Recently some friends and I decided to try Dungeons and Dragons (fourth edition, Planescape setting) for the first time. As usual, no-one wanted to be the DM, so I volunteered, and I’m glad I did. Running these adventures has given me a lot of insight into game design and how to deal with players, including pointing out some things I really should have known already. So I’ve decided to write a little about each session, and the stark contrast between what I planned and what actually happened.

NB: We’re using Roll20, an awesome online tabletop website, to run our games.

The Cast

Tom Senior – Fox Hengeyukai Ranger – Loves eating chickens
Chris – Warforged Fighter – Crap at jokes
Chimp – Earth Genasi Warlord – Budding communist
Simon – Tiefling Wizard – Probably evil
Miles – Gnomish Bard – Master of the filthy limerick

How I planned it

The great thing about using a prison escape as a first session is it gives your players a reason to band together. The bad thing about it is that they don’t have a reason to stick together afterwards. For this reason I decided to run the players through at least one more self contained adventure before letting them loose in Sigil. Following on from the last session, I also decided to open with a fight to get everyone nice and warmed up.

The solution? Pirates! Back when I decided to set the game in Planescape, I’d also considered Spelljammer, the alternative D&D dimension jumper, where ships sailed between worlds in the void. Why not include both? My players had been captured by slavers, so they’d come out in the cargo hold and have to fight for their freedom.

But what then? Well murdering the crew and taking over the ship was only going to result in the same problem I was trying to avoid, a lack of direction and bickering over what to do. I resolved to include another vessel under attack by the slavers, one my crew could rescue and escape with. I rapidly become enamoured with this idea, so I came up with a few naval battle mechanics. The slaver ship would constantly spawn enemies, which would keep coming until the players destroyed the boarding planks connecting the two vessels, or used the friendly ship’s cannons to shoot down the enemy. Once aboard they could help crew the ship, hitching a ride to Sigil, and have time for a brief scuffle on the docks before ending the session.

What could go wrong?

How it actually happened

Immediately everything went wrong. In my haste to keep things simple I had constructed a highly linear adventure. Unsurprisingly, my players didn’t follow it.

The boarding planks and cannons were completely ignored and the enemy crew swiftly slaughtered. Realising that giving them two ships would cause them to split up, and continually spawning enemies until they got the point would be annoying, I quickly decided to instead sink the friendly vessel, and have its Captain scramble across to join them.

This didn’t solve all my problems though. The players were happy to defer to the Captain’s expertise to steer them back to port, but once they’d arrived, it transpired they now considered the ship theirs, and some of them were even happy to kill the Captain so they didn’t have to share it. As conflict between the lawful Chris and the evil Simon started to escalate, so I did the only thing I could think of, I threw an encounter at them while I figured it out.

It’s all fairly embarrassing in retrospect. How did I, someone who often criticises linearity in games, manage to hand my players such a limitedr set of choices? Well there’s a few reasons.

• Time – I wrote the campaign in a quick scramble a few hours before people played. I didn’t leave myself time to try and check all the angles.
• Resources – I only had on hand what I’d put together before the session. I couldn’t let the players start a random fight, because I didn’t have the monster stats for them to do it.
• No external viewpoint – The point of playtesting is to get an opinion from someone who isn’t absorbed or invested in what you’ve made. You can’t exactly playtest a D&D session.
• Underestimating players – The first session was a little awkward as everyone got to grips with the system, so I toned things down. I failed to consider that they others might also learnt something from the experience.
• Fear – In D&D you can actually react pretty swiftly to developing situations, but I hadn’t realised this beforehand, and was too afraid to leave myself room to simply react to players, rather than guide them.
• Lack of pressure – When players are under pressure, they react to the choices presented, when they aren’t they explore and bump up against the edges. If the encounter was harder, the lack of choices might have been less glaring.

I certainly have a lot more sympathy for developers who don’t anticipate player responses now. It’s an easier trap to fall into than people realise. Still I’ve learnt my lesson, and I’ve realised that leaving myself room to improvise actually works pretty well. Next time I plan to have a generic ‘random encounter’ in my pocket in case my players start a fight out of nowhere.

