The Cardinal Rules

It's been a busy and exhausting week in my neck of the woods, so just a simple post today, the Cardinal Rules. Those five rules which cannot be broken lest we stick you in the comfy chair and prod you with the fluffy pillows. 

I like them, but man I wish I could come up with a better name. That Monty Python skit seems to haunt them wherever they may roam....

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One of the strange ironies of role playing games is that for something so notorious for having encyclopedia sized sets of rules, you don't actually need to know them to play the game. You just need a base understanding of how the system works and a willingness to look things up when needed. Everything is flexible. Everything is optional. The rules are here to enhance the game rather than restrict it. At base there are only five rules which need to be known and cannot be over-ruled or changed in any way.

These we call the Cardinal Rules.

What Seems Real Is Real

Reality is a big and beautiful thing. To capture all of its glorious detail with every single oddity and conundrum and contradiction perfectly in place would require the building of a system as vast as the universe itself. Such as it is we have a small fast-moving game designed to be played with pencils, paper, dice and the human imagination.

These rules are not reality. What you will find in this book and all the rest are mere guidelines for creating a semblance of the real. Should the rules ever conflict with what you believe to be happening - go with your gut and follow your imagination - what seems real is real.

The Game Master is Always Right

Even when absolutely wrong.

Deciding what flies and what does not can be a tricky situation when dealing with magic, spaceships, death rays and elementals. So no matter how off-center, irrational or glaringly bad a Game Master's decision may be, the Game Master is always right. The Game Master has final say. End of story. End of conflict. End of discussion.

The GM always has a good valid reason for doing what she does, and no she does not need to share it to you. Of course, a GM who does not keep her players happy will not remain a GM for long.

No Do Overs

Everyone slips up now and then. We forget we could have done this, that or some other thing. We realize that we should have had a game changing bonus but forgot to add it in.

Can't we go back and do it again?

Sorry, but time only flows forward and you cannot replay something just because it did not go according to design. Roll with it and try to be more vigilant next time.

Only Players at the Table

Nothing is quite so distracting or draining as having someone seated at the table who isn't playing the game. The EFT in Red EFT RPG stands for Easy Fun Tabletop. You don't need a doctorate in game science to play it. If you are seated at the table either find yourself a character and join in or wait out in the hall.

Always Play to Win

There are no winners or losers in role playing games. This sage-old advice is complete and utter nonsense. These games can be won and they can be lost, but not in the way that you might think.

You will know you are losing when people start making excuses not to show up, when they become bored or disenchanted at the table, when they begin to play with their cellphones rather than their dice.

You will know you are winning when people have no problem showing up on time. When the air crackles with laughter and excitement. When people find themselves wishing the adventure would never end.

That is winning.

Winning is the responsibility of everyone at the table.

We all win or we all lose.

Always play to win!

What Not to Be - Did I Miss Somebody?

Probably the most interesting thing I worked on this week is the guide on How To Be a Better Player which is filled with basic what to do advice for people who are new to role playing games.
When it came to telling people what not to do I took a different tack and decided to tell people what not to be at the table, encompassing the hobby's bad habits into monsters of a sort.

Does it work? I have no clue. Did I go overboard? Oh, quite possibly. Did I leave anyone out? Well that's for you to tell me.

Here is the Red EFT guide to....

What Not To Be.

Tabletop role playing games are over forty years old and have a long established history filled with actual characters both malevolent and benign. The following is a guide to the malevolent side of gaming, a bestiary of those who you do not want to be.

The No-Show. The No-Show means well. They say they will be there because they think it makes you happy, but they always seem to find some excuse not to show up and pull out at the last minute.

Even though the Red EFT is designed to handle no-shows, people are not. It's best to plan a few days in advance and stick to those plans as best you can. If you cannot make a game, warn the GM a few days ahead of the actual game.

The Lawyer. The lawyer just doesn't get it. They still think they are playing a game that can be won by beating the GM through a mastery of the rules or a keen understanding of the world at hand. The former is a Rules Lawyer, the latter a Story Lawyer.

Lawyers are actually good people to have around. Too much time can be wasted looking things up, so it's nice to have someone you can turn to, ask a question, and know they will tell you exactly what the books say. However - the game master is always right - and she can cut to the core of the system to have what happens be what she wants to have happen. This also goes for the world itself. She can step outside of a pre-established narrative structure because sometimes space aliens do need to crash land in the middle of Middle Earth.

