MU Podcast 053 - Fudging, Flubbing, and Failing

[Keeper Dan]

For episode 52, Keeper Dan was out of town when this episode was recorded, so you have Keepers Jon, Murf and Chad go through the debate on whether or not a GM should fudge their rolls, and then now to take bad Idea rolls from dull to dynamic.

Campus Crier
This portion of the Crier was recorded on April 6, 2014, while the rest of the episode was recorded on March 27. That is why Keeper Dan is here. The Crier info later on is part of the original recording. We're still working out the way we're doing this same-day Crier coverage.

Updated Issue 1 of Cephalophobia is out.
Updated version is available here on the web site, or pulled fresh from the podcast feed.

LOVECRAFT ILLUSTRATED soon to crawl forth from PS Publishing!
From W.H. Pugmire's blog, A View from Sesqua Valley

Tiki versus Cthulhu Issue#1 Kickstarter
Elemental rage versus eldritch horror as two island tribes battle to the death!

The Dark Rites of Cthulhu anthology released!
Joshua M. Reynolds shared the info on his blog.

What’s New at Goodman Games? - A panel at Gary Con VI
The Spellburn Podcast #19 has the seminar wheree Goodman Games announced Jon's game Starfall at the Plateau of Leng as well as their Kickstarter for a new authorized print of the RPG classic Metamorphosis Alpha!
The panel is also on YouTube.

Bret Kramer is calling for submissions for the Arkham Gazette #3, which will be about witches and witchcraft in Lovecraft Country.
Check the submissions page for details.


Sponsor News 1
caddy1071 donated to the cause.
Steven also pitched in, and we’re grateful to both of you, and everyone who has been so generous.

Feedback 1
Dan- Big Al from the Heel Turn Podcast called us up.

Feedback 2
Brady lets us know about a pretty cool table mapping tool.

Hi guys, I know you are all olde-skoole gamers and I ran across this kickstarter project: Blue Dungeon Tiles! It uses the faded blue from the inner cover of the world's oldest RPG of days gone by. Thanks for all your great work. -Brady

Ethan writes in to give us an encyclopedia of digital Lovecraft gaming material. We'll post the list in a separate article, which you can find here.

Hi guys, I'm getting caught up on some of your recent episodes, and recently listened to Episode 49 where you talk about Lovecraftian video games. There are actually quite a lot of these, and I keep inflicting them on myself so others don't have to, so I thought I'd give a partial chronology along with my thoughts on the ones I've played. Cheers, -Ethan

(This is not meant to be anything like a complete list - I'm sure there are many I don't know about, and for the sake of brevity I've omitted non-horror games and games with only a tenuous Mythos connection such as a name-drop or a borrowed monster.)


1987
The Lurking Horror: A text adventure by Infocom, the creators of the "Zork" series. Reputed to be good; I haven't played it myself. The Lovecraft Ezine has a link to a free download.


1992
Alone in the Dark: The series credited with launching the "survival horror" genre, the original AitD had numerous Lovecraft elements sprinkled throughout it, including this extremely coolgame-over screen. Unfortunately, the graphics and controls have not aged gracefully (the humans look like twisted blasphemies of hyper-Euclidian biology, while the monsters look like adorable googley-eyed plush toys), so it's likely only of interest to the nostalgic or those curious about gaming history. Available on GOG.


1993
Shadow of the Comet: A licensed COC adventure game set in the New England fishing town of "Illsmouth", where a great deal of Mythos activity has been stirred up by the return of Halley's Comet. Not particularly scary, but those who enjoyed the classic Sierra adventure games may find this to be a nicely squid-flavoured similarity. (Though purists may be annoyed by the "thwart multiple Outer Gods before breakfast" storyline.) I'm not aware of it ever being re-released, so you're probably off to e-bay for this one.


1995
The Prisoner of Ice: Another officially licensed adventure game, this one begins aboard a submarine that picks up a mysterious cargo while enroute to an Antarctic rescue mission. Naturally, nothing whatsoever goes wrong. Another one you'll probably have to find on e-bay.


