"No adventure ever survives contact with the players," a gamer friend of mine recently said. It is a fact of gaming that players will do unexpected things. The beauty of tabletop role-playing games is the way they allow for creative solutions to problems. The other edge of that sword is the possibility that players will come up with a solution the GM is totally unprepared for. And in some cases, that solution unravels all the GM's nefarious and deadly plans.

In such a situation, the last thing you want to do is end the session in frustration or appeal to your players to choose a different solution for the sake of the game. Players should be rewarded for highly ingenious thinking, not punished.

Here are some common 'break down' moments and how I've dealt with them in the past:

Players Sneak in the Wrong Way:
Sometimes it can be as simple as rearranging the order in which things will happen so that the players still encounter things in an appropriate order. If, for example, they need a certain item on the ground floor to defeat the main evil foe in the dungeons, but they figure out a way to enter through the basement, you can simply change the location of the item for the enemy so the players don't die needlessly in a hopeless battle.

Players With Superior Numbers of Allies: Sometimes players contrive ways to bring a ton of other NPC allies with them to what was to be a final duel. Strategic-thinking players, especially, have a tendency to play it cautious in order to preserve as many resources and assets for the final confrontation as they can. They see beating an enemy with overwhelming force as the smart solution, if the less classically heroic. To ensure that the players and their mini army don't bulldoze your entire set up, you can either beef up the smaller enemies in order to pick off more of their forces early or increase their numbers to compensate for the players' superior numbers. If you are a GM who appreciates brilliant strategy for its own sake, perhaps you could instead consider rewarding the players for their tactical thinking by allowing them to plaster minor enemies in record time. However, if you do so, consider one of the following for the final challenge: 1) If they are to face some final, powerful enemy, make the enemy that much stronger and scarier. 2) Rule that, because the players decided to sweep in with a large, obvious force, their ultimate foe had enough warning to plot an escape. Such a ruling is a fair trade-off that makes strategic sense: by bringing huge numbers to bear, the players sacrifice stealth, mobility, and the element of surprise.

Players Figure Out Things Too Soon: Sometimes a shrewd player will guess, deduce, or research and discover what was to be your entire strategy. They know everything before they ever enter a dangerous area. To keep things interesting, feel free to throw in a couple of unexpected, minor red herrings. After all, no intelligence is 100% accurate to the smallest detail. Even minor obstacles can keep things exciting and keep players on their toes, and it doesn't feel like they wasted all that effort to get information you're just going to make useless.

Players End Up With a Super Item They Weren't Supposed To: Remember that actions have consequences, and that it's impossible to keep huge discoveries totally secret for long. Once word gets out of what the players have at their disposal, they may find themselves being tracked, watched, or even hunted for possessing it. Perhaps the item in question is evil and that evil starts to curse them. Perhaps the players begin to have disputes with NPCs who covet the item or followers and hangers-on who start to slow them down or embarrass them. Since such items are usually stolen, perhaps people related to its former owner come looking to recover it...by any means necessary. This can be tricky if players feel you're punishing them for having something they feel they deserve to keep. If it's clear they love having the item, then just alter future game challenges to account for its presence. Perhaps even provide a few challenges that can ONLY be solved by use of their super-item.

Players Kill Someone They Weren't Supposed To: Again, actions have consequences. If the victim was supposed to be a main ally, such allies most likely have friends and family who will seek restitution and can then become other potential allies who fulfill the same role. If the victim was a main source of information, perhaps the players find clues that yield the same information on the victim's body, among the victim's possessions, from a helpful assistant, or simply scattered in a timely matter throughout the ensuing storyline.

Finally, I have one simple rule when it comes to unexpected actions by the players: if what they did or did not do doesn't strictly matter to the larger objective of the story or campaign, let them do what they like. Chances are, they'll find their own way back to the pre-planned paths to that objective eventually.

Decision Matrix for Games With Many Players

At a recent Pathfinder session, a friend introduced me to a mechanic to aid players in making difficult or complex plans. If your players run across a situation that requires them to chose one among a handful of options and there is differing opinion as to which is the best, you may find this "decision matrix" works well for you.

Advantages include being impartial and democratic, revealing the group's general consensus out of individual responses to simple questions, uninfluenced by input from others. In groups of more than four players, this decision matrix can be especially helpful in streamlining decision making.

The main disadvantage is speed. The decision matrix does take a bit of time to get through, and the more players, the slower it works.

Step 1: Determine the choices at hand. The players know what their goals are, and the dispute should be over the route to achieve those goals. This step takes two parts: identify important factors and identify main choices. Important factors are things like party safety vs. party speed, factors that have to be juggled. Main choices are things like which route to take toward an objective or which approach to use when striking down an unknown foe just over the next hill.

Step 2: List both factors and choices. Write them down on a piece of paper such that they form a grid, which factors down one side and choices along the top.

Step 3: Interview the players. Go around the circle of players and ask each to individually answer. Forbid other players from interfering. Ask each player for their vote on the best course of action for each given factor, and on the second best.

Step 4: Tally the results. The majority decision should be visible. If there is a tie, repeat the process with only those choices that were tied, and ask only for the top choice from each player.

Example:
The players are investigating a mysterious island. They know from earlier reconnissance that there is a supposedly abandoned town on the island's far side that is now active with people, and that the woods between their current location and the town are filled with hostile creatures. They do not know if the people in the town are friends or foes, but they do know that there is a large and dangerous disturbance in a crater southeast of the town. The players cannot reach a group decision after several minutes of decision, so the GM decides to try using the decision matrix method.

She talks with the players and determines that they all agree that all of the following factors are important:
1. The safety of the group.
2. The speed with which they can reach the town in order to warn potentially innocent people of their danger.

There are three possible routes to take to the town:
1. Using the road that leads over the island to the town.
2. Using the most direct overland route through the woods.
3. Sailing the characters' ship around the island to a reef-free bay within sight of the town.

She begins asking each player the following questions:
"Which of the three routes do you think is the safest? Which is the next safest?"
"Which of the three routes do you think is the fastest? Which is the next fastest?"

She begins to tally the answers, asking each player in turn. In the end, she adds up the tallies and determines that the group's general consensus lies with taking the ship around the island. This will sacrifice a good deal of speed, but is much safer than the danger of the woods or the lack of cover on the road.

I hope this helps you to resolve disputes about the next course of action the next time you have a game with a lot of players.

Ways Low Powered Characters Can Defeat Higher Powered Enemies

In order to illustrate what I mean, I am going to use examples from my own recent games. Most of these happened to be Dungeons and Dragons, but the principles involved can be used in any scenario where you're faced with an enemy who is singly more powerful than any one party member on his or her own.

Band Together
A lone wolf has no chance of killing a moose. But a coordinated wolf pack does. Likewise, a coordinated series of strikes by multiple low powered characters against a single target has a better chance of defeating that target than a situation where the characters are scattered and unable to support each other. This involves setting aside some of the personal glory for the sake of the mission, but it can mean the difference between victory and defeat, and often between life and death of a character. In addition, by focusing the attacks of a range of different types of characters on a single target, it's more likely that the variety of threats will prove too much.


For example, our party of 2nd and 3rd level heroes were all attacking a single 10th level cleric. The party consisted of a cleric, a rogue, and a paladin. By ignoring lower-level enemies and focusing all our attention on the evil cleric, we forced him to retreat. After that it was a simple matter of cleaning up the other monsters.

Plan Ahead
Taking on a threat of significantly higher power almost always requires careful planning. Crucial to such planning is knowledge of the enemy. The more you know about your target's capabilities, the better you can tailor your approach. This cannot be stressed enough. Patience and cooperation are the lower powered characters' greatest allies.
For example, our party of 1st level adventurers was faced with eliminating an ogre. Rather than just charging into the ogre's lair and taking it on, we interviewed the NPCs in the town it was marauding to learn its habits and then planned out a trap based on that information.

