The Game Master (GM) is the referee of a roleplaying game. But that’s putting it too simply. He is like a mystery writer . . . a storyteller . . . an umpire . . . a cosmic bookkeeper . . . the “house” at a gambling casino . . . and (to the characters) a minor deity. The GM is the final authority. Rules are guidelines . . . the designers’ opinion about how things ought to go. But as long as the GM is fair and consistent, he can change any number, any cost, any rule. His word is law! Many things are left up to the GM to decide. A game world gets realism from its completeness. The GM adds all the details that make it come alive. With a good GM, even a bad set of rules can be a lot of fun. With a good set, the sky’s the limit. We semimodestly believe that GURPS is a very good set of rules indeed – but without the GM, the rules are nothing. Read on . . .
Customizing the Rules Throughout Basic Set, we have included assistance for GMs who wish to tailor the rules to their liking. For quick reference: • New Advantages (p. 117), New Disadvantages (p. 165), Creating Techniques (p. 229), Alternative Magic Systems (p. 242), Other Powers (p. 257), and Creating Templates (Chapter 15) provide guidelines for creating and customizing character abilities. •Character Development (Chapter 9) presents options for handling character advancement. • Tactical Combat (Chapter 12) and Special Combat Situations (Chapter 13) add optional extra detail to Combat (Chapter 11) for action-oriented campaigns. •Sections titled “Optional Rule” offer tested, optional add-ons. Examples include Limited Enhancements (p. 111), Wildcard Skills (p. 175), Malfunction (p. 407), Maintaining Skills (p. 294), Influencing Success Rolls (p. 347), and Extra Effort in Combat (p. 357). Even a novice GM can quickly customize the rules by specifying which options are “turned on” in his campaign.
CHOOSING A CAMPAIGN TYPE Before you make any other decisions, you should discuss the style of your campaign with your players. There are many alternatives: • “By-the-book” vs. “tweaked” (with many GM rules interpretations). • “Realistic” vs. “cinematic” (see The Cinematic Campaign, p. 488). • “Humorous” vs. “serious.” • “Puzzles and mysteries” vs. “combat and adventure.” • “Death is common and permanent” vs. “death is rare or easily remedied” (by magic or high technology).
All of these are legitimate approaches to roleplaying, but if the players and GM have different expectations, everyone will end up disappointed. The game should be a story that develops in play – not a battle between the players and the GM (for those who want a battle between the players and the GM, try the Munchkin RPG series at: www.sjgames.com/munchkin/rpg/. Really.) To achieve this, a little mutual understanding is necessary. A few minutes of pre-game discussion can increase everyone’s enjoyment. POWER LEVEL A crucial step in choosing a campaign type is determining the number of character points the PCs start out with. This has a direct impact on the campaign style: powerful heroes stampede through realistic challenges with cinematic ease, while a lighthearted romp for supers might be a deadly nightmare for normal humans. As the GM, the surest way to choose a suitable power level is by “feel.” During the course of your first few campaigns, you’ll learn how your players spend their points – and how their PCs cope with the adventures you cook up. You can use this experience to choose a good power level for your next campaign. But that won’t help you this time, so you might wish to choose the most appropriate power level off the list below. Some example power levels, with suggested starting points for the heroes: Feeble (under 25 points): Small children, mindless thralls, zombies, etc. Unsuitable for PCs in any but the darkest or most humorous of campaigns. Average (25-50 points): Ordinary folks, such as accountants and cab drivers. Competent (50-75 points): Athletes, cops, wealthy gentry . . . anyone who would have a clear edge over “average” people on an adventure. Exceptional (75-100 points): Star athletes, seasoned cops, etc. With a little experience, these individuals could become full-time adventurers. Heroic (100-200 points): People at the realistic pinnacle of physical, mental, or social achievement; e.g., Navy SEALs, world-class scientists, and millionaires. Most full-time adventurers start their careers at around 150 points. Larger-than-Life (200-300 points): Leading roles in kung fu movies, fantasy novels, etc. Typical of the professional adventurer who has already made a name for himself. Legendary (300-500 points): Protagonists of epic poems and folklore. This is the best power level for “gritty” supers and for mortals who rub shoulders with gods. Superhuman (500-1,000 points): Those who have transcended humanity (e.g., supers who can take on tanks barehanded) and powerful creatures of fantasy (e.g., dragons who can best entire armies). Godlike (over 1,000 points): True demigods who can do as they please most of the time. HIGH-POWERED CAMPAIGNS Player characters built on a high point total can tax the GM’s ability to provide meaningful challenges, weaken the integrity of the game world, and push the limits of game balance. As a result, high-powered gaming merits special discussion. “High-powered” is a subjective term – these guidelines assume PCs with well over 200 points. Even so, most of this advice stands at any power level! Character-Design Problems Some players spend lots of points in one area, resulting in PCs with abusive levels of ability. Others use their ample points to prepare for almost every conceivable situation, thereby poaching on the territory of more focused PCs. And still others try to do both, investing many points in a single trait and then coming up with “creative” ways to use that ability in place of almost everything else. A few countermeasures: Offer a broad selection of abilities. In a high-powered game, there should be all manner of expensive options available to soak up points: great wealth, exotic advantages, magic, psionics, powerful racial templates . . . preferably several of these. Let your players know what is available, and use the expanded rules for special abilities whenever possible. Divide starting points between “base points” and “experience points.” Consider giving the players only a fraction of their starting points to begin with. Ask them to create focused, balanced characters for your approval. Once you approve a PC, give the player the rest of his points to spend as if they were earned in play – which means he cannot acquire large numbers of new advantages, or new skills that don’t fit his character story.
Require certain abilities. Heroes can be worth a lot of points without giving the players control over every last point. A modest discretionary budget in combination with a fixed set of abilities works well. For instance, every super might have a package of “mutant abilities” (effectively a racial template) and get 200 points to spend however he wants; every commando might start with a 100-point “basic training” template and get 50 points to customize with. Require certain categories of abilities. If required abilities seem too rigid, consider requiring PCs to have a certain number of points in a few classes of abilities. For instance, secret agents might have to spend at least 10% of their points on each of “social traits,” “combat abilities,” and “technical skills”; supers might have to spend at least 20% of their points on each of an attack, a defense, and a movement power. Limit attribute levels. Attributes affect so many things in the game that a PC with lots of points in attributes can sometimes cause problems. To combat this, set an upper limit on individual attribute scores or on total points allowed in attributes. Emphasize the value of relative skill level. When a character concept calls for many skills, there is a temptation to buy high attributes and put relatively few points into skills. This might be a cheap way to get good skill levels, but it leads to “attribute inflation.” To encourage more balanced designs, tell your players that you intend to make heavy use of the Relative Skill Level rules on p. 171. GM Limitations Even balanced high-powered PCs can wreak havoc on your adventure or game world if you aren’t ready for them! Here are a few ways to prepare for a high-powered game: Know the heroes’ abilities. There is a lot of information on the character sheet of a powerful PC. If you are not familiar with all of it, the game can grind to a halt when the player invokes a rarely used ability. Even worse, a forgotten ability can lay waste to your careful plans! Know the rules. The more abilities the heroes have, the greater the number of special rules that will see use during the game. Do your reading before the game begins. This keeps things moving and prevents players who like to abuse high-powered abilities from ruining the game for everyone. Fit the challenges to the heroes. Read through your campaign notes with the PCs’ character sheets in hand. This simple procedure will often alert you to foes, mysteries, and dangers that will not challenge the heroes’ abilities, and gives you an opportunity to patch these holes before the players drive trucks through them. Present a variety of challenges. Make sure the heroes cannot meet every challenge with Guns-20 or Fast-Talk- 25. Run the game in such a way that single-focus characters have to rely on their friends for help. At the same time, be sure that a few success rolls involve sufficiently large penalties that jack-of-all-trades characters have to defer to the true experts in the group. Know the stakes. Campaign power level doesn’t just determine the heroes’ abilities and the scale of the threats they face – it sets an upper limit on any imbalance between the two. Challenges that are merely amusingly weak or annoyingly tough in a lowpowered game might become boring or lethal when scaled up to a higherpowered one. Be ready to think on your feet! If the heroes are chewing up the opposition so easily that the players are yawning, have tougher reinforcements show up; if they are getting mauled, give them a lucky break. Be flexible. Powerful PCs can do more, which makes it tricky to secondguess them. Again, you must think on your feet. Don’t penalize your players when they finesse your plot with their abilities . . . but when they use their powers as blunt instruments to knock holes in the plot, be ready to come up with creative countermeasures that look like you planned them all along. System Limitations GURPS is designed to work at any power level, but it is impossible to offer a special rule for every combination of “problem abilities” possible in a high-powered game. When the rules do not handle a situation well, try one of these fixes: Use optional rules. In many cases, optional rules exist specifically to deal with high-powered characters – for instance, Maintaining Skills (p. 294). Such rules can often make the difference between a playable and unplayable game. Exercise judgment. If a rule implicitly assumes a certain power level, and the PCs are beyond this, feel free to extrapolate. For instance, Task Difficulty (p. 345) lists penalties down to -10, but if your campaign includes heroes with skills of 25 or 30, there is nothing wrong with assigning a penalty of -15 or -20! THE CINEMATIC CAMPAIGN For the most part, GURPS stresses realism. Heroes can get disappointed, injured, sick, or even dead. So it goes. The GM is expected to stretch realism in an emergency (defined as “whenever realism would ruin the game”), but the rest of the time, realism rules. The “cinematic” campaign is one where realism doesn’t rule – because if it did, it would constantly get in the way of the story. In a cinematic campaign, swashbuckling heroes can defeat dozens of foes because the story calls for it. Spacecraft whoosh or roar in the silence of space because fast things whoosh and powerful engines roar. Rightness always overrules mere correctness. The cinematic style of play requires both players and GM to understand
