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Author: august

  • Backgrounds Example

    I thought I would do a quick follow up on the last post, to take one background and combine the tables and see what it looks like. Here is the original, a cowboy background

    Free SkillD6/8GrowthLearning
    Wrangle-01+1 Any StatAny Combat
    2+2 PhysicalCraft
    Quick Skills3+2 PhysicalExert
    Exert-04+2 MentalNotice
    Survive-05ExertPerform
    6Any SkillSurvive
    7Talk
    8Wrangle

    And here is the updated idea

    Free SkillsD12IncreaseD12Increase
    Survive-01Any Combat7Talk
    Wrangle-02Craft8Wrangle
    3Exert9+1 Any Stat
    4Notice10+2 Physical
    5Perform11+2 Physical
    6Survive12+2 Mental

    One annoying thing about backgrounds I haven’t mentioned yet is they are a pain in the ass to format on Google docs, at least when doing 2 column pages. I was hoping this would make it smaller, but it really doesn’t. Regardless of formatting, it still needs some adjustment on number of picks. I like giving another skill for free, as I like skills, but it’ll take more time to pick appropriate skills for each background without making some choices too much better than others.

    We can still do a “pick or roll” format. You can pick 2 from the first 8 choices, or roll three times. With some quick math, we can see the odds of rolling a +2 stat boost goes from 50% to 25%. Likewise though, the odds of rolling a skill you want goes from 12.5% to 8.33%. I think that’s probably a good tradeoff. I’ll probably spend some time converting the rest of the backgrounds over. That doesn’t solve all my issues with backgrounds, but it at least limits intentional min-maxing.

  • Backgrounds

    There are some problems with backgrounds. This is a common problem in RPGs. Though some of my favorite games use backgrounds to great effect (13th Age, Barbarians of Lemuria, for instance), for most they are an after thought. Which makes sense for a player. After all, a character evolves as it is played, due to the decisions a player and their group makes. Someone might start off as a farmer or a soldier, but after a few levels, the choices made since the game started will matter much more.

    So how much attention should we pay to designing backgrounds? XWN typically has 20 backgrounds in each game. And assigning 20 backgrounds skills and giving them a write up takes up a lot of time. While some skill choices are pretty obvious, what’s the 8th more important of thematic skill to a trader? It ends up getting a bit arbitrary. Add in that you don’t want to fill a background with all valuable skills (the rankings from the previous post help here) so there’s no one obvious choice, and it just takes up a lot of time that probably could have been better spent on other things.

    They’re also just not very fun. Some games put a lot of emphasis on backgrounds, turning it into a little minigame. Traveller is most famous for it, but other games have “lifepaths” as well. That approach has a lot of advantages. It introduces players to the setting, and creates more three dimensional characters, with built in problems, rivals, friends, and personality. In general I love this approach, but others chafe at the random results. If I had time, I’d make a lifepath system for this, but replacing backgrounds right now is a low priority. I talked about scope creep before, this is a prime example.

    XWN goes for quick and easy background, which is fine. I would be even more fine with it except for one thing: while most of the time a background is just a few skill points that will soon not matter that much, it can also be the most important choice a character can make.

    To understand why, we have to dive into skills and stats. I have been assuming at least a passing familiarity with the XWN systems so far, and will continue to do so, but I want to make sure each step of my train of thought is clear.

    Most of XWN is skill + stat vs a DC. Skills can be a bit broad, but mostly focus on a singular concept or theme. Stats meanwhile are very broad, and can apply to many different activities. Dexterity is often considered the best at this, applying to the widest array of activities, so it’s what I’ll be using for examples. So while Sneak is used to pick a pocket, and Shoot to hit a target, and Perform to do a juggling act, Dexterity is also used for all those things. There is more value in increasing Dexterity than the individual skills. Having a +1 in a stat is powerful and often character defining.

    Typically this isn’t a problem because stat increases are rare in XWN. There aren’t any foci that increase stats; the only way to increase them is using skill points at level up, which quickly gets expensive and can only be done a few times anyways. Meanwhile, skills level relatively easy. I think this is relatively balanced.