Thankfully the strength of D&D is its capacity for improvisation. I was able to quickly recover from both instances and respond to what the players were doing, but the result was less impressive than if I’d been properly prepared. Thankfully I managed a strong finish, offering I the players a choice. They could take the ship as their own personal adventure transport, or fix it up and let the Captain run cargo for them, starting their own business. However to achieve either they’ll need to clear their names in the city by taking down Lord Killick, the man running the slaver ring.

Best moments:

• Uncertain what to do with his minor actions. Simon starts randomly dropping prone.
• Critically failing a history check, Chimp now believes that the villainous slaver Lord Killick owns a chain of burger restaurants.
• Tom S leaps gracefully atop the crows nest, then point the ship in exactly the wrong direction.

Lessons Learnt:

• Don’t ever assume the players will do what you want, no matter how sensible it seems.
• Don’t ever give players something you don’t want them to keep.
• Don’t be afraid to leave room for improvisation on your part.

Questions raised:

• How do I deal with players disagreeing beyond distracting them with combat?
• How do I deal with attempts to murder innocent NPCs?

Next Time – How can the players clear their names? With burglary!

Recently some friends and I decided to try Dungeons and Dragons (fourth edition, Planescape setting) for the first time. As usual, no-one wanted to be the DM, so I volunteered, and I’m glad I did. Running these adventures has given me a lot of insight into game design and how to deal with players, including pointing out some things I really should have known already. So I’ve decided to write a little about each session, and the stark contrast between what I planned and what actually happened.

NB: We’re using Roll20, an awesome online tabletop website, to run our games.

The Cast

Tom Senior – Fox Hengeyukai Ranger – Loves eating chickens
Chris – Warforged Fighter – Crap at jokes
Chimp – Earth Genasi Warlord – Budding communist
Simon – Tiefling Wizard – Probably evil
Miles – Gnomish Bard – Master of the filthy limerick

How I planned it

Starting adventures are hard, especially when your players are like mine. During our various attempts to play other RPGs, I’d noticed they had a definite tendency to disagree and bicker about the next course of action, sometimes for up to half an hour. In character disagreements are lovely and flavourful, but none of us have the free time to run four or five hour sessions any more, so I wanted to keep things snappy. There’s also a second problem. My group contains another games journalist and at least one veteran RPG enthusiast, so running them all through a linear plot was out of the question, unless I wanted a scathing review. On the other hand, this would be my first time DMing, and their first time playing D&D, so I really didn’t want to juggle a million different possible outcomes.

The solution was a prison break. The characters would begin in a planar prison, captured by the Warden to be used as slave labour. Exactly how they got there, and if they were guilty or innocent, was up to them. Those players who have just arrived will be dumped into the prison yard and pointed towards the ‘escape committee’ (the other players) if they want to break free. Thus their natural desire for freedom would force them into my linear story! Mwhahaha!

Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The session starts in a sandbox fashion by letting them loose in the prison yard. Around the area I’ve placed various plot hooks, mostly skill tests and conversations, that could be used to aid in their escape. There was a crooked guard, two rival gangs, an crazy wizard, a kobold building a tunnel and lots more. Whichever path they chose would eventually funnel them into the armoury, letting them pick up their equipment and fight some guards. After that there’s a quick jaunt down a trap filled hallway to confront the Warden and use his portal to break free.

At least that’s the plan. Freedom of approach in the first half, flowing into a more linear adventure.

How it went

Letting the players loose in the yard early may seem cool from a game design perspective, but it doesn’t mesh well with the improvisational theatre side of role playing games. I essentially took a bunch of nervous novice actors and pushed them out on stage without any direction. The result was a somewhat awkward meet and greet, followed by some confusion as to where to take the conversation, before eventually settling down to business.

Once that happened, things improved. The players were instantly drawn to the crazy wizard, mostly because there was a clear visual clue on the map at his location. After some debate as to how sensible it was to let him out, they eventually succeeded in releasing his bonds and inciting the gangs into a riot, giving them plenty of cover to escape.

This is where things get interesting. Realising that the guards would have the keys to the armoury, they decided that instead of using Tom S’s prodigious thievery skills to pickpocket one, which is what I expected, they’d instead have Chimp use his Earth Genasi powers to thump the walls they were patrolling until one of them fell off. I’d given them six ways out, and they’d chosen number seven. Welcome to D&D.