Use the Environment to Your Advantage
An often overlooked method of leveling the playing field is creative use of what is available. I mean both in a character's inventory of supplies and the surrounding setting. All too often, I believe players are conditioned by video games to limit their options. Being anal about what exactly is in a specific room can provide you with the tools you need to come up with some really creative solutions.
Examples:
As a rogue taking on a higher-powered cleric, I used a concealed lit torch as a weapon and snuck close enough to set the cleric's robes alight.
As a bound and gagged sorcerer trapped in a cage and facing a minotaur zombie, I deliberately tipped my cage over and then took advantage of it's cylindrical shape to trip the zombie.
As a Promethean facing probable execution, I used the metal springs in the mattress of my prison cell's bed as a garrotte to strangle the prison guard.

Enlist Allies
If the number of characters available to take on a threat is too few, enlist the help of NPC allies. Even if they are lower power than you, the sheer force of numbers can tip the balance in your favor. Allies can serve as a delay tactic while you prepare a more powerful strike that might take time to ready. They can provide support in the form of lodging, food, medical aid, logistics, information, transport, and supplies. And they can help to bring down a single powerful foe through a "death by a thousand stings" approach if they attack as a mob.
Example: In the case of my hero party vs. the ogre, we decided to enlist the help of the townsfolk in building a pit trap for the ogre, with some local ale as a lure. We knew the ogre was fond of the town's ale, thanks to interviewing the townsfolk about the ogre's habits, and we knew both the time and place where the ogre was most likely to show up.

Exploit Weaknesses
Sound advice for characters of any level, of course. But doubly so for lower powered characters who cannot afford to make as many errors. Once you have confirmed that your target is vulnerable in some way, I recommend hitting with as much force as you can as fast as you can with an attack designed to exploit that vulnerability.
Example: In a game in which all the characters were kobolds - tiny reptilian humanoids with very power of any kind even at their most dangerous - we managed to destroy an entire fortified human town by exploiting the following weaknesses: flammable buildings, unguarded livestock capable of sewing confusion and chaos when they stampeded, and a poorly guarded water supply that was easily poisoned.

Avoid Combat
Being low powered is not the time to fight honorably or even bravely. It is the time to be devious, dirty, stealthy, and to rely on the wiles of your socially focused character. How do you think the United States won the Revolutionary War? How do you think an army of tribal desert warriors in Afghanistan has been able to keep the most powerful trained army in the world busy for over a decade? As unglamorous as it sounds, sometimes the best way to fight an enemy is not to fight them at all, but to harry, harass, trick, and frustrate them into defeat.
Example: The party were faced with two air elemental guardians, blocking their path toward a magical sarcophagus. My sorcerer used magic to disguise his appearance and posed as their superior, ordering them to let the party pass. It worked, and we were able to obtain our goal that much faster, easier, and without loss of hit points.

Review of Anima: Beyond Fantasy

Anima: Beyond Fantasy is a steam punk fantasy anime-style RPG published in Spain and translated into English. I had a chance to try it this weekend. Let me first say that I am not an anime fan. In fact, I barely consider anime to be an art form. Thankfully, Anima's only obvious nod to anime in-game is the look and feel of the characters and the world, and perhaps some of the pre-generated character back story as well. So even if you're an anti-anime fan, the game is still accessible.

Mechanics: 7/10: Anima operates under a non-percentile d-100 system, which is certainly not the simplest of base systems. But if you're familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, then the character classes and their abilities are all more specialized forms of the hero classes you already know. There were two particular elements I liked about the mechanics. The first was the fact that, in combat, if an enemy attacks you and misses, you immediately get a counter attack. Also, if at any time a target takes combat damage, they cannot declare any "active" actions on their next turn (active actions include pretty much moving, fighting, most skills and most spells). This makes combat much more fluid and interesting, less predictable.

The second element I liked had to do with spellcasting. Anima uses a form of spell points, with each spell in your repertoire costing a certain amount. The twist is that each spellcaster can only spend a certain amount of points per turn. So, if the cost for a spell is higher than what you can spend per turn, or if you want to "beef up" a spell with more power, you'll have to take the time to gather the necessary power. This mechanic worked out seamlessly once I got used to it, and it means that spellcasters have to spend more time strategizing their next moves rather than relying on fireball after fireball.

Game Story and Logic: 5/10: I was not impressed with the game's internal story or logic. Part of this may have to do with the fact that it's heavily influenced by anime, and I don't get most things about anime, especially the plot and the logic. In the first place, the basic premise of the game was rather vague, and since we launched into the game without much preamble as to who we were or what we were supposed to be doing, I can only conclude that the game's storyline is just rather vague and not very relevant.

Ease of Play: 6/10: Mainly because I find a d-100 system not the most intuitive system to try and play in, and also because Anima uses a special combat chart to determine damage dealt in combat. The chart, in combination with the d-100 system, makes doing combat math a real headache and tends to bog everything down.

Overall Rating: 6/10: Anima gets kudos for trying its hand at making a few unique mechanics, and translating a role-playing game from Spanish and yet preserving its playability can't have been easy. But overall, it's a fairly standard and generic fantasy RPG, all the elements of which you could get with an easier game system elsewhere.

Making Combat More Interesting

In my experience, combat is the most complex part of role-playing games. So I can't blame a Game Master for losing sight of everything else but the rules and the numbers. Nevertheless, it's in combat that I see a lot of good game sessions devolve into elaborate number crunching.

The easiest and simplest way to make combat in your games more exciting is to remember that combat scenes are like any other scenes in your game. They require you to describe the actions and characters involved. Every round of combat is like a miniature scene unto itself, and that makes it an opportunity for you to show how a given enemy reacts to a fight, how they attack or defend themselves, what tactics they prefer, and so on.

It's not as hard as you might think to make combat descriptive. Let the dice be your guide. A failed attack can become a hair-splittingly close dodge or a mighty parried blow. An exceptional success can become a major wound that might leave a scar. I'm not suggesting your description impact any game mechanics. It doesn't need to. What it adds is flavor. Ideally, combat descriptions will tie back into the general feel of the game. A high adventure fantasy game might include lots of dramatic maneuvers and lightning fast parries. A gritty horror game's combat might include disturbingly vivid descriptions of gore and blood.

Another way to make combat in your games more exciting is to pre-plan and vary the tactics of the PC's foes. This works especially well if they're going to be fighting a lot of similar enemies. It's okay if you don't know the first thing about real military tactics. Try doing a bit of web research into actual historical battles to give you some ideas, or just think of your favorite action sequences from films and let them inspire you. But varied tactics not only keep the PCs on their toes, they allow different types of characters to show off their strengths instead of just relying on the "bash-and-slash, frontal assault" types.

Realism in Role-Playing Games

If you know too much about how something really works, chances are you won't enjoy a simplified layman's version. There are a lot of elements to any role-playing game that are written with the assumption that players know little or nothing about them. For example, military operations, or piloting a space craft, or Medieval sword fighting techniques. In general, role-playing game systems are designed to simulate the flavor of such things, to make it just real enough to satisfy the imagination, to make one feel as if one really were a military general or space marine or noble knight.

Ironically, it seems the same type of person who deeply enjoys RPGs is also the same type of person who tends to have a deep working knowledge of some element that RPGs are commonly built around. There are military and tactical nerds, history buffs, Medieval warfare enthusiasts, and of course the religious fans of a given fictional setting who can quote the smallest minutiae of trivia. These are the people who, in my experience, become the most dissatisfied with RPGs meant to simulate their beloved interest. Games simply leave too much out for the sake of ease-of-play. It can be doubly frustrating for such a player when they know more about a topic than the Game Master.

What both GMs and topic-enthusiast players have to realize is that, in general, the more "realistic" a game attempts to portray something, generally the less fun that game becomes for everyone else not interested in such things. Things become too frustrating for the unenlightened player because, without any knowledge about how a given element really works, the only reference the player usually has comes from literature and especially movies. And role-playing games have more in common with both of these than with any real-world simulator. The "weight," if you will, of any role-playing game tends to fall against the side of greater realism, for favor of allowing players the freedom to act in-character and engage the game's story.  

