Making Race Important to the Game

Over at Roleplaying Tips they're hosting a nice little blog carnival, centered on the concept of races. And… I must say that I don't normally play with race too much, or at the very least- not today. But it doesn't mean that I don't have anything to bring to the table. I did run a year or two of campaigns centered on races and our prejudices surrounding them, back in the day.

John asks for tips and ideas about making race an important factor in the game. For me, the number one trick, the first tip that I offer for GMs who come to me with the same question, is to lead by example.

Think about the GM-player relationship in most traditional games- the GM sets the stage, decides what is important and what not, and the players (at least to a certain extent) internalize those themes and ideas, and then bring their own versions of it. That's how we explore themes in RPGs.

But it also means that the GM has to set the stage. If the GM will make race an important factor in her games, like having some racist NPCs or handing a prejudices index (just like we can find in every WOD race book), sooner or later it will become a major factor in the game.

If, for the sake of example, I bring to the table a Dwarf NPC who hates Elves and think that they just stink, suddenly it is important to know if Lucy plays an Elf or if she plays a Halfling. If I'll continue this stage-setting and the next NPC will think that Halflings are not real men, Mr. Halfling will have to find a way to show his manliness.

In other words- making the concept of races important to you, as GM, and playing to this concept, will make it important for the whole group. Before you'll know it you'll have Dwarfs who don't like Gnomes and Orcs who want to be Elves.

And that's the whole truth, actually. Make it important to you, stress it through your portrayal of NPCs, through your descriptions ("you see an Elf. She…"), through handouts... If it is important enough for you to stress it, it will become important enough for them as well.

Or you can just go and play Vampire. I "heard" that they've done it right.

How about you? What tips and tricks do you have for making race an important factor in your games?

28 Days Later- Changing Just a Little Thing

And that's how a masterpiece looks. I guess that I shouldn't have expected any less from the director who made Trainspotting, but you know, when I should give a compliment I will give a compliment. 28 Days Later is our age's Night of the Living Dead, a movie that is so inventive and amazing that everyone tried to copy it, yet it still tops them all.

In short, a group of animal liberation militants free a virus throughout the entirety of Britain, resulting in a zombie apocalypse. The zombies this time are fast, real fast, and scary like they were never before. To that we add the personal horrors of the last act. Oh, and did I mention that it has the same amazing directing touch that Boyle employed in Trainspotting?

And that leads us to the lesson to learn from this movie. Apart from utilizing lessons of identification and beautiful scenery (which makes this movie a textbook example of how to do a high-level horror movie), it practically invented the concept of the fast-zombie.

And the zombies here are fast. Apart from being fast, they are the normal Romero-type zombies, but their greater speed makes them so different, so refreshing, and so terrifying. And that's a pretty good lesson to learn.

I wrote, a long time ago, about ways to make one scene characters unique, utilizing a known, common stereotype and building upon it. Boyle gave the same treatment to his zombies. And we can do the same- when using a known monster, keeping it the same, just like we read or watched hundreds of time, but changing something inherent in it, like the speed of the zombies. Or it might be a vampire that lives on computer data, sucking hard-drives and all the personal folders and documents.

Or we might drive a known characteristic to 11. The zombie isn't slow, it can't move, it just lies there waiting to be found and eat. The vampire isn't burned by sunlight- it explodes when the light touches it. And again, much horror ensues.

Or we might add a characteristic. The vampire can change its looks so he can look like your wife or husband. The zombie can now climb on walls. And these monsters won't ever look the same.

How about you? What have you thought about this movie? And what lessons did you take from it?

(Also published as The Bleeding Scroll's addition to the October Blog Carnival)

The Story of Mellisa Lermondon

In Arcane Game Lore, they're running a blog carnival about our favourite NPCs. I must say, it was hard for me to come with an NPC, because I don't have that many (although I really like the one that I do bring to the table). So, 18 days of thinking brought me to this NPC. Is it my favourite? I'm not sure, but she sure is on my top list...

Mellisa Lermondon wasn't supposed to be a major NPC, at the beginning. She was supposed to add a little bit of colour, maybe even be a part of a romance between one of the PCs and her. As it turned out, she couldn't end farer from that.

It was a D&D campaign that I've started a year ago and ran for 3 months, and the story was set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. The players wanted, as every normal player will want, to start a new village in the frontier. They have "forgotten" that it was the "Ezripold Daemon Forest". They have collected a group of peasants and adventurers to help them start this village, and among them she was.

Time has passed, and the village grew bigger and bigger, and her statues in the village rose as well. The characters, though, started to abuse her (and to treat her like an animal or property). That was the point when I said enough to myself, and started to think how to make her a little bit more important. 

As the real Mellisa started to unravel, I've started to like the character more and more. It was a long time since I had a major villain, and Mellisa looked like the right one. I've made her a conspirator that came from a noble family that no one remembers anymore. I've made her a bitter wizard who served to defend the city of her grandfather, only to be shunned because she was a woman. Then I've made a little bit of background (it was before the time of the recipe), making her and the king of the goblins work together, and so it went on.