The Brigadier General. This denizen of the gaming table truly and sincerely wants to group to win, to the point where he or she will not allow anyone to do anything except follow their lead. The Brigadier General leads the group during play and needs to have the last word on all level advancement choices made out of play. This is war after all! Even when it isn't!

It is good to care, but these people need to calm down. It is only a game. It is also a wild, woolly, crazy game where outlandish things often happen. Brigadier Generals often try to tame the game, trimming it down to something they can control and easily understand. What they don't realize is just how boring this makes it for everyone else.

The Flaming Telepath. Omniscient gaming allows you to talk to your friends around the table while the game is going, but to a limited extent. Information passed between characters needs to actually be spoken by those characters. Even if the characters are actually telepathic, they need to voice their telepathic thoughts to get them to work. What a character says is just as important as the actions one makes.

A flaming telepath is an abuser of this privilege. They are constantly talking to other players, discussing strategy to no end, and largely ignoring the characters in the adventure, treating them as mere playing pieces on a board. They are called flaming telepaths because this approach causes character communication to become something akin to telepathy between the characters. While this may sound cool, it is actually a lame way to game.

The Primadonna. Primadonnas are starved for attention. They need to bask in the spotlight even if the light is nothing more than a single incandescent bulb hanging over a kitchen table. There is nothing wrong with stealing the spotlight every once in a while, the primadonna never wants to give it up once they get a hold of it. Primadonnas need to learn to stand down and give other players a chance to shine.

The Master of Mary Sue Fu. Everyone loves their characters but the Master of Mary Sue Fu deeply, earnestly, exacerbatingly loves their characters. They are the ones who write small books describing the character's backstory. They complain about not having enough to work with when their character is 10^th level or less. When given the chance they will jabber on for hours about their characters, just so long as they never actually have to play with them. Their characters are too precious to take out of the box.

Characters are not dolls. They will not be tarnished if you drag them through a mud puddle. They can actually take a ton of damage and brush it off with a little bit of rest. While it is true that characters do occasionally die there is nothing in the rules saying that death is permanent. The Master of Mary Sue Fu is someone who needs to learn that only good things can come from breaking a character out of its proverbial blister pack.

The Player of Some Other Game. This guy really didn't want to play the Red EFT but ended up doing so because it's what everyone else wanted to play. Begrudgingly he agreed but he still doesn't want to do so and so he has made it his mission to sabotage the game from within, either by forcing it to be more like the game he actually wants to play or by playing it so badly that no one will ever want to play it again.

There really is no hope for this kind of player. Unless you are willing to bend to his will and play what he want to play, but consider yourself warned. It's one thing to have an opinion. It's something else entirely to sabotage other people's fun because they don't agree with it. Brats like this will bend people until they break.

The Mooch. A mooch is someone who takes and takes and takes and never gives back. The most obvious mooch is someone who never brings snacks or won't chip in for pizza. A less obvious mooch is someone who lets other people do all their gaming for them. They don't read the books. They don't take any risks. They are just along for the ride. They roll the dice without any enthusiasm and keep the game at arms length. They claim that they don't understand it and are happy to remain ignorant. They are probably only there because somebody else at the table dragged them along.

One invisible asset that all games thrive on which everyone needs to bring is enthusiasm. People do not need to be bursting with joy or grinning at everything said and done (stop it Dave, that's really unsettling), but when the enthusiasm to play isn't there you can literally feel the suck coming from that side of the table.

It's best to call a mooch a mooch and hopefully they will realize what they are doing wrong and either clean themselves up or stop showing up. Speaking of clean....

The Funk Pig. This one you will smell coming long before they ever arrive. The only rational explanation for a funk pig is the scientific fact that no one can smell oneself. You may be able to pop your nose under your armpit and get a whiff of how ripe you have become after five days without a shower, but our noses aren't interested in the scents which are always there. Our noses are interested in sounding the fog horn when they detect some calamity waiting off in the mist. A funk pig is just that kind of calamity waiting to happen.

Colognes and perfumes won't hide it. They might even make matters even more malodorous. It's best to always assume the worst. Funky pigs should take a shower before the game begins, put on some clean clothes, and slather those pits in some deodorant.

The Filth Pig. A filth pig is a funk pig who has given up on life. Bodily they don't care how badly they stink because what does it matter anyways? If you get stuck sitting next to one, whether at a game or on a plane, it sucks to be you. Hope you can hold your breath for a couple of hours because the filth pig is never going to change. The filth pig is determined not to change, especially for some lowly pissant like yourself. Their stink is their mark. It establishes the game as well as gaming in general as their territory and you as merely passing through it. The only reason you are there is because the filth pig cannot play these games alone. Otherwise he probably would.

