Tag Archive for BASH

A More Detailed Plan

Deep One / 2010/08/24 / No comments

So, I’ve done my preliminary research and picked out what system we’re going to use. Normally, I’d start thinking about characters now, but since BASH uses a point buy system, it gets a little harder. The GM sets the number of points players build their characters with, but I’m still not sure how powerful I want people to be. Now, in order to do that, I need a slightly more detailed campaign arc.

Time to break the fucker down and solidify my ideas a bit. Let’s start with themes. Prejudice, environment, corruption and first contact were all things I wanted to play with. Can I get them all in? Probably. I discussed a vague plan before, so let’s flesh it out.

Act 1 involves the PCs dealing with gangsta deep ones. I like the idea a lot. Starting in New Orleans, I can work in corruption with little sweat (after all, the Big Easy is known for having corrupt cops). I want to stay away from immediate first contact, and work up to it a bit later. The environment can also come later. But prejudice, man I can get that.

So, somehow or other, the PCs have to deal with these gangs somehow (maybe as private investigators, maybe as government agents. Oh…maybe as social workers.). The gang is made up of deep one teens recently moved up from Plaquemines Parish, which is kind of back-woodsy. Basically, they’re swamp folk. Hillbillies. So, most people are gonna see them as stupid, inbred and generally undesirable.

Okay. Act 1 is about figuring out what to do with the violent hillbilly street gang that is moving into New Orleans. They’ve got money, so they’ve bought off the local police. The locals are a problem. Local do-gooders, other local gangstas, etc. So, being mostly unsupervised kids raised on a diet of might makes right TV, they take out the competition with violence. That’s my hook.

PCs need to figure out who they are, where they’re getting their operating capital from and how to stop them. Along the way they learn that down in the bayou are more of these gangstas, jus’ waitin’ to come on up to the big time. Also, the big head guys still live down there.

That’s the hook to Act 2 — where first contact starts to really happen. Sometime in Act 1, some gangstas get away by swimming off through a canal or something. After the local problem is dealt with, we head off to Plaquemines Parish, with it’s disappearing communities, weird tiny pockets of hillbillies and all that. They’ve got a lead on the folks running the gang, and now they need to do some leg-work.

The locals don’t want to help, but they eventually find someone willing to talk about the lost towns. They learn that at least some people believe that the sunken towns still have residents. Eventually, they make contact with some of these people. Most of them are older, but some younger kids who theoretically could go up to the Big Easy and cause problems. Now, the intrepid PCs have to figure out how to reign in these kids, without pissing off the parents too much. Also, none of the hillbillies want their existence made public knowledge. Last but not least, the deep ones down here should be suffering from the oil spill — economically (explaining why their kids are off starting a gang), socially (because they have to interact with the world more often) and governmentally (police reports, social workers trying to help, etc). Their big secret is going to come out, eventually (but within the scope of the game), and this is where the problems really start to pile up.

Ideally, the PCs have a rapport with at least some of the deep ones. Most of them are decent people fish folk who just want to be left alone. Which leads us to…Act 3, where we learn that there are, in fact, deep one terrorists who want to kill all of you. Actually, they probably show up in Act 2, but now the PCs have to find their leader and deal with him before the government declares war on the sea.

Even to me, when written, this doesn’t make a lot of sense yet. But it has a basic structure, antagonists (who will flesh out as I get more specific) and a idea of what kind of power level I want. Obviously (to me, anyway) in Act 1 I want low powered characters. BASH would call them Mystery Men. Think normal humans who are exceptional in some way, pulp heros like the Green Hornet, Doc Savage, or even the Rocketeer. Call it 20 points to build a character. I want them to have some hero points, so I’ll end up giving them a few extra points after character finalization but before the game starts.

What We Learned Today

Plotting out the basics of your campaign arc gives you a good idea of where you want people to start out, power level-wise. It also helps you figure out how fast you’re going to need to advance them. Also, the plot arc doesn’t have to make that much sense at this point.

