Technoir continues to be a big hit at my game table. It’s proven to be a success not only with my hardcore players, but also with the casual brigade. The question now is whether it can be bootstrapped into either an open table of some sort or settle down into a dedicated group. (We’ve had a few thoughts on both.)

Technoir is also helping me clarify a lot of my thinking about the roles and functions of GMing.

I’ve talked in the past about the concept of “smart prep”, by which I’ve generally meant focusing your prep on stuff with high utility while avoiding prep which is either unnecessary or likely to be wasted during play. (For example, the entirety of “Don’t Prep Plots” is about focusing on smart prep.)

On that note, here are a few general principles of “smart prep”.

(1) Try to avoid prep which cuts off options during play.

Note, however, that prep inherently does this: If you decide that the walls of Castle Shard are purple during prep, then you’ve cut-off the option of making them black during play. So what you want to focus on is leaving open the meaningful options.

Another way to look at this is that you want to retain as much flexibility in what you prep as possible. This not only allows you to avoid redundant prep, it also means that you’re generally reducing your overall prep while actually increasing the utility of your prep at the same time.

For example, imagine that you’re prepping a goon squad for Baron Destraad. If you spend a lot of time figuring out exactly how to position them in Room 16B and the tactics they’ll use in Room 16B, then you’re limiting the utility of that goon squad to Room 16B. (You could, of course, simply ignore that prep. But, of course, that means you’ve wasted that prep work.)

(2) Don’t prep anything which could be just as easily generated during play.

Technically, of course, everything can be improvised during play. So what you want to focus on is the stuff that adds value by virtue of being prepped: For example, prepping stat blocks ahead of time instead of trying to generate them during play will generally speed things up at the table. Detailed floorplans or handouts can provide valuable and evocative visual aids for the players which generally can’t be created on-the-fly.

In general, look for the stuff that’s time-consuming; that requires special tools; that will benefit from considered thought; or which you know you just aren’t particularly good at winging.

(3) Try to avoid prepping any specific plots. And definitely avoid prepping any outcomes.

By which I mean stuff like “after A happens, then B will happen… unless the PCs do X, in which case C will happen instead.”

This applies at both the micro- and macro-levels. And, in many ways, it’s just a specific iteration of the first two guidelines: When you prep specific sequences of events, you’re self-evidently cutting off options (the other ways in which that sequence could play out) and prepping stuff that could be just as easily generated during play. (In fact, it would probably be easier to generate it during play since you won’t waste time with contingency planning: What happens will be what happens.)

Of course, all of these principles should be thought of as guidelines. In actual practice, there will be exceptions (often very useful exceptions). But I suggest thinking long and hard about your prep methods to see if there are ways in which you could be achieving the same results (or better results) with less prep. (Or using the same amount of prep to achieve more.) In my experience, most GMs spend a lot of time on wasted prep.

SMART PREP IN TECHNOIR

I want to take a second now to talk about how smart prep applies to Technoir, because the plot mapping scenario structure of the game ends up drawing a very clear and very specific line between smart prep and wasted prep that I think is useful in understanding the difference between the two.

As I’ve discussed before, scenario prep in Technoir takes the form of a transmission. Each transmission consists of six connections, six events, six factions, six locations, six objects, and six threats arranged onto a 6×6 master grid which allows you to randomly generate and connect these nodes to each other. The connections you generate between the nodes will spontaneously create the conspiracy-oriented scenario the PCs are engaging.

There are three transmissions included in the rulebook and you can also download the free Twin Cities Metroplex transmission. In these transmissions, each node receives a single sentence of description. For example:

Archangels of Saint Paul

A militant religious organization looking to cure the city of its sins.

Objects receive a set of tags (allowing them to act like other equipment). Connections get a full stat block (including the favors they can do for PCs). And threats get a set of 3-6 stat blocks (to be used as antagonists). But other than that, the single sentence is all you get.

Clearly there is no wasted prep here. And, speaking from experience, this minimalist approach works.