Mentally a filth pig is a leaking waste barrel of toxic sludge. If you ever find yourself stuck at a table with one do realize that nothing good can come of it. Daisies are not going to suddenly sprout from this radioactive pile of sod. It's best to just pick up and leave.

The Dick. At the very bottom of the barrel lies the dick. The dick is not there to play the game but to mess with people. The dick wants to feel good by making you feel miserable. The dick thrives on asserting ones superiority over others and alienating anyone who doesn't agree with them. It has been said a million times before and will probably be said a million times again because human nature does not change easily but.... Don't be a dick.

UPDATE! This section has been removed from the PHB. To read more about it click here.

Why Do RPG's Fail?

This is actually a response I wrote to a question by Kyle Mecklem over on Google+. As you can probably tell, I got a bit carried away.  First the question....

Why do RPGs fail?  Over the years I've seen kickstarter after kickstarter of new RPGs, Indie RPGs and RPGs made by game companies. Why do some RPGs seemingly disappear into the ether and others gather a loyal following?

Because it's not ether they're disappearing into. It's not disappearing into thin air. It more like being carried off by a raging river of things that are all desperate for the attention of our wallets. 

Someone could drop a million (okay, a few thousand) on promoting a game and drum up some interest only to have it all whisked away by the coming of another Avengers movie. The games that survive are the ones that consistently do more than just run a kickstarter to keep themselves at the forefront of their player's minds. Hmm, so what could it be? 

Historical Precedence. 
D&D will always be popular because it was there first. Wikipedia supports it. Nostalgia is a huge factor.

Vested Interest. 
The game gets you to buy so many books and spend so much time learning its mad scramble of mechanics that you don't want to leave it once you understand it. Something both Pathfinder and Scientology have in common.

Bizarre & Intriguing. 
The game is so outlandish you just half to give it a try, just so that you can say that you did. It lends you bragging rights. Unless the game happens to be FATAL. No one should play that game (and yet isn't it weird that we all seem to know about it).

Media Onslaught. 
People, famous people, are on youtube playing games like Fantasy Age and Dungeon World. You can't seem to escape the news of this so they must still be relevant. The herd follows the herd....

Kicked In The Butt.
The Kickstarter was the whole raison d'être of the game (which yes is something I had to look up and copy/paste thank you). The game doesn't matter squat just so long as it looks good enough to generate the capital. Modiprius's Conan RPG is up to $372,879 with 8 days left to go. A year from now I'll be amazed if anyone remembers it once existed. 

Your Friends Are Weird. 
You get together and you get along and you all like different things, but the only thing you can bring yourselves to agree on is either Changeling the Dreaming or Parcheesi. Oh well, where's my Pooka?

Oh yeah! 
And the game might actually be a whole lot of fun to play. 
Do they still make those?

How The Dice Work

Alright, so now you know what the dice feel like, how do they actually work? It couldn't be simpler. Characters are made of attributes which you will know by the die attached to them, such as Muscle d6 or Charisma d8. When you go to make a check you roll two of that kind of dice and use the best number rolled. This is the Strength of the action and it uses the following table to tell us how well it all went. Everything above 3 is a success of some sort....

• 19-20: Mind-Blowing
• 13-18: Amazing
• 11-12: Fantastic
• 9-10: Incredible
• 7-8: Great
• 5-6: Normal 
• 4: Little 
• 3: Average Fail
• 2: Terrible Fail
• 1: Critical Fail

If the action is a hard one you roll only one die. If an easy action you roll three dice. But what if it is a very easy action? For this we turn to the Dice Tree which appears in the margin of the character sheet. At base it looks a bit like this.

• 1d30
• 3d20
• 2d20
• 1d20
• 3d12
• 2d12
• 1d12
• 3d10
• 2d10
• 1d10
• 3d8
• 2d8
• 1d8
• 3d6
• 2d6
• 1d6
• 3d4
• 2d4
• 1d4
• 0d0

A hard modifier is actually a -1d. It moves you one step down the dice tree. An easy modifier is a +1d which moves you up the dice tree. If you have Muscle d6 you start with a 2d6. An easy action moves you up to 3d6. Another +1d would take you up to 1d8. With more modifiers you would climb the tree until finally reaching 1d30 at the top.

There are two successes above mind-blowing (21 to 28: Stellar, and 29 to 30: Colossal) but these happen so infrequently they are left to the GM to decide what they are. The rest of the successes are described by that action at hand. For example combat. When a character swings a sword that weapon does a set amount of damage which the success multiplies.

