Rewarding Failure

Rewards. In the game I'm going to run, the more "dramatic" Failures increases the cp gain of the PCs in the course of a story. This works since what every they gain or succeed in has its own temporal (in-game) rewards but failure or to the GM heightened challenge makes for more "drama" when the PCs finally overcome the climax.

In Organizational Game Flow, a reward is a point where there is a fork in the road. Typically in a game, because of the challenges this is in the form of success or failure. Of course there is a Qualification of FUN, Drama, and Consequence which has to be assessed in the end of the game.

If the PCs $ucked a$$ but in interesting way that drives the story forwards they should gain XP/CP. They gain extra "credit" if the result was tragic to give the PC power to reverse the tragedy or move the story flexibly toward another parallel path.

On the other hand, the PCs succeed and overcome the challenge there should be some form of consequence. Typically, if this act is towards a greater goal the GM awards the player some temporal advantage in context of the challenge.

Ex. A PC successfully seizes an opponent's power, taking possession of his enemy's base and resources would have these assets as the consequence and reward.

If the PC succeeds and diverges from the story or the general path, and carves out another story with the approval of the GM and the other players then the consequences should be enough of a reward. Why award the Player CP/XP for something his character has already been awarded?! Typically this practice was made because the PC's success is only temporary and the PC doesn't know how to capitalize on what they have just achieved.

In the Critical Thinking RPG should be engendering is being limited by the closed system kind of thinking the purely GAMIST process is moving towards. Time and Labor is limited and your better off playing an MMO than playing a closed system game which tries to become a closed system.

Deeper into Discussion...

I've had many discussions with my friends in the use of GAMES as a teaching and learning medium. One of the key points of the discussion is about how it affects and molds thinking.

I will not go into detail of the Merits of Games into developing a critical thinking process, I'm sure I don't need to explain this if the reader was a gamer because they have already discovered this already.

Focusing on the Title, I'm interested in talking about the way Games Mold thinking in the two different mediums: open and closed. What I mean by closed system, I'm speaking of games with clearly defined rules and mechanics that has everything operating within it. Many Games fall within this category, from the simplest board games to the most complex Computer Games. I don't know if there is such a term as "open" system games, but contrary to closed System games, Open System games are pretty free formed like many story telling games and RPGs.

The most dominant and popular between the two is closed system games (csg for short) by far. There are many reasons that make this so, reasons that I don't need to revisit or else make this a long thesis. What I mean to delve on is how the mind works with the rules and without rules.

CSG has structure and requires an approach in order to master it.
OSG on the other hand has very little structure but can be approached with any method, as long as the method is flexible enough to work with the circumstance.

As a OSG RPG player and GM, one of the most difficult processes to tackle is OSG when one's mind has an underdeveloped approach to the situation. Strangely Handling OSG and trying to put it in a simplified format is one of the fundamental problems that Philosophy is always trying to answer for every individual and their unique experiences.

One of the most revealing about GMs and Players are the weaknesses and their approaches towards games. There is something so telling about how people digest and processes such abstract concepts. The revelation can pose some serious reflection on how people work to simplify and process the world around them and how uncontrollable the world is to those who do not seek to understand it.

... I'll stop right here, my head is hurting already thinking about this and keeping things coherent.

So much stuff to write

Currently Working on Some Game materials. I'll finish them and post them here in the future. Hopefully I can accumilate a large data base of my own of free gurps aids and RPG, war game, card game materials.

1. GURPS Horses v3
   
2. "Curse of the Crusade" aka "Sins of the Crusade"
3. GURPS 11C equipment
4. GURPS encounter cards 11C
5. GURPS 11C outfit cards
6. GURPS 11C templates
7. CoC Templates
8. Dining Table Sized Hex Map
9. 1097 Map Covered and Backed with Plastic Cover
   
10. Studying Layout Software
11. My Own Open Sourced Game System: Creative Thinking Game System "CTGS" or "Cat Guts" for short
    

Equipment Lists

This is filler until the real Low Tech comes around. It is mostly based on the discussion on the forums. It has a simplification of the shield discussion, the bow accuracy discussion, the armors are basedon Dan's articles and the horse discussions.

They are in PDF form since I use open office.

GURPS 4e Low Tech Equipment 1st Crusades Era.pdf
for Armors Shields and Bows.

