This Side of the Dice: Framing your campaign.

One of the most important things you can do as a Game Master is to properly frame the campaign for your players. Framing means giving the players information about the scope, genre, location, and theme of the game. Does the adventure run in a city or wilderness? Is it a one shot or a fully planned out campaign of epic proportions? Players also need to know information about frequency of play and at-the-table rules/expectations. How much out of character knowledge will you allow? How much cross talk at the table is okay? Giving this information to your players is vitally important because it outlines your expectations for character types and player conduct.

The purpose of framing your session before hand is to avoid as much player confusion and frustration in your campaign as possible. Players may have a misconception that they can play any type of character and often players will only get their first taste of what is going on once their characters are already in play. Imagine the players' horror as their party of thieves and murderers are summoned by the Priest of Elemental Kindness to right the wrongs being perpetrated on the orphans and destitute of the city. Letting the players know that you had a good aligned campaign based around altruistic characters before play started could have helped clear this up. Not to say that a “fish out of water” type campaign is completely out of the question, as a matter of fact it can be quite fun, but this is something that needs to be planned for ahead of time. Trust me, it will be easier for you in the long run.

Once you’ve given the general idea about the setting and theme of the campaign, expect to have a period of negotiation with your players. “But I really wanted to play a Vorox who eats babies!” This begins the character approval phase of framing. This is where you and your players talk out what they want to play, how they want to play, and how you as the Game Master can fit it in. The Vorox who eats babies might not fit well into your campaign, but a Vorox who doesn’t eat babies might fit fine. Find out what is most important about the character to the player. Find out their motivation behind creating the character they created. Sometimes players aren’t actually trying to be bastards.

Expanding on the example of the good aligned campaign where the players are doing quests of good and mercy for the Priest of Elemental Kindness. A player might want to play an evil character. If that player is looking to generally cause mayhem and destruction and rack up an enormous body count, then they are using evil as a synonym for asshole. Asshole characters (and players) are another topic for later discussion.

If the above mentioned player has created an evil character to act as a foil or double agent, that might actually fit in very well with your campaign. The player needs to have a clear understanding about what your policy is towards intra-party conflict. This is also a situation where you might have to reveal a little bit of the plot to the player if they’re working for one of the Big Bads in the campaign. This is also why you need to discuss this with your player away from of the group. Unless you have a group of experienced role-players, keeping the out of character information from affecting the way their characters act might be difficult for your group.

If all else fails and your players insist on wanting to play characters that exist outside of the frame of your campaign, you’re probably going to have to go back to the drawing board. We’ll talk about this in the future when we discuss campaign planning.

This Side of the Dice #2

This week I would like to give a brief history of my gaming career. I say "gaming", but I guess I really mean table top gaming? I mean, video games are all fun and what not, and have probably been a major influence in my life, but I don't think my experience has been much different from most of the community.

Going back, way back, to my first experience with table top games, I was about seven or eight years old. I don't know how or why my brother got it, but one day the Dungeons and Dragons Red box just sort of appeared. This was my first experience with Dungeons and Dragons, and let me tell you, I had no clue what was going on. The concept of role-playing was easy. As a little tike I could imagine up just about anything and pantomimed out my character's actions. No, it was mixing the "game" concepts into the fantasy play that were completely forgien to me.

After the Red Box quickly came 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Oh yeah, we skipped all those intervening steps and skipped straight to the latest and greatest! At this point, I seem to recall that my parents might have actually been encouraging me to play D&D to help with my penmanship and math skills. Remember, this was before the internet, personal scanners, and portable document formats. If you wanted character sheets, you went and bought a packet of them. If you had a pocket full of cash, you could even photo copy some! Being a little kid, I didn't have access to these advanced and strange technologies... or money. I had graph paper and a pencil. Every character was written out line by line.

Next came a time in gaming that I think just about everyone in 1990 went through who was about my age. Why play Dungeons and Dragons when you could play a character in the world of your favorite cartoon characters! Thats right. I am talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And with TMNT came the system that had won the liscence. Palladium. This is about where something changed in my brain. Suddenly, there was a need to understand every aspect of character building and design. Min-maxing and power gaming occured.

