The Gaming Outpost

Mark’s article description for Stalling says:



“What do you do when you don’t know what to do next? If you’re a Multiverser referee, you kill all the characters and start over…”



Regardless of how well you think you know your group, stalling is often a necessary evil in RPGs. No GM can keep up with everything all the time. The players are going to pull something out of their hats and it’s going to shock you and throw you off track. You can count on it.



One of the ideas that Mark gives us about stalling is that you can stall in game. You don’t necessarily have to take 10 and stop the game to get a short break. There are in game options that we can use. While these options vary from game to game I’ve got a few tricks you can use to help figure out your options.



First thing to do is take a look at the game system you are running. Does it allow for a Multiverser like tactic of killing off the PCs, or would that totally upset the entire game? In a game like Vampire you can force PCs into torpor (a deep, sometimes years long slumber) if you need to. A curse or other such magic can create a similar effect on non-immortal PCs. This would allow you to take some, or all, PCs out of the mix for a bit while you figure out what you need to do.



Another option is to look at the healing and raising from the dead rules in your game. Do PCs heal up quickly or slowly with the rules you are using? Do they have raise dead spells available? If they do you can kill off a couple of party members and while the PCs are gathering the bodies and taking them to the temple to raise them you have them stalled. If they heal slowly you can wound them until they retreat. If they can heal quickly you can womp them good and shock them into a retreat while they heal up. Anything that will take their actions away from their current plan and onto something else is helpful, and can be done in game without actually stopping play.



After you examine the game system’s rules and ways to exploit them for your stall tactics, you should look at the type of game you are running. Are you PCs banded together as a team, or do the break into different groups with different plot threads going at once?



If the group is a solid unit that doesn’t like to split up much – split them up. When a group like this is split up they will spend most of their energy trying to find each other. If your close knit D&D group always searches for traps on every door in the dungeon – give them a trap. Even a simple trap will cause them to spring into “defeat the trap” mode. Taking their minds off other things and forcing them to focus on the problem at hand. Remember that anytime you throw a wrench into a group’s M.O. you stall them.



Even in a non dungeon environment you can produce simple “traps” that will stall them. An NPCs approaches them and talks in riddles, something strange is overheard in the night club they are in which may or may not be connected to the plot. Stalling in game like this allows you to pull out all your red herring ideas that you’ve had simmering in your GM brain.



Now, if your group is regularly split up and usually doing their own things I find it’s actually easier to stall them. When you are working with one of the smaller, sub-groups and they get to a point where you need to stall tell them that you’re going to put them on hold for a second as you have to get back with the other sub-group(s). Not only does this give you a chance to clear your mind and work out a solution, but it helps you keep a good GM relationship with each group.



Large groups, or groups that split up regularly, usually complain most if they don’t feel they are getting enough of the GM’s attention. If you regularly stall with each group you get to bounce from group to group and make sure everyone has enough to do and that they are all having fun. It also keeps your GM mind sharp as you regularly change from sub-plot to sub-plot. This is also a great way to learn/improve your improv skills.



While that’s good info for the GMs, what about the players side of things? Sometimes it’s a good idea to stall the GM. The GM is the NPCs, monsters and everything else in the world other than your PCs. Sometimes the plot’s pace is too fast, you need more time to recover from some event or you’re not exactly sure what your next steps should be. That’s when it’s time to tell the GM something like “We rest here for the day – we need to heal and rethink our plan.” Or you can head for another safe zone by saying “I think we should go back and talk to that old wizard again. We have some things we need to think through.”



While it may seem like you are messing with the GM’s plot or trying to be a thorn in his side you’re not. Your stall tactic isn’t designed to cause problems, you’re stalling because you need to. Sure, a GM could strong arm or railroad you and the other PCs out of your thinking time, but most GMs will let you relax for a bit as it gives them a chance to think and plot as well. Players need to recharge their creative batteries from time to time just like GMs do so it’s good for both sides of the screen get stall when they need it.



Well, that’s enough out of me for now. See you in the Forums!

The elves, who had worked for Santa Claus remained on-strike in what I was told was the fourth week. Four more weeks and it would be Christmas. There was barely enough time if everyone consented to double shifts to get all the toys made and inventoried and packed.



Santa wanted to continue to utilize his share of the magical energies generated by Earth’s children to continue his job, and to provide a new factory with greater efficiency due to steam-powered machines. The angels in charge of the storks had warned him of a baby boom coming in five years, and he wanted to be ready.



The elves wanted more pay; I’m not sure why, but I’m sympathetic to any worker wanting more money. Besides, denying them the right to strike verged perilously close to slavery. Even if it was in a good cause, getting toys to children, it still would not be right to frogmarch workers back to the plant.



But, I did not know what their contract specified. So, I should back off from “slavery” for now.



And there were the elven provocateurs armed with AK-47’s chasing away “scabs” who were evidently some form of Northern dwarf. And the harassment of the human workers who were trying to fill in (and not doing that good of a job.) got me irritated.



The human workers seemed to be mostly Santa loyalists which I could identify with. Who thinks of the elves that much? But the Big Guy did have a formidable temper even if the elves were wearing him down.



So I hiked through the snow past the Majestic movie theatre that played “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street” opposite “Santa Clause” and “The Grinch”. The soda fountain across the street beckoned even though I had eaten less than an hour ago. In fact nearly every vista or store flowered with a charm that just begged me to come enjoy it. I almost broke down, and went into Werner’s Hardware Store to geek-out over the miniature steam engine railroad that ran in at least four loops around the interior of the store. Only a promise to myself that I would come back later to get a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and nuts and a maraschino cherry at the soda fountain followed by a thorough study of the railroad got me free.



Past Victorian and Georgian houses, and a corral where Donner and Blitzen were getting there coats brushed by an adoring little girl, I came to this perfectly charming Tudor style union hall at the edge of town, or Christmasville. It bespoke the sturdy virtues of hard work and self-respect, and since it was elven, it had tulips of thirty-five shades of color flowering above the snow. Angry voices piped and squeaked from inside.



I stepped inside, and silence dripped away from me like a melting icicle until the whole room was chill and wet. The palpable unfriendliness bothered me a bit, but I’ve always been good at standing up to a crowd. So, I walked through the horde of two to two and a half foot tall elves, and up to the podium, and the speaker.



