It’s that time again. That time when I let all of you write my article. Except not really. Because that’d be f$&%ing stupid. If you could write these articles, you’d have your own website. You wouldn’t be reading mine. And you certainly wouldn’t be supporting it so that this site doesn’t just up and vanish one day, leaving you to figure out how to pretend elf all by yourself.

No, letting you write one of my articles would be like a GM handing narrative control over to his players. A dumb-a$& move. If players could run games, they’d be GMs.

What I’m saying in my Long, Rambling Way™ is that I’m doing an Ask Angry mailbag thing today. That’s where I sift through the hundreds of crap questions people have sent me and look for some that are just not crap enough to be worth answering. And if you want to throw your own question into the bubbling crap pot in the hopes that it’ll float to the top with the less crap, well, good for you. Your blind optimism is adorable. But don’t let me stop you. Send your brief question to ask.angry@angry.games. Remember to tell me explicitly and unambiguously what the f$&% I should call you.

Today’s Ask Angry Mailbag’s a little different. Normally, I pick out three to five of the least crap questions I can find and give them each 750 to 1500 words of polite, rational, well-thought-out answer. Today, though, I’m going to blitz through seven to ten of these bad boys. Just to see if I can.

Lina asks…

In an RPG with a universal action resolution mechanic and additional rules for modes of play like social interaction, who should have a say in whether a particular action is resolved with the universal action resolution rules or using one of the additional…

Holy mother of f$&%, Lina. Who are you trying to impress with that wording? My eyes glazed over just reading that. I get what you’re driving at, but this ain’t a doctoral thesis. Do you get paid by the syllable count?

Okay, so you’ve got an RPG with a nice core mechanic for resolving every action ever. Roll a die, for example, then add an ability modifier and compare the result to some target number. And it can handle absolutely any action any idiot player can think of. But then, you’ve got these other rules to lay on top of it. To add structure to different bits of the game. Fighty bits, talky bits, sneaky bits, crafty bits, whatever. And you want to know who gets to decide which rules to use when.

Well, the answer’s simple. It’s the GM. It’s always the GM. The rules are just tools that help the GM resolve the actions her brain can’t otherwise handle. When the GM needs the rules, she uses them. They’re there for her. The players have no say in which rules the GM uses for what and when the GM changes them. The only thing the players get a say in is whether they whine and complain and quit the game. And the GM can decide how much of a f$&% to give about that.

But that’s the simple answer. And you don’t come to me for simple answers. Thing is, the rules create player expectations. If a character has an ability that lets them pull off some stupid, bulls%$& talky trick in talking encounters, the player should be able to count on that. So, even if the GM decides to dump the talky-bit rules right now because she feels comfortable handling the game without them, she can’t take away the player-characters’ abilities. Whatever she does to handle the talky-bits, it’s got to be consistent with the rules. Either that or she’s got to let the players know so they can adjust their expectations accordingly.

Beyond that, though, the rules themselves should actually be well-enough designed that this whole “when to use which mode of play” thing doesn’t become an issue. And that’s on the game designer.

So, the rules that provide specialized modes of play shouldn’t be these arbitrary minigames or work in some completely different way from the main rules. Really, they should just provide some kind of structure to the main rules. For example, the combat rules in D&D don’t really change the basic rules of action resolution — except where the designers f$&%ed up the combat chapter which isn’t actually that much — the combat rules in D&D don’t change the core rules, they just add a turn order and time limit. They don’t change how actions work, they just define who can act when and who can interrupt what and how big an action someone can take before someone else has a chance to jump in.

But the designers also have to create clear-as-f$&%ing-crystal distinctions between when the special rules apply and when they don’t. And they have to explain those distinctions as best they can. They can’t anticipate everything, sure; that’s why there’s a GM. But the GM should at least have some idea of the spirit of the game. D&D, for example, should be really, really clear on when to hold people to a turn order and when you roll to start that s$&% and when it’s over. If you want to write combat rules, you have to define very clearly what constitutes combat. That way, even if the GM decides not to drop into the combat rules, it’s a conscious choice and they know what they’re getting into.

Sadly, most RPG designers are careless about this s$&%. Thus, it often falls on GMs to go online and have stupid arguments about when it’s time to roll initiative.

But in the end, everything — and I mean every single last f$&%ing thing — everything to do with the rules is the GM’s call.

