Creating Encounters on a Budget

the saga budget

John Robey aka the Gneech authored some good supplemental rules for a sword and sorcery SAGA game. One of my favorites is the encounter budget adaptation. It helps in gauging the difficulty of encounters. Many games tend to forget that adverse conditions are called such for a reason. Translated to game-speak that means adverse conditions = higher difficulty and higher awards.

In old school AD&D, a GM was encouraged to pile on the adverse conditions to make encounters more interesting. The flip side to this was players could potentially reap incredible amounts of experience points with a good strategem or incredible luck. That was unlikely in 3.x given the experience cap rule. with such a rule it became important to balance the other end of the equation. Giving experience for adverse conditions became important to the game.

Watcher's Guild Stats

Rules for this Organization


Entry Requirements
sense motive
non-evil
pass magical and psionic screening


Benefits
Economic: watchers have a stipend which covers daily food and shelter

Gear: watchers are provided a badge of office and a cloak, for long journeys the organization will provide transport

Services: Watchers will likely be scanned for any form of mind control, enchantment or possession especially after a mission. They are on good terms with local clergy and have easier access to healing

Information: A Watcher's trade is information.

Access: Members are allowed into the Organization's strongholds. When specifically assigned to missions they are considered emissaries of the king. This requires a writ approved by the head of the organization, as authorized by the king.

Status: They receive a +2 reaction bonus to law abiding citizens.

Next:
Playing a Member
Combat
Advancement
Mission

Gaming Music 2: group culture

Full audio gaming

I decided to revisit the topic after seeing a comment on http://www.roleplayingtips.com. To recap the previous gaming music post, our BESM game typically had continuous music. I attributed this largely to the group's openness to technology. That's an incomplete answer. I realized that the greater enabler was the openness to new ideas, the sense of group responsibility and the willingness to delegate.

For starters, there was a tradition of participative GMing. Much of the setting and the flavor was determined in consensus - it's inherent in setting up a BESM game. It was similar with the music. For each story arc we chose our soundtrack. We had an opening song and an ending song. There was a menu for combat and mood pieces. Whatever we failed to cover in advance was left to the discretion of our Audio Tech volunteer.

The Audio Tech/ Music GM/ Sound guy had unusual duties. Part of the skill set was that he'd have to think like a GM - sometimes to the point of second guessing. When the group confronted an enemy, the sound tech would start looking for the combat music. Or he'd switch from background to comedy when people started goofing. It didn't earn any particular reward save that feeling of participating in a well run game. I sometimes think of this duty as Music GM.