Pleh
2018-04-04, 04:16 PM
I don't intend the thread to be restricted to Subnautica or Stranger Things, but these products have impressed me with new concepts I want to apply to my TTRPG gaming experiences. Settle in if you will, because I've got a short essay about these ideas.
Let's start with Stranger Things. Clearly, the whole series is at least partially a love letter to D&D (and, by association, similar games). But for a franchise that so frequently references the game and clearly has some personal experience in its play, they break one of the most fundamental "rules" almost constantly: "Never Split the Party." In each season, there's only one or two times that all the players involved in the game happen to be working as a single group. It's usually just before the final push to resolve the primary conflict and it usually involves working together to assign different team members important tasks that give the group as a whole the best chances for success.
Stranger Things almost CONSTANTLY has the party split up all over the map (depending on how you define the Party in this case, if it's just the primary 4 boys + Eleven, or the whole main cast with the chief of police, family members, etc). The second season did this even more by even splitting the core group of 4 boys for most of the story. Somehow, through it all, the challenge was always exactly the level of difficulty MOST tables probably prefer: dangerous enough that survival is not guaranteed, even if you do everything right, but consistently and believably attainable if you do everything right. This had me thinking about, "how could I possibly prepare that level of exact difficulty matchup with party members constantly pairing off in various combinations?"
It got me thinking about WHY "Never Split the Party" became an integral rule of RPGs and it became clear rather quickly (and the answer is heavily reliant on the way D&D establishes relative difficulty in level based RPGs, so this might not be as important to other systems that don't rely on level based mechanics); the DM doesn't PLAN for the party to split up, so every prepared encounter is balanced for the party to use optimal amount of force for every obstacle (therefore, splitting the party is actually weighting the challenge against yourself as each encounter expected the power of the whole combined Party). Consider it from the other perspective: if the DM *did* plan for the party to split up, then the scenarios become far easier than intended if the party *doesn't* split up. Therefore, it is always preferable to players to never split the party. The only exception being if the DM sets up a Two Key Lock scenario that explicitly requires the party to split up to handle a task. But this falls under participationism, because the DM is communicating at Session 0 that the optimal strategy of keeping the party together has no chance to succeed.
All this painted a picture in my mind of how to create more games that can follow the Stranger Things thematic flair better than I had done in the past (I realize a TV Drama is trying to do something different than a TTRPG; full disclosure that I tend to fall more on the Cinematic/Theatrical/Narrative-Focused games). At particular milestones, the party unlocks information as to how to proceed in their objectives and introduce multiple options (all of which OUGHT to be taken simultaneously, but the Party ultimately decides which ones are pursued and how). Then I give them time to make their choices about which party members are pursuing which options, and then I take a break from the session to edit the encounters (I probably have an approximate idea about what each option requires of the players) to scale the difficulty exactly where I want it, compensating ahead of time for any unanticipated choices (because you should always expect to be outwitted from time to time). Play resumes after the options have been properly calibrated to make sure the game runs as intended on all fronts.
In my mind, this is largely a workaround for the inadequacies of D&D's Encounter Level and Challenge Rating mechanics and the way those rules tend to advise a DM to prepare their games. I know a lot of players (particularly on this forum) would balk at the idea of altering the game's difficulty to accommodate the player's tactics, but please understand that at this level, splitting the party would be expected and to a degree a lot of player decisions can be somewhat anticipated (players know that option A needs a Spellcaster to resolve, which implies THAT spellcaster won't be present at the other options, so editing only needs to happen if somehow they decide to try to resolve it without one). If done with adequate preparation, editing based on player choices should be pretty minimal (maybe if their choices would make things unreasonably difficult, modifying the circumstances to compensate, such as if the party sent people lacking Darkvision into the Cave with no lights, so you make sure there's a few torches available to them on the way). I'm not intending to suggest that I'd add monsters if the party sent too many people to one area rather than splitting them up more (especially if my players were wanting to feel the confidence and certainty that their investment in putting extra hands on a single option was going to pay out), but that I need to prepare for the areas being relatively neglected have to now account for the increased likelihood of resolving in a Players Fail state (such as possibly preparing more escape routes for the PCs than originally intended). This might result in plugging in a "minor success" outcome where the players might not have the strength to resolve it as originally planned, but they don't have to be committing to a game where a bad move means there was no chance for success before ever going in. After all, the problem was more on the end of my plans not be adequately prepared for their strategy, they shouldn't be penalized by unreasonable difficulty due to unanticipated choices even if I tell them the encounter was expecting more investment from the party. I feel I owe them the time it takes to evaluate how this encounter might go given the heroes they are throwing at it so they are presented a fair game even in spite of my inability to account for every possible choice they can make.