Now, there is nothing wrong with a game that attempts to be as realistic as possible. Every game has it's own style, a reflection of the gaming philosophy of the designers and of the target audience the game is trying to reach. Obviously, every role-playing game has to have some level of realism in order to give everyone a common metaphysical grounding. But every role-playing game must also simplify reality to some extent. It's the difference between a game where "bullet proof vests stop bullets" and "bullet proof vests provide a degree of cushioning against ballistic impact so that it is less likely a bullet will cause fatal injury." At the end of the day, I must say as a GM and a game designer that fun has to trump realism. Games must cater to the widest possible audience, and to do that, they have to make sacrifices to make themselves accessible.

Part of the reason that Dungeons and Dragons was the introduction to role-playing games for an entire generation was that it was relatively easy to learn. Even the title tells you exactly what sort of game you're getting into. This is not the sort of game where, for example, a paladin without a screwdriver will be unable to don his armor. It is not the sort of game where every person is either a peasent or a lord, and where females have little to look forward to in life besides marrying well. That's part of the game's appeal: a fantasy game of high adventure and grand deeds, where players can feel like heroes, or at least like bad-asses. Realistic details that would make the game more historically accurate to Medieval Europe would also become a barrier to the main point of the game, especially to new players.

So if you are someone who enjoys role-playing games but is often frustrated by their lack of realism, my humble suggestion is that you find a genre of game that lies outside your field of expertise (if that's possible). That way, you can become swept up in the make believe of it without having the fun derailed when something happens that you know should happen differently. Also, be as forgiving as you can of ignorant GMs. They're doing the best they can to give you a compelling story that you can interact with and make your own, to some extent. They may not know a short sword from a bastard sword, but they just might know how to put a new twist on the damsel in distress that makes that time-worn cliche fresh and interesting again. And that is a talent.

If, on the other hand, you are someone who likes to run role-playing games but is often frustrated when your players are ignorant of setting details or real-world accurate facts, there are two things I would suggest:
1. Become an instructor. If your real passion lies in the accuracy of your game to the real world, then use the game as a medium to teach others about what you find interesting. Games were originally invented as teaching tools, not story-telling devices. If you tell people up front that you want to run a game that accuratley portrays, for example, 17th century France, then those who would be interested in learning about 17th century France are more likely to sign up to play.

2. The same suggestion as given above. Change games to find one where you are as equally ignorant of real-world details as your players. That way, everyone is operating out of the same refrence points, with all their inaccurate flaws and well-known fictional tropes. Yes, the setting may make you yawn or roll your eyes, but think of it as an opportunity to focus on telling a compelling story out of what the game gives you to work with. After all, that's what RPGs are all about: telling stories.

Fanatics: Making a Compelling Villain

In lieu of the recent death of Osama bin Laden, I thought it might be appropriate to take a look at fanatics in role-playing games. Fanatical evil guys are a staple of almost any role-playing game. Whether it's the dark wizard bent on world conquest or the evil scientist with a diabolical vision of grandeur, it's hard to avoid this trope. Nor should it be avoided entirely. But in the tradition of writing good fiction, fanatics are much more disturbing and memorable if you allow the players to partially enter their world, learn about their twisted logic, and see them as complex characters who aren't necessarily insane or evil to the core.

Fanatics believe they are the good guys.

It's easy to think of a fanatical leader as utterly selfish or even gleefully pursuing evil like the Wicked Witch of the West. But real-world villains are more dangerous because they usually honestly believe they are serving the greater good, a greater good no one else seems to see or is too afraid to embrace. It's often easy to give the sense of this by taking some cause of good and pushing it beyond the boundaries of reason.

For example, "Dragons maraud villages and kill hundreds. Therefore, dragons should be slain in the name of justice." Very laudable, right? But what happens when the dragon-slaying champion starts torturing young dragons to learn the whereabouts of their elders? Or starts destroying nests of dragon eggs? What about sacrificing an entire village of innocents in order to lure a single elder dragon into a deadly trap? Or killing all his dragons by means of unwilling, massively poisoned sacrificial virgins?

Fanatics firmly believe the ends justify the means, and believe in their goal so strongly that nearly anything becomes justifiable for the sake of the cause.

Fanatics back up their claims with compelling arguments.

Part of the reason that fanatics attract a following is because they sound so convincing. Most fanatical villains don't work alone, and it's impossible to convince others to work for you if you don't tell them something they want to hear or promise them something they can't resist. Fanatics don't coerce through fear. They seduce. They beguile. They awe. Above all, they persuade. Some do it through sheer passion. Others by sounding totally reasonable.

Just think of all the pseudo-science that white supremacist groups sometimes employ to back up their claims of being a 'master race.' There's no need for a fanatic to overtly lie when they can simply whip up the latent fears and grudges in a given population, focus them on specific targets, and give otherwise ordinary people a seemingly factual basis upon which to justify their hate.

The followers of fanatics honestly believe in the mission, even if their leader does not.

What this means is that fanatical followers will NOT betray their leader. They will fight to the death for their leader. They will resist and even welcome all sorts of coercion and torture and will martyr themselves for the love of the cause. Even if a fanatical leader is killed, her death may spur her followers to even greater devotion to the cause. Now, instead of one archenemy, the players are faced with dozens or a whole mob all intent on avenging the death of their beloved leader.

The more you try to reason with a fanatic, the tighter they cling to their convictions. 

Fanatics and especially fanatical followers are extremely paranoid. Any hint of wavering loyalty or contradictory information is responded to rapidly and dramatically. Usually, the response follows one of these patterns:

• Encouraged strongly to return to the status quo, but done so in a positive way, "as a concerned friend," for instance.
• Suppressed. The information is deleted or destroyed. The disloyal person is forced to keep quiet or is ostracised.
• Discredited. The information is a lie. The disloyal person is a liar or, worse, a planted spy of the enemy.
• Chastised. The information is placed on a 'banned' list or is called malicious and evil. The disloyal persion is sanctioned on an institutional level, perhaps arrested or fired from a job, exiled, forced to apologize on pain of worse punishment. 
• Silenced. Fanatics destroy sources of dissent with quiet violence, not overt slaughter. In order to maintain their pristine image, they usually resort to conspiracies of murder or assassins to deal with 'enemies from within.' It is rare that they whip up a mob to kill an individual or order a mass slaughter in broad daylight. 

At the very least, a fanatic will rationalize away any counter-arguments made to convince them they are in the wrong. People do this all the time in real life: they ignore it, they laugh at it, they pounce on any small weakness in the argument, they question the validity of any references or sources of supporting information that are mentioned. Any of these reactions, magnified dramatically, can make for an appropriate fanatical response.
 
If you follow these guidelines when creating a fanatical following, organization or villain, you will find it makes for a far more sinister challenge for players to overcome.

Creating a Believable History for Your Role-Playing Game World

This article is not a comprehensive guide to creating a fictional history. Instead, it presents a series of conclusions that social scientists believe are true about the nature of history. In other words, why history happens.If you want your fictional history to seem like a real and compelling history, it has to be a history driven by motives.

Origin of the World: Most societies throughout the world and history do not separate the origins of the natural world from the origins of the human world. Every society views itself as the normal, natural way for humans to live, and origin stories reflect this view.

A highly religious society is going to have a highly religious-centered origin story, filled with higher powers that deliberately create the natural and human worlds for specific reasons and set down the social values viewed as most important.

A highly secular society may either be indifferent about "where it all came from," assuming things have just always been as they are (perhaps in your fictional world this is true), or they may be searching for the truth about where the world came from.

Origin stories also usually set up the basic social order that the modern society still follows, and both the creation of the natural world and the creation of the social world tend to reflect a society's over-arching social order and power structure. A society where men have all the power, for example, will assume that men invented everything and that the natural world was created by either masculine higher powers or through traditionally masculine activities - hunting, war, sex, competition, and physical labor. The opposite type of society might have origin stories that include traditionally feminine activities - giving birth, teaching, bargaining, some form of artistic activity or dreaming.

On Non-Human Races: Biologically speaking, it is more common for there to be more than one variation on a species alive at any one time. The fact that there is currently only one variety of human in our world, for example, is a rare exception.

Social Institutions, Groups, and Player Character Factions: 
Role playing games usually include certain factions or groups that players must choose to be affiliated with, from character classes to clans, tribes or nations of origin. If you want to make these factions believable in your world, they cannot exist in a historical vacuum. They have to have come from somewhere.

