Wednesday, March 7, 2012

For GMs - The Art of Fudging It

My group has started another Warhammer 40K campaign, where our fall-back GM is running it, so I get to actually play, which is a nice change.  We just had the first session a week ago, and it was very successful in all ways that count.  The plot was moved forward, everyone had fun, and bad guys were shot in and about the face.  However, in the day following it, Jim, the GM for this story, felt that the combat wasn't tough enough.  We were blowing through everything he sent at us, and granted, the dice for the most part were on our side, but when we were hit, we were never in any real danger due to our armor, or the guns they were using, or a combination of the two.

This leads me into what I want to talk about today, the Art of Fudging It.  Jim was taking combat servitors and a smattering of lesser and greater demons from the books and throwing them at us.  Now we are playing at the Ascension level in Dark Heresy with a few Rouge Trader characters in the mix.  And we are all around 22,000 exp characters, so nothing to sneeze at.  We also have the gear that could be expected at that level of play, and are pretty sure of ourselves.  We are well past the frailness of playing a lowly Acolyte in service to an Inquisitor we have yet to meet, so we are said Inquisitor and his small but proficient band of ass-kickers and tech-savants. 

What this all means is those same combat servitors, even with their arm mounted auto-stubbers, will not stand a chance when you use them as written.  So this is where you take the NPCs in spirit instead of as written.

Define the Threat Level

The first step is to decide how tough whatever it is should be.  If it is a pile of faceless enemies, they are a low threat.  Their purpose is to die at the hands of the PCs and maybe just soak up enough of the PCs resources to make the Big Bad fight that much more difficult.  It isn't a matter on if these threats will die, but how the PCs go about it that will determine what kind of success they will have in the near future.  If the players decide to use their stash of C4 explosive on the hordes of enemies, so be it, but now they are out that when they are faced with a tank.  Granted they got past the horde fight quicker, but good luck taking out the tank's armor with your pistol, sword, and can-do attitude.

At this level, barring any miraculous rolls from the NPCs the damage to the characters is minimal.  Know what the players defences are (this can be armor points, hit points, stamina scores, or whatever the 'soak pool' of your system of choice is), and make sure that the guns are doing just a touch over what the characters are capable of soaking.  You may have a player or two with an effective soak magnitudes better than the rest, and I am sure he/she paid good character points to get that way, so let him feel a bit indestructible against lower level minions.  They may get a lucky shot in, or they may figure out they need to bring the bigger guns out against him.  This way you can have that one faceless NPC enemy that has the bazooka or giant laser or three story tall sword, and not just destroy the PCs with smaller soak pools or smaller hit points.  Everyone will feel challenged, and so the combat should be a bore no one then.

Use Weapons That Are Equal Opportunity

By that I mean use weapons that should affect all of the players the same.  If they are have around the same amount of hit points, but the PC's armor values are vastly different (like as can be the case in WH40K where one player has full power armor and one is still rocking a body glove), use a high penetration, moderate damage weapon.  If it hits it will do around the same damage to everyone, since the penetration is useless against those with little or no armor. 

This can also be something that doesn't do standard damage, but things like poisons delivered via a gas.  Your players will either be able to do something about it or not, but the lethality will be more or less the same for everyone. 

There are also usually 'caster' types, and when magic, or high level tech in some settings, comes into play, then all the rules are more then flexible.  Now you have access to things that can bypass the defences of your most armored up PC, and if it affects them differently based on other stats.  So the character with the high Willpower, or Intelligence, or any other stat that is not usually the 'soak pool' stat can be the tough one or the tank in that particular fight.  Doing this kind of change up can keep the players on their toes by changing up the party dynamics every now and then.  It is interesting to see how the player that is decked out in full plate that is used to standing in the front of the group reacts when he realizes the current enemy's attacks affect the mind, and he is no longer the best one to take the brunt of the attacks.  Does he stay within his perceived role and still try to take one for the team, or can he adapt and let the mage-type be front and center in the battle of wills while he finds another niche he can fill in the conflict.

Just Lie

This one you can't overuse, but it is important to keep in mind.  Table top gaming is for the fun of the story as it plays out, and because of this, if something threatens to limit that fun or the awe of the story, then it should be ignored.  This is even more so when it is an errant die roll that threatens the story.  A lucky shot that was meant to be just for flavor as the handful of enemies scatters away from the PCs shouldn't be the killing blow to one of the heroes, unless that makes for an interesting story hook in and of itself, but don't let your game be thrown off the rails because of something like this.  If the players are all looking forward to a big final confrontation with the Big Bad in the next room in the scenario above, and the one PC who was betrayed by the Bid Bad shouldn't be killed by a no-named NPC in the room before, maybe seriously maimed so his defeat or victory over his betrayer is that much more climatic.  So instead of using the max damage you rolled, use half of it, or let the player make a stamina or toughness test to make it through to see this out, and depending if they make or don't make that they are at the 'One Hit Point Left' or you will die after this, but you will see this through. 

Likewise, when the final confrontation happens, and the Big Bad uses his world ending power, and you roll all 1s for damage, let a few of those be 5s just so the players don't think they have this in the bag.  This fight should be tough, and, depending on your play style and your group, some people shouldn't be walking away from this battle on their own accord, so make sure you give you players the fight that they are expecting.

As I said before, don't use this as an excuse to make it so you, the GM, wins (that shouldn't be your outlook on this at all, anyway, and if it is, please stop GMing), but it is a trick for behind the GM screen to make sure that your game is entertaining for you and your players.  So try to only use it for good.

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