A less successful bit of improvisation came with the trapped corridor. Instead of simply using perception to detect traps, they elected to send Miles’ pet hawk flying across. Unsurprisingly it failed to warn them about the myriad pressure plates, tripwires and pit traps I’d installed beforehand. Better luck next time guys.

Once the linear plot and combat had kicked in, people loosened up and had more fun with their characters. Particularly Chris, Chimp and Miles, all of whom integrated their character quirks into combat as well as conversation. Miles referred to a build your own Shakespearean insult kit whenever he used his ‘vicious mockery’ power, while Chris punctuated his victories with failed attempts at action movie one liners, explaining that as a Warforged (magic robot), he didn’t understand humour.

Eventually the escape was successful, and the players tumbled through the portal to beyond, but not before giving me a lot to think about.

Best Moments

• Chimp decides to use self help slogans for his ‘inspiring words’.
• Miles critically bluffs a prison gang with an obscene limerick, inciting a riot.
• The group’s reaction when Simon decides to set a crazy homicidal wizard free.

Lessons learnt

• I can improvise dialogue okay, but big speeches, like the one by the Warden at the start of this session, should be pre-written.
• Combat loosens people up for roleplaying. I should consider starting in combat next time and having the conversation in the middle.
• Story hooks are more likely to be spotted if there’s a visual clue for them on the map.

Questions raised

• Will the group stay together now they’ve escaped the prison?
• How do I persuade Tom S, who mostly just fights things, to do some more roleplaying?

Next Time: Where does the portal lead? No seriously I haven’t decided yet.

At some point I’ll have to get around to posting my own personal load order, which juggles a lot of visual mods and new features, but keeps the whole thing pretty lore friendly.

XCOM, like FTL, is largely about risk management, and that kind of game always prompts me to try and dissect exactly what the best decisions are in each situation. Writing the FTL guide was as much me trying to get those ideas out and organised as it was about providing others with advice. I seem to be near addicted to doing it, so if you need a guide written, give me a call, I’m probably writing one in my head anyway.

Everything we know about Aliens: Colonial Marines – In which I was surprised that the phrase “make sweet love to your oesophagus” managed not be be cut.

The best mods for Napoleon: Total War – In which I learnt that Total War mods are amazing, and also that I always forget whether the ‘Total War’ bit goes at the start or the end.

I liked it a lot. In fact that’s the highest score I’ve ever given out as a professional reviewer. The customisation of Gratuitous Space Battles works even better here, because the AI uses your own units against you. You should definitely check it out.

A little while back I read Tom Francis’ excellent compilation of Spelunky tips. I suck at Spelunky, but after reading those, I sucked marginally less, and now I’m going to do the same thing for you, only with FTL.

Like Spelunky, FTL is a simple but brilliant roguelike built around risk/reward calculations. And like Spelunky, following a few simple principles can improve your game a lot. I’ve been playing this game since it was an IGF entry, so I know a thing or two about how to survive in space. So listen up Captains, because it’s a cold, hard universe out there.

General Tips

Take your time – The game gets harder with every sector, so it’s best to farm as many resources as possible before moving onwards. Ideally you should hit the exit at the last possible moment.

Save your scrap – It’s tempting to buy upgrades as soon as possible, but that’s actually a bad idea. You might spot a store with a nice item, or find a cool weapon you need to upgrade your systems to use. It’s better to save up your scrap for a while, especially in the first few sectors. Unless you’re in serious danger you should wait until you’re at 70-100 scrap with no stores in sight before spending.

Time your shots – Shields regenerate and systems get repaired, so don’t fire everything as soon as it cools down. Instead fire several weapons in a burst, knock down their shields, do as much damage as possible, and then wait until you can do it again.

Explore homewords – If you see a sector called ‘homeworld’, you should go there. All the events that give you new ships are in the homeworld sectors, Even if you’ve unlocked that ship already the quest will still be around, and will reward you with excellent loot. I won’t spoil anything for you here, but if you want a full guide on how to get each ship and what they do, you can go here.

Flush them into space – Opening your airlocks has a lot of benefits, like putting out fires and damaging boarders, just make sure you don’t kill your own crew in the process. Upgrading your doors can help trap boarders while they suffocate.

