Latest revision as of 18:55, 15 December 2014

Basic Event Running

A player guide to running your own events, by Mikage.

Prologue

The Basic Event Running Guide is designed to be a practical guide to getting started running roleplaying events. The style presented is based on the primary author's personal experiences, spanning nearly a decade at the time writing started. This guide is geared primarily towards OtherSpace, but will attempt to offer general advice where possible.

What is an Event?

At its most basic level, a roleplaying event on a game such as OS is a situation where a scene is expanded beyond the location and the Player Characters (PCs) in it. With this definition, most players have at least a little experience with running an event, and it is this fundamental skill that comes into play when running larger events.

More generally, events are situations where one player takes charge and serves as a referee for a scene, providing NPCs (Non Player Characters) and description of the environment as needed. They may also supervise any needed dice rolls.

Through a combination of these tasks, players may experience things as simple as a NPC in a tavern all the way to epic adventures.

Why run Events?

Events involve work being done on behalf of fellow players. Some events take very little work to prepare and run, while others can be time intensive undertakings. So what motivates people to run events?

• It is a way to explore roleplaying beyond a player's own characters.
• Events can liven up scenes and engage PCs in unusual ways.
• Events can be used to create adventures and stories
• Events, while they can be work intensive at times, can be quite a bit of fun.

Concepts

The first thing needed to run an event is an idea. What are your players going to do? Simple events may take only a sentence to describe. More complex concepts may take a bit more. This is the focus of the event. There are two major kinds of events. Goal events and character events. We'll talk about goal events first.

Goal Events

• The PCs will explore an old cave trying to find remains of an earlier party that was in the area.
• The PCs will try and transport passengers from Point A to Point B and deal with an engine failure on the way.

An easy format to use for simple events can be summed up as: Goals and Complications. Goals are what the PCs are trying to get done, complications are things that make achieving that goal more difficult. Most short events can get by on one or two complications. Longer events may require more.

Stacking complications onto a goal can be used to add more detail, drama, or general interest in the event.

• The PCs will try and transport passengers from Point A to Point B and deal with a reactor failure on the way. They will also have to deal with unruly stressed passengers and potentially the dangers of a prolonged reactor outage, such as darkness and life support issues.

Notice how many of the complications can work together. They're still 'multiple complications' even if they all have the same source. Part of the benefit of this is that it provides several PCs things to do, not just the engineer trying to get the reactor up and running.

Character Events

Character events are simpler, since they usually result in using a character (one of an event runner's PCs or an NPC) to interact with PCs in some manner.

• A character running a bar or restaurant promotes a 'theme night' to give PCs an easy reason to hang out at that location.
• A NPC goes around to PCs in a landing bay trying to solicit donations for a charitable cause.

These don't really have 'goals' other than 'get PCs to interact with a character'. Some people who tie multiple events together may use them to link events together, but for starting out that isn't a major concern. Like above, complications can be added to add flavor.

• A NPC goes around to PCs in a landing bay trying to solicit donations for a charitable cause. Shortly after meeting the NPC, the PCs will learn local police are looking for NPC for question.

Notice even with complications, however, there isn't really a goal for the PCs. It's more about how they react to the scenario you've given them.

Creating Details

Once a concept is thought of, most new event runners find some benefit in doing some prep work on what kind of details the event could benefit from. Some experienced event runners simply think of details during the event itself, while others do more preparation work. Some kinds of prep work tend to have a better cost:benefit payout than others.

Some examples of common prep work with a decent benefit:

• Descriptions of areas you know players will see. For example, a description of all the passengers on a shuttle being taken from Point A to Point B.
• Short notes on a couple NPCs very likely to show up. Things like race, gender, age, and notable personality details. One of the passengers is a middle aged male Aukami that is scared of the dark.

Running the Event

The actual operation of an event can be generalized into four separate parts.

Preliminary

Briefing:
In some cases, before an event, an event runner may need to set up information that is essential to players beforehand. Most often, this consists of a post in the +news system about a day in advance. For example if your event centers around a fugitive, you may write a news article about what the fugitive is allegedly wanted for and who wants the fugitive.

Another method for smaller groups are 'mission briefings.' These are similar to +news, but are specialized for a specific group that is the target of your event.

The benefit of doing this, if it is needed, is it saves time during the setup phase of the event itself. A mission briefing, for instance, can save an hour of time in the early part of the event where little more is happening than an infodump. This helps more time be spent on the focus of the event itself.

Getting There:
The very first part of running an event is getting PCs to the place the event is being held. If there is time, the event should be announced on +calendar and on the +bboards. This will let people know days in advance that an event is coming up and if they're interested they can make time to be present.

On the day of the event, it is often common to make announcements on channels (usually the Public channel) that the event will be taking place soon.

Common times to do this are:

• 1 Hour before the event
• 30 minutes before the event
• 15 minutes before the event
• 5 minutes before the event
• A last call right before you begin the event

These calls will remind people of the event, or inform people who do not read +calendar or the +bboards that one is taking place. This is also a good time to tell people where they need to be for the event to take place, such as the Svajone's landing bay, for instance.

Introduction

This is where people in the scene pose in. The event isn't really underway yet, but people are posing. In some cases of public areas, people are already in a scene before an event runner arrives, in others, the event runner will be sceneposing first to present the beginning state of the event.

Setup

Once things are underway, this is where the focus point of the event is introduced. This can happen first thing, if you're running a character focused plot, where an event runner introduces the NPC that is going to be interacting with the PCs for most of the event. This can also happen later, when you introduce the first complication, such as a reactor failure on a passenger shuttle flight.