---
Subnautica. Somewhere between Minecraft and Metroidvania in my heart, Subnautica showed me that you can build a Metroidvania game with zero (or close to zero) walls. Before playing, I would have considered Survival Horror and Metroidvania to be totally antithetical aesthetics and genres, but the game has shown me the error of my thinking. Metroidvania is essentially an interactive Maze/Puzzle Map, but few Walls are so limiting as mechanics for Survival can be. You have to explore to progress, but the limits of your exploration are set by your need to continually consume resources to survive. There is nothing essentially preventing you from just swimming straight to the end of the game except that you will not have enough air for the length of the trip if you don't bring either a submarine or a mecha suit (and you probably wouldn't survive the heat of the final area of the game without an advanced swimsuit to begin with). Of course, even these vehicles need upgrades to reach those depths and the time it will take you to gather the plans and resources to fabricate such tools will deplete your food and water needs several times. Essentially, you can go as far as your current resource management system allows (which makes it imperative in any venture to reserve enough resources for an emergency return trip). Unlike in Metroidvania, you literally create your own keys to success based on natural obstacles and barriers. You can make a risky dive on barely enough resources to attain success early, or you can take your time and gradually stockpile resources until you reach whatever level of safety you please before pursuing the next most challenging step of progression.
Before this, I had always looked at Survival Games in a TTRPG setting as a very unique niche of the game. Removing almost all (if not actually ALL) the entire set of Social Interaction, removing the securities of replenishing resources in the nearest town, ramping up the dangers of natural hazards, all that always felt like it was largely aimless before. A beautiful canvas, but very blank. After all, when Survival is the focus, why and how can a Wizards Tower be a primary plot arc (unless it's abandoned in the apocalypse)? Who are the adventurers questing for (clearly themselves, but what are their motives)? It's like the ultimate sandbox to pit the heroes against survival, and that made it always seem limitless to me. Subnautica reminded me that travel in Survival is not assured, and that without civilization constantly maintaining safe passage routes such as building roads and securing territory by eradicating dangerous species, overland travel can require a constant search for resources to keep the movement going. But particularly, there needs to be a reason to go anywhere at all. In Subnautica, civilization wasn't eradicated, just out of reach. Heroes in a survival game might be able to see the city lights at night and gradually work their way across the landscape trying to make it back home.
Some magic makes Survival rather superfluous. Even if you get strict about Material Component accessibility, Teleport has only Verbal components. It DOES beg the question where the survivalist gained this knowledge in the first place, whether there are ruins with lootable secrets that can enhance their skill and power, or if they are just rebuilding these techniques from scratch the way they were discovered originally. But, going back to the Metroidvania style, that is an excellent kind of thing to make a hidden collectible in a hard to reach area with a few clues around it to indicate that something really valuable could be inside.
Let's start with Stranger Things. Clearly, the whole series is at least partially a love letter to D&D (and, by association, similar games). But for a franchise that so frequently references the game and clearly has some personal experience in its play, they break one of the most fundamental "rules" almost constantly: "Never Split the Party." In each season, there's only one or two times that all the players involved in the game happen to be working as a single group. It's usually just before the final push to resolve the primary conflict and it usually involves working together to assign different team members important tasks that give the group as a whole the best chances for success.
Stranger Things almost CONSTANTLY has the party split up all over the map (depending on how you define the Party in this case, if it's just the primary 4 boys + Eleven, or the whole main cast with the chief of police, family members, etc). The second season did this even more by even splitting the core group of 4 boys for most of the story. Somehow, through it all, the challenge was always exactly the level of difficulty MOST tables probably prefer: dangerous enough that survival is not guaranteed, even if you do everything right, but consistently and believably attainable if you do everything right. This had me thinking about, "how could I possibly prepare that level of exact difficulty matchup with party members constantly pairing off in various combinations?"
It got me thinking about WHY "Never Split the Party" became an integral rule of RPGs and it became clear rather quickly (and the answer is heavily reliant on the way D&D establishes relative difficulty in level based RPGs, so this might not be as important to other systems that don't rely on level based mechanics); the DM doesn't PLAN for the party to split up, so every prepared encounter is balanced for the party to use optimal amount of force for every obstacle (therefore, splitting the party is actually weighting the challenge against yourself as each encounter expected the power of the whole combined Party). Consider it from the other perspective: if the DM *did* plan for the party to split up, then the scenarios become far easier than intended if the party *doesn't* split up. Therefore, it is always preferable to players to never split the party. The only exception being if the DM sets up a Two Key Lock scenario that explicitly requires the party to split up to handle a task. But this falls under participationism, because the DM is communicating at Session 0 that the optimal strategy of keeping the party together has no chance to succeed.