Now, before this time, the games were mostly being run by my older brother, and were largely a procession of combat. Even at this early stage of my role-playing career, I was coming up with some seriously gimmicky, schtick characters. I remember one character was based off of Yorick from Quest for Glory 1 and was essentially a vest and fez wearing illusionist that rode around on a magic carpet. This type of character became rarer and rarer as the depths of the Palladium library of games were delved. Friends introduced us to the Robotech RPG (this is actually how I got into anime), Heroes Unlimited, and the previously mentioned TMNT. At this point the games were not just a series of combat encounters, but they were an exercise in how to generate the largest body count possible. Giving a budding adolecent psyche a protoculture powered mech with autocannons and an excuse to use them will pretty much end in this predictable fashion.

With my pre-adolecent bloodlust sated, my group of friends and I moved on to something meatier to sink our teeth into. It was about this time that we had begun to become experts on Star Wars. Any weekend my friends came over, we would probably watch Star Wars, quoting it line by line while eating maccaroni and cheese. And then something happened. My friend who had played RPGs with me before came to my house one day with the West End Star Wars second edition rulebook. At that point, my relationship with Star Wars changed. This was no longer something that I had the luxury to passively enjoy. No, this was something I now needed to explore and discect. The games we ran at this point evolved, and I am sad to say, my maturity as a player had not.

If my silly character concepts were out of place in Dungeons and Dragons and over looked during the Palladium years, they became starkly out of place in comparison to the serious business of what we were now trying to achieve. Playing Star Wars was no longer a self-centered, personal means of self-indulgence. The group was now trying to achieve something ephemeral. We were attempting to create stories and plots. We were trying to create characters with detailed histories and ... MOTIVATIONS? It was at this point where I had my first attempt at attempting to really figure out how to run a living, breathing campaign rather than what ammounted to a half-hour episode of a cartoon. It was at this point that there was a shift in my life and when I entered High School, gaming as a hobby nearly ceased.

Flash forward to my sophmore year of college. The previous year, a friend of mine had introduced me to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. This friend had also tried to run a campaign of AD&D with myself and one other person. This was my reawakening to gaming. After five years of nothing, I had a breif taste of what I had before. And it was pretty... meh. I continued to play Warhammer with my friend, but we never really attempted to continue the D&D game.

When my friend graduated, I was now at a loss for anyone to do any gaming with. On a lark, I was showing my roommate around the hobby store I frequented and the shop's proprietor, June, asked me if I had ever played Dungeons and Dragons. I said, "Yes, I have, why do you ask?" and she told me about a group that was forming to play 3rd Edition D&D. I introduce myself to the group, sat in on their game one time and immediately bought a player's handbook. This group was fun, energetic and engaging and we played regularly for the next five years. And like Prometheus, I decided I would bring role-playing games back to my friends at college. I gathered up anyone I could find who seemed interested and ran a few games. I even ran my first game of Call of Cthulhu in college.

After college the group I gamed with also became the people I hung out with and I met more and more people through them. It was also with this group that I began to really think about role-playing and how the games were run and played. Two members of this group were seriously old school role-playing gamers and introduced me to an array of systems and genres. I began to learn what I liked and how I liked things run. I collected everyhing D20 and began gaming with my brother again with his group of friends. And now I am writing this blog!

Also, if you've read to this point and read the last entry, please leave a comment (which hopefully work on this one) about your favorite or worst experiences with roleplaying games!

Today, as I settled in to write the next post for TSotD, I found that I couldn’t get an idea for a review out of my head. Last night I finished watching a movie I had checked out from the library. The title of this movie should be familiar to many of us gamers, and with good reason. The movie is Stalker (1978). This movie was inspired by the novella A Road Side Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Stalker the movie was also a source of inspiration for the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. While I have not read the novel, the film and the game share only surface qualities and themes.

Stalker begins with the titular character, “known only as Stalker,” in bed with his wife and daughter. The picture painted here is in black and white. It’s the interior of a shabby apartment room with a massive central bed in which the family sleeps. Stalker is on one edge of the bed and his wife and daughter are asleep at the opposite edge. He is looking over at them, nearly expressionless. Stalker rises from the bed, dresses, and leaves the bed room. His wife wakes and follows him into the other room. They argue. In this scene the major setting of the film is introduced, The Zone. Stalker is going there and his wife pleases for him not to go. Stalker leaves to meet with two men he will lead through the Zone; his wife throwing herself to the flood in a fit of tears and anger. This is the introduction to Stalker and the tone set is WILDLY different from the games.

