Constraints on Murder in RPGs

RPGs are generally violent games. You defeat your enemies in combat, and take their stuff. At least that's the basis of D&D and a lot of games that come afterwards. Dark Ages: Vampire, and its modern predecessor Vampire: The Masquerade, is written differently. Your humanity matters if you're playing the storytelling game of modern horror as written. Killing your enemies comes with a price.

In Alexandria, I don't want to forget about that price. And roads are the way to do that.

If you look at the major Dark Ages roads, half of them prohibit casual murder (Beast 8, Heaven 10 and 2, Humanity 4-1; Kings and Sin are different), though some do allow or encourage destroying your enemies in self-defense and such. This is probably why in the modern setting, paths are popular even in Camarilla-focused games where Humanity should be the norm. When you start killing people, your road stat will drop. When that drops, it is harder to interact with mortals and you'll suffer when you attempt to interact with them. This makes feeding harder. Ultimately the game is set up to make this a death-spiral and part of the game is coping with the monster you've become.

Now, we might not get that far in Alexandria, but if your road drops, I intend to use that Aura penalty associated with it in some way.  Embarrassing your opponents, destroying their resources, crushing their hopes and dreams, and turning their allies against them... All of this is encouraged. But vampire society should, by and large, frown on outright murder.

One rule I'm contemplating is stealing an idea from the old Giovanni larp: you don't get that automatic XP if you take an action to overly oppose one of your faction members. I'm not quite sure how to implement it, but it would basically be a slight cost for directly murdering (or something close to it?). I could tie it to your road, so acting against your road or nature gives you a slight penalty. Still debating how it might work best without being too complex.

Setting Changes: Clans, Roads, Disciplines

While I'd like to keep the many of the rule and setting changes minimal, I have a couple problems with some disciplines and how Dark Ages: Vampire presents some of the clans. The major one on the list though, is Serpentis and the Setites.

Obviously the Followers of Set (or Typhon-Set as the case might be), are going to be one of the potential factions in Alexandria, but their write up and discipline are a little lacking. Looking at the discipline, it isn't really clear how it might augment an influence, unlike just about every other discipline (barring the physical trio of fortitude, celerity, and potence and also Quietus from the Dark Ages: Vampire book). I think the Setites also suffer a little from their earlier incarnation where they were given this strange Serpentis discipline, and the later interpretations which didn't change the fact that their most powerful discipline level is a bizarre ritual which can only be preformed once a month.

The fix? Obviously a few key thing setting elements will need a slight update, so I'm going to do a bit of a rewrite to fit some other setting material about the Setites a bit better and not portray them as one-dimensional manipulators. A couple other clans might need a little attention too, but I'm not sure if a simple paragraph is best or to do a cut-and-paste job with some alterations from the book. A couple of the roads might need a little work too (Heaven seems clearly Abrahamic and I want it to include Neoplatonism, the Cult of Isis, and other Greco-Roman and Egyptian pagan cults).

Keeping players interested

One issue with games in general, and probably online games like this in particular, is player retention. I haven't done a lot of thinking about this yet, other than trying to keep in mind that it can be a bit of an issue. If anyone has feedback on what helped them keep some interest or what was less motivating, let me know.

I hope, however, that a few things might help:

First off, being clear on what the game is about and why it is fun. I found this video about explaining game rules in the past couple months, and it was kind of eye-opening. Not just because I've been playing a bunch of board games and we almost always seem to have one new player, but because it's applicable to at least this sort of game in particular.

Second, but related to the first, we can be clear about what the commitment is. I found that about 1-2 hours a week was correct for me, but I'm not sure if that was everyone's experience. If you had 9 levels of influence, that might have been easier to deal with than 21 levels though. But not just a weekly commitment, but also the game's duration. I'm currently thinking of having a set end-time after about 4-5 months. It'll give players an idea of how much time they have to plan, but also bring the story to at least an interim ending. Then we can decide if we want to start a new chapter of the same game, take another do-over with the same sort of rules in a different setting, do a different style of game completely, or call it a fun time and be done with this sort of game for the time being. This also ties into that "why it's fun" bit because you can feel good about sticking through with it till the end if you have an idea of when the end will be.