and agree with this principle, and to cooperate in telling the story. GURPS includes some rules that can help – but everyone must realize that an epic story is apt to transcend the rules. Cinematic Power Level It is possible to run a cinematic game at any power level. Cinematic games are frequently high-powered games – and vice versa – but “cinematic” is a style, not a point level. Crack commandos in a grimly realistic campaign might have huge point totals, while many of Robin Hood’s Merry Men would come in under 100 points yet be quite at home in a cinematic campaign. Still, cinematic heroes should be markedly more capable than ordinary people . . . and perhaps even more talented than most heroes. Players find it easier to believe in cinematic stories if their characters are capable enough to accomplish what the story calls for them to achieve without too much “fudging” on the part of the GM. How the players spend their points is somewhat more important. GURPS provides many abilities suitable for cinematic gaming. Epic heroes often have a Destiny. Most possess “luck” – although Daredevil and Serendipity are often more appropriate than plain Luck. The GM should permit Gadgeteer, Gizmos, Gunslinger, Rapier Wit, Trained By A Master, Weapon Master, and Wild Talent. He should also allow any skills associated with these traits, and might even want to use “wildcard skills” (see p. 175). Cinematic Characters Advantages and skills do not, by themselves, create cinematic heroes. The player must have a character concept that turns the statistics on the character sheet into a person. In particular, epic heroes need two things: A motivation. Love and honor are classic, but not all cinematic characters are honorable, good, or even nice. Evil dreams and goals – such as blind, unreasoning vengeance – are perfectly acceptable as long as they are appropriate. However, obsession can lead to a simplistic character. The player must make a conscious effort to round out his character’s personality. A place in the world. Cinematic heroes have loved ones, mentors, lovers, ex-lovers, enemies, birthrights, family curses, and so on. They do not simply appear, play their role, and vanish – they need to be part of the game world, since their story is part of what defines the game world. Cinematic Play Cinematic campaigns have certain conventions: A cinematic world is ordered. Events have reasons – reasons that relate to the story. These might not be obvious, but few things happen arbitrarily and nothing significant happens at random. This doesn’t mean that the plot has to be linear or predestined. Reversals of fortune are common setbacks, and even if the final goal is set in stone, the way to get there is not. The only details of importance are those that directly advance the story. Unnecessary detail is the bane of cinematic gaming. The GM must know the difference between important details and irrelevant ones. For instance, if the heroes must cross the Burning Wastes to reach the Dark Tower, they will find enough water along the way; the story would be very short if they didn’t, and it would not advance the story much to play out their searches. The GM must be prepared to overrule any die roll. If the dice determine every outcome, the players learn to put probability ahead of dash and style. Furthermore, the dice can be as tyrannical as a heavy-handed GM; the players are likely to revolt if a brave adventurer dies suddenly from a random disaster! On the other hand, the GM must not overrule the dice so often that the players feel as though nothing they attempt can change the outcome of the story. The GM must allow dramatic actions to succeed. If the hero tries to swing from the chandelier, the player must have confidence that the GM will not sneer at him and announce that he has broken his back – and must now play a quadriplegic – because his hands slipped off the wax caked onto it. The GM certainly shouldn’t bog down play by requiring endless skill rolls modified by the dimness of the tavern! The players must not take inappropriate advantage of conventions. Yes, the heroes will make it across the Burning Wastes – but they must still make proper preparations. A player who remarks, “Don’t worry about water. We’re heroes; we’re sure to find some,” is playing in the wrong campaign. The players must provide dialog and attitudes in keeping with the style of the campaign. The GM must handle heroic deaths satisfyingly. An epic death cannot be purposeless. If a PC dies, he dies gloriously – bravely saving his comrades’ lives, or taking an impressive number of foes with him. Fate (in the person of the GM) will be generous. There is no need for stinginess, as the PC won’t be around to be a problem later on! The players must not abuse this convention. A dying hero might be almost invincible . . . but only if he’s selling his life to take action that directly advances the plot.
Damn the Rules, Full Speed Ahead! Many gamers prefer a “rules-light” game, in which the action moves along quickly rather than being bogged down in die roll after die roll. This is similar to cinematic gaming, but it is possible to have a quick, realistic game just by choosing which rules you use. For instance, combat slows down a lot when the GM uses hit locations or critical hit and miss tables – so leave them out. Rather than fuss with the detail of selecting a dozen skills to round out a character, use a wildcard skill – and maybe a Talent or two (p. 89) to boost that skill even more. If the GM and players want a free-wheeling, fast-paced game, it’s easy to do – just pare GURPS down to its essential elements and be willing to make a lot of judgment calls on the fly.
STARTING A GAME SESSION
There are a few things the GM should do before play actually starts, to make things easier for himself and the players: Introduce the characters. If you are in the middle of a continuing campaign, you can skip this step! But if you are just starting out, each player should have the opportunity to describe “himself” or “herself.” If there is an artist in the group, he may help by drawing the characters as they are described. Check for skills, etc. improved since the last play session. In a continuing campaign, the PCs earn character points that they can spend to improve their abilities. Sometimes the PCs can study, work at jobs, etc. between play sessions. Therefore, some characters may have better skills or abilities than they did last game session. This is the time for the players to work out such matters with the GM. (If everyone in the group has net access, it might be better to work on this via e-mail between games, to avoid slowing things down.) Fill out the GM Control Sheet. While the players are getting to know each other (or each other’s characters), the GM should check over the character sheets, make sure everything balances, and copy necessary information onto a GM Control Sheet. This reference lists attributes, secondary characteristics, special advantages and skills, etc. for each PC. When the GM rolls in secret to determine who sees something, who understands something that everyone sees, who resists a spell, or who that bad-tempered dwarf takes a dislike to, this sheet is valuable. Brief the players. Tell them what’s going on, give them some idea what the adventure will be about, and (in a continuing campaign) refresh their memory about the last game session. There are many ways to do this. You can always just tell them. But it’s much more fun to start play and then “set the scene.” Let the characters immediately find a map or old book . . . meet someone who tells them an interesting rumor . . . befriend someone in need of help . . . witness a wrong that needs righting . . . or whatever. Let the game begin!
Advance Preparation There are several things for the GM to do well in advance, before the players arrive on the scene: Prepare the adventure. If you are playing a prepared adventure, all you need to do is read through it, and possibly make up some character sheets. But if you are designing your own adventure, you may spend weeks of work – a labor of love – before it is ready for the players. In any event, be sure you’re fully familiar with the adventure before the players show up! Brief the players about the adventure. If your players are already familiar with the system, you should tell them in advance (before they arrive to start the game) what sort of characters are “legal” and how much money, equipment, etc. they are allowed – and perhaps give a hint about useful skills. If everyone has his character made up in advance, you’ll be able to get right to the action when the players arrive. Set up the play area. You need pencils, paper, and dice; maps and miniatures if you are using them (and a table to play them on); and a supply of snacks (for yourself, if not for the whole group)! Who’s Got the Sheets? Much of the advice in this chapter assumes that you, as GM, have access to the character sheets during the planning process, or at least are maintaining a detailed GM Control Sheet. Some GMs ask the players to leave their character sheets with them, both because it helps them plan and because then the players can’t lose them. However, there are situations (for instance, a campaign in which GM duties rotate through the group) where that’s impractical – and some players really don’t like to give up that much control. You should at least have a control sheet with each PC’s primary abilities, updated as major changes happen. It’s not as good as having the actual character sheets, but it’s much better than trying to plan and run the game blind. Of course, a photocopy or digital copy is even better! To Screen or Not to Screen? Many GMs prefer to use folders, books, or other opaque items to screen their notes and die rolls from the players. Others find that it distances them from the game, and like being right out with everyone else. This is largely a matter of taste; we point out only that there are situations in which a GM should roll secretly, and you should have some easy way to do that.
MAPS The GM may wish to prepare maps in advance, to help him plan and to keep track of events. He may also give maps to the players as clues. And the players themselves might want to map their progress – whether it be through jungles, dungeons, or downtown New York City – to make sure they can find their way back . . . Maps in GURPS use hexagons, or “hexes,” to regulate movement and combat. Each hex is adjacent to six other hexes. See Hexes (p. 384).