To date, there are three games in the STALKER series. Each game is played from the perspective of a person who has a different role in The Zone. The Zone in these games is a wildly supernatural place. Fields burn perpetually with fire, lightning dances across concrete floors or floats along through the air, monsters prowl every shadowy corner and humans wander the interior of the zone seeking wealth and fulfillment of their innermost desires. Well, the game holds that last part true from the film and novella.

The Zone in both game and film is a place of danger. Both have been surrounded by fences and barbed wire and both met with a failed military expedition. The difference between the film and game is that of how the danger manifests. In the game, the dangers are shown and the player can wander into them and experience the consequences. In the film, there are almost no special effects. The Zone’s danger is discussed between the main characters and manifests in subtle ways that are shown in the expressions of the Stalker. The film is not about a crazy science fiction world filled with mutants and secretive organizations. It is a journey.

A journey through what you ask? By God, I wish I could explain this film in a way that would make everyone go out and find a copy to watch, but I can’t. This film is a journey through the intentions, desires and ultimately the failings of the human soul. This film uses The Zone and the three men traveling through it as a crucible for evoking philosophical discussion. This movie is a somber, existential journey shot with incredible artistic care and intention. It is slow, it is long (163 min), and the Russian cultural influence might make things hard to understand at times, but this movie is so… so… worth the time. This is one of those films where you will see what happened, hear what was said, and watch how it ended and you will do something most movies these days can’t dream of making you do. You will think, a lot.

/rant

Expatriate could be the new "irregardless?" Listening to the news, they were talking about "expat" voters. Then I thought to myself, "What? Expatriates can vote? Why can they vote if they're not citizens anymore!?" Then I looked up expatriate. One of the definitions supports the use on the news, but the word has 3 definitions in the dictionary. The remaining two definitions suggest that the person was exiled or gave up citizenship. The connotation of this term, to me, meant that the person was expatriated, that is to mean kicked out of their country, or renounced their citizenship. When did this term get diluted to mean ANYONE living outside thier country of origin? I mean... we have terms like foreign national, foreign worker, and (enter nationality here)-living-abroad. Language is losing it's nuance because these terms are not as quick or sexy sounding as "eXpat!"

/endrant

It's the end of an Era.
My companion through thick and thin,
in darkest night and heavy rains.
My black denim jacket, farewell.

As you all know, I am an uber-geek.

This is MORE than uber-geeky. This stuff is really cool and fills my head with geek thoughts.

I am sure there are many people out there who have not yet read this article or this one, both by Kevin McCullough, blogger and columnist on Townhall.com.

The controversy of these articles is so lame. I read them, and it was apparent to me, as it should be to any gamer (or anyone who has ever watched a movie made past the 1950's) that as a media evolves and tries to rise above it's self, it tends to attempt to appeal to adult audiences by including more complex themes and adult oriented topics(not necessarily sex, but including it).

Kevin McCullough is a social conservative and has written two articles showing just how socially conservative someone can be. These articles, if taken and extended to the N'th factor of insanity, can help you realize why THESE PEOPLE SHOULD NOT RUN THE COUNTRY. Sure they should have a voice, but the general frame work from which they operate, i.e. "I know whats best for everyone and any detractors will be burned along with the straw man I constructed," is hateful and ridiculous. His first article is fairly baseless. He attempts to reconcile his positions in his second article by pointing to his source materials, but still left me scratching my head and asking the question, "What?!"

Lets take a quick look at the first article. In this article, Mr. McCullough uses some specious reasoning and poor understandings of facts to construct a straw-man argument.

The specific straw man points are:

1. "the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys."
2. "...it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. "
3. "then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of."
4. "the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships."
5. "Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title."
6. "... the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with super-models, actresses, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play."'
7. "'Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes."
8. "With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."