Next Up: Getting Specific: Act 1

Category: Campaign Design / Tags: , , ,

Rant: Rules Lite vs. Rules Heavy

Deep One / 2010/08/22 / 3 comments

You’ve heard me talk a bit about rules lite versus rules heavy. Well, you’ve seen my posts, anyway. It occurred to me that this needed a little more talking about, um, writing about. Whatever. Anyway, if you don’t like reading about my boring fucking origin story, you might want to skip this post. It’s got some of that, and a lot of my personal opinions.

The Bearded Dork and I were having a discussion about this the other day. (Gaming legend Jay Peters and I have also discussed it, but I don’t remember the contents of the talk that well, and I refuse to disrespect the man.) The conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to the use of imagination in RPGs.

Origin story time — like many gamers, I wasn’t a real popular kid. I was actually okay with this, most of the other kids I knew at the time were dumb. I regret to say that I can’t remember the name of the kid who introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, (The basic version. Some of you might remember the red box it came in. And the crappy dice that you had to use a crayon to color in the numbers.) but we had a crapload of fun playing it. Eventually, I convinced my folks to buy the coveted Red Box for me.

And holy shit, it turned out that we were doing it wrong. I read the rules cover to cover (and even played through the little choose your own path adventure they had) and realized that our imaginations had completely overwhelmed the rules. At the time, I didn’t think this was a bad thing. Somehow, by the time I moved to Montana, that attitude had shifted.

I’d like to blame the AD&D second edition system. I can’t, though, so I’ll blame adolescence instead. If I could bend or break the rules, so could anyone else. It would be anarchy! (And not the good kind, like you want. Or don’t want.) The more rules you had, the better the game was!

Only, that killed my imagination at some point. Sure, I had a lot of fun playing in and with imaginary worlds, but everything eventually came down to a rules call. I couldn’t find rules for doing cool, cinematic things in combat, so I just stopped trying. I used a bit of my brain’s imagination centers when interacting with NPCs (unless I was killing them) or the world, but let’s face it — a lot of games are excuses to imaginarily kill shit.

This is a fine style of gaming for a lot of people. I guess I’m not one of them anymore.

Let us take a look at the games I have been playing for the last few years. Shadowrun has been out a long time, but it is really, really rules heavy. The 3rd edition system has rules for every aspect of combat, and for many (if not all) social situations. You don’t have to role play out the quest for getting more money for a job, you can just roll some dice! D&D in any version has rules for everything. If you subscribed to Dragon Magazine, it had rules for even the most outrageous situations. Pathfinder isn’t much better. It did an excellent job of streamlining many rules, but they’re still there. Hell, they just introduced a new set of sub-rules for fighting dirty.

BASH is rules light. If it isn’t in the rules, the person running the game makes a judgement call. There is little time wasted flipping through the 8.532 x 104 rulebooks normally hauled around by dedicated gamers. Hell, the BASH book is only 132 pages. Compare that to Pathfinder’s (which did combine the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide) 576 pages.

Let me give you an example. Imagine that our heros are in an alley, fighting a single opponent who is pretty tough. I want to do something cool and cinematic, but I’m having a hard time hitting the guy. In Pathfinder, it goes something like this:

Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: Let me check my notes. (Some waiting happens here. I’ve literally seen this happen.) My notes don’t say there is.
Me: Um, is there a big piece of garbage? Maybe big enough to cover a dude’s head?
GM: Probably. Make a perception check.
(clatter of my trusty twenty sider)
Me: Sweet! Uh, let me check my sheet…19!
GM: Yeah, there’s a thing in a pile that could cover someone’s head. It’s in the pile on the…(dice clattering) left side of the alley.
Me: A thing. Okay, I will take a move action to get over there, and another to pick it up.
GM: Okay, next up is…

When it gets back around to me about 10 minutes later:

Me: Okay, I take the…whatever it is, and I’m gonna move up to the guy and throw it over his head.
GM: What?
Me: I’m hoping to blind this guy for a minute so he stops being so hard to hit.
GM: Are there rules for that?
Me: (Sigh) In the Advanced Players Guide. It’s the new dirty trick combat maneuver. I can give him a condition for a little while.
Another Player: I thought we weren’t using that book!
Me: I though we were cool with the feats, spells and combat stuff, just not the new race and class stuff.
GM: I think I said no new stuff yet.
Me: Dude, we talked about this. You said we weren’t gonna use the race and class stuff.
GM: Um…
Me: Fine, I just hit him. (Clatter) Does AC 21 hit?
GM: No.
Yet Another Player: Wait, if you didn’t have your sword out, how did you even try and hit him?
Me: Fine, I miss him with some garbage.
GM: That’s an improvised weapon. Unless you have the catch off guard feat, you provoke an attack of opportunity.
Me: Nope.
GM: (Clatter) Does a 24 hit you?
Me: Sure does.