Travel Maps Draw these maps to any convenient scale. Examples include maps of continents, highways, and cities. These are purely for information; they are not “playing boards.” In a modern adventure, the players have access to travel maps. In a far-past or far-future campaign, the travel map might be the GM’s secret. (Finding a map can be a great adventure objective.) Area Maps The standard scale for these maps is 1” = 18’ (6 hexes). Each hex is still one yard across – it is just drawn to a smaller scale. Use this scale to map an entire building, dungeon, arena, etc., and use a different sheet for each floor or level, indicating shafts and stairways. Mark each room (or other point of interest) with a letter or number for use with a map key. For each room, the map key should give: • Its size (although this might be clear from the area map). • A general description. • A description of the people or creatures in the room, if any. This may be as simple as “Two ordinary wolves,” or as complex as “This room is empty except between midnight and 9 a.m., when two guards are there. There is a 50% chance that each one is asleep. They are ordinary guards from the Character List, but one of them also has a gold ring worth $200. They will surrender if outnumbered more than 2 to 1, but will not cooperate, even if threatened with death.” • If necessary, any special notes about the room, and descriptions of anything that might be found if the room were examined carefully. • If necessary, a room map (see below) to show the precise location of furniture, characters, etc.
The GM should keep this sort of map secret from the players – although they can try to make their own map. He may wish to place a marker on the area map to show where the party is at any given moment. Room Maps Draw these maps to any convenient scale. A useful scale is 1” = 6’ (2 hexes) – half the size of a combat map. Use these maps when you need to sketch a room in some detail but do not want to draw up a combat map. Combat Maps Combat does not require combat maps – although they can be handy to help the players visualize the action. Tactical Combat (Chapter 12) does require combat maps. Combat maps are drawn to a scale of 1” = 3’; each hex is three feet, or 1 yard, across. When the characters enter an area where combat might occur, lay out a map and have them place their figures on it to show exactly where they are. If combat occurs, play out the fight on the combat map. Treat any partial hex as equal to a full hex. This allows a realistic representation of either a hex-walled room or an irregular cavern.
Player-Made Maps Whenever the PCs enter an area for which they have no map – be it a dungeon, a laboratory complex, or a network of jungle trails – the players will want to map it themselves. (That is, they will if they are smart!) However, mapping is not trivial. Unless the party carries a tape measure and spends a lot of time using it, you should not tell them, “You go 12 yards down the stairs and turn north. The tunnel is seven feet wide and nine feet high. It goes north for 120 yards and then turns northeast. In another 20 yards, it opens out into a room 10 yards by 6 yards.” That sort of information would require several minutes per measurement and a skill roll against Mathematics (Surveying) – not just a stroll through the tunnel! Instead, give them information like this: “You walk down the stairs – they go down a little farther than an ordinary flight of stairs. At the bottom, there’s a tunnel going right. It’s wide enough for two to walk side by side, and so high you can barely touch the ceiling with your swords. It goes on for a ways in a fairly straight line . . .” “How far?” asks a player. “Is somebody pacing it off? Okay. Around 128 paces. It then turns to the right a bit . . .” “How much?” “Did you bring surveying tools? Anybody got Absolute Direction? No? All right. Standing at the intersection, with the old tunnel behind you at six o’clock, the new tunnel looks like it turns away at between one o’clock and two o’clock. Got that? Now, it goes along for another 19 or 20 paces, and then opens out into a big room. The door is in the middle of the long wall. The room is roughly rectangular. From where you stand, it might be 10 yards long, 6 or 7 yards wide.” Very different, yes? But also much more realistic. The players receive only the information the PCs actually get with their senses. In the example above, the GM fudged all the distances a little bit, assuming that whoever was pacing would have a standard pace a bit less than a yard. If you do this, the players might come up with ingenious ways to measure time and distance. Let them! Note that if mapping is difficult in ordinary circumstances, it becomes next to impossible if the party is in a hurry! Suppose the group is being chased through the area described above. The GM would say: “Okay. You’re running? Stop mapping. Here’s where you go. Down the stairs! Turn right! Run for several seconds! The tunnel bends to the right! Run a little farther! You’re in a room!” And so on. When the party stops running, they can sit down and try to remember where they went. (Eidetic Memory is a big help here!) Mapping Overland Journeys If the PCs are traveling through unexplored territory, the players may wish to keep a large-scale map. The GM may make it automatic if they are following rivers, canyons, and the like. If they are trekking through featureless wastes, or trying to map a specific tiny inlet of a great river, making a map good enough for others to follow requires a Cartography roll. This defaults to IQ- 5, Geography-2, Mathematics (Surveying)-2, or Navigation-4. Absolute Direction is good for +3 to the roll. This can be an adventure in itself: the party is sent to explore and map the trackless waste, virgin planet, mysterious dungeon, steaming jungle, dead city, or whatever.
RUNNING THE GAME
The GM’s task during the game is simple. All he has to do is listen to the players describe what they’re doing, then use the rules of the game to tell them what happens, so they can describe what they want to do next . . . and so on. Well, perhaps it’s not quite that simple! The sections below will help you, as GM, determine “what happens next” in a variety of situations. But the most important things are not “rules” at all, but guidelines for good GMing. Use common sense. When any rule gives a silly result, follow common sense instead. No matter how much we playtest, no rules are perfect – including these. Don’t let the players turn into “rules lawyers.” Your decision is final. Be fair. Give all the players an even chance, and try to keep all of them involved in the action. And when you change a rule or make a special exception, apply it equally to everybody. Keep the action moving. A roleplaying game is like a story. As the GM, you’re the author. Your main characters have free will, and often the story goes where they want it to go! But when things lag, it’s your job to liven them up. Improvise an encounter . . . introduce a clue . . . do something to get things back on track, or to help the players get some ideas. Don’t lean on formulas. This definitely includes the various formulas in the rules! Use them when you need them – but don’t let them become crutches. And don’t let adherence to a formula spoil the game. For instance, if the hero really needs to lift that rock to keep the action going, let him lift it. Thou shalt not kill. Not much, anyway. In some RPGs, life is cheap. A GM doesn’t think he’s doing a good job unless he slaughters half the party within the first hour of play. But most players don’t find this fun. GURPS allows complete, detailed character creation. It’s a shame to turn such carefully crafted characters into cannon fodder. Remember: good adventure stories don’t kill off their heroes without a reason. This is discussed in greater detail below; see Keeping The Characters Alive (p. 496). Of course, if you and your players really like hackand- slash games, go right ahead . . . SETTLING RULES QUESTIONS In any question of rules, the GM’s word is law. The GM decides which optional rules to use, and settles any specific questions that come up. A
good GM discusses important questions with the players before deciding – and a good player accepts the GM’s decisions. The GM should know the rules thoroughly. When the rules do not cover a situation – or when a decision about the “real world” is needed – the GM can use several techniques: Success rolls. A “success roll” is a roll that tests one of a character’s attributes, skills, etc. – see Chapter 10. Use a success roll when a question arises about someone’s ability to do some particular thing. Random rolls. A random roll is often best for a question like “Are the keys in the car?” or “Does one of the soldiers have a horse the same color as mine?” The GM decides what the chances are, then rolls the dice. Some things have a 50-50 chance; others are highly unlikely. The GM decides what the odds should be, and leaves the rest to fate. Arbitrary fiat. You don’t have to use the dice at all. If there is only one “right” answer to fit the plot of the adventure – then that’s the answer. “Luckily for you, the grenade bounced down the stairwell. Nobody was hurt. But now the guards are alerted!” DEALING WITH THE PLAYERS Players are individuals, with opinions and biases, and there will be times when the GM needs to keep the peace. Here is some advice for doing just that. Arguments As the GM, you should always listen to reasonable suggestions from the players – and if you make a mistake, you should be willing to reverse your decision. But you are the final authority, and the court of last resort. If you make a decision that you think is fair, and someone insists on arguing . . . invite him to leave the game, temporarily or permanently. Games are fun. Arguments aren’t. (The other players may step in and shut this down before you get a chance. Let them!) “I changed my mind!” Certain players try to “take back” actions when they suffer bad consequences. Don’t let them do it unless they could realistically have changed their minds in time to avoid trouble. If George says, “I’m dropping the nitroglycerine,” and you roll the dice and tell him, “It just blew up. Take 3d damage,” George can’t take it back. But if George says, “I’m setting fire to the building,” and then changes his mind – let him. “All right. You lit the match and found some newspaper, but then you changed your mind. Stomp out the newspaper.” Buildings don’t burn that quickly, so George had time to reconsider. (If George had used a flamethrower, of course, it would be different!) In general, if a player announces that he is performing an irrevocable act . . . he really did it, and that’s that. Follow the Leader If the players select a leader, the leader should speak for the party, telling the GM what they are doing – except in emergencies. Then, it’s every man for himself. The leader can give orders, but he cannot enforce them unless his character can enforce them in the game world. If the leader appeals to you for help, tell him, “You’re the leader. You keep discipline.” Table Talk If your players are too noisy, tell them, “If you say it, your character says it.” This means that the characters cannot be stealthy unless the players are quiet, and the characters cannot make a speedy decision unless the players decide quickly. Enforcing this rule can save the GM’s sanity, especially if he has a large group. PLAYING THE NPCS A “nonplayer character” (NPC) is anyone played by the GM. The GM gets to play dozens of characters throughout an adventure – from chance-met travelers to powerful patrons and villains. As the GM, you may create your NPCs in any way you like. You should design important NPCs just like player characters, but you can give “cannon fodder” and “bit players” logical abilities by using templates (see Character Templates, p. 445) or by assigning appropriate traits on the spur of the moment without regard to point value. Once you create an NPC – major or minor – play the role! Your NPCs will try to earn money, look important and admirable, protect their skins, and achieve their goals – just like anybody else! The more skilled you become at roleplaying, the better a GM you will be and the more fun you (and your players) will have. Some of your NPCs will automatically be friendly to the PCs; others will be “natural enemies.” These reactions will be preset when you work out the scenario. But many NPCs have no “automatic” response to the PCs. Instead, you will use the Reaction Table (p. 560) to see how they respond. Playing the Adversary When the GM plays an NPC who is an enemy of the PCs, he should try to limit his knowledge to those things that the NPC would really be aware of. The GM knows all about the party’s strengths and weaknesses – but their enemies don’t. One good way to solve this problem is to have another person play the adversary characters. The GM should tell the Adversary as much as possible about the characters he is to play. But the Adversary should know no more than is “realistic” about the overall situation. In particular, he should know very little about the PCs and their abilities – especially at the beginning of an adventure! For total realism, you might even want two Adversary players – one for knowledgeable enemies who are familiar with the party, and one for stupid cannon fodder. The Adversary is like an “assistant GM.” His job is to roleplay the foes as well as possible. He should not play them as mindless killing machines (unless they really are). If the “appropriate” thing for those particular enemies to do is to attack, they should attack. But they might also throw rocks from ambush, shout insults, or even run away immediately! In any disagreement between the Adversary and the GM, the GM’s word is law. But a good GM gives the Adversary as much leeway as possible, and takes any disagreement into another room to avoid distracting the players. Playing the Adversary is a good way to build up experience if you would like to be a GM someday.