The First Law of Change: In the real world, every larger social entity - government, religion, clans, aristocratic families, corporations, etc - experiences some change over time. There is no such thing as the "changeless, immutable holy order that has lasted for thousands of years." That may be what they believe, but if this so-called unchanging order were to hop in a time machine, they'd be surprised by how they looked in the beginning.  

The Second Law of Change: Society changes only when something prompts it to change. Not necessarily a crisis, but Earth's history teaches us that any major social change inevitably generates a point of crisis before society fully adapts to the change. Major catalysts for change include:

• War: World War 2 and women's liberation in the United States
• Religion/Philosophy/Ideology: The invasion of Jerusalem alternatively by Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages
• Environmental or Climate Change: The changes wrought in Europe by the Dark Ages and the Black Death
• Deliberate Invention or Innovation: Thomas Edison and the electric light
• Accidental Invention or Innovation: The practices associated with most modern Western holidays, from Christmas trees to Jack O' Lanterns.

The Third Law of Change: Every society has some form of chronic internal conflict. Over time, these conflicts tend to grow more powerful until society changes to adapt to them or to remove the conflict.

The Fourth Law of Change: Groups of people only adopt an idea, practice, or piece of technology if it meets a need better than what they already have available. The major needs are:

• Survival: Food, water, medicine, shelter, companionship
• Sex: Access to potential or specific partners, being seen as more desirable/sexy/beautiful
• Status: Something that is believed will improve one's social standing within a group, make one famous, make one powerful
• Profit: Something is seen as a business opportunity, a chance to become rich, a chance to break out of poverty.
• Social Justice: Something is adopted because it gives a chance to change social systems to better suit a specific group within a larger social order (ex: empowering a minority group).

Origin of Antagonists: The "bad guys" need a logic and a motive for their actions. Very few real-world historical villains were truly fully insane. This logic and motive will seem perfectly acceptable or at least normal to the villain, if only in their own mind. This is the only way a villain would be able to convert others to follow, short of raw coercion. If you decide to have an arch villain of some kind, you should have some very good reason why such a both very powerful and very dangerous entity has been allowed to remain. Why hasn't someone done something about them already?

Origin of Powers: Most role-playing games include supernatural or extraordinary powers, abilities, or technology.
Definition: "Supernatural," "extraordinary," or "special" all describe something vastly unique and outside what is normal in a given group or world. If your game takes place in a world of psychics, then being a psychic is NOT a supernatural power. Any more than being a musical prodigy is.

In most games, powers have formal systems of groups and sometimes formal institutions to back them, such as a wizard's school or a super hero team. Everyone in the world refers to these powers the same way, groups them along the same lines, and recognizes others who share special powers by looking for certain markers - symbols, costumes, etc. This is called standardization. Here is why it happens:

The more complex a society becomes, the more specialized knowledge gets. In order for an individual to become fully trained in a specialized body of knowledge, they usually have to be isolated in some way in order to focus time and thought on learning and practice. Also, everyday language quickly becomes inadequate for talking about a specialized body of knowledge between specialists. Hence why every role-playing game has a specialized jargon that is used in-character.

I love to run non-standard versions of games. It gives me a chance to personalize an established setting to better reflect the kinds of stories I like to tell with my players. But on a more practical level, it really broadens the spectrum of games I find myself interested in trying out. I'll confess right now that I never met a RPG I fully liked as-presented. Usually there's some small aspect of it that I wish were different, and the beauty of being the game master is, of course, you can change anything you want to suit your needs. After almost a decade of running games, I've noticed there are five general ways I tweak a game in order to make it more interesting. I invite you to try using one of these techniques as a way to experiment with a game you might otherwise not run.

From least amount of work prior to starting a campaign to most, they are:

1. Emphasize Elements You Like: Read through whatever the core book of the game or campaign setting is and note all the phrases and ideas that grab you the most. If you're into lists like I am, you may even want to prioritize yours once you're done so you know what the top handful of ideas are. Then design your campaign in order to explore those elements and ideas in-depth.

Example: In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons, magic is caught up in something called the Weave. This is the most interesting aspect of the setting for me, so if I were to run a Forgotten Realms game, I would most likely make it a spellcaster-focused campaign in order to explore the history and ramifications of the Weave. Where did it come from? How many different ways can you use it? How would the rise of Renaissance-like ideas about science and technology impact it?

2. Play With the Mythos: "Mythos" refers to the game's story backbone - the big picture history of the game world, all the assumptions about how the game world came to be the way it is and where it's going. By adjusting specific "facts" within the game mythos, you can come up with an entirely different form of the game that's still recognizable.

Example: In Mage: The Awakening, the mythos states that mages can use magic because their souls are "awakened" to the true nature of reality as something supernatural and that they all inheret the legacy of the ancient fallen civilization of Atlantis. As a variant, I decided that, instead, mages could use magic because they are the descendants of humans crossed with dragons, and that it was the trace of dragon blood that "awakened" a mage. Atlantis was the place where dragons once ruled, until they were overthrown, causing Atlantis to fall. This had ramifications for who the various Orders were and what the different Paths represented. The Exarchs became the Old Wyrms - the surviving dragons seeking to reestablish dominion over the world, and the Oracles that established the various Watchtowers existed to thwart their plans.

3. Play in a Mirror Universe: A classic trope of science fiction is one that lands the heroes in a mirror universe where everything is the moral opposite of their own. All the "bad guys" are the "good guys" and vice versa. Sometimes it makes for a more interesting game to switch the "good" and "bad" sides in the game and trying to justify it with an altered game mythos.

Example: What if, in the Star Wars universe, the Sith were the good minority within a corrupt Jedi order? What if the Dark Side of the Force was aligned with freedom and self-determination through the expression of passion and aggression, pitted against another side that was more interested in a kind of galactic fascism in which were trying to turn everyone into the docile, accepting followers of a corrupt elite?

4. Play In a Different Period: Every game world mirrors some slice of human history. Some times it's fun and exciting to set a standard game in a non-standard time period. A word of caution - make sure the historical backdrop is just a backdrop. It's there for flavor. If you start to worry about historical accuracy, then the setting becomes the star of the show, not the players.

Example: Think of Pathfinder set in the Wild West, or Call of Cthulhu set in Middle Ages Europe.

5. Tweak the Rules: This is the trickiest to pull off. But sometimes you love a game but hate the game's core rules, or at least some aspect of them. If you feel experienced enough, tweak the rules with a big house rule that you make clear to your players before the campaign starts. If not, it might be best to just borrow from a set of core rules you DO like.

Example: Adjust the core die mechanic for GURPS so it works more like the d10 pool system of World of Darkness. Both are point-buy systems, but if you feel the d10 system is more elegant, why not use it instead?

Music For Fantasy Games

Tired of playing the Lord of the Rings music to death as a fantasy game soundtrack? Here are some older and more obscure movie soundtracks that work well as background for fantasy adventure:

Willow: Remember this classic fantasy film from the 1980's? The soaring vocals and menacing horns join up with a rousing heroic theme and even a little Hobbit-like village music to make for a whole range of great music material to plunder.

Krull: Another 80's fantasy flick with an underrated soundtrack. Again, you have the whole range from charging, heroic battle themes to wonderfully campy mystery and danger themes.

Conan: The Barbarian: This soundtrack has probably the greatest variety of music of all. You have Conan's charging drum-driven theme, of course, but you also have pieces that sound more like courtly ballroom scores. Don't dismiss one song if not to your liking, the mood of each track is different.

Dragonheart: Movies like "Eragon" and "How to Tame Your Dragon" have pushed this movie out of the limelight. But for those of your players who, like me, are taken back to their boyhood by the stirring, tender themes raised in this soundtrack, it will work well as a kind of 'homeland theme' in your game. There are also more upbeat, almost playful pieces that would work well for sneaking and roguish scenes.

Immediate Music: This is a whole series of "free music", produced specifically to be cut and spliced for use as emotional cues in short sequences. It's very high quality stuff that isn't tied to any specific movie or story, so it's perfect for use in games. Check out their website for more info.