1998
Anchorhead: A text adventure set in an Innsmouth-like coastal village, but there's far more than fish-men afoot here. Surprisingly good (it's often considered one of the best text adventures of all time), it's also available as a free download at Interactive Fiction Archive, so you've got no excuse not to try it. (Note: You may need to download a text adventure program like Frotz, also free, in order to run it.)


2001
Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness: A point-and-click adventure adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Sadly, this game is badly marred by what was blatantly a rushed release, with many points where it's clear that there was meant to be a puzzle or a story element that was just never finished. The cutscenes and voice acting are also rather embarrassing at times. I want to like this game - it's obvious that someone involved genuinely cared about Lovecraft, and there are even a few effective bits, particularly a creepy conversation about alchemy with a brain-in-a-jar and a pretty cool rendition of a "City of the Great Race" towards the end. However, with its glaring flaws it's impossible to recommend to any but the most patient and forgiving Lovecraft fans. Available on GamersGate.


2002
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: An action/adventure game for the Nintendo Gamecube that plays out like a series of Mythos vignettes in various times and places (ancient jungle ruins, a church on the battlefields of WWI, vast alien underground cities, etc.), connected by a "hub story" of a young woman learning all these tales while trying to solve the murder of a relative. As your characters lose sanity, the game starts to mess with them in creative ways - including psych-outs aimed at the players themselves, such as flashing a "controller unplugged" message just as monsters swoop down on you. Widely regarded as one of the best horror games of all time, this one is tons of fun.

Dark Fall: The Journal: A first person adventure game set in an abandoned train station haunted by a series of ghosts as well as a more malevolent and alien presence. The game is clearly inspired by the second story-arc of Sapphire and Steel (which I loved) - not explicitly Lovecraftian, but with enough similarities to please. I've left the two sequels off this list as they strayed somewhat from the formula. Available on GOG and Steam.


2005
Dark Corners of the Earth: a COC-licensed first-person shooter set in Innsmouth. Haven't played it, as shooters aren't really my thing. Available on Gamersgate and Steam.


2006
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened: Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu! A third-person adventure game. I played it years ago but hardly remember a thing about it, so I suppose I'd have to call it "forgettable" - not awful (I'd remember that), just not particularly impressive. Available on Steam.

Scratches: A first-person adventure game set in a spooky old house; by the same creator as the upcoming Kickstarter game Asylum. Scratches is not explicitly Lovecraftian, but the influences are definitely there. Unfortunately, the story is very predictable, and some of the puzzle design is downright irritating (the player often can't "solve" things until the infuriatingly slow-witted main character figures them out). Available on GOG and Steam.

Trilby's Notes: The third game in the "Chzo Mythos" series of adventure games by internet personality Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (of Zero Punctuation fame). This is the first game in the series to go in a heavily Lovecraftian direction, and is my personal favourite - the previous two games were more directly influenced by the Friday the 13th movies. The entire series is, in order: 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes, and 6 Days a Sacrifice - I enjoyed all of them except the second one, which suffers from the usual curse that attends a horror series that suddenly decides to pack its bags and move to outer space. All can be downloaded for free from the creator's website.

Barrow HIll: Curse of the Ancient Circle: A first-person adventure title set in an isolated patch of Cornwall where everyone has mysteriously disappeared (leaving behind suspicious piles of goo). Not explicitly Lovecraftian (its most obvious inspiration is the classic Dr. Who episode "The Stones of Blood"), but will probably appeal to fans anyway. I'm very fond of this game - if you can get past the somewhat low production values, the rendition of the Cornish countryside feels compellingly real and very immersive. Available on GamersGate.