Gaming Online If you don’t have a gaming group in your area, or you still want to game with college buddies who are scattered all over the country (or the world!), you may want to try roleplaying online. There are a number of ways to go about it: Play by e-mail (PBEM). In this style of play, the GM describes the scene for everyone. Each player then sends his next “move” to the GM, who compiles everyone’s moves, figures out what the NPCs are doing during that time, resolves all the actions, and sends out the next installment. Advantages: no one is forced into hasty action; just about everyone with any sort of net access has e-mail, and it works just as well on a 10-year-old computer as it does on the newest model; the GM can attach files to the messages if he wants to show the players something their characters would see; games aren’t held up waiting on the perpetually late player to arrive; and no one can steal your munchies. Disadvantages: it is a lot more work for the GM, especially if he is a poor typist; a single encounter can take weeks to complete if the players are slow about replying; and it’s just about impossible to run any detailed combats – in fact, many PBEMs actively avoid combat. Play by real-time chat (IRC, M*, instant message, etc.). A compromise between e-mail and face-to-face gaming is using an online chat room or instant messaging service. This has many of the good and bad features of both approaches – games have to be scheduled, but the players don’t have to be in the same physical location; it’s possible to have real-time interaction among the players, but if someone is a slow typist, he bogs the game down (or gets left behind); no one steals someone else’s munchies, but no one buys the GM pizza, either. Some chat sites do have dice rollers, however, which makes gaming easier. Massively multiplayer online RPGs. These are computer games that allow the players and GMs to interact online. Some let you use any game system you like; others come with built-in rules. We have made some efforts along this line, but so far nothing has come of them. It definitely seems that MMPORGs are the future of online gaming for many people. These are getting better all the time, and rather than discuss the state of the art as of this printing (which will be outdated in six months and laughably crude in two years), we’ll just mention them and suggest that you ask around for help getting started. Other Online Resources Even if you aren’t gaming online, there are lots – no, lots – make that LOTS – of great places to find support for your tabletop GURPS game. Here are a few: Pyramid. Our online magazine is not a “house organ” – it covers games from across the industry – but it does have a lot of GURPS content, with more added just about every week. The archives of the print issues of Pyramid (and its GURPS-only predecessor, Roleplayer) have many articles which have never been adapted in later GURPS publications. With an online chat zone (including gaming areas), message boards, and new content every week, Pyramid is a steal. e23. Our new e-publishing venture has both out-ofprint and brand new adventures and source material. It is also growing all the time, so check back frequently to see what new items we’ve added! Our website. The SJ Games web page is loaded with extra content (and, eek, errata fixes) for almost every GURPS book ever published. It also includes downloadable software to help you run games in person or online. Our webforums cover everything we do, including, of course, GURPS, and are a great place to ask questions. URLs And here are the URLs: SJ Games main page: www.sjgames.com GURPS main page: www.sjgames.com/gurps/ Forums: forums.sjgames.com Pyramid: www.sjgames.com/pyramid/ e23: e23.sjgames.com GURPS errata: www.sjgames.com/errata/gurps/ GURPS Online:www.sjgames.com/gurps/online – As of this writing there is nothing at that page but an announcement of a canceled project, but if something new happens, that’s where it’ll be.
REACTION ROLLS When the PCs meet an NPC whose reaction to them is not predetermined (see below), the GM makes a “reaction roll” on 3d. The higher the roll, the better the reaction. The GM then plays the NPC according to the guidelines on the Reaction Table. The GM should keep this roll secret from the players. They don’t know, for instance, whether that friendly-looking old farmer is giving them straight advice or sending them into a trap. A reaction roll is not a success roll. There are three important differences: 1. There is no “target number” to roll against. 2. A high roll is good, not bad. 3. Reaction modifiers apply directly to the die roll. A reaction bonus is any factor that will make NPCs friendlier, while a reaction penalty is something that will bias NPCs against the PCs. Some common reaction modifiers: Personal appearance and behavior. This is especially true for the PC who does the talking! Above-average
appearance gives a bonus, as do such traits as Charisma, Fashion Sense, Pitiable, and Voice. In most situations, so does a high apparent Status. Belowaverage appearance and many disadvantages give a penalty. Skills. A successful roll against a skill appropriate to the situation can give +2 to reactions. Examples include Administration when dealing with bureaucrats, Carousing when partying, and Politics when interacting with politicians. In a few cases, skill 20+ gives an automatic +2 to reactions. Diplomacy and Fast-Talk work this way if you are allowed to talk – as does Merchant skill, during commercial transactions. The GM may give similar bonuses for other skills. Racial or national biases. Elves don’t like dwarves, Frenchmen don’t care for Germans, and so on. These are usually penalties, and take the form of a Social Stigma disadvantage for the PC or an Intolerance disadvantage on the part of the NPC. Appropriate behavior by the players! Here’s a chance to reward good roleplaying. A good approach should be worth +1 or more! A wholly inappropriate approach that antagonizes the NPCs should give the party -1 or -2 on the reaction roll. Don’t tell the players, “You blew it!” – just roleplay the offended character, and let them figure it out. Random reaction rolls are great when they add a note of unpredictability to the game – this is more fun for the GM, too! However, never substitute random die rolls for reason and logic. Predetermined Reactions Certain NPCs might have reaction modifiers (mostly bad) worked out in advance. For instance, a street gang might have a -5 reaction to anybody. Predetermined reaction penalties sometimes come with a “best-case” reaction. Treat any reaction better than the best-case reaction as the bestcase scenario; do not roll again. For instance, a mountain man might be a loner, with a -2 reaction to any outsider – and no matter what, his reaction will never be better than “Neutral.” In this case, the GM would lower any reaction better than Neutral to Neutral. Predetermined bonuses and worstcase reactions (e.g., “never any worse than Neutral”) are possible for unusually friendly NPCs. Second Reaction Rolls If the players get a reaction roll they don’t like, they may change their approach and try again (unless the first roll started a fight!). Changes in approach include offering a bribe, offering a better deal, having someone else ask, presenting new information, and using a particular skill (see below). If the NPC, as played by the GM, feels that the PCs are becoming a nuisance, apply a cumulative -2 to each reaction roll after the first! The PCs can avoid this penalty by waiting a reasonable time between requests. “Reasonable” is entirely up to the GM! Influence Skills The PCs can substitute a roll against Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Intimidation, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, or Streetwise for a regular reaction roll in certain situations – see Influence Rolls (p. 359). The GM still applies any modifiers that would apply to the reaction roll, but treats them as modifiers to the skill roll. KNOWLEDGE One challenge of roleplaying is to limit a character’s knowledge to the things he “should” know. PC Knowledge Part of the GM’s job is to keep players from making use of information that their characters could not know. Anachronistic technology. Players can’t use high-tech knowledge that their characters could not have. If a medieval character wants to invent gunpowder, or build a compound bow, or use moldy bread for penicillin, you don’t have to let him. Of course, time travelers can take knowledge into the past. Similarly, modern characters should not be allowed free use of ancient techniques. Gunpowder is an example here, too . . . how many 21stcentury people know exactly what to combine to make gunpowder – or how to mix, grind, sieve, and use it without blowing themselves up? Modern characters can always try to “remember” ancient techniques, by making appropriate (and difficult) rolls against History skill or the particular specialty involved. Knowledge of history. If your game is set in the “real” past of Earth, the players – if they paid attention in school! – have advance knowledge of how things “really” came out. Don’t let them use it – unless, of course, they are time travelers from the future. And remember that, in a game, history can be changed – so some of the things the players know might not be true. Literacy. This is important – and lots of fun. If a PC is illiterate, don’t let him read anything! It is amazing how many players claim -3 points for a written comprehension level of None in their native language . . . but assume they can still read maps, street signs, and shop windows!
