Module Cards

[dan]

Hi there! This is Dan C, from National staff. I saw a link to this thread on facebook and decided to barge in with my two cents.

I like the CONCEPT of module cards -- the idea that there's something out there in the woods that you might or might not stumble across. It feels like getting a "random encounter" in D&D.

But the execution is where it often falls apart. My experiences with mod cards is that they interrupt the flow of gameplay and force people to go through a lengthy OOG waiting period before the encounter happens. I hate finding a mod card and then having to wait around OOG for an hour while NPC camp sets stuff up. I don't like seeing an index card in the distance which is supposed to represent a horde of kobolds. So I think the key is that the woods encounters need to be part of the atmosphere.


Another minor pet peeve of mine is that whenever I've played a chapter with mod cards, my party has seldom found one. People who play at the campsite regularly know where the trails are, and know where to look, and have a big advantage in finding the encounters.

And there are certain kinds of experiences that make sense as a D&D encounter, but don't make sense within the format of mod cards. Let's say the mod card indicates that you get ambushed by monsters. By the time NPC camp has rounded up the NPCs and set up the encounter, the exciting moment of surprise has passed. You can't generate the surprising-ambush-experience with mod cards - you actually need the NPCs in the woods to do that.

My personal taste is that I come to LARPs because I want to actually experience the things I'd only hear a description of in tabletop RPGs. So finding a really well written description of something doesn't do it for me - if you create something I can't experience with my senses, it's barely LARP.

So what kinds of things are mod cards well suited for? How can we make the mod card experience better? Personally, I'd toss out the idea of finding "cards"... King Arthur and Lancelot never went questing after index cards! Find something within the game atmosphere that people can spot in the woods.

Then, I'd change the mod card process to be part of the game atmosphere. Currently it's like

Find Mod Card --> walk to NPC camp --> wait for setup --> experience something

But I think it would be better if all the parts of that cycle were within the game atmosphere. Like maybe you find a numbered key in the woods which gives you access to a certain room in the dungeon. You go to the mod building, (which in-game is the entrance to the dungeon), turn the key, and wait for the elevator to arrive. When the elevator doors open (read: NPCs are ready, mod room is set up), you are taken to your encounter. You still get a random encounter, but at no point during this cycle did the PCs go out-of-game or have a discussion involving index cards. Time did not have to stop for them while something in the woods was set up, they were in-game the whole time.

ANYWAY, those are my rambling thoughts on mod cards.


Dan

[Admin]

Dan,

I'm on that same page with you. Finding an index card really has ever only succeeded in yanking me out of the game.

I remember when I first played NERO back in Mass. You'd go out into the woods and find all kinds of monsters out there. There were the "troll hills" and the "goblin lands", along with a "lizardman swamp." It was dangerous to go out there, and I'll never forget the encounter when our group was out searching and I was suddenly hit by an arrow. It was awesome.

Of course, NERO Mass had the advantage of 100 NPC's at every event in those days, so those sorts of things were a possibility.

For this next event, there won't be index cards in the woods. It is our goal to attempt to make the woods come alive this weekend, to reward PC efforts to explore them, but to do so in a manner that does not detract from the continuing real feel of the world that is always our goal.

Looking forward to hear peoples' thoughts on our efforts after the weekend.

[Culloden]

Ok, so I understand everyone's points against mod cards but I think half of them are being taken out of context.

In regards to Dan, you were taken out of game, you found a key and you had to walk to NPC camp and wait for them to set up the dungeon instead of finding a mod card, walking to NPC camp and having them set up three orcs.

My next point is not to give any negativity towards the chapter I play at I am just using this chapter as an example. Another big concern that everyone seems to bring up is the waiting time for a mod card to begin. I garanutee that everyone here has had a mod or an adventure that they wanted to go on. nine times out of ten there is waiting involved, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but it is a part of the game. Example: Last game we were attacked by a vampire I immediately went to plot and said I wanted to follow but there were other things at hand that made that immpossible. Which to me is just like waiting for a mod card or anything else to begin. I don't understand the difference between waiting for a mod card or waiting for an adventure to begin. There are only so many NPCs and Plot so there really isn't a difference. Both experiences require me to wait.

On Armond's point I absolutely believe that some things should lead to nothing. Not everything we do in life has an everlasting and intergral part in our future. " I found five dollars today!"... it happens. Sometimes we have to run out get milk. There are things in the woods that have nothing to do with the ongoing plot but are a part of the world that we live in there. Having things happen that don't further some great heroic plot line actually makes it MORE realistic since not everything that happens in life is a world changing event.

Dave

[Sticks]

I dont pay for an event so that I can "go get milk" as you put it.