Jack asks…

Is it possible that social interactions and puzzles focus too much on the players and barely make use of the PCs, thereby ignoring how two different PCs played by the same player might handle them?

No.

ISDestroyer asks…

What is the differe…

I guess I really can’t just stop there, can I, Jack? I know you’re going to e-mail me again with a whinging, whining “but why?” And you’ll probably say stupid things about players playing more intelligent or charismatic characters than they themselves can portray.

Look, the PCs aren’t really things. I hope you know that. They’re avatars. Projections. Made of math and words. They can’t take actions. They can’t overcome obstacles They can’t win the game. It’s the players who are playing and winning — or losing; most likely losing — the game. The point of an RPG — remember what the G stands for — the point of an RPG is for the players to overcome challenges and win the day.

I recently said that if the characters don’t need the players to use their brains and figure s$&% out — if the players just press buttons and generate random numbers — then I don’t need those idiots at the table. I can handle that s$&% myself.

Ostensibly, a player’s strategy should involve playing to the character’s strengths. Deduction’s only half the battle. Well, it’s a third of the battle. One-third’s acquiring information, one-third’s figuring out how to use that information and your character’s skills, and one-third’s executing that strategy.

Take social interaction, for example. It ain’t about word choice. It’s not about being persuasive or pulling s$&% out of your a$&. Not if the GM runs it right. It’s about knowing what you want, knowing why the NPC doesn’t want you to have it, figuring out the leverage that’s likely to work on the NPC, and then deciding how to lever the leverage. The PC’s skills and abilities and training determine the information they’ll have access to and how well they can execute any specific action. A good player playing two different PCs should play them differently because, otherwise, they’re not likely to win.

Hell, optimizing your strategy for your PC is part of role-playing. Human beings play to their strengths if they want to succeed. They don’t try to do things they can’t do. If you’re not considering what your character knows and what they’re good at, you’re not playing the character. You’re just making up whatever s$&% you want.

So no, you can’t focus too much on the players’ skills. Games test player skills. Otherwise, they’re not games. They’re collaborative storytelling bulls$&%. And if that’s what you want — some people actually want that s$&% — if that’s what you want, drop the math and the rules. They just get in the way. If you want some randomness, flip some f$&%ing coins.

Or just settle in for a nice night of Fiasco. At least it doesn’t even claim to be an RPG.

ISDestroyer asks…

What is the difference between small XP systems and large XP systems?

The numbers are a lot bigger in large XP systems. Duh.

King Mar…

Okay, I’ll stop doing that. It was funny once.

The difference between small XP systems and large XP systems, huh? I assume you’re referring to systems wherein the PCs earn, like 1 or 2 XP per encounter or session or whatever and need 10 or 20 XP to gain a level versus systems wherein the PCs earn hundreds of XP per encounter or session and need thousand to gain levels. Something like that, right?

Actually, I know that’s right. Because I already clarified this s$&% with you. See everyone? I do actually ask for more information when I need it. So you don’t have to overexplain s$&%. Granted, I only did it to appease ISDestroyer’s nagging “Angry, I send you so many good questions that are so brief and good and you never answer any of them? Why not? Don’t you love me? Angry? Why don’t you answer?”

Ah, s$&%. I shouldn’t have said that. Now, you’ll all think that whining and begging will get me to answer your questions. It won’t. Never again.

Anyway, small XP systems versus large XP systems. Assuming the designers know what the f$&% they’re doing — which isn’t actually a given — assuming the designers know what they’re doing, there’s no difference. On paper. Presumably, the brain trust behind the game system said something like:

Okay, so, we want X-many encounters in a play session and we want characters to gain a level after Y-many play sessions and the rate of advancement should slow by Z-much over YUZZ-levels, so that means…

Anyone catch that reference? Did you? No one cares. No one ever reads your comment about how you got that reference. But go ahead and post it anyway. I need a submission for r/iamverysmart.

So, on the surface, there’s no difference between a system wherein you get 1 XP per session and need 10 XP for a level and a system in which you get 250 XP per session and need 2,500 XP to gain a level. Mathematically, they’re identical. But, believe it or not, people’s brains don’t actually run on math.

There’s two differences between those systems: granularity and psychology. And one is way, way more important than the other.