2007
Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder: In this first-person adventure game, a police detective must solve the murder of a wealthy occultist while slowly losing control over his own faculties. The game features an interesting clue mechanic, in which the investigator hunts through old journals and tomes and underlines clues, which he then "combines" in his "brain" in much the way that most adventure games would have you combine items in your inventory. This is one of the most authentically Lovecraftian games I've ever played, and I highly recommend it. It avoids the usual pitfalls of excessive monsters, excessive gore, and excessive Mythos name-dropping, and instead relies on good old-fashioned storytelling and atmosphere to get the job done. The clue mechanic, which could easily have been gimmicky, actually felt very well implemented. Available on Desura and Gamersgate

2010
Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage: Sequel to the previous game. I haven't played it yet - it's reputed to be good, but not as good as the original. Available on Desura and Gamergate.

2011
Alpha Polaris: A third-person adventure title in which a science team at an isolate Arctic petroleum research facility are beset by an ancient presence that starts to twist their sanity. Not explicitly Mythos-related, and production values are on the low side, but I still enjoyed this one quite a bit (I have a soft spot for arctic horror, and a few of the puzzles even required a bit of actual thinking). Available on GamersGate.

2012
The Wasted Land: A WWI tactical RPG with a Mythos storyline. Originally a mobile game; unfortunately, I found the PC version too buggy and unstable to play, so I don't have much to say about it - the little bit I played had awkward controls, and couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be pulpy or creepy in tone. Available on Gamersgate and Steam

2013
The Occult Chronicles: sort of a mashup of Arkham Horror, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and other board game influences, The Occult Chronicles is a viciously difficult roguelike that has you exploring an old mansion as an agent of the Occult Defense Directorate (O.D.D.) and attempting to defeat the evils within. Agents can specialize in different areas (combat, psychic talents, magic, etc), and the game plays out very differently depending on the skills you favour. (For example, my first agent was an O.D.D. accountant who was great at negotiating with demons, but died when he was unable to explain optimal economic decision matrices to a pack of zombies.) Skill checks, including combat, are resolved via a Tarot trick-taking mini-game, which I initially found off-putting but soon got used to. The beta release I played still had some balance issues and a few bugs, but they may have been resolved by now. Overall it was fun while it lasted, but I could imagine the various quests getting a bit repetitive before too long. Available on the publisher's website. (Incidentally, the publisher's earlier game Armageddon Empires is a super-cool post-apocalyptic strategy game with an entire playable Cthulhu-inspired race, but I haven't put it on the list as it's not really a horror game. But seriously - Cthulhu vs. Skynet vs. The Lord Humungus vs. mutants riding dinosaurs! Check it out.)

Eldritch: A first-person roguelike with Minecraft-style blocky graphics. I had initially dismissed it as "cutethulhu" based on early screenshots, but have since been informed that it actually tries to take its horror atmosphere seriously, so I may need to check it out at some point. Available on Steam.

The Future!
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter: An adventure game that looks to be inspired by a mixture of Lovecraft and M.R. James. Expected to release sometime this year. The creator's website is here.

Night of the Cephalopds: I'm not sure what the status of this project is (possibly defunct), and it's not the type of game I would normally put on this list, except for one thing: it's supposed to feature a "Lovecraft 3000 Dynamic Narration System" in which an in-game narrator describes everything you do in the prose style of H.P. Lovecraft. I'm guessing that can't possibly be as cool in execution as it sounds on paper, but on the other hand, it sounds seriously freaking cool on paper... Project website can be found here.

Sponsor News 2
We’ve had a flurry of amazing supporters lately. Here are the generous sponsors that have offered their support: Shannon Mac, Hastur, Mrjohnmarchughes, Gladius, and SamS!!
Thank you all so much!

Card Catalog
Evidence bags on eBay

What Has the MUP Crew Been Playing?
Jon
Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit
Sentinels of the Multiverse at Planet Comicon Kansas City

Chad
Pandemic
Minecraft
Anomia

Murf
Masks of Nyarlathotep


History Lecture
We’ve got a lecture from Dr. Gerard on the topic of Ghost Marriages.