“I open the door, duck under the poisoned blade trap, step on every third brick, and make sure not to trip the hidden laser sensors.” If you’re using a pre-packaged adventure, it is possible that some of the players have already seen it, or even played through it. (If you’re really unlucky, one of them GMed it!) As soon as you get a hint that the players are acting from knowledge that they, themselves, should not have, it’s time to throw them a curve ball, such as an unplanned encounter, a room that “shouldn’t” be there, or a trap they weren’t expecting – and, perhaps, to re-evaluate whether you want to be gaming with people who are willing to cheat at the expense of everyone else’s fun. Or at least yours.
NPC Knowledge Likewise, the GM and the Adversary should not use knowledge that their characters could not logically possess. This is the main reason for having an Adversary in the first place . . . so the GM can’t use his total knowledge of the PCs against them. The warnings under PC Knowledge apply equally to NPCs, but there are some additional things to watch out for: Objectives of the party. The GM knows the players’ true objectives; the Adversary may know. But when he plays “ignorant” characters, he must roleplay his ignorance. This might mean that an NPC acts hostile when he “should” be friendly, or vice versa. It also means that when the party sneaks into the castle, the guards can’t all rush to protect the treasure room. They don’t know for sure where the PCs are going! Abilities of the party. All NPCs – especially adversary characters – should react according to the apparent strength of the party. A simple example: if the PCs are exploring a dungeon populated by roving bands of orcs, each new band should find out the hard way that the party’s wizard uses the Explosive Fireball spell – until some orc escapes to spread the word. Special weaknesses of the party. If (for instance) two members of the party are deathly afraid of snakes, the adversary characters shouldn’t know this unless there is a way they could have found out. In fact, the GM shouldn’t tell the Adversary things like this in the first place. Let him find out for himself! But even after he finds out, he can’t use this sort of fact unless he is playing a foe who should know. KEEPING THE CHARACTERS ALIVE There is a basic contradiction in RPGs. On one hand, the players are looking for adventure, and adventures are dangerous. On the other hand, nobody wants to get killed! The GM must walk a fine line between a “giveaway” adventure – where nobody is in real danger – and a wholesale massacre. The GURPS rules are designed for two main things: good roleplaying and realism, in that order. “Realism” means that, in any serious combat, someone is likely to get killed or badly hurt. And, since in real life nobody wants to get killed, “good roleplaying” means that most people try not to fight until they have to! That goes for your NPCs as well as the PCs. Good roleplaying (and having a good adventure) is the most important thing, though. When good roleplaying conflicts with realism, roleplaying should win out. As the GM, you should try not to let such a conflict occur. But if it does happen, tip the scales toward fun. In particular, try not to kill too many of the PCs! In a hack-and-slash game, where the PCs are no more than sets of numbers, a death is no loss. In a true roleplaying game, with fully realized heroes who took a long time to develop, losing a character can hurt. That is not to say that PCs can’t die. They can. But in the best games, they don’t die too often. Keep in mind that RPGs are meant to be fun. They simulate the “reality” of heroic fantasy, not the reality of day-to-day life. An RPG is a story that the GM and the players write together. And in the best stories, the heroes (most of them, anyway) survive and triumph. This is more important than “logic.” Logically, Luke Skywalker would have been shot down . . . Frodo and Sam would have starved in Mordor . . . Tarzan would have been lion-bait before he was six years old. A classic story defies logic, and still you believe it – because you want to. A good game is like that, too. There are several techniques you can use to keep from killing off your “main characters.” Some of these are totally contradictory. As GM, you’re the boss. Use whichever methods you like. Intelligent scenario design. Don’t fill your adventures with traps and foes designed to slaughter the PCs. Design a scenario to make the players think and roleplay, and to give them a fair chance – or perhaps a better-than-fair chance, since they are the heroes. Realistic NPC behavior. Most realistic NPCs won’t risk their own lives unnecessarily. Not every encounter turns hostile; not every hostile encounter turns violent; not every violent encounter involves weapons. Of course, some game worlds are more violent than others, but “life is cheap” usually makes for a very poor game. Even in a violent game world, enemy NPCs will often have a reason to take the PCs prisoner rather than kill them outright: interrogation, ransom, imprisonment, slavery, sacrifice, or what-have-you. Capture and escape are staples of adventure fiction, which is what the game is all about! And if the PCs are winning a fight, your NPCs should try to save their skins. In real life, most guards, beasts, or bandits flee – regardless of duty, hunger, or greed – if a fight goes against them. Play them that way. Realistic NPC abilities. In most game worlds, the PCs start off with more points than the average person. This means that most NPCs are no match for them, physically or intellectually. There are exceptions . . . interesting, dangerous exceptions. But the “man on the street” should have poorer attributes and fewer abilities than the PCs. For the most part, the PCs should be facing inferior foes. This not only keeps the game in balance – it preserves the “reality” of adventure fiction. This is not to say that an “average” person cannot be dangerous. A 25- point thug can be a nasty fighter, if he takes a couple of disadvantages that don’t affect combat and specializes in ST, DX, and combat training. He is more than a match for a 100-point intellectual in a fight. But a 100-point fighter can chop him to bits. Safety-net rules. Make use of rules that serve to keep the PCs alive. Let them expend FP for bonuses to defense rolls (see Extra Effort in Combat, p. 357), or even spend bonus character points to buy successes (see Influencing Success Rolls, p. 347). In action-oriented campaigns, consider making Luck a required advantage to give the PCs “rules protection” from bad die rolls.
Deus ex machina. This is miraculous outside intervention that saves the day. The cavalry comes over the hill . . . the starship beams you up . . . the Governor issues a pardon. When the players did their best and things just went totally wrong, arrange a miraculous escape, against all odds. If it was good enough for Edgar Rice Burroughs, it’s good enough for you. Needless to say, the beneficiaries of a deus ex machina should not gain bonus character points from the situation, since they did not escape on their own. Cheat! When all else fails, roll the dice where the players can’t see – and then lie about your roll. “It worked! You finally got the door open. You rush through and slam it behind you. The orcs cannot follow.” When an “honest” roll would result in a bloody massacre, it is forgivable for the GM to cheat in the players’ favor. One last note: There will come a time when the players insist on getting themselves killed – through gross carelessness, total stupidity, or even (we can hope) good roleplaying, right down to the bitter end. You can’t rescue them every time . . . that’s no fun, either! If they really ask for trouble, let them have it. So it goes.
When in Doubt, Roll and Shout Often, in spite of your most careful preparation, something surprising happens. It could be anything. No matter how much you plan ahead, your players will come up with something you didn’t expect. That’s all right. If they didn’t come up with anything surprising, your duties as GM would be much less fun. But you still have to cope with the problem. Let’s say, for instance, that the heroes have just discovered the Shrine of the Mother Goddess. Suddenly, they realize that they have been followed! A dozen huge, ape-like creatures stalk through the door and approach menacingly. There are no other exits. There are several things the players might do, and you’re prepared. If they want to fight, you know the combat stats for the ape-things. If they try to make friends, you’ve already decided that they’ll be dragged away to the ape-cave and fattened up for dinner. If they try to flee, or use magic to make a barricade, you know there is a secret door behind the altar – if they can find it in time. If they try to call on the Mother Goddess, you’ve decided it won’t work – they don’t know the spells or rituals. However, one of the younger characters panics when he sees the apethings. Running to the giant statue of the Mother Goddess, he clasps her around the knees and bawls for help. He doesn’t pray . . . he just pleads, like a terrified child. And you weren’t ready for something like that! Of course, you can just say, “Nothing happens. It doesn’t work,” whenever your players try something original. But that’s no fun. Or you can always say, “I wasn’t ready for that. Do something else.” But that’s no fun either. The good GM uses his imagination to match the players’ creativity. In a really dramatic situation, like the one described above, just go with the flow! There’s a very good chance that the Mother Goddess takes pity on that poor, sincere fool. Maybe she swats the ape-things out the door. Maybe she just picks up that one character and holds him safe, leaving the others to fight the apes. Who knows? You’re the GM. In an unusual situation, anything is right if it’s fair to the players and makes the story better. Whatever you do, it’s a good idea not to let the players know when you are improvising. Let them think you had it all planned in advance. If you want to admit afterward that you were just “winging it,” that’s up to you. But don’t interrupt the flow of the game. Roll the dice, shout “You did it!” (or “You blew it!”), and keep going.