IGNORE THIS TEXT

Fun! Wait, no. Time consuming and frustrating.

Now, in BASH, it might go a little more like this:

Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: That seems likely. Sure. (Pointing at the map) Right there.
Me: Sweet, I grab it, move up and toss it on his head. Hopefully not being able to see will make him easier for us to deal with.
GM: So, you want to confuse him?
Me: Holy shit! Yeah! I’ll spend a hero die to get the confusion power! (pages turing) It usually goes off of the Mind attribute.
GM: But you’re hitting him with it. That seems more like Agility.
Me: That seems reasonable. (clatter of dice) 16.
GM: That beats him. He can’t see, is confused, and it’ll take him a while to get the can off his head.
Me: Git ‘em, guys!

IGNORE THIS TEXT

Now, take a few and read those both out loud, in your gaming cadence. Which one takes longer. More importantly, which one seems cooler? Both times, I’m trying to do something cool that’ll help everyone else. In Pathfinder, this takes a while, and is kind of boring. In BASH, it takes a minute, and is fun.

Just to be clear, though, there is still some imagination in rules heavy games. I just see it a lot more in other systems. I want players, GMs, and everyone else in the hobby to get back to imagining things, instead of consulting a book. Maybe you don’t agree with me. That’s okay. Find the game that is right for your style.

It won’t be the one I’m creating here, though.

Category: Bigger Picture, Bloggy Crap / Tags: , , ,

BASH

Deep One / 2010/08/22 / No comments

BASH is a wonderful game. I first played it at my MisCon, Montana’s Premiere Science Fiction Convention. Seriously, if you’re in Montana over Memorial Day weekend, why aren’t you at Ruby’s Reserve Street Inn? Four days of convention goodness. Plus, they have a horseshoe pit.

Anyway, I’d promised myself that I’d play in some new games this year. I ran into a few problems with that. One, I don’t like board games. Two, some of the games I wanted to try had time conflicts with panels I wanted to attend more. Three, I’d rather have this happen then play 4th Edition D&D. It is not the game for me. Clearly, it’s fine for a lot of people, but it pisses me off.

Then, lo and behold, I saw that (then) Ennies Judge and legendary gamer Jay Peters was running some sort of superhero game. I love superhero games. I love Mr. Peters (in a creepily platonic way). This was perfect.

Long story short, I walked away amazed by the game, and with an autographed copy in my hands. Over the next few days, I familiarized myself with the rules while taking care of necessary bodily functions. I read and understood the rules in 10 minute chunks over three days! There wasn’t any “wait, how does that work?” moments.

BASH is rules lite, so you can get creative without worrying that you’ll have to consult a table (and every time I’ve played the game, someone has). The powers presented run the gamut, and neither I nor Bearded Dork have been unable to create a clone of any major comic book character or villain. The powers can be used (with a little reconsidering in your own brain) as technology, magic, radiation caused mutation, or just being really, really good at something.

It’s a point buy system, so dice rolling at character generation has NO effect on how bad-ass you are (in d20 games, I sometimes abandon characters whose stats are just too good). Leftover points convert to hero points, which help you out durning play by adding to your roll, or converting to hero dice, which allow you to do really cool things, including temporarily having a new power, not dying, or automatically succeeding.

Having looked at it, many of the powers can be explained by mundane things, so even if the game defaults to baseline humans, you can still do an awful lot. Everyone has the same number of “hits” that they can take (unless you specifically play the really old or young character. Ties go to the hero. If two heros are doing something opposed, the tie goes to the one acting more heroically. The game’s creator, Chris Rutkowsky, routinely answers rules questions on the forums.