All this painted a picture in my mind of how to create more games that can follow the Stranger Things thematic flair better than I had done in the past (I realize a TV Drama is trying to do something different than a TTRPG; full disclosure that I tend to fall more on the Cinematic/Theatrical/Narrative-Focused games). At particular milestones, the party unlocks information as to how to proceed in their objectives and introduce multiple options (all of which OUGHT to be taken simultaneously, but the Party ultimately decides which ones are pursued and how). Then I give them time to make their choices about which party members are pursuing which options, and then I take a break from the session to edit the encounters (I probably have an approximate idea about what each option requires of the players) to scale the difficulty exactly where I want it, compensating ahead of time for any unanticipated choices (because you should always expect to be outwitted from time to time). Play resumes after the options have been properly calibrated to make sure the game runs as intended on all fronts.
In my mind, this is largely a workaround for the inadequacies of D&D's Encounter Level and Challenge Rating mechanics and the way those rules tend to advise a DM to prepare their games. I know a lot of players (particularly on this forum) would balk at the idea of altering the game's difficulty to accommodate the player's tactics, but please understand that at this level, splitting the party would be expected and to a degree a lot of player decisions can be somewhat anticipated (players know that option A needs a Spellcaster to resolve, which implies THAT spellcaster won't be present at the other options, so editing only needs to happen if somehow they decide to try to resolve it without one). If done with adequate preparation, editing based on player choices should be pretty minimal (maybe if their choices would make things unreasonably difficult, modifying the circumstances to compensate, such as if the party sent people lacking Darkvision into the Cave with no lights, so you make sure there's a few torches available to them on the way). I'm not intending to suggest that I'd add monsters if the party sent too many people to one area rather than splitting them up more (especially if my players were wanting to feel the confidence and certainty that their investment in putting extra hands on a single option was going to pay out), but that I need to prepare for the areas being relatively neglected have to now account for the increased likelihood of resolving in a Players Fail state (such as possibly preparing more escape routes for the PCs than originally intended). This might result in plugging in a "minor success" outcome where the players might not have the strength to resolve it as originally planned, but they don't have to be committing to a game where a bad move means there was no chance for success before ever going in. After all, the problem was more on the end of my plans not be adequately prepared for their strategy, they shouldn't be penalized by unreasonable difficulty due to unanticipated choices even if I tell them the encounter was expecting more investment from the party. I feel I owe them the time it takes to evaluate how this encounter might go given the heroes they are throwing at it so they are presented a fair game even in spite of my inability to account for every possible choice they can make.
---
Subnautica. Somewhere between Minecraft and Metroidvania in my heart, Subnautica showed me that you can build a Metroidvania game with zero (or close to zero) walls. Before playing, I would have considered Survival Horror and Metroidvania to be totally antithetical aesthetics and genres, but the game has shown me the error of my thinking. Metroidvania is essentially an interactive Maze/Puzzle Map, but few Walls are so limiting as mechanics for Survival can be. You have to explore to progress, but the limits of your exploration are set by your need to continually consume resources to survive. There is nothing essentially preventing you from just swimming straight to the end of the game except that you will not have enough air for the length of the trip if you don't bring either a submarine or a mecha suit (and you probably wouldn't survive the heat of the final area of the game without an advanced swimsuit to begin with). Of course, even these vehicles need upgrades to reach those depths and the time it will take you to gather the plans and resources to fabricate such tools will deplete your food and water needs several times. Essentially, you can go as far as your current resource management system allows (which makes it imperative in any venture to reserve enough resources for an emergency return trip). Unlike in Metroidvania, you literally create your own keys to success based on natural obstacles and barriers. You can make a risky dive on barely enough resources to attain success early, or you can take your time and gradually stockpile resources until you reach whatever level of safety you please before pursuing the next most challenging step of progression.
Before this, I had always looked at Survival Games in a TTRPG setting as a very unique niche of the game. Removing almost all (if not actually ALL) the entire set of Social Interaction, removing the securities of replenishing resources in the nearest town, ramping up the dangers of natural hazards, all that always felt like it was largely aimless before. A beautiful canvas, but very blank. After all, when Survival is the focus, why and how can a Wizards Tower be a primary plot arc (unless it's abandoned in the apocalypse)? Who are the adventurers questing for (clearly themselves, but what are their motives)? It's like the ultimate sandbox to pit the heroes against survival, and that made it always seem limitless to me. Subnautica reminded me that travel in Survival is not assured, and that without civilization constantly maintaining safe passage routes such as building roads and securing territory by eradicating dangerous species, overland travel can require a constant search for resources to keep the movement going. But particularly, there needs to be a reason to go anywhere at all. In Subnautica, civilization wasn't eradicated, just out of reach. Heroes in a survival game might be able to see the city lights at night and gradually work their way across the landscape trying to make it back home.
Some magic makes Survival rather superfluous. Even if you get strict about Material Component accessibility, Teleport has only Verbal components. It DOES beg the question where the survivalist gained this knowledge in the first place, whether there are ruins with lootable secrets that can enhance their skill and power, or if they are just rebuilding these techniques from scratch the way they were discovered originally. But, going back to the Metroidvania style, that is an excellent kind of thing to make a hidden collectible in a hard to reach area with a few clues around it to indicate that something really valuable could be inside.