Third, and still related to that video, is being clear about the rules. I like having them all in one pdf because I don't have internet access all the time, but some people might prefer things in a few shorter chunks that a wiki might provide. But we can look at how the rules are laid out and what we can do to help people understand their options. I think a quick three-minute youtube video showing a sample turn or how some influences might interact would do wonders, but also something like a one-page rules/turn summary so you could at least see all/most of your options at a glance. I already mentioned renaming some of the actions (Attack an opponent's influence, Conceal your Resources, etc.) so they're a bit more descriptive, which could help as well. In terms of a pdf of the rules, it could be linked a bit more, and page-breaks might make the document a lot longer, but dividing things into logical sections and making them a bit more digestible could also help here.

Fourth, we know that Toulouse had a bit of a slow start which may have put off some some people, not to mention the needs of real life, travel, etc. which might have interrupted things. For that, all we can do is try to make sure that people have some clearer goals and info on other characters from the beginning and try to accommodate to different schedules and timezones and so on. On the faction front, I'm hoping to get characters organized into factions, and also that clans will all actually have known relations (even if those relations aren't all sire and childe.).

Personal Actions

Playing Toulouse, I often found myself wanting to use Manage Influence, but Learn a Ritual or a story-based action was often more important. I thought that was actually a good thing. In a lot of good board/card games, there are two great moments: 1) when you know exactly which move to make, and 2) when you've got it clearly narrowed down to a couple different, yet equally good, options.

The first of these is obvious, you get a sense of accomplishment and expertise by spotting the clearly superior move. The second is less obvious, but that agonizing moment of decision does more than just slow down the game as you think for a minute or two about what to do. Its really where you need to consider your strategy and preferences and ultimately there's an element of chance involved. This isn't where you just have no idea though, because you've obviously decided on some things not to do, so you still get that feeling of mastery to a smaller degree. Often these are the decisive moments of the game.

Why Influence?

As I touched on initially, I'm really keen on exploring what I've come to think of as the second layer of story. This sort of thing is largely ignored in many RPGs, but I've actually dreamed of this many times in the past. For example, a Dark Sun campaign setting is screaming for a game in which players are both the gladiators dealing with flashy arena combats and also at the same time the political manipulators behind the scenes ensuring their candidate(s) win. A recent comment reminded me that there are games that explore these kind of rules, but they may not lend themselves well to an RPG. Even Wizards of the Coast designed a game like this: Lords of Waterdeep.

I've toyed with whether a game like that would better focus on the rules of minions or broader pools of influence. A spymaster game might have each player take the role of spymaster and have a set of agents as their resources. They send agents hither and yon to attempt to do the legwork but ultimate the game could be about those manipulators. For Alexandria, I've decided to keep the focus on the more complex set of rules for abstract influences, but by making backgrounds each represent more concrete aspects of the world, I hope to add in a sense of how an agent-based game would work. Allies, Mentor, and Retainers all do this with the Vampire rules.

Influence Actions in Toulouse

Just for your reference: Here's the breakdown of actions for turns 4 till the end for the PCs. The first few turns aren't in the website and I imagine they'd give Watch and Trace an even bigger piece of the pie.

Interesting to note that Boost had only two uses and Combine didn't make the list at all. Story actions came in nicely as the largest piece of the pie, though if you add all the information-gathering actions together they become the largest, overpowering attempts to hide anyone's actions. We did very little attacking one another, but note I did exclude the NPCs.

Randomness vs Certainty and failed actions

While I've discussed randomness before, I've been thinking about it a little more now that I just had my first peek at the influence actions from Toulouse. It seems that, by and large, the number of options in the rules currently provides some measure of uncertainty. There were many watch or follow actions which didn't turn up a lot of results because people watched for the wrong thing or didn't put 2 levels into the actions so a single level of stealth was able to conceal things.

Some other rules for these types of games ditch the watch-follow-trace line and just have one generic watch, and if you beat the stealth by 2 whole points, you learn who was behind the action. I like the simplicity there, but it makes massive watch actions hella powerful: you'd basically know everything happening in the influence at the cost of not having much ability to do anything that turn. There's something I still like about the watch-follow-trace sort of stuff because as soon as you reveal one plan to your "allies" they might have enough information to watch for your action and trace it back to you, but also that you need to guess what your opponents' reactions will be.

When it comes to Attack, however, I feel like a little more randomness might be warranted. As it stands, in order to attack a level 3 influence, you need 4 levels in the attack. If that level 3 influence also has a level of defense, then you need 5 levels to successfully attack it. If a background like Domain Security might give a free bit of defence, attacks become very difficulty. And to attack that level 5 influence..? It could be virtually impossible. Obviously augments from disciplines, backgrounds, and abilities add a bit of randomness to the system, but this is clearly a little clunky.