Xena: Music from the Xena television series is evocative of an older, more tribal time. If you're heading into an area in your game that's more barbaric or wild, then slipping a few pieces from Xena in will certainly convey a sense of the wild barbarian hordes.

The Dark Crystal: The music from this movie is just hauntingly beautiful. It works especially well for scenes that involve magic, high mystery and mysticism. There's also a great little Medieval jig number you can use for festivals and taverns.

First Knight: This soundtrack's two major strengths are heroic fanfare and great romantic fantasy melodies. Include a piece from this soundtrack as a 'victory march' at the end of a successful adventure.

Red Sonja: Another of Schwarzenegger's fantasy flicks. It sounds at times almost troubedourish, and works surprisingly well for more aristocratic or high society type adventures and scenes.

Hook: Pirates, daring escapes, roguish escapades and faerie magic are all great examples of how the music from this film can be used in a game. It's a much lighter soundtrack, not so heavy on the bombast and fanfare.

Advice When Running an Intrigue RPG

If you've ever considered running an RPG based on intrigue rather than combat, here are some points to keep in mind.

What is an intrigue game? "Intrigue" refers to any genre of game you plan to run where the dangers, challenges and plots are all socially-based rather than action-based. Certainly, there will still be some fighting or at least backstabbing in the dark of night. But intrigue RPGs are all about politics and the lure of power mixed with the danger of murder and the scent of a good old-fashioned mystery.

To run a good intrigue game, I suggest these five pieces of advice:

1. Chart Your Tangled Web: As the one running the game, you know all the plot twists and dirty secrets. For myself, I find that having an actual map that details the relationships between PCs and NPCs helps me to keep the whole political landscape clear and consistant from session to session.

2. Focus on Character Desires: Goals may shift from session to session the way strategies in a chess game shift. But what each character - player or non-player - wants should ideally remain the same. As long as you stay clear and focused on what NPCs want overall, you can generally do a good job of adapting their goals to changing situations.

3. Use Memorable Characters: Intrigue games are character-focused morso than action games. Distinctive NPCs with distinctive names will help players remember and tell them apart, and will help you do the same.

4. Give Clues Socially: Most clues to any given mystery, situation, or NPC's true motives should be given through social game play, with a scattering of investigative work. But intrigue games are really about that fatal slip of the tongue that tips off an enemy moreso than about hunting down fingerprints. Weave hints and clues into NPC-to-PC conversations or into overheard NPC-to-NPC conversations that you've scripted out. If you do it right, you give your PCs that proverbial trail of breadcrumbs they can follow deeper into the game's plot.

5. No Red Herrings: Intrigue games are hard enough to keep track of without PCs constantly worrying about their clues checking out. I don't mean you can't have your NPCs lie. Far from it. But giving the PCs what seem to be important information only to have them find out they really didn't need to know it can get very frustrating. So be nice, and have any major clues you slip in be the truth of the matter.

6. Pay Attention During Player-to-Player Discussions: Chances are, they'll come up with some sort of theory about what's really going on, and it's not uncommon for some plot twist or hypothesis they come up with being better than what you'd planned. So why not run with their suggestions? They'll never know they're actually the ones creating the plot of their own game.

If you want more detailed advice on running this type of game, I recommend the World of Darkness - Vampire: The Requiem supplement Damnation City. Specifically, pgs. 208-225. Their advice is largely plot-based, not systems based, so you can modify it to fit any game system you're using.

Styles of GMing That Cut Preperation Time

This article is about different ways you can run a role-playing game. Different "styles," if you like. These styles are slightly different than the standard "prepare all the statistics beforehand and hope the players don't do anything unexpected." They're all designed to cut down on GM indecision when it comes to what happens next in a given session. I've put them here on a continuum from lowest to highest preparation time.

"No GM" Style Gaming
Works Best For: GMs who run out of time to prepare for a session.

How It Works: This is inspired by the Mythic Game Master Emulator. All you have to do as the GM is decide how likely or unlikely it is that a player's question has a "yes" for an answer. All questions in the game are broken down into "yes or no" questions and you roll a d100 to see whether the outcome is true, false, very true or very false. The likelihood of something being true vs. false is set by the GM, given the circumstances.

No Chance 20/80
Highly Unlikely 30/70
Unlikely 40/60
Equal Chance - 50/50
Likely 60/40
Very Likely 70/30
Obvious/ Sure Thing 80/20
Exceptional: A roll of 90-100 is an exceptional. A roll of 0-10 is an exceptional.

Benefits: No or minimal prep time needed. You just sit down with a premise for the session and a plot hook and away you go.

Drawbacks: It can get tedious to try and break everything down into yes and no questions. Combat can be especially tricky.

Tips: You should probably track when someone with a certain level of combat skill scores a hit, since another person scoring a hit with a similar roll would be almost certain to also hit. It might also be a good idea to instead roll up at least the combat NPCs ahead of time. At the very least, you should decide how many "Yes" hits an enemy can receive vs "Exceptional Yes" hits before they're killed, and adjust this according to the combat skills of the various PCs. Also, try to be a little more interesting in your interpretation of the results than just a "Yes" or a "No." Make the answers detailed. ("Do I find a key?" "Yes, you find an old iron key with a curious handle lying amid the rubble.")

Freeform Fudging
Works Best For: Games that don't have a set difficulty number to beat on a roll, games without "rules lawyers," games that are based around stories and plot rather than combat and skills.

How It Works: Forget stats and rules when writing up your sessions. Just write out the plot and the events to run the players through. When the dice start rolling, you fudge. You make it up. You look at what the players have rolled and if it's reasonably high, they succeed. If it's obviously low or bad, they fail. If it's in the middle, decide what would play out most dramatically for the story and make a note of what exact numbers were rolled so that your rulings appear consistent enough to avoid suspicion.

Benefits: Takes a lot of the headache about of game preparation and lets you focus on the fun, storytelling aspects of GMing instead of turning it into one long math assignment. You can be ready to run a game in hours or even less time rather than days.

Drawbacks: Combat is really tricky using this method. You don't have any actual stats for your enemies, so it becomes crucial to know as much as possible about the PC's stats. If players think you're "cheating" in combat, I wash my hands of what their reaction might be.

Tips: Notes, notes, notes! Write down everything. Write down what number was rolled, what it was for, what the outcome was, who rolled it. Keep notes on which PCs are best at doing what so you can reward them for the time they put into bothering with statistics that you didn't! With luck, they'll never know you didn't have any actual enemy stats.

Modular Encounters
Works Best For: Site-based sessions. The session takes place within a single area or location. Also works best for providing a maximum variety of challenges during a given session.

How It Works:  Gather together all the possible individual encounters you might want to throw at your players - enemies, traps, puzzles, clues, everything. But don't tie them to any specific event or location. Think of each as an "element" and imagine it's on a playing card that you can slap down to activate during the game. You might even want to use some sort of cards if you feel it would help. You throw them their first challenge and watch the moods and reactions of the players. You decide what tone and pace the session takes by which challenges you activate and how often to use them in the same way a DJ decides the tone, pace and mood of a dance by what songs are played.

Benefits: Gives you maximum flexibility with regard to the shifting moods of the players. If they look like they're thirsty for a fight, they can have one. Too much combat? Throw them a few environmental hazards or puzzles instead. Players feel the session is getting predictable? Throw down a general plot twist you've written up and interpret it according to what's currently going on in the game. 

Drawbacks: You might feel a lot of your prep work was wasted time if you don't use half the things you created for potential use during a given session.

Tips: Keep unused "elements" and reuse them in later sessions with minor adjustments to make them context appropriate. Remember - all the players see is a baby dragon. They don't have to know the stats are actually those of a goblin they never encountered during the last game.

Choose Your Own Adventure Flowchart
Works Best For: Event-based sessions. The session is following a specific plot outline or series of events rather than all taking place at a single location. Over the long term, this model can be used to plan whole campaign arcs that shift depending on the pattern of the player's choices.