“Permission to adress the union, Chairman?”

I said this with a little bow, and he nodded. Boos were started and hushed.



“Let’s hear what the human has to say. We can always have the sergeant-at-arms throw him out if that’s the pleasure of this body.” The chairman quelled his crowd expertly, and I noted that I needed his support. If he did not like something then it likely would not happen. He was a smooth politician.



“I’m a verser.”



“We know what ya’ are, now why are ya’ here?”

A angry man rose to heckle me.



“Good question. I figure to make Christmas happen.”



“Well, it ain’t, not if the Big Man doesn’t get offen his plans, and offer us the pay raise we deserve. And you can’t make us.”



A chorus of jeers and shaken fists greeted the defiance with approval, and in the back, the four gun-toting elves slipped in.



“You know, I understand Santa’s point of view, and I understand the kids, and the human workers, but not yours.”



“You don’t have to, you just have to get us what we want.” The heckler stood back up.



I gritted my teeth, and the crowd smiled a bit in anticipation at making me their servant. They felt I had to be reasonable. I’d been reasonable; time to smile at them.



“I don’t work for you, bucko, and furthermore that sounds like a challenge to me. You don’t want to make an enemy of me.” I said this is in a soft almost whisper that carried to every corner of the room. I smiled at them, and the crowd grew still and nervous.



“Now could someone, please, explain.”



It developed that they wanted mindshare. Once upon a time, Santa Claus had at least one famous elf with him, and now he “hogged” the glory, and the resultant magic, and no one had heard their names in over a generation.



“We are shrinking, I tell you, shrinking out of existence.” A rather hysterical sort pronounced. I was not sure how seriously to take his rather doom and gloom attitude, but he did show their nightmares out in the daylight for which I was grateful.



“We won’t shrink. Cause we got the guns, and we got the power, and Santa is tired and ready to give in.” One of the troublemakers said brazenly as he strolled through the crowd towering above them with his gun in hand. When he got up to me, I was surprised to see he stood nealy five feet tall.



The crowd noted it too, and he crowed about it as proof of the rightness of his position.



“Ahem, there might be another reason.” I interupted the general chatter. The troublemaker gave me an unfriendly stare, and tilted his gun slightly my way.



“You might be transitioning to say an ogre.”



He roared in rage, and pointed the gun my way.



“Even if I am, its the only way to keep Santa from sending in thugs to beat us up.”



He had a point.



“Santa won’t do that.”



“Oh, yeah.” They laughed at me.



“That’s right, you come from a world where everyone thinks Santa is sweet. No one there gets a lump of coal and a whipping on Christmas Day.”



I breathed in and out not liking my next move.



“He won’t because, I won’t allow him. I won’t allow you four to keep your guns either. Hand them over.”



“Who do you think you are to tell us what we can’t do?” The heckler asked derisively.



“I, I am the Law. Now give me those guns, or face the consequences.”



They started to do so, and then they heard a tinkling of bells outside and a gust of wind shook the building.



The door slammed open. Santa Claus stood in the door.



“You dare?!? You would dictate to me what I can and cannot do in my own factory?”



“Yes, sir, I would and I will.”



He breathed in and I heard icy winds wail outside coming closer, so I reached inside for fire and built a ring of fire by will around me. It floated in air.



He stared at me, and my face grew cold and still as I glared back.



“Walk away, Santa Claus.” I ordered even though my arms trembled inside my sleeves. Spells and prayers for miracles, and pyrokinetic strikes competed in a swirling mess inside my mind for my next attack that would plunge me into all out war with one of the most beloved icons in human history.



Then he turned and closed the door. Shortly thereafter, we heard the tinkling of bells rise into the sky. Everyone in the room breathed at the same time.



The guns were handed to me with expressions ranging from awe to outright fear on their faces.



“Now, my advice, is that later today, when he is calmer, you send a deputation. Find out his problems, and see if you can solve them for him while making it possible for him to solve your problems. But that’s not my job. My job is to make sure there will be no more violence. No more snowballs with ice in them. And no more holding ‘scabs’ at gunpoint.”



“But we can’t compete with the Northern Dwarves.”



“Really, you’re saying they are better than you are?”



“No, but …”



“Figure something out.” I returned the floor to the chairman who gave me a handshake, and I left to find a good place to destroy the guns. I found an altar to a forrest god, and left them there. When I turned back in the midst of the snowy woods to look at the guns, they were gone.



The next month was hectic, and there was a lot of ill temper, but things got better. The elves pointed out that if Santa had an elven rider along, then he would need less Timeslow Potion, and the time saved in construction could be used to catch up on toy-building.



They also pointed out that since this was the North Pole, an ice walled factory built by the local Inuit would be cheaper and faster than shipping brick from England, and with the appropriate spells which the elves were willing to learn in exchange for, oh, say, an increase in pay, the walls would not even melt next to steam engines.



In the end, everyone got more than they had expected.



The only problem was that Santa Claus would not speak to me. I had offended him.



Finally, I saw him lift off in his sleigh with a happy elf by his side, and the cheers of the townsfolk echoing into the sky. I watched from outside the town in the dark, but kindly forrests.



Then I saw, the sleigh dip down after it passed out of sight of town.



Santa landed across from me. His elf slept.



“Well, Tadeusz. Thank you very much. You did an excellent job. When I sent the request to Certain Parties for a verser to drop in and help out, I wasn’t sure what I would get, only that it would not be much worse than what I already had.”



“You’re not mad at me?” I said, near tears, like a little boy looking up at his father.



“Never was. Never was. There, there, lad.” He patted my arm. “It was needed for them to see you as independent. And for you to be actually independent.”



I understood.



“Oh, one more thing before you go.” He reached back into his sack, and then paused, and nudged the elf.



The elf awoke, and looked at me, and consulted a list.



“Tadeusz, verser, nice.” Then he pulled out a gift from the bag, and handed a paper and bow-tied present to me.



While I goggled at the wonderful wrapping, the shushing of runners on snow began and stopped, and I looked up to see the sleigh fly off.