Cryptocurium Spotlight
The Idol of Shub-Niggurath. This is a limited run of 50, so get one while supplies last.

Side Topic
Should you fudge die rolls? Ever? If so, when? If not, why not?

Main Topic
Ideas of how to use failed idea rolls to maneuver players into bad situations.

A conversation side topic goes into the formation of snow flakes.

[fallingtower]

I have such fond memories of the first Alone in the Dark. My 486 SX Packard Bell, my PS2 mouse that I had to scrape lint off the ball constantly (cats) and my massive 13 inch monitor.

I at one point said about Alone in the Dark, "There's no way computer graphics will get any better than this!" Yeah seriously.

I remembered how proud I was when I defeated the game and could walk around my virtual mansion. Except for that one bathroom. If you played this game, you'll remember what I mean.

Also- this was pre internet. I actually had to call the hint line...anyone remember doing that?

[Thomas R. Knutsson]

Ethan writes in to give us an encyclopedia of digital Lovecraft gaming material. We'll post the list in a separate article, which you can find here.

The Future!
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter: An adventure game that looks to be inspired by a mixture of Lovecraft and M.R. James. Expected to release sometime this year. The creator's website is here.

The future doesn't look bright for Ethan? Will Ethan soon vanish?

[EddyPo]

Just finished listening to this. Awesome show with an interesting discussion on fudging. Where can I send my little jar of tears?

[MikeM]

Great episode and good discussion guys (I particularly like Dan's tinkering mid-episode).

A few things it made me think of:

1. Sometimes stats need to be altered mid game due to:

A) the PCs being very capable, thus you need to 'up' the opposition (the scenario provides average stats for NPCs, but your group is experienced and need a harder threat) - in this case I would not consider what Murph does as 'fudging' but rather adjusting the scenario to suit his group.

B) poor scenario design - the writer has under-powered the threat (it's kinda like 'A' but the fault lies with the scenario, making the keeper having to the adjust stats to ensure a challenging scenario.

2. In 7e, Intelligence and Idea rolls are different things:

Intelligence (INT) roll is used like many people use an Idea roll in 6e - making a player think about what they are about to (why it might be bad or good idea) - this also includes rolling to deduct/solve a puzzle or similar.

Idea roll is used by the players when they are stuck and really don't know what to do (missed a clue, haven't been paying attention, at a loss to what to do next). The players rather than keeper calls for this roll. If successful - the keeper moves the situation forward by giving them the missed clue (of course they should build the story of how this happens). If unsuccessful - the keeper still gives them the clue but also puts the investigators in a dangerous situation (they find the clue in the library but the cultists overhear them and ambush them) - these are very poor examples, but you can see the point (the outcome should be relevant to the scenario/situation etc.)

I tend to roll in the open these days and let the fall where they will - as I normally roll badly, this seems to benefit the PCs more than me! I had a PC fail a SAN roll for seeing an Outer God - what did I roll on D100? 01 that's what...!

Mike

[Keeper Jon]

I had a PC fail a SAN roll for seeing an Outer God - what did I roll on D100? 01 that's what...!Mike

Classic.

[Gladius]

As to fudging, I'm mostly on the side of Jon and to an extent, Murph, at least with respect to my group. My job as Keeper is to provide a good time for the players. Sometimes I will recognize that I believe a particular result of a roll will not make the game more enjoyable, and I will change it. This almost always has to do with combat, and almost always is in favor of the players.

Like Jon, I tend to do this less and less as a game draws near to its conclusion. I, too, will start rolling the dice in front of my screen for dramatic effect.

With that said, I agree with one of Chad's points: if you don't want the outcome to depend on a die roll, don't make it a die roll. I believe that this is one of the drivers of the genesis of Trail of Cthulhu. Requiring a Spot Hidden roll to find the critical clue is bad scenario design, if that's the only way the players can get the information they need to continue in the game. In this case, don't make it depend on a successful Spot Hidden. Or, if you feel the roll itself would add to the drama of the scene, put a massive modifier on the roll. I believe 7e's Push mechanic is built for situations like this as well.