How It Works: Every player action can be broken down into one of five basic categories: Combat, Dishonest, Search, Socialize, Spells. Your job is to create five appropriate reactions to player actions for each encounter in the session. Then, when the players react to those reactions, it leads to the next encounter in the sequence, and so on.
Combat: Any action that is physically aggressive or leads to a fight. Might also include non-violent contests.
Dishonest: Sneaking, spying, attempting to lie or disguise, trying to poison or other devious acts.
Search: Any investigative act from looking for clues or traps to interrogating an NPC for information.
Socialize: Any action that is a social action. Engaging NPCs in conversation, giving a performance, etc.
Spells: A player tries to use one of their super-human abilities, magic, powers or technology.

Benefits: You always have a pre-planned response to all but the craziest player actions. It frees you up to focus on rules interpretation and combat rather than scrambling to respond to unexpected player actions.

Drawbacks: If you aren't careful, the branches of possible outcomes will spiral exponentially out of control. This technique is tricky to implement for large-scale sessions, such as sessions that take place with a complex plot line or a lot of different characters.

Tips: Give players the illusion of choice. When it comes to a key clue or scene or encounter, make sure that all possible actions lead to a variation on the same result. This will keep the branching possible outcomes form getting out of control.

Sandbox
Works Best For:  Site-based sessions, that all take place in the same location or area. Or for GMs who like to give a very realistic portrayal of a living, independent world around the PCs. Also works well for running a session that's based around solving a crime.

How It Works: You break the session into specific sites and keep careful track of the passage of in-game time during the session. Each site will have a time-specific description written for it, so that the players can go anywhere in the game world and have a unique encounter wherever they go. Your NPCs will have their own agendas and actions, all run by the timer and modified as needed based on the player's actions. Even things like the change in weather can be tracked. Think of it as a series of miniatures plays all going on at different stages. Your notes are the script for each play.
Example: The PCs are going to enter a villager of 4 houses. Divide these into Sites A-D.  The basic plot is that a menage a trois between a former lover and a lady's husband leads to the murder of the village priest.
Site A: Mother's House:
8 AM: Mother wakes up and bathes.
9AM: Mother does dishes and cleans.
10AM: Mother leaves to visit Priest, discovering him dead at 10:15.

Site B: Father's House
8 AM: Father wakes up, shaves, bathes, cooks.
9AM: Father eats breakfast.
10 AM: Father leaves house for fields.

Site C: Priest's House
8 AM: Priest awakens and begins morning prayers.
9 AM: Villain enters. Priest has a long argument with Villain.
10 AM: Priest is murdered. Villain flees

Site D: Villain's House
8 AM: Villain wakes up and eats breakfast.
9 AM: Villain is absent, gone to the Priest's house. He leaves for the Priests at 8:55 AM.
10 AM: Villain is absent, gone to the Priest's house for the first 10 minutes. Then returns here.

Weather:
8 AM: Predawn. Foggy. Chilly
9 AM: Dawn. Clearing, birdsong.
10 AM: Morning. Becoming overcast. Distant thunder.

Benefits: It can be greatly rewarding to have such a "God like" perspective of everything going on and be able to watch your players explore and discover and piece together the plots in the world around them. You'll easily be able to give vivid descriptions, even of the individuals that pass on the street. The players will definitely get the sense that they are in a real place, where things are happening even if they don't see them happening (because they actually are theoretically happening!)

Drawbacks: All it takes is a little bit of unanticipated mayhem from the players and you can be left scrambling to put your beautiful little web back together. It can be a real headache and a game-slower if you're not used to major multitasking or if you're running a very large location with multiple sites. In addition, players might become caught up in more than one subplot and not realize the two are totally unrelated. This can lead to a sense of frustration and betrayal if your players are the type who have no patience for mysteries or intrigue. Finally, players might become frustrated if they keep missing encounters by a matter of minutes and all they see is a bunch of unknown people walking around and empty rooms with nothing going on.

Tips: You'll have to fudge artistically to keep things moving. If the players are 'early' or 'late' to a place, adjust the clock a bit. Leave plenty of clues to guide them and help them sort out what's important from what's not. Take a look at how video game dialogue and cut scenes guide the player from goal to goal. Finally, if the players get way ahead of a major consequence to their actions and you're afraid they might get too reckless or even forget about what they've done because they don't see any obvious consequences within a few days of the act, then fudge realism and confront them with appropriate consequences as a cliffhanger to the next session.

Mixing It Up: Use Any Creature from a Role-Playing Game in Any Other Role-Playing Game

Here's a cool way you can come up with some quick and original material for your game. I call it "mix and match." You take material from one RPG and translate it across into another. Most gaming systems have very similar statistics for characters and creatures, for instance. So with a little mathematical calculation and a good understanding of two different systems, you can translate the stats for a creature from one game into something you can use for another.

Example: Mind Flayer into Vampire: The Requiem

Step 1: Abilities to Attributes

We know that a rating of "10" in a D+D Ability is considered the average for an average person on the street, and that a rating of "2" means the same thing in the World of Darkness system. Therefore, all you need to do is divide the mind flayer's ability scores by 5 to get their World of Darkness equivalents (round down).

Strength 12 = Strength 2
Dexterity 14 = Dexterity 2
Constitution 12 = Stamina 2
Intelligence 19 = Intelligence 3
Wisdom 17 = Wits 3
Charisma 17 = Charisma/Manipulation 3


To get the mind flayer's Resolve and Composure scores, look at it's Will save, since that is the primary equivalent function of Resolve and Composure. The mind flayer's Will save is +9. To get a +9, it would normally need a Wisdom score of 28. Divide that by 5, round down, and you get a Resolve and Composure both at 5.

Step 2: Skills

When it comes to Skills, you can translate them across in the same fashion, using the same division forumla. Skill Dots in World of Darkness = Skill Ranks in D+D/5, round down.
So a mind flayer's skill dots would look like this:
Bluff +11 = Subterfuge 2
Diplomacy +7 = Persuasion or Socialize 1
Disguise +3 (+5 acting) = Expression (Acting) 1
Hide +10 = Stealth 2
Intimidate +9 = Intimidation 1
Knowledge (Any) +12 = Academics, Computer, Occult, Politics, Science all at 2.
Move Silently +10 = Another 2 in Stealth, for a total of 4.
Sense Motive +7 = Empathy 1

As for Concentration, Listen, and Spot, in World of Darkness those are all resolved by a Perception roll. So give the mind flayer a racial Perception roll bonus of +6 for it's ranks in those skills (It would have translated to 2 dots for each). If that seems too high - after all, even werewolves only have a +4 to their Perception in full wolf form - them halve that down to a +3. Just be sure you're consistant with other creatures you mix and match over so the stats are accurately reflected.

Step 3: Combat
Attack Bonuses: The mind flayer has a +8 to attack with its tentacles. But it only deals a d4 in damage. Since the World of Darkness doesn't seperate the attack roll from the damage roll, let's focus on how much damage the mind flayer would do with it's tentacles in the World of Darkness. A d4 is pretty much the lowest damage die in D+D, so let's translate that to a +1 attack in World of Darkness. That means that a d6 would equal a +2, a d8 would equal a +3, and so on.

Natural Armor Bonus: The mind flayer has a natural armor bonus of +3. That means it's equal to the protection provided by leather or hide armor. In the World of Darkness, leather armor provides a 1/0 armor rating. So we give our World of Darkness mind flayer an armor rating of 1/0.

Step 4: Powers and Advantages
Special Attacks, Qualities and Feats: This gets the most tricky, since these items are often the most unique to their various systems and usually require you to really break down each of these into their specific in-game effects in order to do a good job.

The mind flayer has the following items:
Combat Casting
Improved Grab
Improved Initiative
Spell Resistance 25
Telepathy 100 ft
Weapon Finesse

Since we're translating into Vampire: The Requiem, there is some precident for mental powers we can work with. Since mind flayers are supposed to be potent with their mental powers, let's give our average mind flayer the following Disciplines:
Animalism 2
Auspex 3
Dominate 5
Majesty 4
Nightmare 3

That takes care of the mental powers. Improved Initiative translates well into Fast Reflexes. The mind flayer looses Combat Casting and Improved Grab because there's no inherent penalties to using Disciplines in combat, and all the World of Darkness Merits that might cover Improved Grab require more Strength than the mind flayer would have.