    But with backgrounds, we have the only time where it’s not just possible to raise stats, it’s actually easier. If a player rolls on the Growth table they could have up to 6 stat points to raise their abilities, potentially giving them several stats that reach the critical 14/18 thresholds. While it all depends on dice rolls, the odds are pretty good of at least getting one extra 14+ in a stat.

    This is a shame to me because I like skills and think they are more interesting than stats. You get a better overview of a character by seeing they have character Sneak-1 and Perform-0 than Dexterity 14. And in my experience, most players don’t care and will roll for skills because those are more fun. But experienced players will see that the discrepancies and take advantage of the rare time to raise stats, giving them a potential power boost that will likely not be able to be made up.

    What are the solutions? I’ve said before (and will probably say again), I’m not here to re-balance the XWN system, so right now I just made my backgrounds as standard. Removing Growth is the most obvious, but I think there should be a way to raise stats, just not as prominent as it is now. You could limit the number of times you can roll on Growth, but that starts getting meta-gamey and I prefer to not do that as much as I can.

    I think the easiest, and one I might do if the mood strikes, is combine the Growth and Learning table into a single d12 table. There might need to be a changing around of how many skills you get automatically and how many rolls you get, but I think the idea is solid. Might workshop that one some more.

  • Skills: Evaluation

    I group XWN skills into three general tiers. Skill value changes depending on the game. For example, Fix is generally a very broad, useful skill in Stars, but its equivalent Craft from Worlds is less necessary. Something like Heal might seem useful, but is immediately outclassed if anyone has any magical healing, except in Stars where you need it to apply various medicines. Settings, playstyles, GM tendencies, and a host of other factors, can all make these skills change importance.

    Tier 1: Profession Skills

    Administer, Know, Perform, Pray, Trade, Work

    These skills tend to be among the rarest used in actual play. While they are important for a character’s day-to-day life, as they usually represent some sort of job, they’re not often exciting for adventuring. Some classes might use these skills for Effort, and they might feel important for a character’s background, but they tend to be rather low value in general.

    Tier 2: Concept Skills

    Connect, Craft, Exert, Lead, Heal, Pilot, Sneak, Survive, Talk, Wrangle

    The majority of skills live here. Depending on a lot of different things, they may move up or down a category, but in general, these are skills that entire character concepts can be based on. If a player is investing a lot in one of these skills, they should probably have some challenges that use them. Likewise, it can be extremely frustrating for a group if one of these skills is absolutely needed but no one bothered to invest in it.

    Tier 3: Essential Skills

    Blast, Melee, Notice, Shoot

    While you don’t need every combat skill, you likely need at least a minor investment in a combat skill. While technically possible to get by with Swarm Attacks and quirky behavior, most players will want to be able to hit things. And Notice is just generally useful. It is maybe the only skill useful in every classic “pillar” of gameplay (combat, exploration, social). Which asks the question if it is too useful, and should be split up somehow. But I’m trying to keep scope creep out of this project, and rebalancing the entire XWN core is outside what I’m aiming for.

    Next, I’ll try to explain Backgrounds, and why I’m not a huge fan of them as presented.

  • Skills: New Options

    In XWN games, the skill list is one of the most important parts. It sets the vibes for the entire game. With only about 25-30 base skills available, and characters having limited skill points to spend, what those skills are and what they cover matter a lot.

    When debating what skills to have in a Western Without Numbers game, there were a few things I wanted to do for sure. The most important was a skill for gun, explosives, and general gunpowder shenanigans. Most XWN games have the Shoot skill, which covers everything from guns to bows to cannons to Death Star lasers. This mostly works in those games because the exceptions to the norm are not very common.

    If you’re playing fantasy, most of your Shoot weapons are bows, crossbows, and the like. On the rare chance you find some sort of sci-fi laser gun, it’s not worth having a skill solely for that. Likewise in a science fiction game, most Shoot will be done with guns, and you just kind of handwave it if you want to shoot a bow and arrow for some reason.

    As originally designed, my Frontier game was meant to be able to run games in the 18th and 19th centuries. So while guns were on the rise and bows were on the way out, there was more mix than usual. Then when we get to later in the 1800’s and we have cannons and dynamite and things of that nature, the Shoot skill just seems to cover too much for my liking.

