Gaming My Way

My friends know I love to run high powered games, and if you’ve been reading for awhile, it’s likely you’ve picked up on this too. So now the question is, what’s so appealing about these games, and what draws me back to them?

There are three main things I like about high powered games.

1) I like seeing the players succeed, and more options and power makes them more likely to do so.

This is a double edged sword, as it’s also important to provide appropriate challenge to the players if they’re going to feel like they’ve accomplished something. However, having options is always fun, and being more powerful tends to give you more options in many rpgs. Furthermore, if they have more options, I can give my villains more options, which means I can bring the campaign in many more directions, which is more fun for me, as well as players who enjoy dragging a campaign in their own direction.

2) My introduction to fantasy and D&D, not counting the Lord of the Rings, were Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms.

Both of these series have stories involving heroes (and villains) who are willing to stand up to the gods themselves in order to protect what they believe in. Not to mention the dragons, armies, and other such threats a small band of adventurers encounter along the way. And these are almost always the stories that stand out to me, as long as the characters are portrayed well and I can relate to them. Of course, there are many other brilliant tales out there, but I have a soft spot for the stories I started out on, and they color my campaigns quite a bit. These stories got me interested on things happening on a grand scale, and so my vision when I start creating worlds tends to take on a similar scope.

3) It’s a challenge.

As I alluded to in point one, giving the players too much power can in fact make the game too easy. Furthermore, there are other challenges to worry about, such as pacing and keeping the game moving. In regards to keeping the game challenging for the players, it’s really a matter of experimentation, and it’s fun to find what works and what doesn’t, then to refine my technique. Finding ways to mix it up with one powerful enemy as opposed to multiple weaker enemies is also interesting, and at higher levels can be challenging since players have so many options and can keep going for a good long while. This challenge is mentally stimulating, and keeps me more heavily involved in the game.

The challenge of pacing is one I’m still working on in my high powered games. I’ve actually made combat an infrequent occurrence (unless the PCs actively pursue it) in favor of more roleplaying encounters. I almost never use random encounters, because the fact is, high level combat is slow out of game, and can sometimes take an entire session (4-6 hours for my group) for a difficult series of encounters. Easy encounters usually just aren’t worth mentioning to the party in most high level games, as they mow it down in about a round. So now, one of major challenges is to find a way to speed up combat in games with powerful characters. After that, I’ll need to learn how to set the bar even higher so I can run games of power that people so far claim it isn’t possible to do effectively. So far, I agree, but I intend to find a way to make it work eventually. Also, finding a way to fit in random encounters in a way that doesn’t seem arbitrary will be another good step to take after that.

Out of combat, having powerful characters can actually be a boon for pacing. With powerful characters, players are more likely to just do what they want, and worry about the consequences later. This means they make decisions more quickly, and we get back to playing rather than have everyone debate the best course of action.

So those are my thoughts at the moment on what makes a high powered game fun. Let me know if you have your own ideas on this… and yes, I recognize that there are other ways to play, and do enjoy experimenting with those as well.

Among my friends, it’s no secret I like my roleplaying games supercharged with epic, end of the world plotlines that cast the players as superpowerful heroes who need to save it… or among my more evil inclined players, help bring it along to it’s destruction. Everyone knows level 30 in BESM was a bad plan now, though to be fair, everyone told me it would fall apart before 20, and I did hold the game together until just after the major 20th level battle.

That said, sometimes it’s time to try something new. So, I’ve decided to run a game with intrigue. Now, since this is definitely not my strength, I’ve decided I need a little bit of help. The question becomes, “Where could I find plot for a game filled with intrigue?” Then, the internet showed me the way.

Conspiracy Theories!

I’m going to build my new world around a conspiracy theory. This will provide the backbone of basic plot, then I can flesh it out to make it my own before the campaign starts. In addition, the theory can provide me with skeletons for numerous villains and the organization that funds or controls them. By dropping a couple plot hooks near the beginning, I can hopefully draw the players into the theory, though players are notorious for sometimes doing their own thing. If they do so, that’s fine, the world will still move on, and I have some side things I intend to add in to help make the world more than just the conspiracy.

Not only does having a conspiracy as the main and underlying plot provide me with lots of intrigue, but it also has that epic scale I enjoy most about gaming.

I still have a lot of work to do to make this work though. I’ll probably base the campaign in a modern fantasy version of my hometown, since working with familiarity helps me make things more realistic and descriptive. Obviously many liberties will be taken to make the game interesting, but once again, it’s all about having a good foundation and building from there.

I also need to draw up all the important npcs, and a couple of not so important npcs, because if I don’t do it ahead of time, I’ll fall into the trap of the unnamed npc more times than I want to. Also, since this game is all about intrigue, it’s much more important to know most of the npcs and their motivations ahead of time, instead of trying to do them on the fly like I do in my epic action-oriented games. Things need to be a bit more set in stone ahead of time… which isn’t to say I can’t adapt plot as needed, but I certainly need my general ideas of where things could go if certain events happen to be more solid than they usually are.

Finally, I need to make sure once I’m running the game, I keep it in control, and don’t let it spiral slowly out of control. With epic, slowly moving out of control is ok as long as it doesn’t get completely out of control until the very end… preferably after the final battle of the campaign. With intrigue, letting things get out of control will turn it into an action game again, which I don’t mind running, but I’d like to try to keep it on the level of fight when necessary, figure out other solutions when possible this time around. If it turns into fights solving everything, then I’ll know I didn’t do this one right.  Which isn’t to say it won’t be fun, but it will be different from what I’m hoping will happen in that case.