Spell Resistance is an example of something unique to D+D, with little or no equivalent in the World of Darkness, or certainly not in Vampire. You might be tempted to throw it out, but you could also translate it using our handy "divide by 5" rule into a Blood Potency rating of 5. Vampires with higher Blood Potency are harder to influence with Disciplines, since most Disciplines that require a contested roll include Blood Potency in the dice pools.

So we are done. The mind flayer's new stats will give you what you need for things like its Health and Initiative.

Our final, translated mind flayer looks something like this:
Mind Flayer Creature
Attributes: (Mental): Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 5 (Physical) Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2 (Social) Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 5
Skills: (Mental) Academics 2, Computer 2, Occult 2, Politics 2, Science 2 (Physical) Stealth 4, (Social) Empathy 1, Expression (Acting) 1, Intimidation 1, Persuasion 1, Subterfuge 2
Merits: Fast Reflexes 1
+3 to Percpetion rolls
Tentacles: +1 Brawl (L)
Blood Potency: 5
Humanity: 3 (Mind Flayers are incredibly evil)
Virtue: Possibly Faith (Mind flayers have an inherent faith in their own eventual world domination) or Prudence (Mind flayers are notorious for fleeing from battles at the slightest hint of defeat).
Vice: Pride (For lawful evil D+D creatures. Greed also works. Try Wrath/Lust/Gluttony for chaotic evil and Envy/Sloth for neutral evil).
Health 7, Initiative 8, Speed 9, Size 5 (Translated from Medium sized creature), Willpower 10, Defense 2
Armor Rating: 1/0
Disciplines: Animalism 2, Auspex 3, Dominate 5, Majesty 4, Nightmare 3

This creature might work as a hideously deformed Nosferatu (such as a member of the Rakshasa Bloodline) or some grotesque creature created through vampiric experimentation.

Spelltech: A Variant Spellcasting System for Dungeons and Dragons

The following is a new variant magical system that you can use in Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder.

Spelltech

Spelltech replaces the act of casting spells with gestures and spoken words with special devices and weapons powered by magical energy. These devices produce spell-like effects identical to specific spells. So, for example, instead of casting the spell detect magic, Mialee the elf wizard must use her magical detection lenses, which take the form of a headpiece with a series of monacle-like lenses made of temporium. By channeling her magical energy into the device, Mialee activates the device and is able to detect magical auras around her.

Spelltech devices use general magical energy to power their effects. They are made with one of various arcane ores, known as terra arcana, with properties that channel magical energy to create different magical effects. It is similar to how a prism focuses a ray of sunlight into a spectrum of colors – magical energy enters the ore and is refracted into an effect that corresponds to one of the arcane magical schools. Shaping terra arcana to create specific spell effects is a complex science that ultimately produces spelltech devices. These devices can only be used by spellcasters, since only spellcasters have the inherent magical energy within their souls to activate the devices.

Because spellcasters can only summon forth a certain amount of spell energy per day, they are still limited by the standard spells-per-day rules. The only difference is that now, it is possible for one spellcaster to literally steal another's spelltech device, or to trade, barter, or build their own spelltech devices on the arcane market.

The Terra Arcana

The terra arcana, and the schools of magic they emulate, are as follows:

Arcamond - Abjuration

Elysium - Channels holy or unholy energy into divine spells.

Extortium - Conjuration

Krythos - Evocation

Mesmerite - Enchantment

Necrotite - Necromancy

Phantas - Illusion

Prima Muta - Transmutation

Temporium - Divination

A spell's material component requirements are replaced with a certain amount of a specific terra arcana. The amount required depends on the level of the spell to be cast.

0 Level: 1 gold worth

1^st Level: 5 gold worth

2^nd Level: 10 gold worth

3^rd Level: 20 gold worth

4^th Level: 30 gold worth

5^th Level: 50 gold worth

6^th Level: 100 gold worth

7^th Level: 250 gold worth

8^th Level: 500 gold worth

9^th Level: 1,000 gold worth

The spell no longer has any other components to it other than the required amount of terra arcana. A spellcaster only needs to declare that they are activating their spelltech device to cast the spell.

Spells and Raw Terra Arcana

Casting a spell with terra arcana that is not installed in any spelltech device is a desperate move at best, with unpredictable results. In every case, the intended spell does not function. Instead, one of the following effects takes place, depending on which of the terra arcana the spellcaster is using:

Arcamond: Raw acramond generates a burst of antimagic that functions like an antimagic field. This bursts lasts for one round. Calculate the maximum level of spell that could be cast, given the amount of acramond. The generated antimagic field effect is equal to a spell of this level in both strength and the maximum range to which the burst extends. The spellcaster is not immune to this effect, and cannot choose targets for the burst to strike or avoid. A successful Reflex save (DC 10+X, where X=the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of acramond present) negates this effect.

Elysium: Raw elysium generates a burst of positive energy with effects similar to a cure spell. This burst lasts for one round. Calculate the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of elysium. The generated cure spell effect heals 1d4-9d4 points of damage, depending on the level of the spell effect (minimum 1d4). It travels to a range of 10 ft per 1d4 of damage healed. The spellcaster is not immune to this effect, and cannot chose targets for it to stroke or avoid. Undead caught in the burst are dealt an equal amount of damage. A successful Reflex save (DC DC 10+X, where X=the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of elysium present) halves the damage from the burst.

Extortium: Raw extortium generates a magical general calling effect, alerting all creatures within its radius to the spellcaster's presence. Calculate the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of extortium. The range of the call extends for 1 mile per level.

Kythios: Raw kythios explodes when exposed to magical energy. Calculate the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of kythios. The explosion deals 1d4 energy damage per level to call creatures in the blast radius. The radius is equal to 10 ft for every 1d4 damage dealt. This is general energy damage, and has no set type other than magical. The spellcaster also receives the damage, but cannot make a Reflex save to try and avoid it. All other creatures may make a Reflex save (DC 10+X, where X=the number of dice in damage rolled) to half this damage. In addition, those who fail their Reflex save are knocked prone.

Mesmerite: Raw mesmerate generates a general hypnotic aura when exposed to magical energy. All creatures within the area of influence must make a Will save (DC 10+X, where X=the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of mesmerite present) or become fascinated by the mesmerite until disturbed (by someone asking them a question, touching them, attacking, etc). The mesmerite affects all creatures, including the spellcaster, within 1 foot for every 1 gold's worth of mesmerite that is present.

Necrotite: Raw necrotite generates a burst of negative energy with effects similar to an inflict spell. The burst lasts for one round. Calculate the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of necrotite. The generated inflict spell effect deals 1d4-9d4 points of Constitution damage, depending on the level of the spell effect (minimum 1d4). It travels to a range of 10 ft per 1d4 of damage dealt. The spellcaster is not immune to this effect, and cannot chose targets for it to stroke or avoid, nor can she make a Reflex save to avoid the damage. Undead caught in the burst heal an equal amount of damage. A successful Reflex save (DC DC 10+X, where X=the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of elysium present) halves the damage from the burst.

Phantas: Raw phantas generates hallucinations when exposed to magical energy. All creatures within the area of influence must make a Will save (DC 10+X, where X=the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of phantas present) or become confused for 1 round. The phantas also affects the spellcaster as well as everyone within 1 foot for every 1 gold's worth of phantas that is present.

Prima Muta: Raw prima muta, when exposed to magical energy, causes the bodies of all those within range to enter a state of flux, partially shifting from their current form into something undefined and back. Calculate the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of prima muta present. That number is dealt in 1d4 magical damage to every target, including the spellcaster, within 10 ft for each d4 rolled (minimum 1d4). A Will save (DC 10+X, where X=the number of 1d4s in damage dealt) negates this effect.

Temporium: Raw temporium strips away illusions and lies when exposed to magical energy. All creatures within the area of influence, including the spellcaster, come under the effects of a true seeing and zone of truth spell for one round. Any creatures wishing to avoid the effects of these spells, such as invisible creatures, must make a Will save (DC 10+X, where X= the maximum level spell that could be cast, given the amount of temporium present). This effect has a radius outward from the spellcaster equal to 1 foot for every 1 gold worth of temporium present.