The granularity thing’s simple enough. In small XP systems, the GM doesn’t have a lot of room to tinker or adjust without breaking s$&%. If players earn 1 to 3 XP per session and need three sessions to level, I — as a GM — can’t give them even a small bonus for some minor thing without running the risk of over-leveling the characters. 1 extra XP every session is enough to speed their advancement rate by 133%. So, I can’t risk giving small bonuses for minor encounters or side objectives. And I can’t add my own little tweak rules like giving out bonus XP for bringing me snacks or washing my car. Not without having to refigure the system math. But a game wherein the PCs get 250 XP a session won’t be broken by a few extra 25 XP bonuses here and there.

Likewise, if the minimum XP award for a successfully thwarted encounter is 1 XP — or the minimum XP for a successful session is 1 XP — I can’t split that any further. If the players have a crappy encounter they barely win or spend most of a session dicking around, I can’t penalize them without saying, “you get nothing! Good day, sirs!” That ain’t great.

And that ain’t great because giving someone nothing feels way worse than giving them a drastically reduced something. This brings me to psychology.

I know all you gamers hate being irrational, emotional human beings, but you are. We all are. And we respond more to psychology and game feel and emotional s$&% than we do to math and statistics and probability. Even when we know better. How you feel has almost nothing to do with what you know. On paper, from the outside, using math, small and big XP systems look the same. But to 99% of the players playing them, they’ll feel different from the inside and the players won’t even notice it. Or know why.

Big numbers make great rewards and crappy goals. That is, it feels good to get hundreds of XP instead of 5 XP. Even if they’re worth precisely the same in relative terms, the bigger number feels like a bigger, better accomplishment. At the same time, when the level progression chart says you need 10,000 XP to gain a level, that feels like a long way to go. Even if you get 3,000 XP a session or whatever, it still feels like a long way to go. And small numbers are completely the opposite. They’re great for goals but crappy for rewards.

Psychologically, I think large XP systems are better. I think it’s better for the individual rewards to feel good and for leveling-up to feel like a lot of hard work. That way, the end of every session feels good with its big-number rewards and each level-up feels like a major milestone that took a lot of investment. Sure, it feels like every level’s pretty far away, but when you look back from that level, you say, “wow, look how far I’ve come! Remember when that XP box said zero?”

Of course, individual designers can — and should — think about which approach is best for the system they’re building. But pinning your hopes on game designers doing the smart thing is like handling your players narrative control or letting your readers write an article for you.

King Marth asks…

How do you create optional objectives in encounters and communicate them to players? I like how the Pokémon games let players adjust the difficulty by deciding which Pokémon to kill and which ones to whittle down and capture.

You can’t. Next question…

Sorry. I said I wouldn’t do that again.

It’s like this: you can’t create optional objectives in encounters. I mean, you can. But it’s really hard and there’s easier ways to create optional objectives. You have to do it outside encounters.

What the hell does that mean, Angry?

Well, take your little Pokéyman’s Go thing. Here you are, just trying to get to Innistrad City for the Duelist Kingdom tournament when, suddenly, a wild Bullbulls$&% attacks! Combat swoosh! Fight or die!

And that’s really all there is to Digimon encounters. Monsters appear and try to kill you. Or kill your Pocket Digits anyway. You’ve got to fight to keep going. That optional s$&% about wearing them out so you can catch them? Hell, even the optional option to just run the f%$& away? That’s not about the encounter. That s$%&’s coming from outside.

Sure, you could fight the Bullbulls$&% and kill it. But if you run away, you can keep right on going. You just don’t get any XPs or IVs or Eevees or anything. And you don’t win any Nuyen. So, you can’t level up your Cardcaptives and buy them fancy collars and bridles and things. And if you don’t do that, well, you can’t win the long-term game. Because that’s about having the best team of Cardcaptives and beating the plot fights and bosses and rivals and stuff.

In other words, to win the game — to finish the adventure — you’ve got to feed your beasts some XP and earn yourself some Pokémoolah.

Same thing with the tedium that is wearing Bullbulls$&% down until you can trap it in a soul crystal and add it to your fantasy cockfighting league. That ain’t about winning the encounter, that’s about building the very best team so you can be the very best. Or, alternatively, so you can fill out the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Capsule Critters you’ve been tasked with finishing.

