtube took the video down. Ah well - catch it if you can see it. There might be another clip out there somewhere.

Are You Scared? Maybe You Should Be...

A quick note; I'm extending the deadline for the Halloween One-Shot Adventure Contest until through next Friday, the 30th. Contest results will be posted Halloween morning. If anyone is still interested in submitting an adventure, please check out the Contest Link in the upper-left hand corner of the blog.

Although I've never seen a lot of it, I've always been a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel's (and yes, it will forever be the "Sci-Fi" Channel in my mind) show Scare Tactics. I know people have mixed feelings about these sort of candid-camera type shows, especially one where you're setting people up to think they're about to get ripped apart by serial killers or abducted by aliens or some other freakish encounter. However, I was watching a couple of episodes the other day, and I just wanted to share some observations.

First, it's interesting to see how people react to the first signs of "something's not right here". By and large, the response most common seems to be "freezing and staring". One thing that people tend not to do is "investigate the scary noise in the basement with a weak-bulbed flashlight". Our primitive animal instincts for staying still and quiet and paying attention to what's happening are still very much alive within us.

However, once the threat is blatant - the serial killer is screaming at them waving the chainsaw, the aliens are coming through the windows, bigfoot is shaking the camper, whatever - the most common reaction people seem to have is...curling up into a little ball of incandescent panic and screaming their lungs out. Now, I'm sure that no one sets up their friend the ex-Navy SEAL to be scared on the show, and I'm sure the producers interview the conspiratorial friend of the victim extensively to make sure the victim doesn't habitually carry around a knife, or mace, or a stun gun (or a real gun, for that matter), and doesn't have the sort of personality type that'll punch first and ask questions later.

But, on the other hand, it's kinda amazing (in an almost sad sort of way) to see how most of the victims simply "shut down" at the climax of the prank. Almost all of them are in a state of near-blind panic, almost none of them are actively looking for something to arm themselves with (of course, I'm sure the set designers are careful to not leave a lot of makeshift weapons lying around, but still...), and many of them don't even try to make a break for an exit, or even appear to be working themselves up for a fight. One of the victims I saw the other day was in such a state of mindless terror that it took a good 30 seconds or so for the stunt men to convince her that she was, in fact, in no danger, that it was just a prank, and that she was on a television show - her brain was literally not processing what they were saying to her.

Now, while watching the scenarios, I was also noting a few things about how the victims are "handled" in these situations. The "bad guys" always stay out of arm's reach, and in fact it seems like they never get within a certain distance that might trigger a panicked assault from the victim. They typically try to keep some object, either a desk, or a sofa, or the barrier of a locked car door, between them and the victim so that there is a psychological "line in the sand" that they are never crossing. Like I said, I'm sure the victims are vetted somehow to make sure they aren't going to flip out and suddenly start launching flying kung fu kicks at the actors, but I think the people creating the scenarios, and especially the actors portraying the antagonists, are really careful to never put the victim in such a situation where they think they must lash out physically to defend themselves.

To roll this around to gaming...

We gamers like to think of ourselves as a very jaded lot. We all joke about how we'd handle the Zombie Apocalypse, and when we watch horror movies we all like to make fun of the people who panic and can't defend themselves properly. But to be honest, most of us are really probably not prepared to act rationally and appropriately to a truly terrifying situation. I'm not talking about a street corner mugging or being accosted by a drunk - I'm talking about real stone-cold something right out of a horror movie is about to happen to you in the next ten seconds kind of situation.

I have seen a lot of debate back and forth about various mechanics for representing fear/panic in RPGs. From CoC's Sanity checks and SAN loss, to GURPS' fright checks, to various D&D-esque saves against fear-causing events (which are almost universally magically-induced, or part of a creature's magical attack forms). While I can understand that it depends on the nature and tone of the campaign and the sorts of characters involved, it always strikes me that when people pooh-pooh these sorts of rules with "my character would never panic like that", and, as with most use in D&D, these checks are relegated to magical effects so the player can't claim such, I think we're often losing sight of the fact that a lot of the things PCs in many campaigns are routinely faced with are really, truly, horrifying situations.

Of course, you might counter, my PC lives in a fantasy world where undead and magic and monsters really exist, so he's totally cool-headed when the ghoul mob shows up and isn't going to freak out. But if, like most D&D-type campaigns, your characters are starting off relatively inexperienced, even if such things exist in your world, that doesn't necessarily mean you're prepared to deal with them. After all, we all know people get murdered in real life, but that doesn't prevent some people from panicking and curling up into a fetal ball when faced with the threat of imminent death.

So my topic for discussion today is, how do you handle fear - real fear - in your games, and how do you think it should be handled in most gaming situations? Do you think PC reaction is the sole purview of the player (barring magical influence), or do you think it is perfectly appropriate to force a mechanical check of some sort when a PC is put in a fearful situation, even if the player says "my PC wouldn't act like that"?