Conflict is a Stretch

Today I'm going to address a very simple tool that you use every time you GM:  Conflict.  Conflict is what makes stories exciting, games fun, and simulations interesting.  Conflict is important to every kind of RPG from the most narrative story games to the crunchiest tactical games.  Designing captivating conflict is the most important GM skill.

Conflict, as employed in a tabletop RPG, is any situation where there are two or more distinct, possible outcomes, over which the player characters (PCs) have partial influence, and in which they have a stake.  

Here are the five major components of conflict, broken down.

1. Situation:  A situation is the place, time, and circumstances that the PCs find themselves in.
2. Two or More Distinct Outcomes:  A situation cannot be a conflict if the outcomes are indistinct.  They have to be qualitatively different, and preferably incompatible.  Compromise solutions are tricky:  The outcomes don't have to be incompatible, but the compromise solution should be less desirable than a total victory, even taking into account the risk of ignoring the compromise.  If the compromise is the best outcome for all sides, there are not multiple, distinct outcomes because there is no conflict.
3. Two or More Outcomes are Possible:  I want to emphasize the word possible here.  A situation is not a conflict if its outcome is guaranteed.  Yes, the PCs almost always triumph but there needs to be some risk (making a consequential decision with incomplete information).  Conversely, a situation "on rails" is not a conflict, because the GM will not allow more than one outcome.
4. Partial Influence:  If the PCs have complete influence over the outcomes, there is no conflict.  Many tabletop RPG designers make the mistake of giving PCs spells or powers that grant complete influence over conflicts (detect lie abilities, for instance).  As a GM, that drives me nuts.  A person with influence over and stake in a conflict is a disputant or contestant.  Here's what my post title means:  Conflict requires the player characters to stretch to ensure the outcome they want.
5. Stake:  If the PCs don't care how the conflict resolves, it's not interesting.  It's not useful to the story, and it's not a good use of the table's time.  Another word for a stake is a hazard, which is to say, something that one contestant wants.

So a conflict involves a situation, outcomes, some risk, a way to influence the outcomes, and some hazard.

Final tip:  You should be able to write a conflict as a single sentence, in the form of a question asking about the different outcomes.  Can the heroes escape the swamp before one of them is poisoned?  Will the vampire kill the hunters, will it escape, or will they destroy it?  This ensures that all of the required elements are present.

If you have trouble designing interesting conflicts, remember that most conflicts have human (or at least sentient) opponents - villains.  In conflicts against villains great and small, use the villain's agenda to drive the conflict.

1. Select an opponent and list the things that she or he wants.  
2. Pick the items off the list over which your villain has partial influence and the PCs have partial influence.  
3. Narrow down your choices to the things in which the PCs have the most stake.  For a major villain, start with the conflicts for which the villain doesn't need to be present in person, and can send henchmen. 
4. If the conflict is part of a larger conflict, create outcomes for this conflict that influence the larger conflict.  Design the situation so that it is relevant to the larger conflict.
5. Write the conflict in the form of a question, to make sure it's clear that all the elements are present.

Example:  Ghouls

In a Pathfinder game, the PCs will encounter some ghouls.  Instead of just putting ghouls on a map, the GM wants to create an interesting conflict.  

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/micadew/6552626577/

1. The ghouls want to eat the flesh of living humans.  They also want to live forever.  They want to avoid the wrath of the gods of light.  They want to incur the favor of the gods of darkness.
2. The PCs can prevent the ghouls from eating their flesh, kill them so they don't live forever, and channel the power of the gods of light.  So three of the four goals are ones the PCs can influence.
3. The PCs have the most stake in not getting eaten.  The ghouls aren't major villains and don't have henchmen, so they will be participating directly.  (I chose this conflict because it's a "workaday" encounter -- the sort of scene fantasy RPG GMs employ multiple times every game session.)
4. The larger conflict here is "Will the PCs figure out what happened to turn Sampleton into a ghost town?"  The situation will be a graveyard in an abandoned town, where a large number of fresh graves have been dug.  The new graves could give the PCs a clue about the town's vacancy, since the tombstones list the causes of death.  Perhaps they can find a pattern to the recent deaths.
5. Can the PCs find a pattern on the gravestones marking the victims of the rash of recent deaths here, or will they be killed or driven off by the ghouls that haunt the graveyard first?

Conflict in Encounter Design

Putting the conflict in the form of a question helps the GM in every aspect of the encounter's design.  For the Ghouls example, a Pathfinder GM needs to decide how many ghouls to use.  In this case, she now knows she can use an overwhelming or even limitless number, since the dramatic question makes it clear that victory for the PCs is not "killing all the ghouls" but "surviving long enough to identify a pattern on the tombstones."