Fight in the medbay – It’s really hard to die in your own medbay, so that’s the best place to fight boarders. You can lure them there by opening the doors for them. or just punching them a couple of times and running away.

Upgrade everything – If you have spare scrap, upgrade things like the cockpit, medbay, doors, sensors and oxygen, Eeen if you don’t intend to use them. Upgrades increase a system’s durability, and one cheap upgrade will make them last twice as long before shutting down.

Give no quarter – Most ships will offer to surrender on low health. This is almost always not worth it, you’ll generally get more loot by destroying them. Unless they’re offering something special, like a weapon or crew member, just blow them up.

Learn to love nebulas – I hated nebulas when I first played this game, now I love them. Slowing down the rebel fleet is a godsend, and although plasma storms are evil (they halve your power supply) they’re actually pretty rare.

Micro like hell – You can pause FTL at any time and issue orders, which means you can do a lot of micro-management to help yourself out. For instance you can pause the game when the enemy fires a missile to shunt power from your shields into engines or drones. You can also keep a boarding party constantly moving to keep them alive while your teleporter recharges.

Systems

Shields – Upgrading your shields quickly is a sound strategy. Getting two shields in sector one or two will let you shrug off a lot of damage. There’s no point buying one shield upgrade, save your scrap and till you can buy both at once, plus any power you need.

Engines – Engines benefit the most from crewing, so it isn’t as important to power them up early as shields. However your pilot and engineer will get experience for every successful dodge, so they’ll train faster the more you invest.

Weapons – Never upgrade these unless you’re aiming to power a specific weapon, it’s just pointless. You don’t always need to run all your weapons at once. Switching from missiles to beams when shields go down is good strategy and saves on scrap.

Cloaking device – One of the most powerful optional systems in the game. Activating cloak gives you a massive evasion bonus, over 100% if you’ve got half decent engines. Time it to avoid volleys of fire, especially missiles, which will tear your shields apart. One of the best ways to beat the end boss is with judicious cloaking. The stealth weapon augment makes this even better.

Teleporter – Teleporters are powerful, but tricky to use. They cost a lot of scrap to buy you’ll need good melee crew members to take advantage of it. If you do plan to use it, get both the teleporter and your sensors to level two as fast as possible. Killing the enemy crew by boarding will generally get you a better reward than blowing up their ship, making this incredibly useful in the early/mid game. Never teleport aboard an unmanned ship though, there’s no oxygen inside.

Drones – Drones require a lot of investment to be viable (unless you use the ship that starts with them) but can be very strong. Defence drones are a great way to stop missiles, while Attack drones can really help your damage output. Boarding, Repair and Anti-Personnel drones generally aren’t worth it, as your crew do the same jobs better. Drone repair arms are excellent if you’re going this way.

Artillery Beam (Federation Cruiser) – A randomly firing beam weapon that pierces all shields and usually does good damage. If you have this, you already beat the game once, so you probably don’t need my advice, but I think you should upgrade it as soon as possible, even ignoring the general rule about saving to do so.

Super Shield (Zoltan Cruiser) – A five bar shield that stops absolutely everything, including teleporters, but doesn’t recharge until the next encounter. This is incredibly useful, giving you a good window of opportunity to hurt the enemy without taking much damage. If you’re using this invest in engines instead of shields, as misses won’t degrade the super shield.

Weapons

Burst lasers – Generally the most useful and versatile type of weapon. Burst lasers strip shields fast and do good damage. There’s no real defence against them. They work well with anything, but a couple of them paired up is seriously scary.

Beams – A well targeted beam can devastate an undefended ship, but does absolutely nothing against a well shielded one. Useful, but must be supported by ion, missiles or burst lasers in the later game. Those that do more than one damage per room are the best, as they can pierce some shields. Also good against super-shields.

Ion – Turns off systems and shields but doesn’t destroy. In theory enough ion will let you turn off the oxygen and choke a ship’s crew to death. In practice it’s hard to pull that off, but their extremely fast fire rate makes them good at supporting other weapons.

Missiles – Probably the most tactical of all the weapons. Missiles pierce all shields (except super shields) making them great for knocking out systems and making a ship vulnerable. Their bane is defence drones, which render them near useless. You can also use a cloaking device to avoid them, but the AI isn’t smart enough to do this.