But, if we wanted to do more prep within this structure, is there value to be added? I think so. Notably, however, it would also be trivial to reduce the value of your prep even within the minimal profile presented by the sample transmissions.

Let’s start with the latter. Imagine a transmission in which we define one of the locations as:

Club Neo

A plain block of concrete glitzed in overlapping layers of multi-sensory AR.

In the same transmission we include a connection:

Madame Ling

A lady of refined manners and the drug mistress of the Lowtown party scene.

Looks good. On the other hand, imagine that we describe Madame Ling like this:

Madame Ling

The owner of Club Neo and the drug mistress of the Lowtown party scene.

Same minimalist approach, but – in the specific context of Technoir – this latter example is flawed. Why? Because it locks down the relationship between Madame Ling and Club Neo. This not only functionally “forces” Madame Ling onto the plot map if Club Neo is generated (which I’ve found can disrupt the flow and robustness of the map), it also drastically reduces the flexibility of these elements in play. (For example, without that constriction, Madame Ling could consider Club Neo a rival; she could be trying to take it over; she could be romantically entangled with the owner; and so forth. All of these options disappear if we’ve established that she’s the club’s owner.)

Continued Tomorrow: Value-Added Prep

I talked a bit about Technoir‘s resolution mechanics over here and I’ll probably have more to say about them once I’ve had a chance to experience the game as a player. In the meantime, however, I’ve run the game three times for three different groups in the last two weeks. That’s a lot of gaming, and it’s being driven by my excitement in engaging with the other half of Technoir‘s system: Plot mapping.

(It is also, coincidentally, reminding me why I love open tables. I now have three groups each featuring a dangling story that I need to schedule follow-up sessions for. I’m loving the game. I am not enjoying the schedule wrangling.)

Scenario prep in Technoir takes the form of transmissions (three of which are included in the rulebook, with additional transmissions being made available on the game’s website). Each transmission consists of six connections, six events, six factions, six locations, six objects, and six threats.

Connections are major NPCs. During character creation, each player will select three of these connections as personal contacts (friends, comrades, love interests, professional associates, etc.). Events, locations, and objects are pretty much exactly what they sound like. Factions are powerful groups with ideologies to push and goals to pursue. Threats are NPCs or groups of NPCs who can be used by factions or connections to come after the PCs.

Each transmission comes with a 6×6 master grid, allowing you to randomly generate one of these nodes by rolling 2d6. And you start your plot map by generating three of these nodes and connecting them to each other.

For example, taking the Kilimanjaro Ring transmission from the rulebook, I randomly generate:

(1) Tanzanian Reclamation (Faction): One of the more well-known anti-Beanstalk, anti-European terrorist groups.

(2) Temptation (Connection): A dancer and escort at Shadows Under Camelot.

(3) Union Protest (Event): An inflamed uprising of summit workers armed with construction equipment.

And draw them on the center of a blank sheet like this:

Looking at this for a minute or so, I figure out what the connection between these three elements are: Temptation is sleeping with the vice chairman of the newly-formed Union of Summit Workers who are laboring on the orbital beanstalk sprouting from Mt. Kilimanjaro.  He’s married and the Tanzanian Reclamation is using the relationship to blackmail him. He gives them access to the site of the union protest and Tanzanian Reclamation uses that access to bomb the protest. Their goal is to further destabilize the relationship between the government and the laborers working on the beanstalk.

This leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions, but that’s more than okay. I will, however, jot down a couple quick notes:

Is Temptation working with Tanzanian Reclamation willingly or unwillingly?

Next step is to gain access to the actual build site and bomb that.

This is referred to as the mission seed and it gives you the core of your first scenario.

Over the course of play there are a number of simple mechanisms which will add additional nodes to your plot map. As you do so, the new nodes will “tell” you more and more about what’s going on. (For example, let’s say that I later generate the Construction Zone Identcard. Given the seed I’ve put together, it doesn’t take much effort to connect that card to the Tanzanian Reclamation and conclude that it’s the card they’ll use to access the construction zone for their next bombing. The more interesting question is where, exactly, that card came from. And the plot map will probably get around to telling me that, too.)