GAME TIME “Game time” is the time that passes in the game world, as determined by the GM. It rarely passes at the same rate as time in the real world. Time During Adventures Combat is played in “slow” time. A turn in combat equals one second, but it might take a minute or more in the real world to resolve that turn, especially if the players are inexperienced or the battle is a large one. Since combat is usually a life-or-death situation, you need to give your players time to think. Conversations, planning sessions, attempts to escape from traps, and similar situations are played in “real” time. If the players spend 10 minutes discussing how to best approach an NPC merchant . . . their characters spent 10 minutes talking outside the shop. Routine travel, long tasks, etc., are handled in “fast” time. For instance, when the party is walking along a trail, the GM can simply skip the time between encounters: “You walk for another two hours, and then, coming toward you, you see two young women with long poles . . .” Tell the players when they meet someone, when they enter a town, when night falls, and so on. Just compress the rest of the time. Under some circumstances – a long sea or space voyage, for instance – the GM could compress months of uneventful time into “Nothing happens until July, unless you make it happen yourself.” This is a good time for the characters to dream up some interesting deviltry, or to fill out Time Use Sheets for study and self-improvement (see Time Use Sheets, p. 499). Time Between Sessions If you can’t finish an adventure in one session, just “pause” the game until the next session. For instance, if the party confronts a rampaging Tyrannosaurus just before the session ends, the Tyrannosaurus gets no closer in the real-world week before you can play again.
Time Between Adventures If you are running a continuing campaign, you should keep track of time between adventures, so characters can study, travel, and age. This can always be the same amount of time, or the GM and players can simply agree on a “logical” time to pass between the end of one adventure and the beginning of the next. It is often a good idea to let a month or two go by, to allow time for healing, earning money at “ordinary” jobs, and study of new skills – see Time Use Sheets (p. 499). There is also merit to shaking things up occasionally – ask the players what their PCs are doing, and then interrupt their activities with the next adventure! Once in a while, this can be really effective, especially if the adventure is meant to be a “double red alert” emergency. If the party is widely scattered, this might be a chance to try some new techniques, such as one-onone adventures or play by e-mail. Let them deal with the crisis alone for a bit before bringing them back together. You don’t want to do this too often, however, especially if some of the PCs were in the middle of training for a new skill or long tasks (enchanting, inventing, etc.). Even fictional heroes need some downtime . . . Alternatively, you can let X days of real time equal one day of game time, all the time. For instance, if X is 7, one day equals one week; therefore, if it has been seven days since your last adventure, seven weeks have passed in the game world.
ENDING A PLAY SESSION
At the end of each play session, the GM should do the following: Discuss the adventure with the players. What went right and what went wrong – and why? If the session was part of a continuing campaign, the GM should be careful not to give away any secrets! Award character points for good play (see below). File away the play material. NPC records, GM Control Sheet, etc. will all be useful later – be sure to keep track of them! You can often “recycle” NPCs in later adventures. Plan the next session with the players. This is especially important in a continuing campaign. Decide where the game will take up next week, how much game time will have passed, and anything else that the players need to know before the next session starts. AWARDING BONUS CHARACTER POINTS At the end of each play session, the GM should award bonus character points for good play. “Good play” is anything that advances the heroes’ mission or shows good roleplaying – preferably both. But roleplaying trumps mission success! If a player did something totally outside his character’s personality (for instance, if a total coward performed a brave act), this should not be worth any points, even if it saved the day for the rest of the group! The GM is free to award any number of points . . . but in general, he should give each player between zero and five points, averaging two or three points, per session. The low end is for bad roleplaying or mission failure, while the high end is for good roleplaying or mission success. Remember that a character gets no points for a session in which his Dependent is killed, seriously wounded, or kidnapped and not recovered! The GM might also wish to give an award – perhaps equal to that for a successful play session – upon the conclusion of a lengthy adventure, story arc, or major plot thread. This is in addition to any points for the session during which the plot was resolved! The GM should award bonus points separately (and probably secretly) to each player. The player should record his points on his character sheet if he intends to play that character again; the GM might also want to keep his own record. The player can use these points to develop and improve his character – see Chapter 9. These are only guidelines. The GM can award as many or as few points as he wishes. Some games call for faster character advancement than others! Avoiding Character Inflation As GM, you should try to balance the number of points you give out. Characters should improve fast enough to keep things interesting, but not so fast that they outrun their foes and unbalance your campaign. Also, if the original characters are now
extremely powerful, new players – and their characters – are liable to feel useless unless you specifically bring them into the action. Some of this depends on the background; superheroic types are expected to improve quickly (and their enemies improve, too), while ordinary cops or soldiers gain skills or promotions at a slower pace. In the final analysis, it’s up to the GM to determine what is right for his own campaign and his own players. Controlling Character Development Given the chance, some players will spend points without regard for their characters’ origins and stated goals. Of course, when a player asks to use bonus points to buy a wholly inappropriate ability, you can always say “no.” But there are other options: Discuss all improvements. Don’t just let players buy whatever they want – ask them to explain why, especially if they wish to increase attributes! Attempts to make inappropriate improvements most often occur when the player discovers an unintended weakness in his character design and believes the new ability will compensate for it. If the desired ability doesn’t fit the character concept, try to discover the perceived weakness and suggest more appropriate alternatives that address it directly. Keep awards small enough that players must think about their purchases. If players must save points for many sessions to afford larger purchases (e.g., attribute levels and advantages), there is, in effect, a “waiting period.” Many players will reconsider their “need” for character-distorting abilities during this time, and instead use their points to raise skills that will be useful during the current adventure. This leads to well-rounded veterans whose skills reflect their actual activities. Don’t make it too easy to learn new skills. If you let the PCs learn new skills whenever they have enough points, their skill lists will eventually grow indistinguishable from one another. If every PC can tackle every task, the players might conclude that their characters no longer have any need for companions. This can break up the party – and possibly the gaming group. It is realistic to learn some skills quickly under pressure, but you should feel free to rule that others (especially magic spells and secret martial-arts skills) are hard to learn except as part of a dedicated career. Give awards other than points. Give out the occasional award in the form of specific abilities instead of discretionary points. Social advantages – Patrons, Rank, Reputation, Status, Wealth, etc. – make the best awards, as they often make sense as “rewards” in the game world. Another realistic possibility is direct improvement of a well-exercised ability. Few players will complain if you give them a skill level worth four points in a well-used skill instead of two discretionary points!
Time Use Sheets A “Time Use Sheet” is a record prepared by the player that describes how his character spends the time between play sessions. (There’s a sample on p. 569.) The GM sets the amount of time covered by each sheet. An even number of weeks works best. At the end of each play session, the GM tells the players how much game time will pass before the next session. When they show up for the next session, they can bring the records of how they spent the intervening time. When an adventure “stops in the middle” – when one play session ends at night in the inn, and the next one starts the next morning – obviously no Time Use Sheet is necessary. Use one when there is a hiatus in an adventure (for instance, when the PCs must wait two weeks to catch their ship). And use one between adventures, to give the characters a chance to rest, earn money, and improve their skills. GMs: If this seems like too much bookkeeping, don’t do it! Feel free to think of a substitute – or forget all this entirely – if it does not add to your players’ enjoyment. There are three major reasons to keep track of time outside of play: Long Tasks Characters may have important missions between play sessions. These might be tedious to game out, but vital – which is why you do them “between times” and cover them with a few die rolls. For instance, in a treasure- hunting adventure, the group’s scholar might need to spend a few weeks in the library making Research rolls to find useful maps. Meanwhile, the thief is visiting taverns and making Streetwise rolls to pick up useful rumors. The GM checks their sheets, notes how much time they spent at it, and rolls (one or more times) to see what they found. Study Characters may wish to improve existing skills or gain new ones through study. (If some characters are students, this is unavoidable!) The GM keeps a running total of the time spent studying each skill. When it’s enough to buy a skill increase, the skill goes up immediately. See Improvement Through Study (p. 292). Jobs Time spent at work counts as study of the skill involved (but at only 1/4 rate – that is, an eight-hour workday counts as two hours of study). It also pays enough to live on, and maybe a little extra. (In most societies, those who do not show up full-time for work will soon be fired, and hurting for money!) A job can be a great springboard to adventure in the hands of a creative GM. See Jobs (p. 516).