And here's my counter points:

1. This is true, but to emphasize this point through out the article is meant to incite the emotional reactions of parents who don't want their sweet darlings to play some game filled with smut. I wouldn't want my children playing Mass Effect, nor would I want them playing Grand Theft Auto, or watching a TV show like Dexter, or reading romance novels with sexually explicit scenes with out me knowing. These things are fairly adult oriented and carry themes and language which they might not understand fully, and it is my responsibility as a parent to help them process and understand what they consume mentally so they can apply it to a rational and realistic world view.
   
2. Realistic, and about as graphic as the sex scene from Terminator 1.
3. The player actually has little or no control over the action, and could probably avoid the sex scenes all together if it is any type of "real" RPG. (But, player choice effecting outcomes is another topic.) Not to mention, this point is exaggerating the amount sexual content in the game.
   
4. Yes, character creation can be pretty disgusting. Isn't it too bad that when people indulge in fantasy, they choose not to play a short, dumpy-looking person with an overbite and taped glasses? Not to make fun of short, dumpy people who have overbites, but that isn't what Western Culture would consider universally attractive. People tend to create idealized versions of beauty, power, and "coolness" when they are given the option. Is this objectification? No, it is idealization and fantasy play, two things which children do exceptionally well because they have this scarey thing called "imagination."
   
5. How? If I recall from some discussion about the game, the title is a play on words. Most titles of things are like this, except for Siphon Filter. That game is LITERALLY about a small metal mesh at the end of a hose used to gravity feed liquid from a tank.
6. Again, this exaggerates the amount of sexual content and the extent of player control over the game.
7. See point 6.
8. No, Mass Effect is not multiplayer.
   

This whole argument is designed to inflame feelings about this game to distort the need for video game regulation. Yes, America can be just like Australia and Germany (they censor and ban "objectionable" games). We do have that pesky freedom of expression. This is the thing that allows movies and books to be written which have such "objectionable" content. Now, the problem here, beyond Mr. McCullough's demonization of the sexual content of the game, is the fact that if these scenes were in a movie, it would be rated PG-13 or, on a bad day, R. That excludes the amount of violence in the game, which Mr. McCullough had apparently no problem with. These scenes are seriously not that explicit and make up a minimal portion of the content. This game is not a "sex-simulator." The purpose of the game is to not be erotic. The sex scenes are supposedly dramatically appropriate. This kind of content is in books, movies, plays, but can't be in video games? Children don't watch movies, or read books, or go to plays? They do... but, parents probably pay more attention to these media because many probably think video games never evolved past blocky characters spouting poorly translated monologues. This might mean that video games are finally getting some of the artistic improvements they deserve and the games-as-art crowd is winning some ground. Unfortunately, this will also likely mean that games might face similar regulations to movies. Which is okay with me. I haven't had problems with the movie rating system.
The second article is mostly a counter-counter-attack. Yes, some video game players are rabid morons who are frothing at the mouth because of this. No, they are not all under the age of 18. Demographics of video game players have moved up to include a wider range of ages. A lot of them are 20's and 30's because, *GASP* video games cost MONEY. Where does a kid get $600 for a system and then $60 a pop for a game? Their PARENTS! Video game demographics have also been slowly moving to include women, but yeah, still a tiny part of the community. But, this second article is creating a new strawman, the "Gamer-nerd." Also the supposed psychology that he basis his dire predictions on.... well, it's lame and tired. These are the kind of dusty ideas that get trod over again and again. " We now know because of the lengthy track record of serial killer after another that addictive use of pornography was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do." I mean, what the heck? Seriously? Yeah, surprise? There are socially maladjusted people out there! HOLY CRAP! Socially maladjusted people are not created in a vacuum that contains them and a video game. There is a lot more complicated shit that goes into this. I know! Do you want to know why I know? I talk with violent people, anxious people, and aimless people who have difficulty finding fulfilling relationships(I am a counselor). Right now, one or two are "Gamer-Nerds." None of them got to where they are today because of video games, or movies, or television. These media are all extensions of the culture in which they are created. If anything, Science-Fiction is one of the few places where true cultural exploration and critique can be explored because it's "not real" (read "harmless" but I don't consider stories like Harrison Bergeron, The Cold Equations, First Contact, or The Country of the Kind to be harmless.)

I need to stay away from this serious stuff, it's bad for my blood pressure.

For a more ... ehem, "balanced review" of Mass Effect, I point you here.