“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.” I muttered in happy unison with Santa while I opened my gift. I saw an ultra-detailed and extremely miniature multi-loop model railroad complete with train and station, and little people who waved. The whole thing ran on puffs of steam.



I spent the next hour dabbling with it, until I looked up and saw my old road was gone, and a new path through the trees with all my stuff including the stuff I had bought at the Woolworth’s Five and Dime packed neatly by a tree that guarded the entrance to the path. Its branches lofted over the beginning of the path like an arch.



Time to leave.



Sadly, I took my stuff, and began to slowly walk down the path through the woods. Somewhere, I am not sure where, the woods became normal, and not infused with magic. I stood alone in a quiet wood on another world, and such was my feeling of let-down that I had to force myself to break out the mug, and start a fire, and make myself a cup of hot cocoa. The activity and the devastatingly good cocoa revived my spirits, but still I yearned to go back to Christmasville, and spend a thousand years there.



Rather depressed, I made camp, and decided to sleep it off. The last month had been a continuous stress and a high at the same time. I needed to recuperate. So I slept.



Tadeusz

After reading Bad Ideas by Mark I thought of some bad ideas I’d had in the past related to gaming (I’ve also had lots of bad ideas outside of gaming, but now’s not the time to discuss them). Some of my bad gaming ideas were actually based on good ideas, or at least ideas that had apparently work spectacularly well for other GMs. Fact is it’s tough to know if some things are bad until you try them out.



I had a really great idea for a D&D game a while back. I would run the players through the Return to the Tomb or Horrors campaign. The players had all told me they had never been through the original Tomb, much to my surprise, so I thought it would be a splendid way to bring some nostalgia to the group and let them all experience the classic they missed out on. The group thought it sounded like fun and so we started into it at the next session.



About half way through the Tomb I could tell they hated it. Prior to the adventure they told me they were willing to try a non-combat intensive adventure (which was one of the reasons I thought they would enjoy it), but I could see they weren’t into it. A good idea had now become a bad idea. The players weren’t having fun, and that would translate into me not having fun as well. Should I stick to the adventure and damn the no-fun torpedoes? Of course not! Time to change things up a bit.



I threw in a couple of extra monsters, re-designed some of the traps and re-worked a number of puzzles as well. It was still a challenge, but it was a challenge that the group would have fun playing. I saw the bad idea for what it was, and modified/adapted it into a good idea.



Everyone has a bad idea, the hard part as the GM is to move on once it shows itself. As GM you can discard, modify or change most situations on the fly so that the bad idea can be negated and the game can move on. However, this is only good for short term bad ideas. What about those big and nasty bad ideas? Like starting a whole new campaign only to find out that everyone hates it? These situations are rough, but I think I have a solution.



Two years ago a friend and I bought Sorcerer at GenCon. We read it over and we were both convinced that our game group would love it. I wanted a break from the Storyteller system and I was certain that this was the solution.



My friend and I talked Sorcerer up with the group and I did a mess of research to get set for the first session. That night we made characters, I explained rules and then we moved on to actual game play. Things were shaky, but I couldn’t tell if that was just “first night jitters” or an actual problem, so we pressed on to the next session.



Next game was very, very slow. No one was into it at all. Try as I might I couldn’t get things rolling. I could tell the players were trying, but their hearts weren’t into it. After a similar third session I went home and formulated a plan.



At the next session I announced to the group that things were not going well from my perspective. I asked what they thought. I encouraged them to be open and don’t worry as my feelings would not be hurt by their opinions. There was some reluctance at first, but then they opened up.



“I don’t like the way the system works very much.”



“I don’t think this game is letting you GM the way you want to.”



“I thought it would be fun at first but I just can’t get into it.”



“I’d rather play something else.”



I told the group that I had the following options for them:

1.We could push on for one more session and see if things improve and I could re-work the campaign to try and make it something that I knew the group would enjoy more.



2.We could take a vote on a number of other games we have and try them out.



3.I could let someone else GM for a while.





The group opted for number two and we ended up playing some Call of Cthulhu which everyone enjoyed.



So for me, my concern has shifted from trying to determine if something is a bad idea before I implement it in a game to learning how to identify them when I see them, and adapting them into good ideas. I’ve found that just about any bad idea can be salvaged if you act soon enough, but you need to be prepared to toss it out and start over if necessary.





That’s enough out of me for now. I’ll see you in the forums!

  There’s a somewhat unsung hero in the Multiverser story.  His name is Richard Lutz; what I know about him might fill a thimble, but he was a gamer, an atheist, a soldier, and a friend of E. R. Jones.  He appears in the credits in the referee’s rules, and I’m told comes from Florida, although where he is now I have no idea.  I’ve never met him, and to my knowledge have only met two people–one of them Mr. Jones–who have.  Yet before I knew anything about Multiverser or my partner in its development, Richard Lutz was not only playtesting the game concepts, he was running games with them.  He conceived The Zygote Experience, which has been praised as one of our more insane notions.  I’ve heard tales, but have little knowledge.

  Among those tales are stories of worlds he ran, and among the worlds he ran are several that mystified their player, the aforementioned Mr. Jones, long after they had lost contact with each other.

  One of those worlds was the top of a mountain.  It was a snow-covered peak, with bitter winds, driving precipitation, and slick surfaces.  Three or four times the player found his character here, fighting for survival.  Each time he struggled to work his way down the mountain into the valley, to find out what was in this world apart from snow and ice.  Each time he slipped and plunged to his death, moving to another world.

  As an aside, you might think this was the inspiration for The New Ice Age, the survival scenario which was for a time our free world and then was included in The Second Book of Worlds.  Although I did know of the mountain story before I wrote that world, it was inspired by the setting of a rather silly book by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn, Fallen Angels, which is more a good-natured swipe at sci-fi fandom than a science fiction story.  The solid information about the science behind a modern ice age contained in an appendix of that volume was supplemented by some public television specials on ice ages, the impact of the Himalayas on world climate, dates of mammoth bones, and Inuit survival, followed by a lot of research.  Although there is a marked similarity between them, there is no connection.

  In another of Mr. Lutz’ worlds, the verser found himself near a lake, near a village.  As he approached, he was greeted by a large smiling group of short green-skinned people.  They seemed friendly, so he said, Hi–and they immediately and viciously attacked him, until he was overwhelmed, dead, and on to the next world.  The story is often cited for the importance of understanding an alien culture before making contact.  The player still wonders what Hi meant in their language.