Making Background More Concrete, except for Influence

I mentioned this at the end of the Feeding rules post, but I'd like to ensure that backgrounds are concrete entities in general. You don't pay XP for them, so there's an expectation that they'll be able to grow or be destroyed. Also they could use some clarity on how they augment things and what they can do when they're not augmenting.

With that in mind, I think backgrounds can have a generic augment difficulty of 7. Between disciplines and abilities. This makes backgrounds useful. Unlike abilities, however, it is somewhat dangerous to be relying on your backgrounds all the time. Retainers are loyal, but if discovered by a rival they can be harassed, incapacitated, imprisoned, or worse. Allies might help you achieve a goal, but they will necessarily know of your actions and may request favors in return. When Resources are thrown around, it is hard to conceal what you are doing. Mentors may not always grant favors, and may also request favors or loyalty in return. Many thanks to J. for arguing with me about some of these a month or two ago. I think it'll make the game better.

Feedback and the blog

Just so everyone is aware, I'll try to post a reply to any (non-spam) comments here. I've got a few posts in the works, and I'm trying to automatically schedule them out so that if I forget to post things every other day something will appear, though it might not be as polished as it would be if I did a bit more thinking on the subject.

If anyone has any requests for commentary on any aspect of the rules or game, let me know. I can potentially publish that post sooner than expected or add it to my list of things to think about.

Blood and Feeding Rules

I sat down to crunch a few numbers one day about feeding. According to the books, a vampire uses one blood point each day to wake. You can take 3 blood points from a mortal without endangering their lives. This seems like a fact that vampires would have quickly figured out and passed down from sire to childer over the ages. So we arrive at least 10 feedings a month. More if the vampire is using blood to power disciplines, heal injuries, impersonate mortals, etc. Less if you murder, obviously.

Apply the same philosophy to the Herd rules, and you see each dot of Herd can be added to each feeding. This means that if you have a herd of 5, you can get away with feeding only 4 times a month instead of 10. This assumes each feeding attempt is successful. Domain reduces the difficulty of the feeding check, meaning you actually successfully get those 10 feedings per month more easily: you're not making 12-20 tries. The idea here, is that feeding bonuses ultimately free up a vampire's time for more important things. With that in mind, here's what I'm thinking of for feeding rules.

Player/Character Anonymity: the Double-Blinded Game?

In Toulouse, we had a level of anonymity. I had a lot of fun guessing who was playing whom, but I probably knew more players than others. All but two at the beginning I think, not sure about who exactly was still active at the end. I'm not sure if it added much to everyone else's experience, but it may have forced me to think of every character as potentially a powerful rival. I didn't really know who was a PC or NPC, so I think it did positively add to the game.

One interesting option is that the use alias emails and an online management system, the ST could also not know who each player was. This is an intriguing option, but I'm not so sure it would be at all relevant, except that it could nix any complaints of favoritism in making rulings. The downside there is that all communication would have to go through those aliases, which could get excessive. Namely, players wouldn't be able to chat when I was online about a quick rules question, they'd have to use the website. Not to mention these aliases would need to be set up before characters are created and all that nonsense.

Zack has mused that the secrecy really hindered players ability to coordinate and create integrated characters. I think that's a concern, but it might be a surmountable obstacle if we know it's a problem going into it.

Still, I wonder if this could be worth it. No other type of game can really can be played in a double-blind way like this. Is it a gimmick though, or could it be a feature?

Reflections

One of the things I've learned in grad school is just how powerful reflection and revision can be. I used to fire essays off into the dropbox and forget all about them. I used to write long-winded emails and just click send. But things are legitimately better when you have time to look back with a critical eye. Sometimes you can go back and redo it, sometimes you can just hope to learn from your mistakes and by talking it through with friends. That said, Zack did some reflecting on where he went a little wrong with Toulouse, and I hope to use all this to improve Alexandria. Thank you.

Sports in an RPG?!?

While I'm nowhere near being a sports fan (either in the watching or the playing), I've developed a delicious and perhaps ironic desire to see sports play a role in Alexandria By Night. Chariot racing and Gladiatorial Games were huge in the ancient world, leading to riots and acting akin to religions or political parties. But how to do this?