What I believe Chad's other point, about there being an implicit agreement at the table that everyone follows the rules, I don't agree with. I am the Keeper, and I'm providing the players with a good time. If I change the scenario, is that unfair? For example, if the scenario as written calls for 3 cultists to attack the players, but I change it to 4, because I know the players will grease them easily, and I want to add a bit of challenge, how is that different than fudging a roll? I don't believe it is. In other games, free-form games, where the players are making up the story just as much as the GM is, perhaps this would be a more valid concern. But with CoC I don't believe it is.

I do agree with Chad that playing with a GM who is heavy-handedly changing the rules willy-nilly is not fun, when you know (or suspect) that the GM is constantly changing the outcome of his rolls, the internal monologue is "why does he even bother rolling, he's just going to change it to what he wants it to be?" but I don't believe anyone is arguing for fudging to that extent. As one of you said, it really depends on the group, and the setting (conventions vs one-shot vs campaign) and even the tone of the game - I know that running Arrius Lurco I fudged a lot more rolls than when I ran Day of the Beast, primarily because I wanted more of a "swords and sandals" pulpy feel from the Roman era game.

Anyway, my point is that all three of you brought up good and valid points.

[Dr. Gerard]

Gladius! All fair points, and I certainly don't mean to cramp anyone's style of play. I spoke as if giving new Keepers advice on how to treat the game mechanics, and in that way I would completely stand by what I said. But I'm not going tell you or Jon or Murph to change what you've been doing for years, nor am I going to make a big fuss with a Keeper who fudges rolls in a game I'm playing. Life is too short. There's much room for style differences here, and I fear I wasn't able to underscore that point during the show.

Let me just clarify my position a bit.

For the most part, I'm talking about changing the result of a die roll that was done in the open, after it has already been rolled. I want to avoid that if at all possible, and there are lots of possible fixes to try before getting to that point.

Changing details of a scenario on the fly is very different than fudging a die result that was rolled in the open. In fact, I would say you have to stay flexible in all details of a scenario, whether it's a published work or something you've cooked up yourself. We've talked on the show about all kinds of dials you can adjust to suit your own vision and the tastes of your group. I'm totally pro-customization all the way.

My point is that if I am going to consult the oracle about a detail in the game, I want to stick with what the oracle says.

When I decide to throw the bones, in many ways I feel I'm inviting an indifferent third party to adjudicate on my behalf.

The decision to veto that third party, even in the service of what I might in the moment consider to be “more fun,” comes at a cost.

As I mentioned, one solution is to avoid engaging a mechanic that could give an unwanted result in the first place. Another solution, as you mentioned, is to change details beforehand like the number of enemies who show up in a combat scene. That's not something you'd probably do in the middle of combat after you've already described your enemies – because it would violate the integrity of the game world. One might, however, decide that half of them immediately retreat after the first sign of violence. That's not really a die fudge, that's storytelling. If I for some reason don't realize until after the first round of combat that my adversary is going to smash everyone to pieces (and for some reason that's not what I want at the moment), I could even invent conditions that make it suddenly retreat, or give the players an opening to run away.

Murph mentioned changing the target number or the stat involved as a kind of workaround. That's certainly better than negating a roll. It's possible players would eventually pick up on inconsistency if this is done lot, even behind the screen. But as you said, we're not talking about cases of extreme reliance on this.

There are also usually all kinds of tools that allow me to stick with the die results while also interpreting those results in a way that suits my needs. A failed Idea roll, for example, could mean anything from misinformation to the 7e “fail forward” approach Mike mentioned. Or if I call for a Spot Hidden, I could easily turn the results into a “minimal information vs. deeper information” instead of "pass vs. fail." Skill rolls likewise can be interpreted as “actions with interesting consequences vs. goes off without a hitch.” The narrative consequences of a botch, the cinematic description of an Impale or Critical – these are interpretive things I have to do in the game anyway.