See, the game has long-term goals that aren’t “kill all the baddies.” That is, you can’t win the game just by killing all the baddies between you and the goal. Moreover, you actually can’t win the game if you kill absolutely every last baddie. You can’t win without enslaving the best baddies for your team or by sending them all to Professor Baobob for dissection. In other words, you’ve got short-term goals — survive — and long-term goals — kill baddies to gain levels; build the bestest bada$&est team of Pokémon in all of Indigo Plateau. And every encounter is about deciding which of those three goals is best-served how.

There’s rarely a reason inside the encounter itself for the D&D murderhobos to not murderhobo. That is, why should the players ever keep any of the orcs alive? Or let them escape? Orcs are worth XP and they might cause trouble if they escape. But what if the players need information that the orcs have to win the adventure? Or what if there’s a morality issue? What if it’s not orcs who you can count on to always be evil? What if it’s actually enthralled, good-aligned humans that can be freed from their enslavement if they’re not murdered? Or what if alignment actually is an issue and one of the game’s goals is to not be a bunch of evil bastadges for whom the ends always justify the means?

You know, murderhoboing doesn’t happen nearly so much at tables where the GM gives a f$&% about alignment. Just saying.

It’s all about creating goals outside the encounter that the players can accomplish by handling the encounter differently. Differently being key. Catching Eidolons is harder than just killing them. It takes finesse, precision, and luck. Do you know how f$&%ing pissed off I was when D&D 5E said, basically, “oh, you can just kill or not kill whenever you attack; no penalties or nothing; all good.”

F$&%ing WotC.

Josh asks…

I suck at being a GM. I understand that to get better, I need to practice by running games. But how do you get better at storytelling and worldbuilding without embarrassing yourself and making the game a total drag?

Also, I have read your book and your articles and blah blah blah bulls$&% bulls$&%…

Couldn’t do it, could you? Couldn’t just ask the question and then stop typing. I mean, thanks for the effusive praise and all — and thanks for plugging my book; so nice of you to include that hyperlink — but you took a big risk there, Josh-o. When I see more than one paragraph in that e-mail preview window, it takes every ounce of my very limited patience to resist pounding the delete key. You got really lucky. When you have to browse through dozens of these stupid e-mails, you’re looking for any excuse you can get to bin a few.

And frankly, you don’t deserve my help. Because you’re a liar. A big lying liar who lies. You said:

I understand that to get better, I need to practice by running games.

But then you went and asked me for the secret f$&%ing shortcut. Clearly, you actually don’t understand what “getting better” and “practicing” mean. The only way to get good at doing something is to keep doing it. And until you get good at it, you’re probably going to be bad at it.

Theory doesn’t help. Drilling doesn’t help. Studying doesn’t help. That s$&% gets you entry-level proficiency. The minimum skill needed to do something very badly from start to finish. You can’t actually get good at playing Ride of the Valkyries on the accordion by practicing scales and fingering and s$&%. You just have to keep playing it over and over until it stops sounding bad. And it’s an accordion, so it’s never going to stop sounding bad.

Just kidding. I love the accordion.

There’s just no other way. Sorry. The price of being good at a thing is doing it badly a lot first. That’s why so few people are good at things. Doing things you’re bad at feels bad. It isn’t fun. It sucks. Especially when the only way to do it is to do it in front of other people. Either you have what it takes to fight through it — to be okay with being bad at it — or you don’t. Most people don’t.

That said, remember this: while you most definitely suck at running games, the players probably either don’t notice it or they don’t care. A sucky GM can still run a pretty fun game of D&D. That’s why your players haven’t abandoned you even though you suck. They’re still having fun. And so should you. Learn to have fun while sucking. Laugh at your f$&% ups. Don’t take them so hard. Delight in the fact that you’re learning and growing and that everyone’s having a good time while you do. Recognize that it’s a foregone conclusion that you’re going to suck so there’s no pressure on you to not suck. And if someone calls you out on sucking, you can just say, “of course I suck; I’m new at this!” Get over the fear of embarrassment and commit yourself to sucking and having a grand ole time doing it. Dare to fail gloriously.

And if you’ve got a bunch of experienced players who are riding you over your suckage, dump them and get yourself some newbies. Newbies are usually too worried about playing right and not sucking and getting good that they don’t even notice what you’re doing. That way, you can all just suck together and have a lot more fun.