Bombs – Bombs are a lot like missiles. They go through shields and cost a missile. The difference is that bombs don’t do hull damage, but instead knock out systems and kill crew, but can’t be shot down. Missiles generally do more damage, but bombs often have exotic effects like ion damage, starting fires, or healing your own crew.

My ideal weapon setup would probably be a pair of burst lasers, a decent missile or bomb and a beam.

Crew

When crewing your ship, first make sure you have a pilot. After that put someone on engines, then weapons, then shields. Once all stations are manned consider floating fighters/repairmen.

Humans – Humans don’t do anything special at all, so then tend to fill the gaps left by other races. They can help Engies fight or help Mantises repair. The fact that you usually find them early means they’ll probably be manning stations. They make good pilots, because it doesn’t take anything special to be a pilot.

Engies – Great at repairing, crap at combat. Engies are at their best as wandering repairmen. Keep them in the centre of the ship and rush them out to fix things and put out fires. It’s best to avoid putting them on a station, as they’ll just abandon it when they need to repair something.

Mantis – Amazing fighters, terrible at repairs. Mantis should be used to either board ships or defend your own. Like Engies, they shouldn’t man a station if they don’t have to, as they’ll be rushing about a lot. Don’t let a Mantis try and put out fires, he’ll probably burn to death before he can stop it.

Rockmen – Very tough, immune to fire and very slow. Rockmen are good in a fight, but their low speed means Mantis are generally a better choice for combat. Their durability makes them decent at manning stations, as they can put out fire and repel boarders without needing much help.

Zoltan – Fragile, but add 1 power to every room they are in. Hands down the best race for manning stations, but you’re unlikely to find enough early on for a full crew. it can also be a little annoying to see a room lose power when you have to run one into the medbay, but at least he’ll power it himself.

Slug – Let you see enemies on their ship through telepathy. This ability isn’t quite as good as level two sensors, but it is close, and it works in nebulas too. They are the best choice for pilots, and are also decent at manning stations. Having more than one slug doesn’t really provide any additional benefits.

In case you’re wondering, my ideal crew would be three Zoltan on the stations, a Slug pilot, two Engies on repair and two Mantis to fight.

Follow these tips and you should reliably get to the final boss. Beating him however, is another story.

Franklin and Bash

There’s a clear line that can be traced between Franklin and Bash and Ally McBeal, passing through Boston Legal on the way. All three offer the same quirky, take on the legal world. Cases are unusual, clients are eccentric, and the day is won by scene stealing courtroom antics and inspirational speeches. What makes Franklin and Bash different is the other half of the show, where Allie McBeal spliced its legal comedy with the chick flick, and Boston Legal mixed it with liberal intellectualism, Franklin and Bash instead goes for the fratboy bromance, and it’s  a surprisingly successful combination.

Peter Franklin and Jared Bash are two teenagers who never grew up. They drink, they chase women, they make stupid jokes and they screw around. They’re low rent ambulance chasers who suddenly find themselves working at a major law firm. It’s exactly the kind of premise that exists only in the mind of TV executives, it shouldn’t work, but it does. Most of it rests on the charisma of the leads, Breckin Meyer and Mark-Paul Gosselaar have an easygoing chemistry that makes the silly jokes and pranks just work. They’re completely silly and totally ridiculous, but they’re also fun and charming.

Malcom McDowell is also a highlight, his eccentric, philandering, zen like boss seems specifically constructed to steal every scene he’s in. When they cut to him and he’s finishing an anecdote with “Now I’m not saying it was the Mongolian Death Worm, but something ate our camel.” It isn’t a surreal interlude, it’s business as normal.

It’s not the kind of show I make a date to watch, and any time it tries to be remotely tense, dramatic or character driven it falls flat on its face. But when it admits what it is Franklin and Bash is relaxing, fun, and delivers a few quality laugh out loud moments a week.

The Firm

The Firm is everything that Franklin and Bash is not. It’s tense, it’s complicated, it’s dark and dramatic. It’s technically a sequel to the 1993 film, but that backstory doesn’t actually come up much. Instead it simply takes the characters from the film and runs them through a thematically similar story. The gist of it is Mich McDeere is a lawyer with a terrible taste in firms, because every time he joins one he seems to get embroiled in a grand conspiracy. This conspiracy, told with some very elaborate use of flash forwards, forms the plot arc for the series, but the meat of the episodes are dominated by Mitch’s day to day lawyering.