Good communication is key here.  To make this clear to the players, the GM needs to make sure the PCs know they will have to get information fast, and then flee before they're overwhelmed.  She can communicate this in-game by telling the PC with the best Perception that "There are more ghouls in that graveyard than your party can fight off." Then tell the PC with the best Knowledge: Religion that "Ghouls they don't work together -- so you might be able to get what you need and flee before you're overwhelmed."  The players know what they have to do, but they can try variations on the basic idea:  They can use stealth, distractions, speed, splitting up, sticking together, using a lookout, religious rituals, powerful spells, and lots of other options to try to tip the conflict in their favor.

By sharpening your skills at conflict design, you can avoid using "fight to the death" encounters over and over.

PS: Happy full-moon-Friday-the-13th!  This is my 99th post.  Stay tuned for #100!

Pathfinder Types and Select Subtypes

Types and subtypes are some of the most annoying system hidden inside D&D 3.x or Pathfinder.  Basically all magic attacks interact with the type/subtype system.  Spellcasters, especially arcane casters, need to know the type and subtype of just about every monster they meet.  And then they need to know what that means.  

Arcane casters tend to take Knowledge in Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, Planes, and Religion so that they can identify a creature as being one of the types covered by those skills.  This allows them to avoid wasting spells.  It's hardly obvious that a giant scorpion can not be sacred off with Cause Fear, for instance.

So I've made a DM tool - a Pathfinder types and subtypes cheat sheet - to speed up that first round of combat.  It doubles as a player tool as well.  The rules that govern this tool's use are as follows:

You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's CR. For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster's CR, or more. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information. Many of the Knowledge skills have specific uses as noted on Table: Knowledge Skill DCs. (source: http://paizo.com/prd/skills/knowledge.html )

Here's how you use it.  When you describe the encounter, give a good description of the monster.  If the PCs haven't encountered it before (typical for a fantasy RPG), call for a knowledge check as above (or allow taking 10 by just asking "Do you have at least [CR] in Knowledge [Type]?").  If they succeed, tell them the creature's Type and Subtype and let them look it up on the chart.

The Tool: A Back-and-Front Table of Type/Subtype Information

Pathfinder Types and Select Subtypes Table
(feel free to use with or without attribution, for profit or not)

Give this table to the players of spellcasters with Knowledge skills.  Let them read and reference it whenever they want.  Since type and subtype traits were developed for simulationist purposes, it makes sense that, for example, a wizard trained in Arcana would know that all Dragons are immune to sleep spells because of some quirk of their dragon mystic resonance.  A particularly good check result (if you're rolling) might give the players some more information, like what the creature's spell resistance is, or its other defenses.

Also, don't forget to telegraph the monster's really scary awesome attacks!  Do this in your basic description (before the monster knowledge check), because the point of F20 combat encounters is to make the players believe their characters are in far more peril than they actually are.  The more you scare them, the more tense the encounter is, even if their chances of winning are around 98%.

When you're giving out extra information for the monster knowledge check, always give information to help the PCs win faster, not stats about the monster's attacks -- you want those to be scary.  If I tell you a hellhound is a huge wolf from hell that breathes fire, that's scary!  But if I tell you it does just 2d6 damage, that you can save for half, that it's only a 10' cone, and that it can only do it every 2d4 rounds, it's not scary.  Instead, give away the monster's weaknesses with a good Knowledge skill or roll.  These allow the players to feel like they've uncovered a valuable secret, without making the encounter feel as un-deadly as it really is.  And if they exploit that secret to win the encounter faster, you've not only saved table time, you've done so while:

1. Using the rules 
2. Adding tactical complexity
3. Making the players feel smart
4. Rewarding good skills as opposed to minmaxed combat stats
5. Taking no action that detracts from the sensation of danger in the encounter

Exaggerate the monster's offense.  

If you're rewarding good Knowledge, instead reveal its weaknesses.  

Example:

"This creature resembles a thin, lanky wolf with reddish-brown fur, white claws, and burning, fiery red eyes.  As it raises its head to growl at you, sulfrous smoke shoots from its nostrils, and when it opens its fanged maw to bark, red-hot flames shoot out with the otherworldly sound...  Do you have Knowledge: Planes trained and +3 or higher?"  

"Yeah, +9"  

"Then you know that this is a wolf spawned in the pits of hell.  It clawed its way into our world, perhaps with the aid of an Asmodean cult or a powerful devil.  This is a hell-wolf bent on killing, and it can barbecue entire parties because it can breathe fire.  It's a Lawful Evil Extraplanar Fire Outsider. And since you've got +9, you also know it is vulnerable to cold."

(A hellhound, by the way, is actually less dangerous than an orc, which seems rather silly to me.  You'll see more on Pathfinder monster design from me later!)