  Long after I heard these stories, I realized that Hi didn’t mean anything in their language; and that there was nothing at the bottom of the mountain.  Richard Lutz had developed the technique I’ve since come to call the stall scenario.  He used worlds which contained nothing but an immediate probability of death as a delaying tactic to give himself time to think.  Oh, you versed out, I need another world, what have I got?  I don’t know.  Here, let’s do this for a few minutes while I think of something interesting.  It will take you a few minutes to die in this world, and by that time, I should have something else ready to go.  I have a reconstructed list of the worlds to which that character traveled, and always after the mountain, and the one time after the lake, there are very interesting world ideas.  The first time he fell off the mountain, he landed in Zantac, a world built entirely around gladiator combat (which reminds me that Lutz was a medic, and found it humorous to name an insanely violent world after a pacifying psychiatric medication).  After the second visit, he was in Psi Cop World, a 1984 variant where the thought police really can police your thoughts.  After encountering the people by the lake, he went to Disneyland, where they hired him as a secret agent to do corporate espionage.  I’ve no guess how many more of these stall scenarios Mr. Lutz used; but he managed to use them and keep them secret at the same time.

  Those of you who aren’t playing Multiverser, if you’re still reading, may think this is no help to you.  You really can’t drop a character off a cliff or have a thousand screaming aliens attack him so that you can think for a minute.  Well, maybe you’re playing the wrong game; but maybe not.  Maybe you just need to take the idea into a different context.  After all, there are few referees who never need a moment to think.  I believe Brett Bloczinski recently wrote an article, Expanding an Idea:  Everyone Take 10, in which he suggested taking a break to get yourself organized.  That’s a good strategy.  This is an alternative.  Wandering monsters need not be random, and they need not be violent.  Less than a year ago we spoke of Encounters with people the characters already know; and not all animals that are not dangerous don’t require time and care to get around.  If a skunk crosses your path, you’re probably going to wait until it’s on its way before proceeding.  Similarly, player characters can encounter someone or something with which they need to interact, which you as referee can run easily while doing something else.  Whether it’s combat or conversation, a quick rescue of someone in trouble, or a strange inscription they need to study and consider, dropping something into the game at this moment delays the next moment long enough for you to think, to get a handle on what you want to do, to focus your ideas into something better.

  Of course, I could be entirely wrong about Mr. Lutz.  It might be that there was something at the bottom of the mountain, but Mr. Jones never managed to find a safe way down to it.  It might be that Hi did mean something terrible to those little people that incensed them.  I could be attributing to him a brilliant idea that he never had.  Yet as I offer it to you, I credit him, as I doubt I would ever have had it had I not mulled so long over his strange worlds.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

  On my hard drive, along with now over one hundred Game Ideas Unlimited articles, there’s a file in which I’ve got brief notes for future ideas.  At the moment there are twenty ideas noted there; they get added, and then as they get turned into articles I remove them.  Some that are there have been there long, and this is certainly one of those.  It is not the oldest on the list; it stands as number four, in a numbering system that automatically will collapse as I write this article and move another to that position.  In front of it are a note on Gardiner intelligence types which requires me to do a bit of research to revive my long-disused memories thereof, something on niche markets springing from my exposure to Christian jazz-fusion and avant garde, and something about things that aren’t what they appear, inspired by one of Seth Ben-Ezra’s Dreaming Out Loud columns.  That might perhaps give you some notion how long this idea has been simmering on the back burner.

  The note reads, You promised to do something sometime about assessing whether basic ideas were good before investing time in developing them.

  I did promise that; I did it back when I wrote Edison, the twenty-fourth article in this series, over one and a half years and exactly eighty-eight articles ago.  The reminder has been staring me in the face, every time I open the document to write a new article or drop another idea into it or muse on the ideas within it.

  The horror of it is that I have no more idea how to tell you to do that now than I did eighty-eight weeks ago when I made that promise.  How do you decide that something on which you’re working isn’t worth the effort?  How do you distinguish a good idea that just needs more work from a waste of your time and effort?  I can’t tell you; I don’t know.  I’ve certainly abandoned plenty of ideas after putting time into them, on the conclusion that they would not work, or at least that I could not find a way to make them do so.  I can suggest that there is a sense you have that something is not turning into something good, and you are wasting your time.  Yet this is a fickle sense at best.  Every time I come to a new review of Multiverser or more recently the novel Verse Three, Chapter One; every time I receive a letter about a web page or article I’ve written; there is a part of me that holds its breath, waiting for the bad news, wondering whether someone is finally going to prove that I’ve wasted all this time and effort because I don’t really have what it takes to do what I’ve attempted, or that my work is unoriginal or incorrect or worthless.  Thus far I’ve been encouraged.  All the reviews of the novel have been positive, most of the letters I receive are encouraging, and the few negative reviews of the game more reflect the reviewers’ biases than any flaw in what’s been written.  No one writes to me complaining that I’ve sold them a lousy game.  Very few people have called me a fraud or an idiot.  The ratings on these articles don’t always get perfect tens from the readers, but thus far none has dropped below five.  Yet there is still this seed of doubt somewhere that wonders whether I’ve deluded myself into thinking my work is good, and fed it with the praise of a few.  After all, they say that the Internet makes it possible for three like-minded nuts in the whole world to find each other and confirm their opinions into a political movement.  I can’t even be certain whether the things on which I’m spending my time now are good, even with trying them.  I only know that there have been ideas I’ve tossed aside, thinking that I can’t make them work and could do better with some other ideas.