Additional Rules

Use Magic Device: Spelltech devices are not considered magical devices for the purposes of the Use Magic Device skill. Since the power of the device lies in the wielder and not the device itself, a rogue or other non-spellcaster would be unable to activate a spelltech device as they would a standard magic item.

Spellbooks and Prepared Casters: Most spelltech devices are made up of a number of interchangeable parts, allowing a given spellcaster to quickly disassemble one device and use the modular parts to assemble a different usable device. A wizard's spellbook is special in that the wizard need not carry any spelltech parts on her. Her spellbook contains diagrams of various spelltech devices written with a special ink that is laced with extortium, the ore which makes magical conjuration possible. By meditating on these diagrams, a wizard can summon any spelltech devices she needs for the day.

Thus, "preparing" a spell for the day involves not only study or meditation but also the proper assembly (or in the wizard's case, summoning) of components.

Spontaneous Casters: Spontaneous spellcasters are at a disadvantage in that they do not have the specialized training of a prepared spellcaster in spelltech. This limits them to much fewer options. They must carry ready-made spelltech on them at all times. However, they can use their spelltech devices more times per day than a prepared caster.

Spell-Like Abilities: Certain creatures are able to generate spell-like effects at will or a certain number of times per day. In this variant, these spell-like abilities correspond to physical additions on the creature's bodies. These are typically terra arcana crystal growths on the skin or sometimes within the bones, dissolved in the blood, or in organs. However, in intelligent creatures, they may take the form of constructed implants grafted into the flesh, often stylized with decoration.

Counterspells: To counter a spell cast with spelltech, the spellcaster must sacrifice terra arcana, burning it up with magical power to corrode the effects of the cast spell. The terra arcana must be of identical type to the school of the spell being cast, and the amount must be equal or higher, in gold, to the material component requirements for the spell being cast. For example, countering a 7^th level necromancy spell would require the counterspeller to burn up 250 gold worth of necrotite. 

Spelltech Devices and Carrying Capacity: The level of spell each individual spelltech device creates determines the weight of that device. So a level one spelltech device weighs 1 pound, and a level 9 spelltech device weighs 9 pounds. The total weight of various spelltech components is equal to the total number of spells at maximum level that a spellcaster can cast per day. For example, if a sorcerer can cast 3 level 6 spells per day, the total weight of his spelltech components is equal to 18 pounds. 

Theft: It is possible for a spellcaster who steals a spelltech device from another spellcaster to use that device. It makes no difference if the device was stolen from an arcane or divine spellcaster. 

Market Price: The market price for a spelltech device is equal to a scroll of that spell. 

Crafting Spelltech: Crafting spelltech requires the Spellcraft skill, not the Craft skill. Use the rules given for copying a spell from another spellbook or scroll as a guide for this process.  

Spelltech and Metamagic Feats: Metamagic feats are considered inherent to the spellcaster, not spelltech devices.  

What To Do With Social Characters

I enjoy playing the social savvy face man type of character. I like characters who are popular, well connected, wise-cracking and downright sexy. In my experience, a lot of game masters aren't really sure what to do with a socially focused character, and this can lead to frustration for the player, who doesn't see a character he loves really being able to shine.

First, let me address what social characters can do in non-social situations.I'm of the firm belief that any type of character can be potentially useful in any type of encounter. You just have to get creative.

Combat: The most obvious flaw in social characters is that they tend to be weak combatants. However, social characters can be particularly useful if the combat is something you know is coming. Social characters can rally reinforcements prior to the combat. They can emotionally bolster allies with inspiring words or performances - an obliging game master should be gracious enough to award a circumstantial bonus of some sort if this is done well. When it comes to actual combat, a social character can do one of the following well:

Distract and Taunt: Not the most manly of actions, but if the enemy is busy trying to cut down an irritating social character who can stay out of harm's way, it gives the combat-oriented party members a chance to strike while the enemy is distracted.
Force Surrender: There have been more than one instance where my social character was able to cut combat short and save lives by persuading a nearly defeated enemy to surrender. Social characters are also particularly good at negotiating terms of surrender that will benefit their side more than the enemy.
Intimidate: Along a similar vein, a socially-focused character can be effective at making enemies nervous and unsure of their own capabilities. Provided the enemies are weak-willed enough, effective intimidation can do everything from weaken enemy attacks to inspiring them to make tactical mistakes.
Coordinate: Because the social character isn't busy trying to dodge blows and find openings, he can serve the party as a strategist. Socially focused characters DO tend to have well developed mental attributes and skills, and these can come in handy when trying to coordinate your allies into a more effective fighting force. Remember, social characters are good at getting others to listen to them.
Be The Voice of Reason: In the heat of battle, a party can sometimes loose sight of what exactly their real goal is. The social character can remind them of that. Often times, it isn't necessary to take out every single enemy in order to continue towards a goal.
Inspire Defection: This can be a little tricky, but if you know your enemy is being coerced into fighting you, and you offer them a sweeter deal, the social character just might turn former low-powered enemies into minions, allies, or informants for the party.
Negotiate Terms of Engagement: Formal combat such as a duel often includes a set time and place for the fight to happen. A social character can arrange things so that the time and place are more advantageous to the party and not the enemy.

Stealth, Sneaking, and Infiltration: Even if a social character isn't particularly stealthy, they can still be useful for these types of missions in the following ways:
Spy: The most obvious way a social character could help would be to act as the party's spy, slipping in alone and passing as one of the enemy in order to sniff out the area. Social characters tend to be very good at lying, acting and conning others into revealing information.
Diversion: As in combat, social characters can distract enemy security forces long enough for the real stealthy party members to get where they need to go.
Getting the Party Inside: This is a staple of espionage and action films - the socially or culturally savvy person does all the talking. All the others just have to wear a disguise and follow her lead.

Magical or Mystical Confrontations: If your party is faced with a more supernatural obstacle like a demon or a magical curse, here's how the social character can help: 
Make a Deal: Most mystical enemies are intelligent enough to interact with socially. The social character can try to cut a devil's bargain, at least long enough for the other party members to betray the pact and slay the enemy. They may even negotiate a deal that involves the enemy voluntarily leaving the story.
Confuse: If your mystic boogie man is from a sufficently different point of origin like the distant past or another dimension, the social character can try to dazzle and overwhelm it with a flood of irrelevant details about the modern world. This is one version of the next type of help.
Stalling for Time: If what the party needs is time to gather the right things to take on the mystical bad guy, the social character can do any number of things to stall for time, from nitpicking arguments to morality debates. Just don't piss the bad guy off too much too fast.
Gather Appropriate Allies or Information: If the mystical obstacle is not sentient, like a doomsday machine, the social character can call on his network of contacts and allies in order to find useful sources of information for the party. He may even be able to scrounge up a specialist NPC who can help the party overcome the problem.

Okay, now for the game-running side. These are things you can put in your game in order to satisfy a player who wants to go the social route:

Make Some Obstacles Socially Focused: Make some of the things that prevent the party from achieving their goal social in nature.
Examples: An incooperative bouncer at a club, a snobby court, a local prejudice revelavnt to the party, general distrust of outsiders.

Include Clues in the Local Culture: Write up a few usefit tidbits of information for the party that the socially-focused character would be the most likely to find.
Examples: The name of the murderer is known to a frightened barkeep, the whereabouts of a magic key is only known by the madam of the local harem, the secret password has to be interrogated out of a stubborn guard.

Let Them Flirt: Sometimes it's easy enough to satisfy a social character if you make him feel sexy. Make the local barmaids want to serve him first. Have the local tavern owners know the character by name as if they were old friends. Play up all the campy romantic stereotypes of a debonaire charmer's effects on local women. Trust me, they'll eat it up.

Make Evil Minions Potential Allies: Works best if you do this from the first chapter of a campaign, so that the social character's player learns and remembers to try his powers of persuasion on low-level enemies. Give your expendable NPCs some potential reason to want to help the party, and allow the social character to try and discover it.

Give Them Allies: Works especially well if the ultimate bad guy is someone the party cannot take down without allies.
Classic Examples to Set Up: Incite a rebellion or prison riot, make a stirring speech that rouses the local militia, wine and dine and romance the lady with power, con the local biker punks into thinking you're one of them.