The Value of Code

In my years playing 3rd edition and Pathfinder, I've played five casters long-term:  A cleric, druid, bard, blaster type wizard, and witch each in long, multi-year campaigns (in addition to a fighter, paladin, rogue, and monk in long campaigns).  I've also run at least as much as I've played in d20.  I've learned that playing a spellcaster takes some preparation and planning in downtime, otherwise you wind up holding up the action during game time.

DMs can help the players of casters avoid slowing down the game by interfacing with them efficiently, using type and subtype as quick code for a whole host of monster immunities.  Describing an Wraith's immunities is a lot harder, takes more time, and requires more work for the DM than just saying "incorporeal undead."

The Value of Distributed Processing

The rules for the wraith's type and subtype comprise as many words of text as this blog post.  If the DM tries to handle all of these rules in the background, it's going to be a lot of work.  Instead, the DM can share (distribute) those rules with a player to process.  Now when the monk tries to trip the wraith, the wizard's player can step in and remind the monk that it won't work.  The DM doesn't have to A) remember the exact rule because the wizard player has it right there or B) referee the monk's action because the wizard player can interject.

Think of the amount of page flipping, SRD clicking, and rules arguing time that saves!

My GM Credo

Some months ago, The Angry DM suggested that GMs should write down their GM credo.  This was an attempt to urge GMs to become more self-aware.  As I am a big fan of self-reflection and self-improvement, I strongly support his idea.

See Angry's original GM Credo post.

Here is my personal GM credo.  Like my article on prep, this is about me, not advice for how you should run your game.  This is how I run a game.  You might have a different credo.

My credo is based on my personal vision of the GM as a facilitator.  First, the GM has to sell the game concept to the players.  After the players have bought into the campaign and adventure premise, the GM becomes their facilitator.

Notice that rule #1 is very important.  It's rule #1 for a reason.  If I want to run a particular game, I have to sell it first.  I have to be transparent, descriptive, and clear in the pitch.  Railroading only happens when the GM forces the players toward an objective they do not share, so if I get everyone to buy into my pitch, then unless I lose sight of my own vision, I'm not likely to railroad the players.

Here are the rules, in short form.  They are written as instructions in the imperative tense for my own use as a GM.  They tell me to do things.

1. Attain group buy-in to the premise
2. Strengthen the group’s consensus of the game’s shared objectives
3. Listen and respond to the players
4. Create the challenges of the story from the highlighted player-suggested ideas
5. Facilitate inclusion
6. Decide when to use the game rules
7. End scenes that suck

I know what these shorthand instructions mean, but you're not me.  Here's some more explanation of each one.  

1. Attain group buy-in to the premise

I must attain group buy-in to the premise and objectives (story hooks and artistic objectives like genre, theme and mood) of the campaign and each major chapter (or adventure, scenario, or module) of the campaign.  This will be referred to as shared objectives.

2. Strengthen the group’s consensus of the game’s shared objectives

I must promote, maintain, and strengthen the group’s consensus of the game’s shared objectives over the course of the game.  I will help the group come to consensus and resolve out-of-character disagreement over how to apply their shared objectives to the problems they encounter in the game.  I will promote in-character discussion of how to resolve the problems the PCs encounter in the game, so that the players can explore different ways to resolve them in terms of their characters’ abilities, hooks and personalities.  If the group’s shared objectives evolve and change over time, I will have a frank, out-of-character discussion with the players and achieve consensus on the new shared objectives.

3. Listen and respond to the players

I will listen and respond to the players, repeating, asking for elaboration on, and emphasizing the ideas and plans they come up with that best underscore the group’s shared objectives.  I will remind the players to propose actions that would take the story in directions that they would enjoy playing, not just what their character would do.  

4. Create the challenges of the story from the highlighted player-suggested ideas

I will create the challenges of the story from the highlighted player-suggested ideas.  The challenges include the obstacles to achieving the PCs’ plans and the actions of the antagonists.  In a way, the players decide who, what, when, where and how, and the shared objectives establish guidelines for me to offer them a reason why.  Example:  The players decide to go seeking a lost golden dragon egg.  I decide that the egg is in a hidden temple in some remote, ancient ruins guarded by evil cultists who are trying to corrupt it.  Later, they decide to sneak into the temple.  I decide to present stealth challenges and temptations to risk being noticed along the way.  Later they decide to banter with the evil high priest with swords drawn, so I should banter back instead of end the banter prematurely by having him try to get the drop on them.

