How to Deal with Players, In DND

Hey Everybody,

Today I wanted to go over something that doesn't always come up in every DND game but can sneak its way in and ruin good story lines, players. Lets start with an example, this happened in a game of mine last week. It was a mock up twisted version of Aladdin, the players find him right as he's tied up drowning under water. When they rescue him they proceed to do two things in order. Loot his unconscious body and then interrogate him when he's finally conscious. After a grueling few minutes of answering twenty questions out of no where my patience and my npc's patience was wearing thin and he refused to answer more and moved on his merry way. The players of course deciding to follow him because he talked. They moved onto a combat scenario and dungeon where I intentionally had the npc walk off and do his own tasks before he started making his way out. Once out of the dungeon the second round of twenty questions began, at this point I gave a blatant refusal to answer and the players decided to attack and attempt to torture. The npc being ninja class, slipped his locks and fled off into the sunset never to be seen again.

I want to look at this situation from a few different angles because it says allot about human mentality and how to handle players in these kind of situations. First off players and people are not necessarily nice, society shows us to be nice in large numbers but put us alone with no consequences and a weapon, give the players the slightest annoyance  and they usually default to kill. This isn't bad, its kept us alive throughout history and is generally the main plot driver of most stories. But without reason they're no longer using any sort of emotion and are no longer role-playing.

The issue arises when players act illogical, when the chaotic good cleric start punching bunnies in the face because there's one in the room. This isn't the definition of chaotic, and unless bunnies are somehow bad for that cleric its illogical. The quickest way to break a game is by being illogical, and while this seems foolish its the reason behind every DM's "because I said so" statement ever. If you can ever ask "well why" and there's no logical answer, then you should look for one. There probably is one and by just looking for logic and having characters act logically you can put a ton of heart and soul into characters and creatures that were previously devoid of emotion.

I want to give an example of two scenarios one without logic and one with.

Scenario One - No logic

The players walk along a path and get attacked by a pack of wolves, the wolves fight to the death and the players walk away victorious with a ton of wolf bits. The end.

Scenario Two - With a hint of logic

The players walk along a path and get attacked by a pack of wolves, the wolves fight but once the first wolf is killed they immediately focus attention on the character that killed the first wolf. After 1/2 to 3/4 of the wolf pack dies the wolves flee whimpering. The players make their way through the forest hearing wolf howls periodically until their safe.

or

The players follow the wolves and find a den nearby with a half dozen wolf cubs. And the wounded territorial wolves.

The changes between scenario one and two all stem from the central question, why did the wolves attack? Is this a lot more work mentally, maybe but its worth it to create a emotional story. So when planning your games give yourself some why questions, and if characters are being illogical ask them why and see if they cant give you an answer.

Now this may have seemed like a rant because some players were mean to an npc, not at all. This is a rant about the unforeseen meta. This is dangerous because the players no longer looked at their characters and the npc as people, they dropped all role-play and killed something because it was slightly frustrating. They acted illogically and out of character for the situation and that is not what DND is about, that's not trying to feel an experience or place yourself in a new situation. That's trying to beat a game without any soul, and that is meta.

Game on,

            Duane

Planning a DND Game from Scratch

Hey Everybody,

So over the course of planning around 10 games I've unintentionally came up with a system that I wanted to share. Hopefully this will cut some of the initial planning time for new DM's who are trying to start creating their own story lines from scratch. I've found their to be on average seven main points every story should hit before the players sit down at the table. I try to plan these in order, Environment, Story, Maps, Characters, Monsters, Traps, and Loot.

First off is the environment, jungle, forest, urban or anything else, knowing your environment before planning a game helps shape the story more easily that you would believe. The setting and story are hand in hand. Which leads into step two creating your story.

Your story is entirely based on the concept you want to convey, I usually prefer an emotion as a center focus because its generally easier to keep the main theme. It's extremely beneficial to know your players while planning a game because you can cater to their general mindsets. The story line I've been planning revolves around the setting of Disney and the emotion of fear. This allows me to pull from a large array of environments and also use the players previous conception against them. The story is your bread and butter of your game but its best to keep it flexible. I prefer to plan the personalities of the NPC and to keep a general situation for the driving plot. This way the players can interact and the NPC can act logically and without information the players are fully aware of, this creates story depth and more realism.