Then, to the next session, she came back. I started the session with describing the clothing of the NPCs that they've started to like. None of the players got the clue, and the session continued. They went to gather some resources for the village, the characters and her, only to find when they returned that the village was conquered. She, who was the strongest wizard there, used her magic to incriminate one of the other NPCs for opening the doors. They didn't wait to kill him.

After a "civil war" in the village, order was back in place, and they went off again. There she made her mark. Everything that they tried to do, she made them fail, using her illusion abilities to incriminate others. She was kept clean. 

When they finally reached their spot, she made her move, and disappeared, leaving the characters far from home, going back to fill their subjects with poisonous thoughts while they were on their way back. They only received letters from her ever since and sometimes a riddle or 2 to tease them off.

One of the reasons that I so like her, I think, is that she didn't made any open move at all, 'till she left. Even then it was them who fought the village people, not her, and it was them who saw the collapse of the village that they worked so hard to raise because of their actions. She was a string puller, but most of the time they didn't know she was even her. I think that if they read this post, this is the first time that they get to know why the village collapsed.

Werewolf & Vampire Academy, Now on ABC...

So this month's blog carnival is about "Campaigns I'd Like to Run", and although I ran quiet a lot of campaigns that are still with me, years after, there is a concept that I wanted to try, but just couldn’t find the group for it.

The concept was of a werewolf & vampire academy, bundled with power levels of failure sidekicks. Were the characters played the students, forming a group. The rule system was supposed to be Primetime Adventures.

 The idea itself came from a LARP that I participated within, called "Sidekicks Anonymous", which was a LARP about a group of sidekicks trying to save the missing superheroes. Some of the characters were the "Exploding Boy", the "Laminator", and the like.

The game itself was supposed to be campy, and very different from my usual horror/dark comedy style of games.

I didn't came to plan much of the game, partly because I didn't have a group to begin with (They preferred a Paranoia XP Campaign), but I envisioned the teachers starting to disappear, the headmaster cowering under his bed, the BBEG turns him into a baby, and the whole academy falling from the sky, and a closing scene were one of the characters needs to choose between saving his lover or the academy.

The campaign itself was supposed to encompass 9 sessions, with the first dealing with everyone arriving to the academy, and being allocated into 2 different groups, vamps and werewolves, and to end with the two groups creating a brave friendship after a big feast.

The sessions from then onward were supposed to be character centric, with some of their most beloved teachers beginning to disappear, and with them starting to investigate, when they still try to do class works and the like. The last one was supposed to end with a boom, with the academy starting to fall, and with one of the characters, who was the leader of this formed group sacrificing what is important for him to save the school or vice versa.

The teachers themselves were supposed to be colorful, with a headmaster that is in love with his advisor, another who will be in love with one of the characters (and trying to seduce her/him), another one that takes everything much too dramatic (in terms of doing everything theatrically) and so on.

When Players Go Wrong, GMs Go Right After Them

Over at Elthos RPG, they ran a blog carnival on the subject of GMing for a ship of fools, or moments where the characters did something so stupid, that the game ended. This is my most memorable incident, from my GMing career.

It was a D&D one-shot (of 9 hours), with my players being 3rd level characters (paladin, cleric, wizard, rouge and a barbarian). They were guests of the Paladin's father, in a little village. During the first night of the session, a werewolf attacked, killing one of the villagers. The mayor came to the party, as the only adventuring party in the village, and the party agreed to his terms, promising to help clean the village from the werewolf.

They started to investigate, meeting all the village people, talking with them, trying to get some information. During the days, they investigated, and during the nights they were on the walls (a wooden one, of course...), watching to see where the werewolf comes from, looking to ambush him if he comes.

A few days passed, and the werewolf attacked, they missed him, coming when he was running away, finding a little girl killed, her body torn apart. They swore they would kill him, but they did no other action, but returned to the wall.

They continued to investigate, following the footprints all the way to the nearby forest, where the prints disappeared, and returned to the village. The streets at this time were very empty, shops being close, pubs managing with a smaller crew, and a lot less of buyers.

After a few nights, and a lot of info that they got, they finally met the werewolf. They tried to stop him, but he defeated them, and then disappeared in the shadows, and they were there, all beaten up and losing.

The following day, they came back to the mayor, and asked for a higher payment. The mayor said no, and the barbarian killed him. I looked at him, my eyes widening with shock, and then he just said: "What? That's just what a barbarian will do. I need money, no pay- I kill him."

The village of course wasn't sure of what to do after it. Some were angry, 'cause he was a good mayor, and he did his best in solving this problem. Some agreed with the party, saying that if they killed him, the reason was probably right, like maybe he holed them or something. All of them, agreed though, that the problem hasn't been solved, too long of a time has passed, and they released the characters from their service. The game ended with that. A long time passed before I GMed for them again.