5. Facilitate inclusion

I have a responsibility to, and therefore must facilitate inclusion.  I must design situations in the game that allow all the players to participate at the level they want to, to the best of the GM’s ability.  Where a conflict arises, such as a lot of players who want a lot of spotlight time, the GM will design situations in the game that equitably balance the players’ desires.  I will ask players to step up or step back to include more introverted/shy/anxious players.  Another definition of inclusion is awareness of privilege and sensitivities.  I will keep the game from wandering into areas that could be awkward or uncomfortable for players.  I won't tolerate any form of gatekeeping.

6. Decide when to use the game rules

I will decide when to use the game rules. If the rules of the game produce fair and transparent outcomes, I will use them to add drama to the situation.  If the rules bog the situation down (and the situation is not supposed to feel bogged down), I should chuck the rules and allow the players to resolve the situation.  Fudging die rolls is OK, as long as it’s not done in secret.  I should feel free to announce a die roll result, then explain why I want to fudge it.  If the players don’t care, then I can do so.  I should also be OK with players objecting to die rolls and asking for the result to be fudged.  

7. End scenes that suck

I will end scenes that suck.  If a combat or skill scene is dragging; if the players are locked in “analysis paralysis”; if some of the players – myself included – are not having fun, I will end the scene as soon as I realize this and skip as much action as necessary to get to a scene that might be more fun.  If some players object, see rule 2, but also see rule 5.  If all the players object, see rule 3 and 4.  If the system doesn’t allow it, see rule 6.  As for which scene to move on to, see rule 4.

Disclaimer:  These are living ideas.  This is a document that will always be a rough draft.  If your credo differs from mine, it doesn't necessarily mean we disagree.

Storium

I've started playing Storium.  It's similar to play-by-post roleplay, except that there's a system.  I'll have a "how to" Run a Game post for Storium soon.  I've learned a lot already by starting two games, and playing one.  For now, go check it out at storium.com

5 Things to do your First Session as a GM

Let's say you decided to start GMing a roleplaying game.  You know what an RPG is and you've played a little, so you know the absolute basics.  Now you want to run a game.  Obviously.  Because you went to a blog called... Run a Game.  So here are five things you should do during your first session.

(This post is subject to review!  Please submit feedback!)

1. Play Off the Other Players
Don't hammer your story forward.  When the players start coming up with ideas, it's tempting to ignore them if they're not related to the story you want to unfold.  After all, you're new to this.  But don't.

But I said "five things you should do during the first session" -- not shouldn't do!  During the first session, prepare to use the ideas the other player have as the building blocks of your plot, instead of the ones you had.  Use the "yes, and" improv technique to accept their idea and incorporate it.  Try to use "yes, and" at least once during the first session.  Seriously, click that link and watch the 3 minute video on how and why to use "yes, and."

2. Take Notes
A great thing about RPGs is that they're free and open.  If you're using the "yes, and" technique mentioned in #2, you will get a lot of ideas, lingering story hooks, and loose ends.  It's awesome!  If you don't write these things down, you're leaving great ideas behind.

You don't have to write every plot hook or loose end down.  Just pick the ones you like the most.  Trust the players to write down any that they really like, too.  What do you do with these ideas later?  Use them!

3. Make them have feelings for an NPC
When planning your second session of an RPG, it really helps to have a character that the protagonists love to threaten.  ...a character the protagonists rely on to take away.  ...a character the protagonists take for granted to betray them.  ...a character the protagonists trust to bring them information.

The only way to get a character that the protagonists have feelings for is to have them create an identity or strategy that requires the NPC.  You can do voices, act everything out, maintain consistent motivations, bring pictures, and all that sort of stuff (and you should do it), but those are fleeting thrills.  In the weeks between games, the players may forget the gravelly voice, but they will remember why they identify with or rely on the NPC.  Get them to start calling themselves Rico's Roughnecks or planning to use the Ranger they met to distract the monsters while they sneak into the crypt.  If they trust Rico, or rely on the Ranger, you can create challenges or hooks involving those NPCs and trust that the players will really care about them.  And what you can do to NPCs is a far longer list than what you can do to PCs!

4. Describe Everything You Care About
Roleplaying games create a shared imagined space.  In every single RPG that has a GM, the GM has an awesome power:  They get to describe the shared imagined space first.  The players will immediately start making assumptions of their own (often way different from yours and each other's) as soon as you finish describing.  Sometimes they will start stating their assumptions or asking questions, and sometimes they'll quietly assume things.

If you went to the trouble to describe something, though, it's there.  You created reality.  Don't forget to describe everything that you care about, because if you don't, it doesn't exist.

5. Lose and Love It
Your job as the GM is to create challenges for the players to use their characters to overcome.  I don't care if you suck at that or not.  It's your first session.  You'll probably suck a little.  But it won't matter, because inevitably the player characters will overcome your challenges.  Even if they misunderstand what's going on, don't care about your NPCs, etc., they came to your game to engage with the challenges you created and overcome them in a fun way that reflects their characters' motivations.