The third step is maps, main goal here is options. Linear games are frustrating to players because it limits their options in a game based on creativity. I like to try to situate my players in maps that have at minimum two options of ways to go. Its best to stick to around three to four options think more mansion than strait cave. Given the opportunity players will surprise you with their out of the box thinking, and immediate willingness to split up. From the DM's chair handling two or three skirmishes between monsters and players vs. team fight, skirmishes are always easier to handle. I've also noticed that in smaller fights players are more likely to be creative verses just hitting the guy the party is hitting.

Four step characters, we went over this a little bit in story, but to elaborate its best to give your characters a bit of personality even if its very general stuff. The more pinnacle to the story the more personality they should have. Its good to give them a few memorable ticks or features to give them a sense of realism.

Monsters, best I can say here is to use them to teach your players some tactics they're lacking. If they never combat maneuver, spend a encounter showing them how awesome it can be. Have a wizard who complains about not being powerful enough, use a comparable wizard and use good tactics. This is the best way I've found to teach players. I also would like to caution you to not always make them human and dumb, they can be cleaver, they can be vicious. Only good rule of thumb, never make something strong enough to one hit a player, no easier way to make them feel cheated than instant death. Unless your monster crits, then throw them around like rag dolls.

Last thing to consider is traps and loot, planning these two things before the game and writing them down can solve arguments in an instant. They also helps to minimize the amount of things to adlib. If you have a player who feels like you're intentionally trapping them repeatedly or one who feels like they don't get enough loot, showing a list of concrete areas they didn't check or walked right into will quickly resolve the issue.

Feel free to go above or beyond these steps or try to add more, hopefully this will act as a decent basis to work off of, for anyone interested I also created a online website shop for the game I'm currently running. If you want to use it for reference check it out at duanelouispierce.wix.com/boatsinthedungeon.

Game on,

            Duane

Dead Space 3 - The Sequel Conundrum

Hey Everybody,

Image from - en.wikipedia.org

I recently finished Dead Space 3 so this week I figured I would do a review. I want to start this off by mentioning I love the Dead Space series. I've played Dead Space 1 enough times that I could tell you where enemies would appear by instinct. The psychological aspects of that game to this day give me shivers, and not being a big fan of horror games or movies, I feel like this is an accomplishment. I also loved Dead Space 2, the logical continuation of events the good blend of game play, environments and new enemies was great. I especially loved the way that the story progressed. And it even kept the feel and style of Dead Space 1. This being said I have some feelings I would like to express for Dead Space 3.

I'm not mad, or disappointed, just a bit confused. Having noted that the previous Dead Space titles were drenched in psychological horror, I felt like I was playing a different series. The previous Dead Space's I couldn't keep ammo in my inventory on hard and it was a concern if my health was even at half, not to mention I needed to strategically shoot just to make an impact. Then Dead Space 3 gives me more ammo and health than I can use. That's not a statement where I'm trying to be dramatic, I spent the last 2 hours trying to burn through full inventory's of ammo shooting with reckless abandonment. I maybe got rid of a quarter of it. And while barely aiming I seemed to bring my enemies down with the same haste as well placed shots. Having spent plenty of time in this series mindset I was confused as to why this was happening. It seemed like the game play turned to dramatic action in lieu of any serious story or psychological horror. There also seemed to be a lot less story unless I read any and all text logs I could find. From what I've been told by others the coop game play has a great story line, that's really cool, but the games around 18 hours long and that's a lot of time to play with another person. Another thing I found hilarious but moderately interesting was that the other characters in the game seemed to never have a problem with the ridiculous amount of monsters around us. This seemed really unrealistic compared to the previous games where other characters seemed frightened and unnerved by the events surrounding them.

Image from - pcgamer.com

But that's enough negative, lets move onto the positive. Dead Space 3 isn't necessarily a great tried and true Dead Space series game, but its a very good action title. It had enough plot to keep the story moving and you motivated, and plenty of action and cool environments to keep where and what your shooting feel interesting. There were numerous times where I was kicking my legs trying to get away from enemies and dozens of scenarios that had me shouting at a TV while I was running out of air. A healthy amount of scares and a good dose of game play related puzzles kept this game continually fresh and fun. Tie these factors to what I felt was a satisfying ending. And I count this as a good game.