Some Mysterious, Unknown, Nameless Entity asks…

Is it possible to play D&D or another RPG with a single player and a GM? If so, how?

Yes, it’s possible. And it’s easy too. A lot easier — apparently — than putting your name in an e-mail. Honestly, I’m not sure if there’s any point in giving you advice as you obviously ignore even the most basic of instructions.

Here’s how to run a game of D&D for just one person:

First, have them make a character. Use the rules as written in the Player’s Handbook. Next, tell the player what’s going on in the game world. What the character sees, hears, and knows. Then, ask the player what the character does about that s$&%. Then, determine how that works out and describe the result. Keep going around and around until it’s time to go home.

In other words just run the f$&%ing game! It doesn’t work any differently at all just because there’s only one PC at the table.

You’re probably getting hung up on things about encounter balance and modifying modules and all that mechanical bulls$&%. And yeah, if you’re obsessed with that crap and believe the system math means anything, then sure, it probably seems really hard to run a game for just one person. Harder even than typing, “call me Ishmael” at the start of your e-mail or something.

Then again, that’s probably not good enough for you. It’s just the opening to one of the greatest examples of classical literature ever penned. Surely that’s just not a quality opening for an e-mail about pretend elves to a random a$&hole on the Internet.

Look, you’ll have to be flexible with encounters. No way around that. The encounter balancing tools just won’t work. There’s no math, no adjustments, no secret tricks you can learn. The math just breaks when you don’t have at least three PCs in the party. And you can’t just hand the player a party of NPCs without defusing the RPG experience. I know lots of folks are big on the whole “with enough companion characters, you can run a game for any number of players,” but it really does change the focus of the game from “you are your character” to “you’re a disembodied party manager and these are your problem-solving tools.”

So, you’ve just got to make your best guesses and run things the best way you can. If you make a mistake and see a disaster coming, correct it behind the scenes. Fudge some dice, nerf a monster, whatever. Don’t rely on that s$&%. Don’t do it forever. It’s just a safety net until you figure out where the tipping points are.

You’ve got to feel it out. Wing it. Improvise. Do your best. In other words, be a f$&%ing GM. Run the game from one moment to the next and make the right choices. It’s kind of like deciding how to talk to someone who won’t tell you their f$%&ing name. Just go with your gut.

Hope that helps you, Stinky Pete.

Alchana asks…

How did you get your Angry’s Open World Game going? Did you have the players decide on an initial venture and start with that? Did you start with the party coming together? Did you do something else I’m too pea-brained to come up with?

I’m trying to blah blah blah I like to et cetera and so on oh God it never f$&%ing ends

First, you called yourself pea-brained. Not me. I want my readers clear on that. Pea-brained was your word choice. But I can’t say it wasn’t apt given your second paragraph. Do you realize that that whole second paragraph was basically just you saying that you wanted to know the answer because you didn’t know the answer and you intended to put the answer to good use? Well, no s$&%. That’s why anyone asks for advice. Because they want to know how to do something and they don’t know how to do it and they’re hoping someone will tell them so they can go f$&%ing do it.

Anyway, no, I did not let my players decide how the game should start. If my players were capable of running games, they’d be GMs. The most my players are allowed to do is tell me their preferences. And then I decide which preferences to incorporate into my game and which ones to flush down the toilet.

Truth be told, the open-world exploration thing was kind of their idea. Really, it was one specific player’s idea and he’s been begging me for something like it for years. I finally decided that maybe I could figure out how to pull it off, so I went along with it. This time.

I almost always start my campaigns with the PCs getting together for the first time. No amount of pre-game discussion or planning can establish organic relationships between the characters. That s$&%’s got to grow during gameplay. I mean, players can’t even figure out how their own characters are going to play before the game starts. They never get it right. Have you ever noticed that the players who spend the most time writing complex, detailed backstories always end up playing characters that feel and behave exactly the same way at the table as all their other characters? Check it out some time. It’s true.

Thing is, though, that my players expressed a preference for some pre-existing relationships. Friendships. Reasons to stick to together. I don’t normally truck with that s$&%, but for this kind of game, it was actually a good idea. Without a unifying goal or overarching plot, personal relationships could help keep the gang together while they establish their camaraderie in game.