…AND THE THREE CLUE RULE

Once play begins, the core method of adding new nodes to the plot map is pretty simple: “A protagonist can lean on her connections for information. She may be attempting to find some opportunity she can take advantage of or get further details of a plot she’s started to learn about. When this happens, have her player roll a die and consult that connection’s table. Add the resulting node to your plot map and draw a line from it to another node already on your map. Once you have done this, take on the persona of the connection as he clues the protagonist in to the existence of this new node and how it relates to the node you linked it to.”

This mechanic, obviously, models the noir genre trope of a detective hitting up his contacts until something in the case shakes loose.

And, ultimately, all of this works in play because of the Three Clue Rule.

What made it striking for me, I think, is the numerical similarity: Three clues. Three nodes in the mission seed. Three connections per PC.

I’m not saying that Jeremy Keller was actually familiar with the Three Clue Rule or deliberately trying to emulate it when he designed Technoir. But the Three Clue Rule arose from actual play experience, and it works because of the same fundamental principles of redundancy which are being applied here.

Take a moment to really look at how the plot map functions: Think of each node in the initial mission seed as a conclusion that the PCs need to reach. (For example, in our sample mission seed, they need to figure out that Temptation is involved.) Unlike traditional scenario design, however, the GM doesn’t need to worry about seeding his first scene with three clues for the PCs to pursue. Instead, each of the PCs comes prepackaged with three clues (there’s the rule) that they can follow up on in the form of their connections.

Even if you only have one PC, the clues manage themselves: They hit up one of their connections (exhausting a clue), but the connection points them in the direction of a node which is now connected to the mission seed.  That connection is functionally identical to a clue itself, which means that you’ve restocked the PC’s clue supply. And as soon as they hit a node connected to two or more nodes (like those in the mission seed), they’ll have a surplus of clues.

In actual practice, you’ll have multiple PCs and a huge “clue buffer” of connections to fall back on as the plot map grows in complexity and additional mysteries are added to compound the original enigma. So even if the GM doesn’t liberally strew around additional clues (although why wouldn’t they?), engage in permissive clue-finding (which the game encourages), or include proactive clues (which is exactly what threats are designed for), the game will still default into a success state.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I’ve been using node-based scenario design for years now (with “node” in this context having a slightly different meaning). In practice, node-based scenario design is a flexible framework for leveraging the basic principles of the Three Clue Rule into a simple-to-prep structure which nevertheless results in complex, non-linear play.

On a personal level, what I find deeply intriguing about Technoir‘s plot mapping is that it is a radically different structure for achieving the same thing. And because it’s a different structure, of course, it has unique strengths and weaknesses — allowing you to accomplish things that node-based scenario design doesn’t (and vice versa).

(For example, as I mentioned, the Technoir system is very effective at allowing players to proactively hit up their contacts like noir detectives. Accomplishing that using node-based scenario design would either require a lot of redundant prep for each contact or a narrow constriction of player choice.)

And unlike the adjective-based resolution mechanics, it should be noted that it is absolutely trivial to take the plot mapping mechanics in Technoir and apply them to another system. Even if you have no interest in the game’s setting or its innovative resolution mechanics, I’d still recommend picking up a copy of the rulebook just to get access to the full system for plot mapping (which I’m only describing in general terms here).

The interesting question now is simple: What other structures can we use to leverage the redundant principles of the Three Clue Rule? Of particular interest would be those structures which maintain simple, straight-forward prep which can still result in complex emergent play.

Technoir uses a simple core mechanic in which verbs are used to push adjectives onto characters. (For example, you might use your character’s Hack verb to push the adjective “exploited” onto a gunrunner’s security system.) That may look a little gimmicky, but it actually seems like a really slick little system.