It’s simple enough that when legendary gamer Jay Peters gave a copy to a couple of 10 and 11 year old kids I know, they figured it out and now play it almost every day. They then figured out that you don’t have to play superheros. So far, they’ve done heros, anthropomorphic cats (based on a book series one of them loves), Star Wars and have now gone on to superspies…in space.

In short, it’s perfect for the game I want to run. You should go buy it right now.

Category: Bigger Picture / Tags: , ,

Picking The Rules

Deep One / 2010/08/21 / One comment

I own a lot of games. Not as many as some of my friends, but still, I’ve got options for this Next Big Campaign™. What, you might ask, are they?

Now, why are these important? And why pick the system now? Well, I now know I’m doing something modern, and I’ve got the big research done. I like to let that big research stir around my headbits for a while, so I need to be doing something else. Picking the system keeps me engaged, but without poisoning my subconscious thought processes.

More to the point, the system is going to have an effect on a lot of the nitty-gritty game design. A lot of the systems I might use are level based. That would railroad me into doing things based on what level characters are. Some (I’m looking at you, Castle Falkenstien) are obscure, and hard to come by. Fine, I’ve got a copy of the rules, but if everyone is dependent on that one copy, it gets hard to let players plan.

Let’s pro and con it. In no particular order:

Castle Falkenstien is a fun game. It’s been years since I’ve played it, and I’d have to relearn the rules. Of the people I know, maybe two of them have ever played it, so they’d have to relearn it. Everyone else starts from scratch. Ugh. Pass.

Shadowrun could work if I ditched all of the cyberware and magic. It’s a fun game, and easy enough to play (at least until combat breaks out, though 4th edition is better about that), but it brings a certain mentality to the party. It’s a cutthroat game, at least in my experience, and I want heroism. So, it’s a maybe at best.

d20 Modern is a level based game that hasn’t been supported in any real way for years. I happen to like it, but one of the people I know (and want for this game) hates it so much that he refuses to play it. And it’s level based, which I’m not that down with. Pass.

d20 Call of Cthulhu is even less supported than d20 Modern. I’m the only guy I know who owns it., though apparently a lot of my friends have it. It handles magic, psychic powers and all that shit really, really well. It is level based, but I can deal with that. The character creation system is the second most customizable I’ve seen in a d20 based system. Definite maybe. I can photocopy the important bits.

Pathfinder is a streamlined adaptation of the d20 rules set. It’s fun, and incredibly customizable with the addition of the Advanced Players Gudie. (Every race and class has swappable abilities and powers. So cool.) Everyone I know is familiar with it. It sucks for this game. Many of the classes don’t translate to a modern setting. I’d have to add in firearms (do-able, but a lot of work). It’s level based, and the more I think about it, the less I like that. It’s rules heavy, meaning that players get hung up on “do the rules cover this” instead of doing something cool. I play it A LOT. Pass.

Star Wars Saga Edition is a solid rules set. Characters are customizable using the talent system. It’s set up for guns. It has the Force, though. Well, I could ditch the Jedi class, and allow psychics, using force powers to explain them. (As it turns out, you don’t need to be a Jedi to use the Force. You need a feat. Spending more feats and talents allows you to do more cool Force stuff.) It is level based, so that’s a downside. Also, in my experience playing the game, you need to plan your character’s level progression well in advance to be able to do cool stuff. I don’t want this game to have that much homework. Still, it’s at the top of the maybe list.

BASH is a “rules light” system. It’s intuitive, encourages being heroic, and is a hoot to play. The lack of hard rules encourages clever thinking, and character creation takes about 10 minutes. It’s designed for superhero games, but there is no reason it can’t be used for mundane people. I know a couple of people who own the rules, but not everyone has played it. Damn, it’s easy to learn, though. I’ve never run it, but I’m confident in my ability to do so. The game is fast paced, already supports a modern setting, and the superpowers can be adapted (with no real effort) to mimic psychic powers, magic, high technology or just being the best there is at what you do. The game even has an optional rule for experience points! BASH wins.

What We Learned Today

I have a lot of games. Many of them have levels. BASH kicks ass. Also, your game system has a pretty big effect on campaign design.

Next Up: A More Detailed Plan

Category: Campaign Design / Tags: , , , , ,
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