    Enter the Blast skill. Blast covers all gunpowder-related activities. Both Blast and Shoot can be used for firing guns, but Blast is exclusive for explosives and artillery. This allows a lot of character concepts to be able to use guns, a core component in a Western, while not allowing someone to be equally as skilled with a bow as they are with a gatling gun.

    The other new skill is Create. Weird Science is a common fantasy western trope, but I’ve gone back and forth on how to include it. When settling on running a Deadlands campaign, it felt necessary for it to be there as a main option, though nothing except the Mad Scientist Edge gives it for free. But still, if a character wants to be good at using “New Science” devices, the skill is there to invest in.

    Finally, the last major skill change is folding Punch into the Melee skill. Blast creates another combat skill, and Punch has always felt a little redundant anyways. There are reasonable concerns about combining the skills, mostly dealing with grappling, but in this game about guns and magic, I don’t think it will come up enough to have a skill tax.

    Next, I’ll try to explain my overly convoluted way to evaluate how useful skills are.

  • Introduction: Setting and System

    The greatest question I always have as a gamemaster is “What’s next?” There are so many systems I want to run, so many settings I want to play in, and so much of my own stuff I want to try. Narrowing the options down, while keeping in mind the preferences for my group of players, is always a hard task.

    But it’s one that must be done. So when our Stars Without Number space adventure came to its end, polls were conducted and questions were asked, and we narrowed it down to alt-history fantasy western, or as it’s more usually known, the “Weird West.” And while I would be happy to run most any game, I’d be lying if I said this sort of thing wasn’t right up my alley.

    There are more options to this rather limited genre than you might think. Several worthy weird west games were released over the past few years alone. But for most of us in the TTRPG space, I think one name springs immediately to mind.

    Deadlands

    First published in 1996, Deadlands was emblematic of its time. Its rules are overly complicated, it deals heavily in meta-plots, it has some uncomfortable stereotypes. It’s also completely awesome. What other game out there is teaming card-playing mages with steampunk scientists, fire and brimstone preachers with agents in black dusters, all to fight some of the greatest Evils imagined?

    Deadlands was one of the first RPG’s I really got into when I started branching out from D&D. It’s been something I’ve wanted to run for a long time. But it was going to need some tweaks. The original setting has some unfortunate parts that have not aged well. Some Lost Cause narratives, some casually racist stereotypes, these things just don’t fly with me or my players. The newest edition eliminates some of these, but I admit I prefer the overall tone of the original. Since each new edition advances the timeline by several years, the vibes of the first and second edition, when the magic and tech is still fairly new, just feel better to me. So my goal has been to combine the best of both, along with my own concepts.

    One of the convenient things I don’t want to mess with is, because there’s 30 year’s worth of material, nearly everywhere has something written about it. This provides a nice base that I can then change around at my leisure. But if a player asks “What’s going on in Wichita,” I at least have a general idea.

    The next question was, how was I going to run it?

    X Without Number

    The Without Number games, by Kevin Crawford, have become my go to TTRPG. They hit the perfect middle ground of old-school sensibilities and modern design. They’re easy to GM for but provide players enough complexity to stay engaged (without being overwhelming). Ever since I read and then ran Worlds Without Number, I’ve been a big fan.

    There are two other things going for XWN that makes it the system to pick. First, I had already done a “Frontiers Without Number” western hack, or at least most of one. Hacking/adapting games is something I often do for fun. It’s enjoyable to find the things that fit, the things that need to be changed, and the things that need to be discarded entirely.

    Secondly, Ashes Without Number was released, and its default setting is the Albuquerque Death Zone, a Fallout New Vegas-inspired post-apocalyptic wasteland. And while it doesn’t entirely fit what I’m going for, the proof of concept that this could work is there.

    So that’s where I’m at. I started this, I guess you can call it a “developer’s blog,” in order to share bits and pieces of this project as I work on it. Quite a bit is done already, so asking people to read through 60 plus pages or a dozen Google documents for feedback is a bit much. I’ll start sharing things here instead. The game starts sometime next year (depending on how the holidays go), so I got about a month to get things to a playable state.