One way is to just let them be part of the story. Characters might run a gladiatorial school or own/manage a chariot team. Vampires probably fight hard for the job of who handles the corpses of gladiators, though given that most games would happen during the day that blood ain't so fresh by the time any vampires would get to it. The Clan of Death, of course, might not mind.

Another way is to code the games into the rules somehow, and I'm thinking of taking this route. If any influence or some backgrounds (Hello Resources!) can be used to boost your team's chances of victory, then all the characters have a chance to do this. The benefit of winning could be something substantial, like 1xp for the winning side. Another option is to just let victory be its own reward, but I'd hope that different factions of vampires could pride themselves on supporting their faction's team. I envision characters challenging one another, and the outcome of the games could be used to settle scores. The next primogen of the Ravnos will be based on the winning team: Petros the Younger backs the Blues, while Henenet-Kem backs the Greens. That sort of thing.

Randomness and the Great Augment Swap

The influence rules presented in Dark Epics presents a static system. Each level of influence can be used once, and the the one who spends the most wins. This means two characters with influence 5 cannot attack one another without an assist from another.

The type of modifications usually made by Larp groups is to make each influence provide progressively more points towards actions. A level one influence is one point, a level two influence is three points (2+1), a level three influence is 9 points (3+2+1), up to a level 5 influence being worth 15 points. These sets of rules also allow abilities to be spent as levels of influence, so you can use your 1-5 levels of the politics ability as levels of Political influence. The catch here is that those levels then aren't useful anymore in the game, and those Larp rules have you spend levels of ability for some related bonus in the game. Also, this isn't actually random, but does help to equalize characters in terms of natural ability vs amount of influence.

This leave a dearth of randomness in the rules, which is a staple of RPGs. Dice dice dice.So I wanted to bring that back for our Toulouse game. The obvious thing would be to use disciplines rather than abilities since characters aren't going to be running around doing all sorts of narrative things (so I thought initially). Each dot of a discipline gives you an augment die which can be used for certain actions, and your disciplines can never contribute more than one level towards an action. So now a smaller influence has a chance of defeating a larger influence at some things.

Thoughts Going Forward: From Toulouse to Alexandria

This is an email I sent to the Toulouse ST and a few of the players who were interested in the rules:

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Gentlemen,

Here's a summary of the rules changes I'm thinking of making from Toulouse to Alexandria. It was going to be quick, but turned out to be comprehensive. I still tried to keep this quick though:

1) Personal Actions. You get three of them, rather than one. Most people will use the Manage Influence and Correspondence actions, so it should be fairly similar. This might require a few redefinitions of other actions (ritual research, etc.) but I like the idea that you can personally do a couple small things, even if you'll largely be doing Manage Influence and Correspondence. Possible additional action to let you really focus on one particular influence action by throwing multiple abilities/disciplines into the effort.

Feedback on the Rules: From Toulouse to Alexandria

This is a copy of the summarized feedback we got on our Toulouse By Night online influence game, along with my brief responses to some of it.

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Feedback and Update
FYI, we’re thinking of running a second game, but it’ll probably take 4-6 weeks before we could start.  We’re exploring a more powerful website to handle the computation behind the game, and allow for more players. We’re thinking of Alexandria in Late Antiquity as the setting, around 360. Constantine has recently legalized Christianity, but Pagans are still quite a powerful force in the Empire. Alexandria is a Greek city in Egypt, so it is a confluence of ancient philosophy, mysticism, and secrets from the past. It may not be the most familiar setting for everyone, but we’re not expecting much background info. We’ll try to recommend a couple vital Wikipedia pages, or some films for inspiration.

Introduction: First Things First

Back around the beginning of this year, a good friend mentioned the idea of doing an online RPG. Now, we've done this before with some success, but not for a decade or so. In high school, I ran a game of Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade (with plenty of non-mages) which was fun, but ultimately a little unsatisfying. From what I remember, most characters were in a monastery of some sort, trying to solve some kind of mystery or obtain some power presumably. There were definitely mages, perhaps a mummy, a vampire, a cockatrice (thank you Bygone Bestiary), and probably some kind of werewolf or changing breed, I forget. At any rate, it ended (I think) because I got tired of writing lots of really awesome high-school quality prose each turn for people who weren't always responding at times. I'm pretty sure I ended it just by killing everyone as a diabolic ritual happened which the players were unable to stop (either through their own incompetence or my own fiat, I can't recall per se).