Three types of conflict: Misunderstandings, Incompatible Beliefs and Resentment

One of the first things I unlearned as a GM was the idea of thinking in terms of 'combat encounters', 'social encounters', 'puzzle encounters' etc.. In my experience, prepping my games in this way tended to lead to disappointment and frustration, as the epic battle I had planned was 'broken' by some player shenanigans. 

I am not suggesting there is no place for thinking in these terms, but if your goal is to have players freely interact with a world I found it isn't a very useful way of categorizing your encounters. Personally, I encourage players to use the very underhanded tactics that some people compain 'break' their encounters, because to me coming up with those tactics is where a big part of the fun of the game lies. 

However, I have found it useful to still 'categorize' my conflicts (I prefer this term over encounter). Not as a way to tell players how they ought to deal with particular kinds of obstacles, but as a way for the GM to create variety in their prep and consistently adjudicate the reactions of their NPCs.

In a flash of inspiration during a boring bus commute a few months ago I came up with the following distinction: Conflicts causes by misunderstanding, those caused by incompatible beliefs and those caused by resentment. When prepparing some adventures as playtesting material for FLoK, I found myself coming back to them as a way to help me think about the conflicts in these adventures. I found the draft for this on my blogger page with most of it already mostly written up, so I thought I might as well finish and publish it.

'Write Adventures to fit their Worlds': Setting specific adventure writing

While working on the next #dicember post (which is definitely coming I think), I felt like doing something else and went to make material to playtest the FLoK instead. 

The thought was a common one 'I can just use stuff I have already made, it won't be a lot of work and it might help me flesh out the #dicemeber content I am making. It'll take no time at all.' Learning not to think like that will probably never happen, and even if it did might not actually change my behaviour all that much. Still, I should know better because, of course, it didn't take 'no time at all'. However, this time there was an interesting reason for it.

German Swordfighting Initiative: Vor, Nach, Gleich, Indes

Recently, I started reading up on some of the principles behind German longsword fighting. In doing so, I stumbled across this article explaining the concepts governing initiative as defined by Joachim Meyer. In the words of Keith Farrell (author of the aforementioned post) these concepts should be defined as follows:

"Vor is an Action that demands an Answer."

"Nach is the Answer to the Action."

"Gleich is either when both fencers perform an Action that demands an Answer, without reference to what the other fencer is doing, or when both fencers are simply Reacting to each other without anyone actually Acting."

"Indes is that really cool moment where a Response to the Action will itself demand an Answer."

These concepts have helped me a lot in my swordfighting, but I think they could be really useful for RPG combat as well. 

#Dicember days 1-8: d6 tables

Dicember hath decended upon us. To bring some light into this darkest of months let us pretend we did something RPG related every single day and totally didn't just do these en mass. 

Barber surgeon (Class/background)

 

Though none in the Guild would dispute the importance of a clean shave and a fresh haircut, our true value lies in the duties we perform alongside these more aesthetic arts.