So your most important job is to lose and have fun doing it.  Act like you're rooting for the antagonists, but be a good sport and cheer when the protagonists do something unexpected and amazing.  Then, when the protagonists triumph, own it and love it.  Give them a high five and smile.

After all, they picked up a toy you made and they played with it and loved it.  Maybe they didn't play with it the way you thought.  Maybe they solved your puzzle too fast or mopped the floor with your bad guy or pulled some rules cheese you had forgotten about to solve your mystery.  Who cares?  They won.  They were supposed to win.  How you react when they do sets the tone for your next scene.  Think about this how a player would:

• If the GM hates it when you win, then you lose, do you feel like the GM screwed you, or like that's just how the cookies crumbled?
• If the GM loves it when you win, then you lose, do you feel like the GM screwed you, or like that's just how the cookies crumbled?

If you're on the players' side after the dice are down, even if you're a serious gamist DM then you'll have built trust.  And that's important.

Puzzles

Today we're going to talk about puzzles in RPGs.  The definition of puzzles in RPGs has very fuzzy boundaries.  I've described some monsters as puzzles.  After all, to kill a black pudding, your party needs to solve the puzzle presented by its immunity to (and splitting as a result of) attacks by slashing and piercing weapons.

Working Definition:  A puzzle is a mental challenge presented to the players of an RPG, with consequences for their characters.

This definition gives us two elements we need to create for every puzzle scene.  First, what is the mental challenge?  Second, what are the consequences?  It also creates hard boundaries. These are the corollary rules that emerge from the definition of an RPG puzzle:

1. The challenge is overcome by actions the players take, not the characters.  Game system should have little or no chance of overcoming the challenge.
2. Solving the puzzle cannot be the only way to move the story forward. 

Here's an illustrative example:

If you're running Trail of Cthulhu, and your investigators find an encoded message written to a 16th century Ottoman king, they can decipher it using the Cryptography skill.  If you intend to use the game system to resolve the clue, there is no puzzle.  However, let's say you want to add a puzzle.  You might encipher the clue using a simple substitution cipher, and allow any characters with Cryptography to attempt to decipher it.  If they use a Cryptography spend (see the GUMSHOE system), you can give them the key, so they can simply decode it.  In this case, the players have a choice whether to bypass the puzzle with the game system.  

This is not a very good puzzle scene because 1) the challenge can be overcome with character abilities, using the game system, and 2) the consequence of failing to decipher the puzzle is that the characters don't get the core clue needed to advance the story.  Let's rework the puzzle to fit into our rules about puzzle scenes...

Your investigators find an encoded message written to a 16th century Ottoman king.  They can decipher it and get he core clue using the Cryptography skill.  If they have Cryptography (and they will, because of how the game works), they automatically get the clue needed to move the game forward.  Then they notice that the last paragraph does not decipher correctly.  It's in some ancient tongue...  The GM hands them another enciphered page.  There is no core clue here.  They have to decipher the code themselves (as players) to get the information it contains.  This represents the characters puzzling out a language not of this earth.  If they solve the code, the plaintext is a disturbing invocation to an alien being.  Later, when the PCs encounter an alien that matches its description, they can say the invocation and it will hesitate, allowing them to take a round of actions to run away - or foolishly shoot at it.

Now our example cipher is a challenge that the players have to solve, with consequences on the characters, that does not violate our corollary rules.

Elements

When building a puzzle, you combine two elements:

• The challenge the players have to solve; and
• The consequences for their characters

Challenge elements include...