  Maybe that’s not so bad, though.  I don’t think anyone really knows whether an idea is good or bad until they attempt it.  After all, these might not be as inspiring, incisive, or memorable as the most famous words Edison said (as quoted in the earlier column), but they are attributed to him as well:  Results!  Why man, I have gotten a lot of results.  I know several thousand things that won’t work.  So maybe you can’t know which are the bad ideas without testing them.  To quote someone else who has achieved a sort of greatness, the hockey player they call The Great One, Wayne Gretsky, is mentioned in uncounted high school assignment books for the words, You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take.  So maybe when you’ve got an idea, you can’t know whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea until you’ve tried to make something more of it.  Even then, maybe it’s a good idea, but you just haven’t figured out what to do with it.  Maybe those snippets of music I’ve written and abandoned could have been great songs, but not for me.  Maybe those strange worlds people have submitted to me which are sitting on my hard drive, at which I screw up my face wondering how anyone could salvage them, could easily become worthy of publication if the right hand took control of them.  It happens that just last week I opened a file that has been mere notes E. R. Jones left in 1997 and turned it into text that may well appear in The Third Book of Worlds, if I can tweak just a few more points, and handed another that held some promise back to its author, my son Kyler, with a few notes on how to make it work for that same book.

  So maybe there are no bad ideas.  Maybe there are only bad combinations of ideas, poor executions, failed deliveries.  It might be that every shred of our creativity has value, if only we can find the right context.  Choosing the good might not be really so much the good as that which is most easily refined.  There are mines which have returned to value as the price of gold rose, gas and oil fields which became worth exploring as demand for the products climbed.  The idea for this article sat for eighty-eight weeks untouched until the new quote from Edison helped it coalesce.  Maybe the value of ideas is not in whether they are good or bad, but in whether we have the right context for them.

  Of course, maybe I just don’t know the answer.  Maybe there is a way to spot the bad ideas and weed them out, and I just haven’t figured out what it is.  If anyone has any secrets for this, please let me know.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

I hate math. Not the article by Mark, but the subject itself. I’m terrible at it. I definitely didn’t get my dislike of math from my father who is much better at it than I am. I’d go so far as to say that he likes math, but it’s just not something I can get into. To me, math is dull and boring. Sure, the results of math can be fun (Who doesn’t like adding up the money in your wallet and finding out you’ve got five dollars more than you thought you did?), but devising methods of adding and subtracting numbers is not something I want to do. In most of my life this isn’t a problem, I don’t have a job that requires me to do complex math in my head or to build something to exacting specs. However, when math issues do come up, I’ll knuckle down and figure it out, making notes (mentally or on paper) so I remember what I did in case I have a similar problem to figure out later on.



To tie this into gaming we’ll look at the intro to Mark’s article which reads:



“Sometimes we create our own limitations; when that happens, we need to recognize them to get beyond them.”



While I feel that I’ve accomplished this task, at least to some degree, in regards to my math skills, I often wonder if I’ve done so with my gaming skills. I brought this up back in my Fight the Pattern! article, but I think this is a good time to expand things a bit further.



I know quit a few gamers that will only GM Their Game,and I think this is actually a normal occurance. Many game groups have different members who specialize in one game when they GM. If you want Paranoia, you call on Jeff, if you want MERP get in touch with Sarah. One friend of mine won’t run anything other than 1st ed AD&D or GURPS. A while back I asked him about this and he said that while he would like to try and run Vampire sometime, he felt that was “Brett’s game” and not only did he not want to step on my toes, he didn’t think the others in the group would accept him running my game.



At first I thought it was kinda strange, but then I thought about the first time I tried to run AD&D for my friends. Our regular GM was out and no one else wanted to run the game so I said I’d step up and do it. The group was just plain evil. Because I was different than our regular GM they questioned everything, complained about my style, didn’t like my monsters, hated the treasure I gave out. They made me feel terrible and I darn near quit gaming that day. With that memory in mind I could understand why my friend wouldn’t want to try and run a Vampire game with our group. He was afraid of what might happen when he tried something new.



Everyone gets into a groove (or rut perhaps?), in their gaming. Sometimes we take the chance and try something new, but there’s always the fear that things won’t work out. This fear is perhaps never greater than when someone steps up to GM a new game for the group. Even if that person is a veteran GM, when they try to run their first game of D&D, GURPS or whatever, there is a lot on the line for them. It’s times like these when the rest of the group really needs to band together and act as a team and support each other.



If you know the game system yourself (perhaps you’ve GMed it before?) you can be supportive by offering to look up statistics or to help the GM clarify an obtuse rule. I find it’s also worth while to simply accept a GM ruling even if you’re certain it’s “wrong.” Don’t slow down game play to point out the GM’s lack of familiarity with a new set of rules, either help out or encourage the GM to make a logical call and look up the answer later. Remember: Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, the GM is nervous the first time he runs a new game. Don’t prey on that for some advantage, and don’t rail against the GM’s skills. There will be time enough later on for the GM and players to discuss things and to make adjustments/improvements.



On the other side of the screen, the GM should do everything he can to prepare for the new game. I’ve been at many a game where the GM was obviously unfamiliar with the rulebook and thought he would just wing it and all would work out fine. Don’t try out your latest improv skill set at the first session of a brand new game. Stick with your usual style and with the tools that you know work for you.



If you usually use 3×5 cards for all your notes, now’s not the time to throw that tool out the window. Sure you can do it later on, but arm yourself with all of your tricks and trade secrets for that first game. By doing this you cut the unfamiliarity issue in half. Sure, you’re not 100% on the rules the way you are with your favorite game, but you are 100% on your style, tools and methods. Anything familiar is good to have, giving you a level of comfort and reliability which helps when trying something new.



Another thing to keep in mind is that most folks want to run a new game because they want to try something new. Be it their first foray into GMing, or the first time with this particular setting and rules system. New is inevitable in this situation. To help deal with it, I encourage GMs and players to take notes during the game, or to talk about the game after the session is over. Take the time to see what worked well and what seemed to be a roadblock. Was combat a pain? Best review those rules before next time. Did the players not fully understand the importance of X in the new setting? Better take the time to go over it again so next time things they’ll know what to do. Did that nifty super power not do what you thought it should have? Re-read those rules and see what the deal is.



If we can help eliminate or downplay the fear of trying something new we’ll get a chance to play or GM some great games we might not have normally been exposed to. We’ll also help expand and improve our gaming skills allowing us to get past our limitations, be they real or perceived.





Well, that’s enough out of me for now. See you all in the Forums!

  I was poking at a game of Mindsweeper as I was trying to wake up, playing the intermediate game, as I mentioned in Levels, without using the flags that mark the bombs.  It occurred to me that someone might think it arrogant that I dare to play the game without flags; I only find it mentally stimulating.  Some perhaps might think it arrogant that I tell people that I play without flags, as if I were suggesting that I was better or smarter than most people.