Game on,

            Duane

Super Bowl 2013 - Commercial Analysis

Hey Everybody,

This week I'm going to write about something a little bit different, I'm going to analyze Old Spice's Hawkridge Super Bowl commercial and their digital marketing in general. Old Spice has created a level of expectation from its customers to have off the wall commercials that showcase a brand that oozes manliness and attracts women like moths to the flame. Unlike other products Old Spices brand name is so well know that at the end of their commercial they rarely if never include website names, facebook links, or other types of links to more information. They rely on word of mouth or customers looking for more information to sell their products. With this reasoning they make off the wall commercials that appeal to their customer base and strengthen their overall brand. They also use the same spokesman for long periods of time and have them respond to internet users creating a more personal relationship. This is a beautiful marketing campaign that works to help customers feel a more intimate bond with the brand. This years Super Bowl commercial uses multiple internet trends and keep with the Old Spice motif. The commercial focuses on a man using Old Spice Hawkridge one of the new lines of Old Spices spray deodorant. During the commercial Hawks start to screech every time the audience focuses on the man using the deodorant, over the course of this commercial the man wins a hand of poker and lady by intimidating his opponent into folding a great hand. This serves three very distinct very important purposes, it catches everyone who was zoned outs attention, it creates a sounds and identity for the product instantly, and it plays of a current internet trend of cool predatory birds. When the commercial ends the tell tale Old Spice jingle plays and announces the title of the deodorant.   

Old Spice - Hawkridge Commercial 2013

In my opinion other deodorant brands don't have the kind of social media understanding that the Old Spice bring to the table. Axe had a pretty decent ad during this years Super Bowl featuring an astronaut and a memorable life guard scene where a shark is punched presumably to death. But other than that it seems like axe doesn't fully understand their customer base. Sadly I believe they may be targeting males in general. Surprisingly I had to do a quick Google search to find a third deodorant to compare and came back with Gillette's version of a deodorant. Which I don't think I've ever seen advertised and it looks like the majority of their marketing effort goes into their razor blades. As far a social media in general goes, it looks like old spice is taking the cake. Gillette is barely using its YouTube to advertise, and Axe's channel is dwarfed by the amount of views and subscribers that Old Spice has amassed. In my opinion though the best of these brands is easily Old Spice. The reason I've come to this conclusion is because on more than one occasion I've heard the Old Spice jingle used as a text tone. And having someone relate enough to advertise for you is in short awesome.

Axe - Apollo Commercial 2013

Advertise on,

Duane

Money, Money, Money... Economics and Gameplay

Hey Everybody,

Today I want to talk about something that often goes moderately overlooked in video games, economics. I know, sounds boring, but if you think about it, in game currency can be directly attributed to character power and potential growth. I feel that this is overlooked a little too often in games these days, mind you there are games that do this perfectly and get their points across. Starving a player of resources in a survival game is almost an immediate way to make the game more intense. In fact some of my favorite games do this to near perfection making me think about missed shots and cursing myself for shooting while scared but today I'd like to talk about games that I feel may have dropped the ball.

Image from wikipedia.org

My main contender is a gave from late 2008 titled  "Fable II" and the pre-order bonus game "Fable Pub Games". Don't get me wrong this idea was AWESOME, but it goes to show that one or two lines of bad code can turn a game on its ear. For those of you who don't know Fable II is the second installment in the Fable franchise, a series that revolves around you interacting with and making choices in a world that will change based on your actions. This games main pull is its unique story line and how customize-able you can make your "Hero", for instance if you are a good person who does good deeds the public treats you better, and vise versa. So for instance if you were in debt a bookie might send mercenary's to rough you up a bit and collect your money. That's where Fable Pub Games comes in, the Pub Games was a great way to allow players who pre-ordered the game to put a little effort into their character before the game even started. Players could choose from three separate games that could put them in debt or have them starting out with a nice chunk of change in their pockets. Because the games had roughly the same odds as a casino, most players would supposedly start off in debt. This was a great set of games that captured the feel of a old world pub and set a awesome tone for the game to come.

And here's where they dropped the ball. In one of the games there was a small glitch, quickly found by the gaming community that would let you bet up to 10x more than you actually spent on your bet. For instance I could bet 15 gold and as the cards were being dealt up the bet to 150 gold, unfortunately this glitch didn't take any extra gold from you when you upped the ante. Effectively making your break even point 10x lower than it should be, this made players extraordinarily rich with very minimal effort. The worst part of it was that by the time the patch was out to fix the glitch the damage was done, and if you declined the new patch you could keep using the glitch which most players (including me) did. I started that game with millions of dollars instead of lint in my pocket.

Image from gameandplayer.net

Now allot is to be said on the intricacies of honesty, morality, and letting the player play how they want. But in the end for a game that is built around consequences this glitch allowed you allot of free reign with little downside.

If you want to learn more about the Fable II Pub Games glitch check out this article at Joystiq.com.