GURPS 4e Horses v2.pdf

• to download without much hassle: just scroll down the page and choose the basic service. Its under the flashy red sign.

Note on Horses: I didn't bother improving the ST to Wt. ratio as per suggested in the horse threads since it was a very tricky matter because I wouldn't know the ST ranges of different breeds.

If you have any changes to suggest please post it here to alert anyone who is interested in the Hand out.

Notes on the way the information is organized. Seeing such a list of equipment will typically delay game start time. Ideally this information is already organized into Outfits which can be customized or taken as is.

Organizing Outfits and Primary Horses into cards would speed up character creation. Players selecting from the cultural and combat role packages could easily narrow down their choices from their own needs.

11C Outfit Cards are still in the works

Topics I am currently working on

Thanks to the internet and being able to find incredible historical references, I plan to go into in-depth discussion concerning several topics that prove very useful in simulationist style play.

1. Overland Travel. this topic may be a bit broad, but it discusses the logistics, the limitations and the realities faced by marching or riding adventurers. It dispells MANY myths about travel and brings to light many unique challenges faced by Adventurers going from A to B. In your game. present a variety of challenges in both logistics, resources, environments, and hazards. Players make strategic decisions and balance energy and budget, while trying to accomplish even the most simplest of plot goals.
   
2. Horses. Another item of study that has been greatly misunderstood and shadowed by many misconceptions. Possibly one of the most important animal in human evolution which fantasy has severely overlooks. In your game, this is part of overland travel as well as in mounted combat. Players must skillfully balance the logistics and the trade offs of horses.
   
3. Medieval Economics in Your Game. Economic motivation can be a simple as basic needs or as complicated as political intrigue. In your game, in its smallest scale it compliment a character's background with realistic detail, or as the simplest game plots: a balancing act with resources, environment and political ties or at its most complex the backdrop of intrigue.
   
4. Bandons! This is basically a fairly small mass combat rule-set meant for very large parties or skirmishes with more than 50 individual units. In your game, this brings a macro level of detail allowing GMs and Players to run fairly fast resolving mass combats with the use of many small figures or figure proxies.
   

New armor format

This is basically my take on how armor should be formatted. In the end tables can't convey that much information and it shouldn't be a shopping list. Really, no one can shop for armors in those times, they are mostly made on demand and surplus comes in the form of battle field salvage.

One of the thing that has profoundly change my view on armor is the Strategikon. It states that armors should not extend to the feet like leggings, instead it talks about marching and how soldiers should sacrifice armor to conserve energy.

Thats when Hauberks began to make so much sense to me. Hauberks are armors that extend to half skirts, associated with Vikings. Vikings were footmen and this was the heaviest armor they fought with. Dopplesolders and other 15th century elite footmen did not wear leg armor. There was so much evidence from the varieties of armor that basically said: Footman wore the least armor and depended more on their shield. Footmen's armor were at most Hauberks and at the least (in terms of metal armors) Vests of metal armor (scale, mail, or plates) worn to protect the belly and the rib cage. Everything else was secondary, NOT because the soldiers could not afford it but the weight of everything bore down to much when you consider that marching was the most frequent exhausting thing soldiers did.

It was then I began to be aware of the difference of Frontal Protection, Leg Protection and Ranged Weapons. Infantry Hauberks were slit on the sides for flexibility, Cavalry Hauberks were slit in the front to allow the wearer to ride. The slit in the front made the cavalry man more vulnerable to targeted attacks when fighting on foot. Also, the Cavalry Armored Skirts (to include the variety of very long hauberks) had tassels to tie it the ankles and knees of the cavalry man. This was an Avar (Turkish) practice the byzantines followed and no doubt many other nomads used. It isn't hard to imagine that Cavalry skirts would have some tassels to make it modular for riding and fighting on foot.

I want to run a game.

That urge has come again to run a game. Of course I can't act on it. The games I could run, just for catharsis would be Medieval- I guess Byzantium 150cp. characters would be the Empire's elite professional warriors. Some are being groomed to be generals, others have their own machinations. A byzantine game at 6C would be great given that the opposition would have worst equipment and the more difficult enemies are those of your own side.

Although right now I feel like using my new acquired 3ds max skills in rendering Landscapes, weapons, armor, Fortresses, scenes, etc... to heighten player inspiration.

Hiatus

Right now I'm very busy and I don't think I will be free to update until august.