  I’ve never thought of myself as particularly smarter than others, in general.  Oh, there are certainly some people in the world of whom I’ve thought, even I’m smarter than that, but generally I perceive others as being pretty much as smart as I am.  I’ve never had the experience which I believe Freeman Dyson recounted.  Asked if he ever wondered why he was so smart, he said no, he wondered why everyone else was so stupid.  That’s never been my experience.  Objectively, I’m aware that the test scores say I’m pretty smart, but subjectively I don’t strike myself as outstanding.

  For example, David (whom I’ve mentioned) can tell you the volume of a circular swimming pool in gallons given its dimension in feet.  He can do that in his head, in a few seconds, while standing next to the pool.  He’s not a mathematician; he’s a theologian.  He doesn’t even own a pool, and swimming is not even one of his pastimes, let alone part of his career history.  He failed trigonometry in high school.  (In fairness, he had to be pretty smart to get into trigonometry in high school; he failed because he didn’t care at the time.)

  Yet when I mention playing Minesweeper without the flags, people think I must be smart, smarter at least than they are, because they would never play that game that way.

  It doesn’t follow.  It’s an easy mistake to make, but it is nonetheless a mistake.

  Long ago, right after I emerged from college, I grabbed a job as a security guard while job hunting in a depressed market.  I worked at a fiberglass insulation factory on the evening shift for several months.  There was there at that time someone whose position might best be described as Maintenance Engineer; if anything broke, he, or someone in his department, fixed it.  He did a lot of machinists work, arc welding, mechanical repair.  For some reason that I cannot now recall or fathom, I often found myself chatting with him about things that didn’t relate to much of anything.  I suppose it must be that he and I shared a certain level of intellectual curiosity, but I don’t at all remember anything we ever discussed.  However, I do recall that one day he commented, completely out of any context of which I was aware (although I think at the time he was working on something as we talked) that I should be able to add a column of two-digit numbers in my head.  My immediate reaction was that this was not something I could do.  I could add any number of single-digit numbers, either given them one at a time or having the luxury of seeing them on paper, but if I were going to add two-digit numbers I would do as I had been taught and add the ones first and then the tens.  It would not have occurred to me to do something such as twelve plus thirty-six is forty-eight, plus forty-five is ninety-three, plus fifty-seven is one hundred fifty–it was too difficult.

  Yet that sequence I just now invented and stated took me longer to type than it did to calculate.  At those rare moments when I am faced with such two-digit numbers (less rare perhaps for me than for many, as I’ve played quite a few games in which modifiers have to be summed to get a target number, dating back to Star Frontiers and continuing with Multiverser) I get some practice at it.  I’ve done it for the past quarter century.

  The point is not that I’m so smart I can add a column of two-digit numbers in my head.  The point is that this was something I did not think I could do primarily because it never occurred to me that it might be done that way.  I won’t go so far as to say that anyone can do it; I will say that it’s not so difficult as it sounds, and I’d wager that the vast majority of my readers could do it if they tried, and would get better at it with practice.  If you think not, ask yourself this:  when you count the change in your pockets, do you add the pennies and nickels and five cents for each quarter first, and then go back to add ten cents for each dime and another twenty for the quarters?  I dare say you are adding a column of two-digit numbers then, probably starting with the quarters and working down, possibly just counting them as they come.  Those are easier two-digit numbers, perhaps, but it’s the same concept.

  This is not about suggesting you practice adding columns of two-digit numbers.  That certainly is a useful skill even if you don’t play Multiverser or Star Frontiers or similar games, but it’s not the point.  The point is that you are probably quite capable of doing many things which you’ve never attempted, and that you’ve held yourself back from trying them because it has never occurred to you that this is something you can do.  One day years ago during a particularly boring Civil Procedure lecture, I entertained myself by calculating the squares of successive integers.  When I reached seventeen squared, I suddenly stumbled on the pattern [(x+1)^2-x^2=2x+1, which also equals 2*(x+1)-1, which for consecutive integers yields consecutive odd integers, if anyone cares].  It wasn’t a new breakthrough in mathematics, obviously, but it reflected the facts that by playing with numbers one gets better at numbers, and that Civil Procedure can be an extremely boring subject.

  It has long been axiomatic that boys are good with numbers and girls with language.  It has been taught and believed that boys struggle with words and girls can’t do math.  Then Noam Chomski came along with an entirely revolutionary theory of linguistics:  grammar turns out to be highly complex mathematical calculations.  That stuff about girls not being able to do math is completely untrue.  They do it extremely well.  They just get frightened when the see numbers, and largely because we’ve told them that being girls they can’t do that so well.

  The fact is that you can do many things with your mind that you’ve never attempted, and you are held back more by your own belief that this is not something you can do than by any real limitation in your ability.  Sure, everyone has limits, and it is certainly good to know what yours are; but it is also important to challenge them, to check them, to see whether they are real limitations in your ability or merely your insecurities expressing themselves in self-limitation.

  The first time I played Minesweeper without the flags, I lost.  It was the beginner level.  Now my computer records a record time on that game as Beginner:  5 seconds  Dad–No Flags.  You can do it.  It’s not as hard as you think to think harder.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

After reading through Mark’s Silence article I thought about how many of the players in my group don’t like to fully disclose their plans to me. They feel they can get the maximum amount of surprise and realism out of me when they keep their plans from me. When it first happened I thought it was kind of strange to be the GM and kept in the dark, but after a while it seemed to make sense. I’ve actually found that it’s quite helpful in making encounters more realistic.



A realistic encounter, be it a fight or a conversation with an NPC, is the goal for most players and GMs. We want the NPCs and monsters to act and react realistically. Just because the goblins know the PCs are invading doesn’t mean they should have prepared the perfect counter to the player’s plan of attack. This means that the GM is forced to try and forget/disallow everything about the PCs’ plans because he knows all about them either because he asked what they were, or the players told him out of obligation/duty. It’s not easy for most people to pretend they don’t know something that plays such a prominent role in immediate events.