The biggest difference I see is that the vampire you wanted to chase wasnt a slip of paper somewhere out in the woods...it was an NPC playing a vampire thus making it more real. If I am in town Roleplaying while waiting for a mod to get setup that is different from a Time stop out in the woods while an ambush is setup around me or while an NPC grabs some claws, puts on make-up and finally gets ready for a battle.

I dont mind waiting (to a point) if that waiting is being done in game and I can still roleplay. People keep mentioning the wait, but what I think they are really referring to is the Game Stop aspect of the mod card more then the actual wait for things to get setup.

Avoiding the Game Stop is the key to making mod cards palatable IMO and maybe that is why I dislike mod cards...I have never seen them presented in a way that avoids the Game stop or that they havent just been abused by players.

-Evan

[Admin]

Waiting, sadly, is a part of the game. And it happens both ways. We set up a module and it takes longer for the PC's to get ready to go than expected. Thus, we have NPC's waiting around at the module site that could be out entertaining, but aren't.

Or, like Dave's example, PC's want to do something driven by in-game discovery and they end up waiting around until we have the NPC's and plot team ready to run it.

Evan's GAME STOP is the real issue. In the chapters where I've seen mod cards used, the waiting time turns into out-of-game time. People drop out of character while they are sitting around outside of monster camp and start talking about World of Warcraft, movies, and anime conventions.

I think that module cards lead to more GAME STOP than other methods of providing modules because they inherently lead to going to monster camp, which is an entirely out of game area.

To take Dan's example to the one step further that I would like it to go. Instead of taking the key directly to monster camp and then waiting for it to be put to use, why not have to take the key back to in-game characters that might know about it. If those in-game characters can provide the location of the lock to which the key belongs, the PC's can be waiting around for it go get ready in town, in the in-game environment.

It's a minor point of distinction, really, and maybe one of semantics that are only meaningful to certain types of players. But, I think that the same effect of making traveling in the woods can be accomplished while preserving as much of the in-game character of the world as possible.

Dave, I completely agree on the issue of "finding five dollars." That's a great way to put it, and I believe it's important to have all sorts of side plots and even meaningless encounters going on as much as possible. Now, I'm not talking about "buying a gallon of milk" where we would take someone's time to run out into the woods and find nothing. But, there should be many different side-plots going in order to keep things feeling real.

[Eileen Gallagher]

Evan, while I understand that you are essentially saying you don't come to game to do the average chores of life I will say I don't come just to do Hero bits. I like the idea of realistic consequences to ingame actions and sometimes that means being attacked by goblins in goblin infested woods if I choose to walk through them.

Everyone seems so hung up on mod cards taking you out of game but I have never met one where roleplay was not possible. As the encounter doesn't officially start until the mod is run there has never been anything that took away my groups ability to RP while awaiting set up which is actually better then the vampire example cause realistically Evan the second we intended to pursue we should have left game to wait on the mod as the pursuit was immediate and we would no longer have actually been sitting outside your tavern. With Mod cards, you are more in a travel hold situation so therefore you can continue to role play with your group. If I was alone in the woods I would already not be rping with anyone else so therefore it is a moot point.

I am open to the idea of using something other then index cards to be mod cards but the idea that they are an unneeded thing I think is simply idealistic thinking about the chapter we play at. There is too much down time and not enough for everyone to be active. I get that some of that is due to lack of NPC's but some of it is also due to lack of being able to go and search out something. Like it or not we have essentially been spoon fed encounters, which is something I hate. I know that it was not plots intention for that to happen but since we can not seek out anything on our own without it having to come to us in the town we don't have to much choice in the matter. A great example being that Culloden wanted to go and talk to the trolls as something to do that wasn't another town mod or town encounter and then everything on the map became three day walks away so now instead of a few of us going to talk with the Trolls during last event as a small group for something to do, we have half an event dedicated to it being yet another whole town experience. Mod cards, though imperfect as is the rest of the game, at least give me the chance to go and find trouble if I am in the mood or have realistic consequences for wandering outside of town. I SHOULD NOT be safe from harm just because I left the fields and walked into the woods around Sanctuary but without mod cards or something similiar that is exactly what happens right now.
I have often heard that NERO is a group game and that is true, the one thing that I miss about NERO at detroit is that I can't really do too much playing of that group game. Its a town game there and I love everything else that gets done enough to keep playing, but I hate thinking that in order to go role with my crew I have to make time to play a different chapter. I may prefer some variation of mod cards, but I would also be happy to have a news letter or something. I really want the ability to grab MY group and say hey, we've been relaxing long enough, lets go check out "blank" and not have to take the entire town with us.

Jennele

[Admin]

Eileen, I think you'll enjoy what we have set up for the upcoming event.