• Ciphers.  The challenge of ciphers is that it's hard to make a cipher both challenging to solve and possible to solve.  Players can usually decipher substitution ciphers eventually, and most codes that can be solved by hand are variants on substitution ciphers. When done well, the challenge of a cipher is realizing there's a cipher in the first place.  Say there are images of different devils on the walls of an ancient fane, and the first letters of the names of the devils pictured spell out the keyphrase that the PCs can say to an animated iron door to make it open.  The players might realize that there's a cipher if they realize there are a lot of similar images of Erinyes...
• Riddles.  In the age of the internet, it takes about an hour to find a handful of amazing, brilliant riddles of varying difficulty levels.  Riddles are fun, but the players may be tempted to cheat using the game system, such as casting Charm Person spells, intimidating the riddle-giver, and just taking what they want.  One way to prevent this is to make the consequence of success have to do with the riddle giver itself (an animated portcullis is a personal favorite - break it or disenchant it and it's stuck!).  Alternately, you can think through the different things your players might try to use to cheat if they get frustrated.  Remember, puzzles never prevent the story from going forward, so failure is possible!
• Math and logic.  There are hundreds of classic math and logic puzzles you can look up, from number sequences to logic riddles, to chess puzzles, and more.  Math teachers love these things, so try browsing educator websites for free resources.  You just have to re-skin the puzzle to your setting.  Choose puzzles appropriate to your game's themes.  In Trail of Cthulhu, an astronomy logic puzzle might be great.  In D&D, a number sequence could be woven into a sphinx's shroud, encoded in geometric shapes.
• Darmok and Jalad puzzles involve a clue delivered in such a way that the players have to learn the lore of a culture or facts that the clue-writer knew to decipher it.  They work great for ancient ruins, where a clue like "the supplicant brings King Jorod's Blessing before the Holiest Tree and anoints it as Kalyx'zshar to her wyrmlings."  They have to learn that King Jorod bestowed the Ancient Prophet with a gift of wine, the Holiest Tree is a fir, and Kalyx was a red dragon who warmed her wyrmlings in a roaring fire.  So the puzzle is solved when the PCs pour wine in the chalice printed with a fir tree, then heat it with flame.
• Minigames.  Games like mastermind, minesweeper, battleship, chess, and connect four can be re-purposed into puzzles for your game.  Choose a game that evokes the feel of the puzzle that the characters are working to solve.  For instance, a steampunk setting computer could be hacked with a Mastermind-style guessing game.  A dragon might be willing to give up some treasure if the PCs can beat her at 20 questions.  A vampire might challenge the PCs to a chess match for the fate of a kidnapped paladin.
• Pattern recognition.  Sometimes the best puzzles are the simplest.  Throughout the dungeon, icons of revered, trusted, helpful things are painted blue; and reviled, hated, dangerous things are painted green.  At the end of the dungeon -- or better, at the beginning -- are two chests.  One has a blue-painted top and the other a green-painted top.  Though they're not locked, if the players open the green one, both chests will be consumed in fire, destroying their contents and burning the fool who didn't pay attention.
• Mazes.  A common puzzle in D&D is a maze -- an area that the players get lost in.  The GM describes the corridors, expecting the players to map the area to keep track.  The GM is cunning and uses multiple levels to stymie the "right hand rule."  Almost always the consequence for navigating a dungeon maze poorly is traps and monsters.  Traps that reset and monsters that "restock" are even better -- punishing players for doubling back or wandering aimlessly.  Mazes are basically a kind of Sim scene (see below).
• Social scenes can be used as puzzles (the players have to decide who's lying, who's right, choose sides, etc.).
• Sim scenes can be used as puzzles (the players have to think of a strategy to overcome an obstacle; mazes are a common Sim puzzle obstacle).

Consequence elements include...

• Rewards such as money, magic, treasure, blessings, wishes, allies, etc.
• Tactical information, such as secret passages, directions, ways to ambush enemies, ways around dangerous encounters, tactics to use against monsters, etc.  In 13th Age, you might want to use puzzles as opportunities to influence the outcome of Icon rolls.
• Plot information, other than clues required to move the story forward.  Examples include backstory on NPCs, deeper understanding of villains' motives, etc.  Ideally, the information could impart some sort of tactical advantage (see above).  
• Removal of negative reinforcement, such as a poison gas, or water or sand filling the room.  
• Time.  A great way to add an element of excitement to a puzzle-filled area is to create a time limit.  The players now have four outcomes with puzzles:  Fail to solve them and give up, failt to solve them (but take a long time), solve them quickly, or solve them (but take a long time).  But now you have a built in reward/punishment mechanism.  Maybe solving a puzzle adds time to the clock, or failing to recognize a pattern correctly causes a time penalty.  What the timer is, in the game, is up to you.  Is the volcano getting ready to erupt (D&D)?  Is a nuclear missile going to launch in 120 minutes (Gamma World)?  Is the infernalists' ritual coming to completion (Vampire)?
• Punishment, such as damage, curses, poison, combat encounters (which cause all of the former things), destruction of treasure elsewhere, or plot consequences (e.g. hostages killed, in a modern serial killer/terrorist scenario).  

Remember that you can pair rewards for success with consequences for failure if you want.  And only one of the two needs to be impressive for the puzzle to be exciting.

Troubleshooting

There are players who hate puzzles in RPGs.  I know at least two such players.  They really enjoy the escapist fantasy of an RPG, and don't like to cross the wall to where their own ability is tested.  Perhaps they don't really enjoy puzzles in real life.  Like any practiced skill, players who solve puzzles infrequently will probably be bad at it, and it may make them feel insecure; or else make them feel bad about their character, since their character will not be as strong a contributor.