Game on,

            Duane

Pacing in Pathfinder

Hey Everyone,

Today I want to write about my theories on pacing in a Pathfinder game. For those of you who don't know pathfinder is a table top game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. The reason why I want to talk this out with you is because I created and ran a game this past weekend and it took my 3-6 players (some left early) around 12 hours to complete the chapter. The custom campaign we are running focuses around a twisted view of individual Disney movies in a long running story line, this week we were on the theme of Monsters, Inc. Because we do individual movies I try to give each movie a day. To tie the games together there is an overlapping main story line and re-occurring characters.

The issues as I see them were these:

• We had a returning player on game 6 who was only in one previous game.
• The maps we used had 18 rooms per 3 maps.
• The players split so half were in combat and half were exploring.
• (Player mentioned) A few felt that they were moving forward for the sake of moving forward.

First I would like to note that this is not our usual game type, previous games were a good 60% Story, 40% combat type games. This game was about 80% Combat, 20% Story, the reason being that during our last game (Pinnochio) the players encountered a normal combat challenge that only required minimal tactics to complete. (All the players except one have started playing pathfinder this game, with no prior table top gaming experience, so it was a normal challenge to break them in.) Sadly they failed the challenge miserably, giving up before the entire party was about to be killed.

The week before the Monsters, Inc game I went through with each player and helped them talk their way through rebuilding their character sheets now that they have played a few games, and helped them go over combat tactics for their chosen class. I tried not to be intrusive and to get the players to figure out what their play style was to help them build their characters. This process was not mandatory and it was said multiple times that they had full freedom over their choices.

2nd Level of Monsters, Inc.

1st Level of Monters, Inc. 

But I digress, the Monsters Inc game seemed to take way to long. Even with one returning player and one new experienced player in the group. Although the game took some time I was very proud of the players progress. Each player that could, took their turn tripping or performing combat maneuvers. Their understanding of combat speed the  
game up when combat started and fixed a party flaw that has been hurting our games until now.

Understanding these issues I've thought of some ways to correct them, from now on I intend to create environments with larger rooms and bigger blacked out areas. This should help players from splitting up as often and should help them enjoy the game a bit more. I also intend to give the movies a more defined goal so players will have more of a drive to accomplish the same task and work as a team. I also intend to force players who are entering the game after a long time away to do a short refresher game before re-entering the main story line with everyone. These precautions should help make the games better overall. If you're creating your own game I hope this helps.

Game on,

            Duane

What This Is All About

Hello World,

I'm here today to indulge you to the wonderful world of video games and table top games. Expect to read a lot of my opinions, critic, and plenty of random nonsense involving them.

But first a little about myself.

My name is Duane Pierce, I'm a 23 year old General Business Administration and Marketing Student currently studying at the University of Central Florida. I've been playing games since I was first bought an NES as a kid, my gaming resume then moves onto every single gameboy, sega genesis, n64, playstation, xbox, playstation 2, xbox 360, playstation 3 and PC gaming. So this is my story of looking into video games and trying to figure out what makes one better than the other.

The whole point of this blog is to better understand what makes a game great for the player, what draws out that emotional response or thrill of an accomplishment. I want to know how to make players feel and learn lessons while having fun. The best way I can think to do this is by diving right in and trying to see what effects me. Path to understanding others is to first understand yourself right?

My dream is to one day work in the video game industry, to create games that affect people, to have people making friends and bonding over challenges in my games, and to create virtual memories that will keep them talking about it for decades to come.

The intent of this blog is to share my opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of certain games and my general opinions on games I'm playing, I may also talk about some current issues or news in the video game industry I find interesting.

I'm currently busy planning a Pathfinder DND game for Monday and playing Amnesia: The Dark Decent and League of Legends. To help document my experiences I've also started a twitch. Twitch, for those of you who don't know is a online website for streaming and saving video files, a good majority of the site is used for video games.

The current theme I've been looking into is fear, thus Amnesia and the theme of my upcoming Pathfinder game. Amnesia is so freaking scary mostly because it take horror and puts a more classic approach, you cant fight, there is no safe harbor, your only viable option is to run. More aptly flee. The game also uses controls in a way to create a more intense experience, making the player move the mouse as they would their hand rather than click doors and cabinets open. While running away quickly pulling doors open makes the experience very intense.  The game also utilizes a sanity aspect demanding you stay in the light, but at the same time it penalizes you by making you easier to see to the monsters in the area. These few aspects create a edge of your seat fear that is hard to capture in games. I'm about halfway through and I look forward to completing it.

I look forward to sharing my experiences and becoming a better gamer. Until next week. 

Game on,

            Duane