[tux]

I think the issue here is being skirted around. People want realism and a constant in game atmosphere, but unless you have a 1-2 ratio of npc-pc, there's only so many things one can do to allow the pc's to be proactive in finding their own things to do. For me, waiting for a mod isn;t so bad. I'm okay with it. It's a part of the game and often made to be a part of the world to keep things in game. a travel hold for instance instead of a "time stop." Travel holds represent you moving towards your target in a world that is much larger than it is possible or even feasable for us to represent with a campground. I mean it's not like we have the entirety of yellowstone national park in which to run our events. We have a portion of a relatively small campground with limited area in which to work, which is representing a in in game area that is far larger. If you're worried about the 20 minutes it takes for someone to run to npc camp, npc's to be gathered, outfitted, costumed and statted, then file everyone back to the spot the group is waiting in, then how do you reconcile to yourself traveling someplace in game that is a 6 hour march in that 20 minutes, do an hour mod, then travel 6 hours back?

I have an active imagination and have no problem ignoring these things, but i understand that other people do. The fact is though, we don't have 20 npc's at every event that can be spared to simply put out in the woods as a group of ogres, despite that being what we would all love to have.

You find a mod card that says "You see an encampment with torn up and destroyed tents, dead bodies laying around with several large, dog faced humanoids feasting on the remains of a dwarf."

It would be great to walk up and see this physrepped in the most lively manner, i would love nothing better, but think about it. in order to literally stumble upon that, the pc's would have to be in the area during the hour or two that the NPC's playing those gnolls are out there in costume. Now logically this would have to be a certain distance (In Game) away from the town in order for that group of dead people to not come TO the town and take part in the festivities, food, action and drama (not to mention to prevent them from running for help when they start to get chewed on). Which makes the realistic possibility of people running across them that much lower.
Now the gnolls come along, kill them and begin helping themselves to the spoils of victory. They are in no rush. maybe they spend the night in the destroyed camp after a fine feast of burnt longpig? In Game we now have a group of NPC's who has to hang out for half a day and an entire night. These people were simply moving from one town to another, maybe looking for work, and happened through a dangerous area. The gnolls are simply a group of gnolls who, like gnolls do, were wandering around looking for food and saw a golden oppertunity. they are not a part of a large plot, it's simple happenstance as much of a realistic world is made of.

Now we can send 5 npc's off into the woods for a night in costume and wait for them to be found, or we can tack a white card to a tree, avoiding the expenditure of the precious resource that is an NPC. Call the time it takes for the mod to get setup a travelhold, (representing the amount of time it should realistically take you to get to the camp which was far off the beaten path, thus making the attack possible without attention being drawn to it initially or affording them the oppertunity to escape) during which people can interact In Game, and then do the mod.

Now, a good way to minimize that travel hold would be for plot to have a group or two of npc's set aside specifically for those cards. people that are trustworthy and can NPC without a plot person watching over them. Have the treasure set up in advance, the monster cards set aside, A small peice of paper with the basic information regaurding why they're there and who they are. Put it all in a baggie together. they make up names, they get costuming, they go. 5 minutes. Done. doesn't require a huge number of npc's, just a group or two of 3-4 that alternate mod cards to make sure they're available in NPC camp when PC's come calling.

Does this make sense, or did i lose you all?

[Eileen Gallagher]

Bill,

I am sure that I will love the next event. I really do enjoy them even if it may not sound like it on this particular thread all the time!

Jennele

[jordancbrun]

We continuously try to find ways to entertain as small and larger groups. In defense of the "hey, if it's out there, we should have it out there" ideas, I spent the better part of three hours at the first academy event as the Fo'Karn, waiting for someone to find the path I had laid. Our first event, we challenged individuals to hunt for Ifolius's Blooms, and this last event there was a module set up that not only catered to small groups, it made them necessary.

These are just three examples of how we have catered to smaller groups. What happened? A huge group followed a few into the ravine to meet the Fo'Karn. One person paid off several to fund the blooms for him, and after two groups attempted and failed - no one attempted the module. I am not saying these were not legitimate ways to deal with the encounters, but we have put forth aspects for our plots that should be recognized as targeting smaller groups and not "the town", Jenelle.

Further, many of our local recent pcs come from an era of Nero Detroit which had a much more "pcs vs. The world" plotline than we are writing. I believe this will evolve further as we progress our plots and style.

I agree with Bill. We have already been making serious headway in developing ways to reward exploring pcs (of which I would count myself included) for our next event, and will continue to develop ways to entertain as many as we can with our current resources.

I believe that implementing the "4 hour NPC shifts" will really help our numbers, should it come to that.

Thanks for participating in this discussion, folks. We can't progress without your feedback!