WRITING YOUR OWN ADVENTURES
Sooner or later, every GM wants to write his own adventures – or at least modify store-bought ones to fit his own group. More power to you! Homegrown adventures can range from simple “dungeons” to entire worlds, intricately worked out over a period of years. WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS? You can get ideas from novels, movies, comics, RPG supplements, other GMs, and of course the players themselves. Whatever your source, you’ll want to come up with enough new twists to keep your players (and yourself) interested. Some GMs give their players a lot of voice in the type of adventures they will have. If the players want to hunt for treasure, the GM comes up with a treasure-hunting scenario. Other GMs see themselves as Blind Fate, and the players never know what will happen next. It’s all a matter of taste. ADVENTURE DESIGN When you design an adventure, you are writing the outline for a story. The full story will begin when the PCs appear on the scene. To set the stage, you must prepare the plot, maps, character descriptions, etc. and a number of “encounters” involving these things. Level of Difficulty The first thing to decide is simply how “hard” your adventure is going to be. Are you planning an adventure for four beginning-level characters – or for a half-dozen experienced adventurers? The rewards should be commensurate with the risks. In a fantasy campaign, don’t let the PCs butcher two halflings and a senile goblin, and then rush back to town with a chest full of gold! (Or, if you do, have the king’s taxman there to welcome them!) The real rewards in this game come in the form of bonus character points (p. 498). These result from good roleplaying, and have nothing to do with the amount of wealth you drag home. Still, material things have their uses. Ask any fighter who can’t afford to buy armor! Don’t make wealth (or
power, or fame) too easy to come by, or you will unbalance your campaign. Continuity You should also decide whether the adventure needs to fit into (or kick off) a campaign, or if it is just a “one-shot.” In a campaign, each adventure has to follow naturally from the last one, and leave room for future adventures. It also has to take the PCs into account. If they are famous – or notorious – certain NPCs should recognize them. The adventurers should recognize some of the NPCs, too, and possibly some of the locations in the adventure. Most importantly, the adventure should not render the PCs unplayable no matter what the players do . . . because the whole point of a campaign is to keep playing the same characters! In a one-shot adventure, however, you have no continuity to worry about. Future play balance is not an issue, and neither is character survival. You can experiment with certain death, transcendence to godhood, and other extreme outcomes without the risk of destroying a campaign. Background This is the setting of your story. In what game world does it take place? When and where? What are the events leading up to your tale? Who are the important NPCs, and what are their motives? In short, what is happening behind the scenes, and what is the “big picture?” If this adventure is part of a campaign, a lot of the background is set. If it is a “one-shot,” the background can be sketchy. But if you’re starting a campaign, give the background a lot of thought. Plot The “plot” is your plan for the things that are supposed to happen during the adventure. In a simple adventure, the GM guides the PCs from one “encounter,” or scene, to the next. Each encounter starts when the heroes arrive; then it is played out, and the next one can begin. In a more sophisticated adventure, certain things happen at certain times, regardless of the PCs’ actions. If the heroes must solve a murder, for instance, some clues might vanish if they are not found in time – and others might not exist yet if the investigators come on the scene “too soon.” The murders might even continue as the players investigate (that’s one sure way to eliminate a suspect). Likewise, important NPCs may come and go, with little regard for the adventurers’ wishes. And there is no limit to what can happen “offstage.” Elections, wars, and alien invasions . . . many events can present new challenges. This sort of plot is harder to write, and demands more from the GM during play. But it gives the players a sense of urgency that is missing in a plain, linear adventure.
Dungeons The term “dungeon” refers to a simple fantasy adventure. Typically, the PCs wander from room to room, killing monsters and grabbing treasure. There is often no rhyme or reason to the contents of the rooms – in children’s fantasy games, every encounter may be rolled randomly! However, a dungeon setting is good for a beginning adventure; it teaches basic game mechanics quickly. And an underground labyrinth does not have to be “kid stuff” – it can be part of a very realistic background. A “dungeon” can also be a building, battleship, space station, etc. If the adventurers are dropped into a limited area, with little or no goal except to grab what they can and get out alive, it’s a “dungeon.” A dungeon is easy to map, since its area is limited. When treasurehunters go too far, they just run into a blank wall and have to turn around. The typical dungeon is a collection of rooms, connected by corridors, shafts, or tunnels. Dungeon Inhabitants and Plot The GM should populate his dungeon (or building, or whatever) with appropriate men, beasts, and monsters. If you are just creating a “hack-and-slash” dungeon, you don’t need to worry about what they are doing there, what they eat, why they attack the party, or anything else – just stock the rooms and go. Likewise, the “plot” for a hack-and-slash adventure will be very simple. “Joe the Barbarian, with his friends Ed the Barbarian and Marge the Barbarian, went down into a cave. They saw lots of monsters and killed them and took their treasure. A dragon ate Ed. Joe and Marge ran away. The End.” If you want to create a situation that actually makes sense, you have advanced to the level of adventure design. Congratulations. Read on . . .
Introduction The purpose of the introduction is to get the players’ characters into your plot so that the game can begin. If the players are not familiar with your game world, you should tell them a little bit about it. If they know the game world (or are part of a continuing campaign), you can just set the scene with a few words and start the action. You should not give them the whole background. In a welldesigned adventure, one of the players’ objectives is to find out what’s really going on. Don’t give away all your secrets right at the beginning! The most hackneyed introduction of all (but still one of the best) is the Old Man in the Tavern: “You are all strangers in town, looking for adventure. You are sitting in the local tavern when an old man comes up to you . . .” The old man can ask for help, order the PCs out of town, sell them a map, offer to guide them to fame and fortune . . . it doesn’t matter. Whatever he does, he is a mouthpiece through which the GM can give the players a little background and start them off in the right direction.
Some other good “mouthpiece” characters for an introductory encounter: • An officer briefing a group of soldiers, spies, supers, etc. to perform a mission. • An injured stranger who staggers up and gasps a few cryptic last words. • A strange story in the news (the “mouthpiece” in this case is the person the PCs contact to ask about it – a reporter, a scientist, etc.). The GM might instead let the party witness the mysterious event. • A storyteller, herald, or town drunk, passing on an interesting rumor. • A wealthy person who offers to hire the party for a dangerous mission. • A retired adventurer telling about the treasure he couldn’t quite get. • A spirit or deity visiting the faithful (or fairly faithful) with commands – perhaps in a dream. • A villain’s henchman, delivering a threat, ransom demand, or boast. • A friend of one of the characters – or, for that matter, a total stranger rescued from immediate danger – who needs help. • A lawyer reading a will, which sends the party on a quest for an inheritance. The “mouthpiece” NPC can end the introductory encounter by providing the maps, passwords, or whatever else the party needs to start the adventure. Maps As described under Maps (p. 490), you will need a number of maps – one per area you consider “important” to the adventure. Prepare combat maps in advance for any location where a fight is likely. The experienced GM can save a lot of time by “recycling” maps. One house is a lot like another. One tavern is a lot like another. And so on. Of course, if you always use the same one, your players will kid you about it . . . “Aha, here we are, back in the Generic Tavern!” Commercially produced combat maps (from SJ Games, or any number of other companies) can also save time. Often an interesting map suggests an appropriate encounter, helping you to design your adventure! NPCs Nonplayer characters – whether played by the GM or the Adversary – are vital to an adventure. The GM can even plan an entire adventure around a few interesting NPCs and what happens when the PCs become involved with them! Design the most important NPCs before you work out the encounters and other details of the adventure. Their abilities, personalities, motivations, and backgrounds set the tone for the whole adventure, and give you ideas for encounters and lesser NPCs. Build important NPCs just like PCs, complete with full-scale character sheets and brief character stories, so you can roleplay them well. Create less-important NPCs – spear-carriers, cannon fodder, shopkeepers, and the like – after you plan the first encounters. You do not need complete character sheets for these characters; all you need are notes on their important statistics. Some trivial characters require no planning at all! If you suddenly need to know (for instance) a skill for one of them, just roll 3d and use the result. Finally, work out a few “generic” NPCs to use, as needed, in improvised or random encounters. For instance, in an adventure set in a fantasy city, you could prepare a few city guards, a couple of storekeepers, a couple of thieves, and maybe a strolling minstrel or wandering drunk. If you need them, you have them . . . and if you don’t need them now, you’ll have them for next time. Guards, like taverns, can be recycled over and over again! Encounters An “encounter” is a meeting with NPCs, animals, a trap, or anything else the GM wishes. There are three kinds of encounters: planned, improvised, and random. Ideally, as you run the game, your players should never know which kind is which! Planned Encounters The GM works these out in advance: when the adventurers come to this place, they meet these people (or animals, or whatever). All the important encounters in your adventure should be planned. Be aware that few encounters go exactly as planned! You should always be ready to adapt to the characters’ actions. Suppose a planned encounter involves the bouncer at the “Blue Boar” – but the PCs don’t go near there. You can drop a hint to send them there, of course . . . but it might be easier to change your plans and let the innkeeper at their rooming house serve the same purpose. The more flexible you are, the more you can avoid the appearance of manipulating the players. And appearance is more important than reality! Improvised Encounters The GM makes these up in order to keep the adventure moving along planned lines. The simplest “improvised encounter” is the little old man (looking a lot like the one you met at the tavern) who appears in your path and says, “Turn around! You’re going the wrong way!” Such encounters can provide extra clues, hints toward the “right path,” etc. Improvised encounters are often necessary when the players do something really unusual. For example, suppose you have the PCs encounter a traveling duke who is beset by bandits. The heroes drive off the bandits and save the duke, who offers to pay them generously to track down a family treasure. The players accept, but conclude that the bandits were after the treasure, too, and decide to hunt them down to find out what they know. Since you only intended the bandits as a means to introduce the duke, you could say, “You can’t find the bandits. You must have scared them off.” Or you could let the party find the bandits and defeat them in a meaningless battle. But it would be more fun to improvise an interesting encounter. If the heroes skillfully track, overwhelm, and interrogate the bandits, you could reward them with a clue. Perhaps one of the bandits snatched the duke’s heirloom cloak clasp, which broke open when he tried to pry the jewel from it – revealing a fragment of an old map! Random Encounters The GM might wish to generate some encounters at random. One technique is to use a “random encounter table”: a list of encounters keyed to a roll of the dice. See Sample Encounter Table (p. 503) for a simple example. Some “adventures” consist
mainly of such tables, allowing play to proceed for hours with no planning at all! This is great for a quick game, but not in the same league with a “real” adventure. Another method is to invent a character on the spot, rolling dice for any important statistics. If you don’t let random encounters become a crutch, they can provide variety and free you from planning every single encounter. Don’t let the players know that you are rolling a totally random encounter, however. If they realize an encounter is not “part of the plot,” they will act differently.