Oddly enough, this is often the more interesting part of the series. The individual cases are characterised by the same dark, comprimised morality that drives the story arch, and are filled with interesting legal technicalities. Mitch is constantly backed into a corner, trying to balance what is right for his client, what is morally right, and what is legal. The conspiracy itself is slower to build, but the conflict between the homicidal Kevin Stack and voice of reason Alex Clarke gives it more substance than just a vague malevolent threat. The Firm manages to be compelling viewing even without resorting to constant cliffhangers, which makes it a little disappointing that it so frequently does.

The highlight is undoubtedly Callum Keith Rennie as Ray McDeere, Mitch’s brother and Private Investigator. He’s a former convict trying to go straight and a staring middle aged suburban life in the face. His dubiously legal investigations and complex network of contacts and favours make him a compelling character, to the extent that he often overshadows his more straight laced brother. Sometimes I think I should be watching a series about him instead.

Sadly The Firm has been cancelled after a single series. This could be a good think though, the story arc works better as a one off arc. If Mitch started getting tangled in yet another vast conspiracy next year, it would start to become a little ridiculous.

Suits

If Franklin and Bash is legal comedy at it’s most eccentric, and The Firm is legal drama at it’s grittiest, then Suits charts a happy medium between the two. It’s the kind of glossy, high concept show that’d become very popular lately. All tight, well crafted plots and interesting characters, but with no pretensions of high art. It’s a style I have a tremendous weakness for, which is probably why it’s my favourite of the bunch.

Suits is ostensibly about Mike Ross, a young slacker with tremendous intellect who is given the chance to become an associate at a prestigious firm, as long as no-one finds out he doesn’t actually have a law degree. That elevator pitch might have gotten it past the network, but as far as the show itself goes, that only really serves to motivate Mike, and only really for the first series. By the second this high concept takes a back seat to a narrative about power struggles within the firm.The show really benefits from this, because it takes the focus off Mike and onto the excellent ensemble cast.

It’s not that Patrick J Adams isn’t great as Ross, it’s just that Gabriel Macht is just as good as morally ambiguous attorney Harvey Spector, and so is Gina Torres as his icily confident boss, Jessica Pearson. Even Rick Hoffman’s obnoxious Louis Litt, who at first appears to be a pointlessly antagonistic office asshole, grows in stature and sympathy as the series goes on. The recent mock trial episode let this aspect of the show really shine, with the characters forced onto different sides their conflicting beliefs, styles and loyalties are brought into focus.

Suits’ great strength is its refusal to settle into predictable patterns. Spector is both an arrogant bully and a charasmatic do gooder, often at the same time. Sometimes Mike stands up for the little guy, sometimes he has to knock them down. It helps that most of the cases in the show are corporate in nature, rather than criminal, which allows for a wider moral grey area. That’s what I like most about this show. The writers have seen all the same stories you have, they know what works and what doesn’t, and they know how to keep things fresh while sticking to their genre.

I did dozens of articles for them, but here’s a small sample, collected by day. As you can see, I’m capable of generating 5-9 newsposts a day, all tracked down, researched and subsequently written myself.

2nd of July

Project Cars Screenshots

Planet Explorers – voxel based indie game

Prototype 2 developers not making any more games

Left4Dead 2 Cold Stream to be released July 24th

Watch Dogs ARG starting

Civilisation V: Gods and Kings gets a demo

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light coming to Chrome

3rd of July

Call of Duty Online heading to China

Rome 2 announcement trailer

Resident Evil trailer

EA going “100% digital” in future

4th of July

Final Fantasy VII re-release

Arma 3 gameplay videos

Edge iPad edition

Green Man Gaming CEO on EU court ruling

PC Gamer issue 242 released

Assassin’s Creed live action trailer

Call of Duty DLC on sale for charity

Assassin’s Creed 3 trailer

End of Nations beta starts July 20th

5th of July

Scrolls enters alpha

Minecraft Game of Thrones Gallery

Endless Space Launches

Watch a man play Starcraft 2 with a joystick

Slender Man Horror game