[jay]

While I agree we did implement a few things in the past in an attempt to accomplish this, it obviously wasn't the right way.
I also believe it wasn't enough. We are now making a concerted effort to fix this. Without all of the great feedback (especially negative) this wouldn't be possible.

We believe we may have found a solution and very eagerly await everyones feedback after the event. Please keep the suggestions and thoughts rolling in. It's the best way to help us continue fine tuning and achieve the goal.

Bill, Jordan and I have a system for plot. Any time one of us has a plot idea, we run it by another plot member. Even if the idea is great, 99% of the time it gets a lot better with input from the second member. At that stage the idea is ran by the 3rd member and again most of the time they have some thoughts to make it better still! My point is this system works which is why all of your feedback, thoughts and suggestions good or bad are so very critical.
Thanks again and keep it coming!

[dan]

Aug 23, 2011 13:32:30 GMT -5 tux said:

Does this make sense, or did i lose you all?

totally follow you - I want to follow up on a few points though.

For me, waiting for a mod isn;t so bad. I'm okay with it. It's a part of the game and often made to be a part of the world to keep things in game.

I'm cool with waiting for mods. The second part is the key - keeping the waiting part of the atmosphere.

When player conversations break down into OOG chatter, it's often because they're responding to a cue. If they've been told "wait 10 minutes while we set up the mod", they've basically been told "this moment isn't part of the game." Whereas if the NPC says "the vampire's crypt will open in 10 minutes", the waiting period comes from within the game world. The players do not have to think about the out-of-game world at all.

I realize this is a very subtle thing, and many people probably don't see the difference - but let me assure you, a lot of us really appreciate the continuous atmosphere!

I've seen it on mods a million times. If the hook says to the players, "hang on, I just gotta see if the NPCs are ready", the players will immediately begin talking about OOG things. If the NPC says "Wait here while I scout and make sure the path is ready," the PCs talk about IG things. The less narration and OOG talk you use, the more the PCs are experiencing the world itself and not a description of it.

in order to literally stumble upon that, the pc's would have to be in the area during the hour or two that the NPC's playing those gnolls are out there in costume.

There are constraints and limitations to what kinds of experiences we can create in the game world. You're absolutely right that as a director, you really can't ask your NPCs to lie around in the woods for a few hours hoping to be discovered. But there are other ways of setting that up experience of discovering the aftermath of a battlefield.

Maybe instead of finding the bodies themselves, you meet somebody that's all shaken up and disturbed...and HE leads you to the bodies once he can get his bearing and find the path ... aka when the NPCs are set up. Or maybe you find piles of clothes left over from people dissipating. Either way -- if you have an experience you can't create with the available resources, you have to find a short cut or re-write it. Reading the PCs a description is better than nothing ... but only a little bit!

At the opposite end of the immersion spectrum: Vampire LARPs are very heavy on combat narration. I recall going to an event in which there was a dramatic combat scene - people jumping off buildings on motorcycles, a guy piloting a helicopter with a Gatling gun, explosives set in the sewers... but the reality was that we were all standing in a circle in a hotel ballroom describing these things to each other. The experience was purely imaginary -- it felt more like tabletop than LARP. The LARP experience is supposed to be tangible, something you can experience with your senses. I have a very colorful imagination, but in our form of theater, we should strive to require as little imagination as possible.

[Admin]

I agree with so many of the points that have been made above.

We're going into the event with a number of goals:

1. Give the PCs proactive things to do in smaller groups. It makes sense that when a task is connected to the big plot, everyone will want to go along for the ride. When there are smaller tasks to perform, it is more likely that smaller groups will go to do them, thus restoring what Jennele referred to as "team-based" NERO.

2. Give PCs reasons to go out into the woods. We want to reward the players that take the time to go out into the woods and explore, but we want to do this without resorting to the out-of-game feel inherent with module cards. So, we have some plans to make exploration lead to adventure, but keeping all of the "cues and clues" in-game things that will add to the environment instead of detracting from it.

3. Provide a vibrant in-game atmosphere at the town level. One of the problems that we noticed at the last event was that people were dropping out of game a lot while hanging out in circles, etc... That's our fault, because we didn't give you guys enough to talk about and discuss (though the in-game meeting tomorrow seems to suggest that there might have been some things to talk about )We intend to provide plenty of things to do while they are in the "town" area that should help cut down on this. These will take the form of NPCs to talk to, books to read at the Academy, etc...

4. Provide other rewards for being proactive. Our goal is for this event to give our players plenty of opportunities to be proactive. There will be all sorts of possibilities of things for you to explore and investigate provided by the world that is presented. We intend to make the most of our resources and the willingness of our players to double-hook and NPC for eachother so that you can almost always find something to do.


-Bill