What I find particularly notable about this is that it mechanically articulates and reinforces a procedure that I use almost constantly when I’m refereeing in virtually any system: When a player proposes an action with an uncertain outcome, the action is mechanically resolved using the rules of the game. Then I consider how that outcome has shifted the status quo and carry that knowledge forward as additional actions are proposed and resolved. I’m intrigued to see how a system that feeds directly into this process will perform in play: Will it piggyback it? Reinforce it? Interfere with it? Enhance it?

I’ll probably have more to say about Technoir once I’ve had a chance to actually play it, but my read-thru of the rulebook actually got me thinking about something completely different that I want to touch on today: Skill challenges in 4th Edition.

Technoir structures its core mechanic into Sequences using a very simple system of turn-taking. The trick to resolving sequences is pretty simple: Because adjectives are meaningful, the GM can use his common sense to know when a sequence ends (because the adjectives that have been applied will either result in the players being successful or unsuccessful in achieving their goal). This works because you can’t just slap adjectives on willy-nilly; you need to establish the proper vector by which the adjective can be applied. (In other words, you need to explain what actions you’re taking to achieve the objective.)

The result is that adjectives both arise naturally from the game world and also strictly describe the game world. As a result, sequences build organically and logically to unforeseen conclusions.

The system is, as far as I can tell, incredibly flexible and can be applied to almost any conflict (or what Technoir refers to as a “contention”): Hacking, seduction, combat, interrogation, tracking, chases, etc.

In other words, Technoir‘s sequences have the same mechanical goal as 4th Edition’s skill challenges (resolving discrete chunks of action in a structured format). But skill challenges are the polar opposite of Technoir‘s sequences:

First, whereas Technoir trusts the creativity and common sense of the players at the table to determine when a goal has been achieved (or thwarted), 4th Edition’s skill challenges hard-code a success-or-failure condition which is completely dissociated from the game world. Or, as Technoir puts it:

After any turn is taken and an action is performed, everyone at the table should look at what’s happening in the fiction. As I said before, there’s no score. You have to decide for yourselves when this ends. Each player should respect the adjectives that have been applied and removed and decide what her protagonist wants now — no matter what hse came into the scene wanting. You should do the same for your antagonists. You might find that one side got what they cam for and is done. Or that the two sides are now willing to compromise. Or that there are no good vectors for attacks any more. Look for new ways out of the situation. Maybe it’s time to stop rolling dice and cut to a new scene.

But if there is still something to contend over, go on to the next turn and play out the next action.

Technoir cares intimately and enthusiastically about what your characters have done, why they’ve done it, and what they’ve accomplished by doing it. 4th Edition’s skill challenges, on the other hand, don’t give a crap about any of that: If you haven’t rolled four successes yet, then your characters haven’t succeeded (no matter what they’ve achieved with those checks). And if you have rolled four successes, then your characters have totally succeeded (even if their actions haven’t actually achieved that yet).

Second, Technoir‘s system inherently gives freedom of choice to the players. They set their goals, determine their actions, and even demand their outcomes. (Of course, those demands may not always be satisfied.) Despite several years of constant errata and house rules attempting to soften 4th Edition skill challenge’s away from the rigid railroad presented in the original Dungeon Master’s Guide, the system is still inherently antithetical to player choice. For example, here’s a key quote from the presentation of skill challenges in D&D Essentials Rules Compendium:

Each skill challenge has skills associated with it that adventurers can use during the challenge. (…) Whatever skills the DM chooses for a skill challenge, he or she designates them as primary or secondary. A typical skill challenge has a number of associated skills equal to the number of adventurers plus two.

Incredibly, skills that players want to use that the DM hasn’t pre-approved can never be considered primary skills and are automatically considered inferior (they can count for no more than one success and may not count for successes at all). By default, 4th Edition tells you that ideas originating from the players are not to be treated with the same respect as ideas originating from the DM. It’s hard-coded right into the rules.

The two approaches really are night and day: Technoir trusts the creativity of the players. 4th Edition shackles the creativity of the players.