Before designing a puzzle-heavy adventure, ask your players how much they like puzzle scenes.  If they're at least neutral about puzzles, you're OK.  If one of your players dislikes puzzles, you might be able to include one every now and then for the players who do like puzzles, but you shouldn't make a whole dungeon or adventure full of them.

Example Adventure Style LARP Session Agenda

Time for another LARP post!  I wrote about Adventure Style LARP previously, and a commentator asked for an example session. I had to invent a whole fictitious session in a comment, so it made sense to use that for a weekly post.

Here's my totally invented, short, small, low-budget adventure LARP example session design:

Basic Information:

• Game Time: Saturday 1p-5:30p
• Players:  20 players, who have to agree to cast NPCs for a certain amount of time
• Game Fee:  $10.  Produces just enough for the site, like so many other LARPs out there.
• Site:  Low-cost urban meeting space, 1 large room, 1 small side-room.
• Staff:  One head GM, one assistant/floor GM.  I imagine additional staff positions are also filled: One player serves as webmaster out of game time, another player serves as site coordinator out of game time, and two players serve as writers for subplots.

An adventure LARP happens when external plots (Adventure style LARP games) have greater consequence, scale, or excitement than internal competition (Elysium style LARP games).  A good adventure style LARP needs enough staff to handle adventure scenes for all the players simultaneously; an agenda for each event to coordinate players, staff, and space; and cast to play NPCs.  The easiest way to get cast to play NPCs is to make it a requirement for players.  This example LARP has all the hallmarks of a small game with very few resources.  I wanted to show that with good logistics and a good player social contract, you can pull off an exciting Adventure style LARP with no "tabletop standing up" and no "sitting around doing nothing."

Agenda:

In this agenda, the PCs are divided into three "character classes" - the class is not a D&D style class, but a declaration by the player of what kind of scenes that player prefers most.  The class then informs the player what kind of stats to take, based on the kinds of scenes they will be tracked for.

• Investigators:  These are characters designed to have networks of contacts, social skills, investigation skills.  Players of these characters know their primary activity at the LARP will be uncovering clues, solving mysteries, and interacting with NPCs who have things or information that they want.
• Occultists:  Magical characters are designed to have magical skills and knowledge.  Players of these characters know their primary activity at the LARP will be solving complex puzzles involving occult symbols, books and knowledge of mythology, and occasionally roleplaying tense magical rituals.
• Field Agents:  These are combat/action characters who specialize on physical skills, stealth, athletics, burglary, etc.  These players are signaling that they like to put themselves in tense life or death situations including stalking enemies, making hostage exchanges, breaking into secure facilities, and getting into fights.

There's no restriction of abilities.  Field agents can cast fireball or be good at surveillance.  Occultists could be amazing swordfighters, or have interrogation skills.  Investigators could be crack shots, or have a few spells.  The main advantage of having "character classes" is for the player to tell the GM what they like to do most.  Your LARP may handle this in other ways, such as a player survey.  This process is somewhat more diegetic.  It also connects with the agenda and NPC casting requirement.  See below for how that works.  The players are represented by single letters, so you can track a player's participation across the different slots and tracks.  There is flexibility in tracks - players can swap in and out of different tracks unless they've been tapped to cast an NPC.

1p-2p: Setup

• PCs get Between Game Action (BGA) results.  The Investigators did a group BGA, and their result shows where Kandinsky's office is and that he's leaving to meet a mysterious contact. The team will split three ways. 
• The Occultists will continue investigating the botched summoning from last game with a seance for one of the victim/participants.  
• The Field Agents will stay on Kandinsky and hopefully tail his contact.  
• The Investigators will break into Kandinsky's office while he's out to find more information on the artifact smuggling trade.

Slot 1:  2p-3p: 60 minute slot

• Track 1 (Floor GM): "Seance" Magic/occult PCs (A, B, C, D, E, plus 1-2 others), 2 cast play NPCs (F, G). 
• Objective: "Can you learn what went wrong at the Great Summoning by contacting the spirit of Professor Andropov? Are you prepared in case the seance goes wrong?" 
• NPCs:  Ghost of Professor Andropov; Evil Shade that gets accidentally summoned and pretends to also be the voice of Andropov... until things get hot.
• Gamespace: Small room or large room, whichever fits best. 
• Props: Candles, Occult junk.
• Track 2 (Head GM): "Surveillance" Action/combat PCs (H, I, J, K, L, M, 1 other; but not N, O, P, Q, F, or G). 4 cast play NPCs (N, O, P, Q). 
• Objective: "Can the team maintain surveillance on Kandinsky without spooking him until he makes it to his meet with his contact? What can the team learn by tailing his contact?" 
• NPCs:  Kandinsky, Romanof, Romanof's two "pavement artists"  
• Gamespace: Guerilla LARP in public; crowded streets; Starbucks; metro.
• Props:  Public space prop restrictions; players leave anything suspicious at game site.