As I mentioned at the beginning I allow my players to plot their plots and plan their plans without involving me 100% of the time. They will normally call on me when it comes to rules clarifications (“I want to do X – what mechanics do I need to take into account?”), but for the most part they do their own thing. This way, when they spring out Stage 1 of The Big Plan I react based on only the actions that are happening at the time. I don’t know what Stage 2 looks like so I’m not able to thwart their plans based on precognition. While this does work, and helps create realistic encounters, there are times when the right amount of precognition is necessary for the GM.



When GMing an NPC or monster with supernatural intelligence I use my GM knowledge against the players. I figure that if I’m running a lich with near god-like smarts, he’s going to have thought of many, many different counters to many, many different plans of attack on his person. So, I ask the players what they are planning, just the basic details, not full disclosure as that level of detail isn’t necessary. I then take the information and use it as if the lich had already planned for such an inevitability. This allow the bad guy to seemingly out think and out plan the players, giving the appearance of supernatural or magical knowledge/foresight.



There are times however when the players and the bad guys are fairly evenly matched. Intelligence levels are nearly equal. This is when we get to see who’s plans are best. I once again adopt the “Don’t tell me about it” approach, but I set things up so that the PC’s are specifically the targets of the bad guys plans. No more implementing a general defensive plan in case the lair is attacked. The bad guys know the PCs, they have studied them at least to some degree so any obvious flaws and abilities are taken into account.



My D&D group has a character who is an archer type of fighter. He’s freaking incredible. Shooting arrows huge distances and laying waste to everything around him. The main bad guy and his lieutenants are going to know this. They’ve either seen it directly or had many minions die at the archer’s hands. Looks like some protection spells against missile weapons are called for. Oh! And how about something to deal with that obnoxious cleric who keeps healing the party when the bad guys almost has them beaten? Might want to take him out first and then the others will fall without any healing…



But what about the times when the PCs are actually smarter than the bad guys? While this doesn’t happen often, it’s been known to occur. If this happens, I make sure that I give the PCs a couple of hints as to what they could do, giving them the opportunity to take these hints and implement them in their planning. Nothing super obvious, more along the lines of “Now remember, last time you fought the goblins of the Bloody Eye they had rust monster pets and liked to use poison arrows.”



Sure the PCs can ignore your hints, but you’ve done your part by reminding them of the rust monsters and poison arrows. That information helps you swing the intelligence issue in favor of the players. If they do choose to ignore the hints, and things go badly for them, you can always remind them never to underestimate someone just because you think your smarter than they are.



The last thing that I feel is important for a GM to do regarding the PC’s planning is to allow yourself to be surprised. If the players have a plan they’ve kept from you and when they put it into action it stuns you let it stun the bad guy. Sure, some of the bad guys will recover quicker than others, but remember that the GM is the bad guy. If you’re stunned, he’s stunned. This gives the players a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. They pulled one over on you, they can see it in your eyes and they should see it in the way the bad guy reacts. Think of this as a token reward. Heck, if the plan is really good you should think about an XP bonus for good roleplaying.





Well, that’s enough out of me for now. Let me know what you think and I’ll see you in the forums!

  You have the right to remain silent.

  Thanks to a United States Supreme Court decision affectionately known as Miranda, and the consequent repetition of the prescribed litany on uncounted police dramas, these words may be the best known fragments of American law both among Americans and around the world.  They recount very simply a protection afforded by the Constitution of the United States of America, and duplicated now in the laws of most countries:  the right against self incrimination, the power to refuse to say anything that might implicate you in a crime.

  This has become such a prominent feature of law today, it’s easy to overlook the fact that it has not been so all that long.

  We’re moving away from our discussion of ideas from other games and turning to a more serious subject.  It has to do with law, obviously.  I’ve already written elsewhere quite a bit about law, a three-part series for the wonderfully named and wonderfully edited Australian e-zine Places to Go, People to Be.  The Source of Law (which is reprinted here at Gaming Outpost) discusses how laws and governments come to be, justify their existence, and are changed.  The Course of Law is a brief discussion of civil and criminal procedure and how it can be different in different places or circumstances.  The Force of Law addresses primarily penal systems, what to do with those convicted of a crime.  Between them there’s enough information to build your own legal system for just about any imaginary world, and keep it interesting and internally consistent.  So, having referred you to those, I don’t need to cover all that ground again.

  There is one point, however, that these words, the right to remain silent, raise.  Do the characters in your worlds have that right?  If there are legal entanglements (and surely you don’t have a world in which there’s no law at all), can the characters refuse to say anything, keep their secrets secret, whether they are guilty or not?

  I’m old enough to remember when Miranda was not the law of the land; police shows such as Dragnet, made in the nineteen fifties, weren’t peppered with those words.  People did have the right to remain silent; what they didn’t have was the guarantee that the police would either remind them of that right or respect it.  Police routinely attempted to get suspects to talk, by incentive, trickery, coercion, and whatever other means they could find.  Even since Miranda such tactics have been used at times, attempting to get information from someone who doesn’t want to give it.  In one specific case, the officers transporting the suspect held a discussion in front of him about how terrible it would be if some child found the gun that had been used in this crime and apparently hidden somewhere in the neighborhood, solely to lure the man into telling them where it was; when he did, they built the case from that gun–and had it thrown out of court, because under Miranda once the man had asserted that he did not wish to talk until he had a lawyer present the police could not use any efforts to entice him to abandon that right.  You have the right to remain silent; that didn’t always mean that the police wouldn’t do everything in their power to make you talk.  Now it does.

  More to the point, you didn’t always have that right.  Quite the contrary, through most of history most people could be compelled to testify against themselves.  The most dramatic and famous example is undoubtedly the moment in the trial of Jesus of Nazareth, when, as presented in Matthew’s account, the High Priest Caiaphas says, “I adjure You by the living God that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.”  That oath was such a strong command that under the understanding of the day failure to answer would be lying, perjury under oath.  On the basis of His answer that He was, they condemned him to death for blasphemy, modified to treason so as to get the approval of the Roman governor.  He was not allowed not to answer the question.