• 19-20: Mind-Blowing Damage x 10
• 13-18: Amazing Damage x 5
• 11-12: Fantastic Damage x 4
• 9-10: Incredible Damage x 3
• 7-8: Great Damage x 2
• 5-6: Normal Damage x 1
• 4: Little Damage x 0.5

A sword with a damage rating of 8 will do 4 hit points of damage with a little success, 8 with a normal, 16 with a great and so on. At Stellar or Colossal we would probably leave the matter of points behind and just cleave the beast in half. But up to that point it is all done in an OSR context where a sword normally does 1d8 damage and a creature will have anywhere from 5 to 40 hit points. If the damage done seems a bit high, well there are reasons for that, one of which is armor that reduces damage rather than making you harder to hit.

Where Did It Come From?

The Dice Tree is a relatively new addition to the game. Before it the system used nothing but d10's and you had a choice of 1d10, 2d10, or 3d10 with a kind of Advantage/Disadvantage system. Attributes were marked by modifiers which were added to the roll. Complications brought on penalties which subtracted from the roll. The final strength of the roll was then compared to a table which told us whether or not it succeeded or failed. It even had its own volvelle to help speed the action along. Providing you had the time to print it out carve it up, paste it down, laminate it, etc.

I got sick of working on the game and to get away from it decided to write a module for Crimson Dragon Slayer called Monkey Mountain. For this I really needed to dig into the CDS system and understand how it works. For all the dorky and half-baked things that CDS does, much of it is borderline genius, including its method of action resolution.

In CDS you roll multiple d6's depending on the complexity of the situation. Usually from 1d6 to 3d6 but with the possible option to take it all the way up to a god-mode roll of 7d6. A roll of 1 is the worst, 2 a normal fail, 3 a partial fail, 4 a partial success, 5 a normal success, and 6 a critical success. If you roll multiple criticals then so much the better because these give you "Dominance" bonuses that make you do more damage etc.

What I liked about it, is the swift immediacy of it all. With the CDS game you often have to appreciate it for what is not there as well as what is. Note that there is no adding modifiers to the roll. There is no trying to beat a certain number. There is no reading the roll and counting the number of successes based on how many dice beat a number. No. You simply roll the dice, find the greatest number rolled and immediately know how you did. You could replace the numbers with glyphs and the system would work just as well.

What I didn't like about it. Well, for one thing it uses nothing but six-siders which are the most boring dice around. Really good rolls do become a matter of counting successes and then having to consult the Dominance table which means slowing the game down. There is also some questionable probability afoot. With a 3d6, 4d6, or 5d6 it becomes incredibly easy to roll a 6, incredibly hard to roll a 1 or 2 and yet still quite hard to roll multiple 6's. Not a deal breaker by any means but you can only let the pool grow so large before it becomes too predictable.

One day while out walking the dog - which is where all of my best thoughts come from - I was pondering something like the same system but using different dice like the d10 or the d12 to try to skirt the Dominance table, and I just happened to think of tree climbing and how much I used to love it as a kid. The two thoughts collided with an image of a tree where different dice sat on different branches, zig-zagging to the top. I expanded on the notion, straightened it out and the Dice Tree was born. It was originally going to stop at d12 but I wanted all of the original dice to be there, as well as the d30 so I could finally have a use for the thirty sided die I bought back at Scrycon '83 but have yet to use in any game.

Why is it a Good Thing?

Immediacy. Like CDS, possibly even more so, it has that feel of rolling the dice and knowing how well you did just as soon as the dice stop rolling, not a few minutes later after time spent consulting various tables and rolling more dice.

Brevity. I hate clutter. When you come upon Swords & Clubs d10 that is all you need to know. There is no translating it into a bunch of different statistics, no wondering what the numbers mean. The d10 is your die and if nothing says otherwise you roll two of them to make your action.

Table-Feel. Which is a bit like Mouth-Feel when it comes to food. Maybe it's just me but nothing feels weaker than rolling a single die, so it's only fitting that the most dangerous roll - the one most apt to fail - is a single die roll. If you're rolling just a single die you know you are in trouble, but two or three dice at a time? Sure no problem!

Abject Terror. The same goes for the dice themselves. The four-sided die sounds weak. It tinkles on the tabletop, but as the dice grow bigger and heavier so does the sound of confidence in their clatter. A roll of 3d20 sounds like thunder on the table. In other games, modifiers mean something but they don't have a tangible presence. It's always the same roll of a 1d20 over and over. In the Red EFT when you go up against a creature its level of ability actually makes a sound. The GM can hide the die roll but there is no mistaking the difference between a 3d4, 1d8, 2d12, or - gods help you - a 3d20 or 1d30 when you hear it.