Yeah, I know. A good idea from players? I was f$&%ing shocked.

Thus I pulled out good ole Fantasy Party Starter Trope #29-A. Childhood friends reunited after years apart. The PCs all grew up in the same village and then all left the village to pursue apprenticeships and training and education and all the crap that would give them their first levels in their chosen classes. And then, they’d all come home for a reunion — in this case, for a big festival celebrating a once-a-decade celestial event — and then they’d start their adventures together.

Thus, the players get their prior relationships and emotional ties and all that horses$&%, but they don’t know anything about their adult selves so they still have to build their relationships and establish their characters and s$&%.

But I didn’t want to start the game with the festival and the open-world exploring or any of that crap. The first session of any new campaign’s got to be about the players, their characters, and the party itself. It’s got to give them a chance to at least establish their basic roles and start working together. Feeling out the group dynamic. The first session’s one part meet-and-greet and one part trust-building-retreat.

So, I decided they’d reunite outside of town — say at a roadside inn a day or two away — and then finish the trip together. That would put the party dynamic in the spotlight for the first few sessions and then let the focus shift to the worldbuilding and the homecoming and the exploration.

Of course, it’s a mistake to ask even experienced players to jump right in with interaction s$&% to start the campaign. Starting a campaign is awkward. Playing a character you don’t know is awkward. Interacting with a bunch of other characters is awkward. So the first scene’s focus shouldn’t be on the party’s interactions, but instead on how the party works together as a unit. That’s why I like to start all my campaigns with some action. Combat’s an easy place for experienced players to jump in. They can rely on their character sheets and mechanics and s$&%.

Don’t try that trick with newbies though. The easiest place for newbies to jump in is to let them each interact — as their characters — with the GM and the GM alone. That way, they can learn the whole “you are your character” thing without the awkwardness of interacting with others. That’s why, by the way, the first encounter of my module involves an NPC asking each player, in turn, some light questions about their characters. Questions that they can answer by reading the notes on the character sheets.

Thus, I started with a bit of non-linear time to make it all work. Basically, the campaign started thusly:

Yesterday, you were all reunited at the Broken Wheel inn on the road to your hometown, Perrin’s Mill. Today, you’re following Simeon the merchant back to his cart. He’d been attacked by giant spiders the previous evening. He’d abandoned his goods while his trusted guard covered his escape. You’ve agreed to help him recover his goods. As you round the bend, you see the cart, but a bunch of jackals or wild dogs or whatever are rooting through it. They snarl, leaping at you, and begin their charge!

Once the party fought the dingo-dogs — or whatever, I don’t remember precisely — I said:

With the last of the wild didgeridoos dispatched, you investigate the cart. Everything’s as Simeon described yesterday when he interrupted your unexpected reunion…

Evendur the cleric had stopped for the night at the Broken Wheel, a roadside inn about a day from Perrin’s Mill. He wasn’t expecting the reunion that was about to take place as the flabby old innkeeper waddled forward. “Hello,” she said, “welcome to…” blah blah blah.

And thus, I seamlessly transitioned back in time to Fantasy Party Starter Trope #1. The best one. The party meets at an inn or tavern. I played out the interaction between Hulda the landlady and Evendur. And then, when it started to flag, I brought in another PC. When that interaction wound down, I brought in another and another until the party had been reunited. And then, once the reunion played out, the merchant burst in. Simeon told his story and Hulda the landlady said, “oh, yeah, those spiders. A local menace. They nest in the ruins above the road in the hills. I sent word to the lord in Perrin’s Mill, but he hasn’t done anything yet. He’d probably pay a bounty if you cleared the nest.”

I even introduced an NPC minstrel and the party decided she could go along with them. And then they went to sleep for the night, intending to check the cart in the morning. At which point, I transitioned back to the present moment at the scene of the attack and established the minstrel had been with them all along.

That minstrel who was tagging along whistles while she admires your handwork. “You handled those wildebeests admirably.” She then joins you in examining the wreckage while Simeon the merchant looks on.

And that is how my Angry’s Open World Game started. It’s mostly just crap tropes and cold-open tricks cribbed from movies and TV shows, so feel free to steal whatever you want. Besides, you already stole my time with that pea-brained second paragraph of yours, so it’s not like you’ve got any shame.