Sample Encounter Table A table of trivial roadside encounters for low-tech settings. Roll 1d per hour of travel. 1 – A group of farmers (roll 2d for number). 2 – One holy hermit. 3 – One not-so-holy beggar. 4 – One merchant with horse, wagon, and 1d/2 guards. 5 – A single horseman. 6 – Nothing.
Traps Fantasy adventures traditionally feature a variety of traps. The novice designer can overdo this, with a crossbow behind every door and a pit in every corridor. If this doesn’t kill the whole party, it slows the game to a crawl as they check everything in sight for traps – and then check again, to make sure. But a few strategically located traps can make an adventure more interesting. All of the above remains true in other genres! A criminal stronghold or millionaire’s mansion might hold some unpleasant surprises in store for the unwary intruder. Primitive natives encountered by explorers might have some upsettingly sophisticated defenses. Some common types of traps include poison needles, hidden crossbows (or guns, or lasers), hidden giant crossbows (or cannon, or homing missiles), pits (with spikes, snakes, or both), falling weights, rolling boulders, sliding walls (or descending roofs), slippery slides, poison gas, acid sprays, land mines, and many more. Think of the last hundred adventure stories you read! Not all traps are deadly. The intent might be to cripple, capture, annoy, embarrass, or just frighten the victims. A burglar alarm is nothing more than a trap that only produces sound! Traps, like rooms, should appear on the map key – or a trap in a room can be part of the room’s description. For each trap, specify the following: • How hard the trap is to notice, and what skills can detect it; e.g., “To spot the concealed pit, roll against Architecture-5, Vision-5, or Traps.” • How hard the trap is to disable or set off harmlessly; e.g., “To disable the trap door, roll against Carpentry or Traps+4.” • What sets off the trap; e.g., “The trap door swings open if anyone who weighs more than 50 lbs. walks on it.” • What happens if the trap is set off; e.g., “Unless the victim can make an Acrobatics or DX-6 roll to catch himself, he falls into the pit and takes 3d crushing damage.” Some GMs delight in the invention of fiendish traps to test their players’ wits. Such “puzzle traps” require more than a simple skill roll to disable or escape – the players have to think their way out! A very simple example might be a sliding-wall trap that will crush the strongest adventurer to death . . . unless he opens the manhole in the floor. It’s too small for him to fit into – but the lid is of such solid metal that, if held in place, it blocks the closing walls! Much more complex traps are possible. Have fun. “Puzzle” traps can add flavor to an adventure when simple deathtraps become boring.
Finale This is the climax of the adventure. Most adventures have only one finale (unless the party gets killed along the way). As the GM, you should guide the party, as subtly as you can, toward the “big ending” and resolution of the adventure. The players’ earlier actions affect the details of the finale, but its basic nature remains the same. If the players make “wrong” decisions along the way, it takes them longer to finish, and they should have a harder time dealing with the situation – but they should make it to the finale eventually. The exception might be a case where they have blundered so badly that the finale would certainly kill them all, in which case the merciful GM will drop a hint that they are in over their heads, and let them give up and run for home. A more sophisticated adventure could have several possible finales, depending on decisions made by the players during the adventure. This sort of “branching-path” adventure is harder to design, but sometimes easier for the GM to run, as it calls for less improvisation.
Shared Campaigns and Travel Between Campaigns Two or more GMs may agree to let PCs travel between their campaigns. In general, this simply means that one GM will replace another at a preordained time or place. The old GM may remove himself entirely, or introduce a character of his own and remain as a player. The more similar the GMs’ campaigns, the more closely they can be connected. If they operate in the same game world, and if the GMs interpret the rules in the same way and have the same “play style,” then the border between their jurisdictions might be as trivial as a river-line or even a city boundary. This is sometimes known as a “shared” campaign. One good system for GM cooperation involves (for instance) cities. A single “chief GM” is in charge of overall maintenance and development of the game world. A number of the campaign’s players also have GM responsibilities of their own. Each such player designs and controls one city. The player controlling that city referees all adventures within its confines. Needless to say, that player’s characters should take little part in the action there, even as NPCs. Even the best GM might become somewhat emotionally involved with the PCs he has developed over a period of months! The chief GM runs adventures outside the players’ cities. Thus, several players can have the fun of GMing an occasional adventure, while doing no more support work and world-building than they care to. The same system works in a space campaign, except that each player controls a whole solar system. In a setting with parallel worlds – like the Infinite Worlds campaign in Chapter 20 – each player might control an entire universe! For this kind of campaign to work, the GMs must consult regularly. Minor “cultural” differences between cities or planets are acceptable – in fact, they’re fun. But the GMs should agree among themselves about the overall nature and goals of the campaign, if PCs are allowed to move freely back and forth. If two or more GMs wish to “share” players and characters while maintaining significant differences between their worlds, they need a different procedure.
FEATURES OF A GOOD ADVENTURE A good adventure (by the standards we use for our own publications) includes: • Many opportunities for the PCs to use noncombat skills – including some difficult rolls, and some involving unusual skills (forcing the PCs to roll against defaults). • Contests between PCs and NPCs – and possibly between PCs as well. • Situations where the players have to think about the right thing to do . . . puzzles, moral choices, or both. • Situations where proper use of social skills, like Fast-Talk or Diplomacy, will avoid combat. • Situations where no possible use of social skills will avoid combat! • Interesting descriptions of people, places, and things, to give the players the feeling that they are really there with their characters. • A clear introduction, a plotline that builds tension or mystery, and a clear conclusion. • Opportunity for roleplaying and character development. This should be present in even the most lighthearted hack-and-slash adventure! Fighters are interesting people, too – at least, they should be. • A reward for characters who complete the adventure successfully, and a consequence for characters who fail! ORGANIZING A CONTINUING CAMPAIGN Even more complex (and more interesting) than a full-scale adventure is a series of adventures involving the same characters. This is called a campaign. If a single adventure is the equivalent of a novel, a campaign is an epic trilogy – the kind that is still going after seven books! A campaign consists of one adventure after another – or possibly several overlapping adventures at once. Each adventure may take many sessions to resolve. The GM decides what goes on in the game world in between game sessions – and especially between adventures. Important NPCs go about their own affairs. Wars, weather, politics, and trade can go on in the “background” of the campaign, giving rise to new adventures. Your players can be a good source of suggestions . . . and they will be tremendously pleased if their adventures affect the “whole world” in some way, whether they turn aside a catastrophic war or simply find a cure for the Queen’s wart. A large campaign can have dozens of players (not all playing at once!), several cooperating GMs, planets worth of mapped territory, and hundreds of significant NPCs, from kings and popes down to thieves and beggars. DON’T PANIC. You don’t have to do all this at once. Most campaigns just “grow,” a bit at a time. One adventure leads to the next, and before you know it, you’ve been playing for a year and you’ve got a campaign going. Much of the flavor of a good campaign comes from the players themselves. The PCs’ Dependents, Allies, Patrons, and Enemies become continuing NPCs . . . old foes reappear when they are least wanted . . . maps become more detailed each time you play. Players come and go, but the campaign goes on. And nobody learns to run a campaign by reading the rulebook. Experience is the best teacher. To help, we’ve included a Campaign Planning Form on p. 567. Filling this out will put you well on your way to adventure!
This is the end of the file.