Probability. I'm not a big math person but I do know how to write a program that simulates a few thousand die rolls and plots the outcome on a curve. I did this for the system and the die tree works, just so long as the progression doesn't go beyond a roll of three dice. Despite the increased risk of failure it is still better to roll one die of a greater value than three dice of a lesser value. Not so with four or five dice of a lesser value.

The Dice! And it makes use of all of the polyhedrals. It even gives them some character, which is awesome.

Know Your Dice!

The other day someone unintentionally ticked me off by calling polyhedral dice a gimmick and not necessary, that a d6 is more than enough for any role playing game worth its salt.

About this I said nothing.

Because it's true.

There are many great games out there that get by using nothing but six-sided dice. Last night I was looking through my game collection and ventured upon TOON by Steve Jackson games from circa 85-86. I had totally forgotten it even used dice, let alone six-sided dice exclusively. It even uses them for creating tables ranging from 11 to 66 which is smart but not very memorable. TOON itself was a very memorable game but not for the dice. In fact, I hardly remember rolling dice while playing it whatsoever.

D&D on the other hand. When I first opened the B/X boxed set and a bag of powder blue polyhedrals fell out I was entranced. The strangely shaped dice told me that I was onto something different, a game reaching far beyond the simple matter of rolling a die and taking that many steps around a board. These dice were intense. They were magic. They made the game outstanding before it was even played.

And yet they were also something of a disappointment. The game ran on d20's, d6's and d8's. I don't think there is a single use for the d12 in all of B/X D&D, which might explain why all of the oldest dice in my possession are all twelve siders. It was like reading through the monsters and realizing that they were only there to give us something to kill. Even back then I expected something more.

So when it came around to designing the Red EFT I decided that I wanted polyhedrals to power it and I wanted them to be important to the game, something much more than a gimmick. I wanted the dice to be like Richard Dreyfuss's mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I want people to roll them and think this means something....

So today I'm not going to tell you how they work. I'm going to show you how they feel with one of my favorite passages from the players handbook called

KNOW YOUR DICE

Dice in the Red EFT are more than just small plastic random number generators. They are the standing stones of Stonehenge, the Moai of Easter Island, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Monoliths from 2001 a Space Odyssey. They are all of these wondrous and fascinating things except a whole lot smaller and easier to roll. Unlike other games the dice in the Red EFT mean something....

D4 – The Caltrop of Pathos. The most miserable despicable die you will ever roll is the foot-stabbing, hard-rolling, pathetic-sounding four-sider. It is shaped like a pyramid and that is the only cool thing about it. When making a roll with a d4 a little success is the best you can hope for and a critical fail is just a small flip away.

D6 – The Cube of the Every Day. Most of the universe runs on d6's. It is the normal die, the average die. It is a sandwich made from white-bread eaten in a compact car carrying suburban commuters to their lackluster jobs in beige office cubicles. When you roll a d6 the best you can hope for is a normal success and for most people that is good enough. Try not to yawn.

D8 – The Rhombus of Rock. The eight-sider punches a defiant chain-wrapped fist through the walls of the cube and bursts out the other side with a screaming heavy metal guitar riff. The eight-sider shouts, Yeah! In your face! And you must listen. When rolling the d8 you may achieve great success, but not too often.

D10 – The Diamond of Excellence. When this die is rolled We Are The Champions plays in the concert arenas of Valhalla. This is the die of the Olympians. To merely touch it is more than most mortals can hope for. When you roll a d10 the outcome of your actions can be incredible beyond belief.

D12 – The Avatar of Awesomeness. This die does not touch the Earth. If the d10 is the die of the Olympians, the d12 is the die of the Olympian who took home all the medals. Angels sing when this die hits the table. Its successes can be so fantastic they often find themselves landing in the record books.

D20 – The Die of the Covenant. This die is a super-massive black hole sitting at the center of a galaxy. It is the maker of worlds and the breaker of stars. When a d20 hits the table it might just melt your face off – so consider yourself warned – for there is no greater success than that which can come from rolling a d20, with the possible exception of....

D30 – The Big Banger. Use of the d30 during a game is the stuff of myth and legend. What is it made of? Dark Matter? Dark Energy? No one knows for sure, but old universes are obliterated and new universes arise like screaming phoenixes from the flaming ashes when a d30 rolls across your gaming table.