Intermission: Combat/Action PCs pulled out for 30 minute break (may be needed for walk back from prev. scene). Investigators trickle in and learn results of the seance, then head out to their investigation.

Slot 2: 3:30p-5p, 90 minute slot

• Track 1 (Floor GM): "Quick Search" Investigative PCs (N, O, P, Q, F, G, plus 1 other). 
• Objective: "While Kandinsky is at the meet, what can the investigators learn about the artifact smuggling operation by searching his office?" 
• NPCs:  None.  
• Game Space: Small room; preferably set up as an office. 
• Props: Laptop (login account prepped for game with pw and files); lots and lots of irrelevant officey paper and junk, clue files, clue photos.
• Track 2 (Head GM): "Romanof Transformed" Action/Combat PCs (H, I, J, K, L, M, 1 other). All other cast play NPCs. Should provide at least 3, at most 5 NPCs.  Need at least 3 for the minimum combat challenge.
• Objective: "It turns out Romanof is possessed by a devil when he leads the street team into an ambush in a blind alley. Can the team overcome their attackers without killing Romanof or letting him get away, so that they can bring him back for exorcism and interrogation?" 
• NPCs:  Romanof and his goons physically transform (so it's OK to swap out cast).  Additional devils appear at the start of the ambush.  
• Game Space: Starts in the alley behind game site, moves into the large room in game space as Romanof flees. 
• Props: Devil masks for cast for the spirits that arise to attack the street team.

Denouement: Teams return to "base" to debrief with each other. They should have Romanof prisoner (bound and unconscious so no need for a cast NPC - Romanof will not be interrogated until next session) and need to determine how they, as a group, will treat prisoners, what limits on interrogation, etc.

• NPCs:  Either use one to play the unconscious Romanof if they need a rest, or else wrap some cloth and cushions in a trench coat and tie it up in a bundle with rope.
• Game space: Reset large and small room to "home base" set dressing. 
• Props: Interrogation stuff spanning the gamut from ethical to abu ghraib. Rope, handcuffs, hoodwink, pliers, jumper cables, water pail. Hopefully PCs will agree not to use horrible methods, but if they do, there's probably a morality system to get involved next game.

That's what the framework for a fully plotted adventure style LARP would look like. Note that no scene happens in the "theater of the mind" and nothing requires props that most troupes can't get hold of cheap and quick. Nor does it require a large game space. More players = need more tracks = need more game space of course. But more players = more budget = can afford more game space.

The agenda is just part of the prep!  Prepping an adventure LARP takes a lot of work!

Each scene would have a scene bluesheet, with details for the GM to reference and an agenda for the scene (where to start, when to start certain events, etc.). Each NPC would have a stat sheet and an NPC bluesheet with facts about what they know, what they want to achieve, and how to act.  NPC bluesheets never contain spoilers because they never contain information that the NPC wouldn't reveal during the scene either through their actions or words.

Slot 1, Track 1 (the seance) would require the players to get a seance briefing.  They would probably get "homework" before game -- links to YouTube videos of iconic seances, instructions on how to do a seance, lists of vocabulary about different aspects of a seance, etc.  The people who self-assign into Occultist class PCs are the sorts who love to wiki-dive about cool occult stuff anyway, so the GM would probably assess their existing knowledge, then do some research to find resources to supplement it only if needed.  Still, a YouTube video to get them in the right frame of mind would be helpful, even for players who have a lot of OOC occult experience.

Slot 1, Track 2 (the surveillance/shadowing scene) would require the players to handle some basic tradecraft.  There's homework the GM can send them, as well.  Burn Notice episodes, tradecraft blog posts online, and passages from LeCarre novels come to mind.

Slot 2, Track 1 (the office search) would require a lot of infodump clue props, including computer files, pictures, and paper with clues on it.  The GM and writer would be prepping this stuff ahead of game time so that it looks and feels authentic, contains the clues they need, and adds some level of challenge.  The laptop hack game challenge, for instance, would be designed so that if the PCs failed, they'd still get the core clues they needed from the paper and pictures.

Slot 2, Track 2 (the ambush) would be a LARP combat; and that requires combat stats and careful attention paid to designing a challenge that adds just enough tension and risk to the Field Agents' lives.  It's too large a scene to playtest for such a small LARP, so the GMs will need to know their combat system and PC stats pretty well.  In a LARP like this one, Field Agent PCs probably have magic weapons and spells to fight devils, so that helps make them feel prepared and badass (likely there'll be a second act "darkest hour" transition mid arc, where their advantages are nullified and they get routed; but now is not the time for that).