  This is not the only time or place where someone did not have the right to remain silent.  It has dogged people through the centuries, and in one otherwise optimistic view of the future it fails again.  In Star Trek VI:  The Undiscovered Country, at the moment that they need the truth from the Vulcan traitor, Ambassador Spock uses his mind meld telepathic abilities to pull all the details of the conspiracy from her memories.  Upon capturing the other conspirators they announced that they had a full confession from her; what they had was coerced testimony, forced self-incrimination, an unmistakable violation of the right to remain silent.

  Even today, exactly what this right against self-incrimination means has been put through the wringer in the courts.  Do the police have the right to take your fingerprints?  Can they compel blood or urine samples to test for illegal substances?  Can they go through your hair, under your fingernails, through your clothing, looking for microscopic evidence connecting you to a crime?  Is it a violation of this right for them to take DNA samples from you to compare against evidence at the scene?  All of these questions have been raised in court, as attorneys have argued that such evidence amounts to compelled testimony–and in this country, at least, they have been rejected, determined to be material facts, not compelled testimony.  However, lie detector tests and truth drugs are not admissible against the defendant, as these are viewed as violations of that basic right.

  I’m not saying that your characters should or should not have such a right in whatever game world you create.  I am saying you should decide whether they do or do not, and what that means for them and for the rest of the society in which they live.  Are people tortured to extract confessions?  Is that because they don’t have the right to remain silent, or because they do and we want them to waive it?  Do psions routinely scan the minds of suspects in search of some evidence of their guilt?  If they find it, do we trust their testimony?  If they are not permitted to testify, are the police permitted to use such information as this method obtains as the starting point for finding other evidence to support their case (what in American jurisprudence would then be called the “fruit of the poisonous tree”, excluded from trial because the police could not have found it without the illegally obtained first information)?  Or is this just something done so that someone can say, “You’ve got the wrong man, keep looking,” or “Yeah, this is him, start building a case”?

  You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can be taken down and used as evidence against you.  Maybe you don’t have that right; maybe the prosecutor can call you to the stand, ask if you did it, and compel you to answer.  Maybe the magic-users can cast their truth detection or compulsion spells on you and so force you to confess.  Maybe the doctors can give you a shot of Telol, causing you to tell all.  If you don’t have that right, it makes a big difference in how the law is going to treat you.  That’s an important part of your game world, not to be overlooked.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

The Levels article by Mark takes a look at the use of logic for problem solving, encouraging us to continue to improve our thought processes by using different logical methods. One of the things that I get out of logical problem solving is that it’s often best to go with the odds in your favor. Stick with the options that have the best chances for success and you’ll come out on top more times than not.



When we take that idea and apply it to RPGs we have a very useful tool for GMing. Every setting, action, event or what have you in an RPG will cause a reaction in the players. If you can predict the actions that your gamers will take you will be able to direct them without seeming to be railroading them. However, in order to accomplish this feat, you have to know your group.



When I say “You have to know your group” I’m talking about the group’s tendencies during game play. How a group or a player games is a great way to not only give them what they want, but for you to direct events in the direction that you need it to go. Much like a blackjack player learns to count cards so he can play the odds, you need to pay attention to your group’s tendencies and habits. That is a GM’s card counting system.



For example, my D&D group will almost always run from a fight as soon as things aren’t in their favor or if something happens that appears out of their control. If I don’t want them to kill an NPC the first time they encounter him, all I have to do is change the situation up (add more bad guys usually works) and chances are they will retreat and re-think things for a bit. The same group will also, 90% of the time, place duty to the quest above their character’s personal goals. Which allows me to be able to use that tendency to keep them on task.



You can also use this on an individual player level. One of my Vampire players will try out just about anything. No matter what his character would do, he’s gonna try it out anyway because that’s the type of player he is. A ring? He’ll put it on. A book of vile darkness that damns souls and brings about Armageddon? He’ll read it twice. So, if there’s a magic item that I want the party to have as a plot device I will make sure that he’s one of the first people to find it. And if it’s something that the party shouldn’t necessarily use, like the book of vile darkness, I’ll make sure he’s not the one to find it.



Obviously, players have a remarkable talent for not doing what they would normally do when you need them to do it the most. Does that mean our system of playing the odds is broken? Nope, you just need to move to the next high odds option.



If my D&D group suddenly decides that they will put their personal goals above the quest when I don’t want them to, I apply another habit they have. I’ve found that whenever an NPC reminds them of their duty they will go back to it nine times out of ten. If that fails I can use their tendency to avenge wrongs/evils and direct them back to the plot at hand with a quick attack from a bad guy connected to my plot.



Using a group’s tendencies and habit “against them” as I’m suggesting does have it’s limits. My rule of thumb is to only apply three of these in a row. If after the third attempt the group is still not going where I need them to I will shift gears and try some other GM tools I have stashed away. As any good gambler will tell you: “You gotta know when to fold ‘em.” So don’t push this one too far or you will be railroading the group instead of guiding them.



The last thing to remember is that this idea cuts both ways. Players can manipulate or second guess a GM by paying attention to his habits. Does the GM hate a certain rule and thus normally rules in the party’s favor as it’s too much of a pain for him to use the rule? Does your GM tend to have a dark conspiracy bent on world domination? If you know a GM’s habits you can get him to do things you want, or manipulate the outcome of an event. However, I think that’s dirty pool for players to do this and I don’t encourage it.



Why try and defeat or beat the GM by getting him to play into your hand? All surprises are lost, all mystery and wonder is removed and soon your GM won’t like playing anymore. Heck, I’ll bet most players wouldn’t want to play if they knew or could guess at everything that was going to happen. Pitting yourself against the unknown is fun so why ruin it?



So instead of trying to manipulate/guide the GM I’ve found the best thing to do as a player is to work with the GM. If you know your GM tends to hate the grappling rules in D&D, help him use them, become a resource for the GM. When the GM plays on your group’s habit of duty before all else, realize that he’s got some good fun in store for you and he’s not trying to railroad you. If you find that the games are getting too predictable, offer to GM yourself next time to give your regular GM a break or give him some adventure ideas that you think would be fun. Players shouldn’t be afraid to give the GM some ideas and GMs shouldn’t be offended by players who offer to help.



After all, the probability for fun is greatly improved if you work together making it a safe bet. And who wouldn’t like those odds?





Well, that’s enough out of me for now. See you in the Forums!