It's fair to say this kind of interpretation is still a kind of grey-area monkeying, but interpretation is very different than rolling a die and then deciding the roll doesn't count, or deciding a critical wasn't really a critical, or deciding that a particularly harsh damage roll or SAN loss should be ignored or Nerfed.

But clearly, there are situations where one has gone past the point of no return, already rolled the dice, and realized the result for some reason just isn't workable. Maybe I didn't read the scenario carefully, or forgot about an improvised scuffle earlier in the session in which the players got wounded or ended up on the edge of nutsoville. Or maybe I was trying to create a sense of atmospheric cosmic horror with an underpowered opponent that they players easily defeat with one lucky shot. My personal choice would be to live by my mistake, and do what I can to adapt and improvise in the game world without violating the oracle. But I won't be stupid and say I would "never" consider it.

The test for me is whether a fudge violates the consistency of the game world. If it does, it will be my very last option, and only if not doing so would truly put the fun of the game session somehow in peril.

[trevlix]

About half-way through the podcast - great so far.

Jon - very jealous you got to play The Queen's Gambit. This is a game that I'm hoping to stumble upon at a thrift store someday, since it runs around 300 on ebay.

Chad - Pandemic rocks! Curious what "level" you have beaten the game at. Also, you were asking about games for your friend's son and his friends, I like the BRP suggestion. I also suggest looking at Fate Accelerated. Its very rules-light, flexible, and would fit well into what I perceive your GM style is. Not to mention cheap. ($2.50 for PDF, $5 for book)

[Dr. Gerard]

We play Pandemic on whatever level gives you 5 epidemics in the deck. A notch above beginner. We've had two victories on that level recently that were very hard to win, but we have now raised the subject of trying to add another epidemic as a serious challenge.

It's been a big thrill for me to play this with Trish. She started out essentially hating all board games except for Scrabble. She was the youngest of 5 kids, and got ridiculed as a child for not understanding rules and losing every time. But when we played Pandemic for the first time, suddenly all the barriers were removed. She'll play Catan or Ticket to Ride with friends if pressed, but Pandamic is something SHE has actually requested to play on a given Friday night, instead of me always pushing to play a game.

I'm thinking about buying the On The Brink expansion -- got any experience with that? Would be nice to get a little extra mileage out of the game. I fear once we beat the 6-epidemic expert mode, enthusiasm might flag. I also hear that Forbidden Island and Flash Point are also good cöop games.

I offered a bunch of possible genre flavors to the kids (and dad), and they overwhelmingly picked "Viking horror" from a list. So I ran it using Cthulhu Dark on Roll20. One of the constraints on our session was that I only had 2 hours to introduce them to the entire concept of role play. So I chose CD, because they could quickly invent their own character concepts, with no character sheets or stats to talk them through, and we could start playing about 5 minutes into the session. The two 13 year olds are both big fans of Skyrim, so I started by asking them about their favorite characters in that game and drawing on those tropes. They were immediately enthusiastic and I was happy with their level of engagement and creativity. I'm running a mildly Dreamland-related scenario called Island of the Damned, with some heavy modification. I'll probably be able to wrap it up in one more session. If they really want to continue, I'll expand the system options. I was asked to just introduce them to role play, not to launch a long campaign or try to create some kind of ongoing group. As far as I'm concerned, it would be better for them to form their own RP group and start playing with peers instead of their dad and their dad's weird friend. Maybe the best next step is to buy my friend's kid a copy of CoC and see if it takes. But I'd love to run another one-shot for them, maybe online again around Halloween or during an in-person visit sometime.

Fate Accelerated sounds very interesting. Ever run it for horror? There's a game called Hobomancer that uses the rules-light QAGS system that I might also try with them, just to introduce a little more recent historical flavor. I'm not sure what kind of images 13 year olds have available to dial in to the 1930s, but at least train hopping is something iconic.