Resolution

Once the scenario is presented, the event runner's primary job changes to refereeing attempts to act on the scenario. If the focus is a NPC, this means playing as the NPC for a scene. If it is an event or goal, such as resolving a reactor failure, it means handling rolls to fix the reactor. Depending on the event, both may happen, you may play NPC passengers in the dark passenger shuttle while handling rolls for the engineer to try and fix the reactor.

New challenges or additional complications often mean a repeat of the Setup and Resolution steps, or new setups are added in the middle of a resolution phase, if new things continue to happen to change the scenario.

Refereeing

One function of an event runner is to serve as a referee for the scene. At its core, this means that the event runner is in charge of determining cause and effect relationships, especially in the resolution phase. In many scenes, this is just as simple as determining NPC reactions and posing them accordingly. In some, however, they may involve skill tests.

+roll has more information on how to use the actual commands to use the commands to perform a skill test.

Types of Skill Tests

When it comes to skill tests, there are two fundamental types. The first are unopposed skill tests, the second are opposed.

Unopposed Skill Tests

An unopposed skill test is when a PC rolls a skill against a set target number they have to beat to achieve a success. For example, an engineer trying to fix a reactor may roll Engineering + Repair.

To roll dice, the player types, +roll <main skill> + <subskill> + <modifiers> vs <threshold number>

This will show a success or failure.

The three major threshold of success important in events are:

• 1: A simple task most PCs with any training will have no problem achieving in normal circumstances. Powering up a functional reactor, for instance. Often these do not need to be rolled at all.
• 3: Moderate Tasks. These are things where it is important to check for PC failure sometimes, but nothing major. Usually rolled when time is a concern.
• 5: Notable tasks. These are the tasks that most PCs with training will not have a problem with in normal circumstances. An example of such a task may be managing power allocation to major sections of a ship through a reactor. These usually only need to be rolled in stressful situations.
• 7: Challenging tasks. These are the tasks that most PCs with training may have some problems with. Such as repairing a malfunctioning reactor. These are often rolled, as for most PCs they come with a small chance of failure.

In addition, there are modifiers. These are descriptors that make a task easier or more difficult. Examples of potential modifiers are:

• -3: Extreme circumstances or highly unfavorable circumstances. Trying to fix a malfunctioning reactor with poor tools, a severe shortage of time, or while a ship is under heavy combat fire may be reasons for a -3 modifier.
• -1: Mildly inconvenient. These are circumstances where things aren't quite normal for the PC, but not too terrible either. A good example may be trying to fix a reactor with only the lighting available from secondary lighting, such as a flashlight.
• 0: The standard modifier. If the good balances out the bad, or the circumstances are more or less typical, this is the goto modifier. Also the primary choice when no other modifier seems to fit.
• +1: Favorable circumstances. For when things are better than usual, the engineer has plenty of extra time to fix a reactor, for instance.

Usually modifiers don't go too much higher for unopposed rolls, since if the modifier is high enough, the result is not in question and the PC can be assumed to succeed.

Opposed Rolls

Opposed rolls are when a PC needs to roll against another PC or a NPC. Modifiers are less common on these, but instead of a standard target number to hit, the two parties roll, with the party with the higher roll coming out on top.

Rolls for NPCs are identical to unopposed rolls, just replace the target number with the NPC's skill level.

The command for opposed rolls against PCs is: +roll <main skill> + <subskill> + <modifiers> vs <other player>'s <other player's main skill> + <other player's subskill> + <modifiers>

If it is a success, the player who initiated the roll comes out on top. If it is a failure, the other player is successful.

Non Player Characters (NPCs)

NPCs encompass everything that isn't a PC and can communicate with the PCs in a scene. People in a crowded landing bay are NPCs. So are those marines with guns. Even non-living things like AIs can be NPCs.

NPC Types

The specific types of NPCs are as limitless as the number of sentients that exist. NPCs can be generalized, however, into several categories.

Friendly NPCs

Friendly NPCs are just what they sound like. They're NPCs that usually have some kind of interest in providing assistance to the PCs, even if it's only a little.

• Bystanders - Perhaps the most basic type of NPC. They exist in the background of most places, have no special skills or abilities that contribute to a scene, and the most they'll ever do is say a line or two of dialogue to PCs. For example, if the PCs are chasing a thief through a market and the PCs ask someone, "Where'd he go?" the bystander is the one that points and goes, "That way." They don't need any development, names, or anything more than the most rudimentary description.
• Experts - When the PCs need to know something that's outside of their knowledgebase, or just plain too obscure for them, these are the people they turn to. Their narrative purpose is to provide exposition and information to get PCs on to the next part of the story. If based with a group, these characters can get names, short biographies, quirks, and interests of their own.
• Mission Control - From the captain of a single ship to the most advanced of military compounds, these are the people who stay behind to provide information and support from afar. They perform a similar function to experts, but often have a degree of authority over the PCs, such as being a superior military officer or the person who's signing their paychecks.
• Heroes of another story - These don't come up near as often in small scale events, but if there's a large operation going on and you need to make it feel big, such as a large scale battle, these are NPCs that are on the PCs' side, but are off accomplishing other objectives and have concerns of their own. Their primary purpose in a narrative sense is to make events feel bigger, as well as help make sure the event focus stays where it is intended, instead of the PCs sweating all the small details these guys are taking care of.
• Prop Characters - Prop characters are just what they sound like, characters that serve to provide atmosphere rather than any specific event related purpose. These are also the most common type of NPC many non-event running players use, as they can be a PC's family members, a pet, or a recurring character in a RP location. They usually end up moderately well developed over time, and may serve in a plot-related capacity in the hands of event runners, but rarely have skills that serve a major narrative impact.

Antagonist NPCs

Antagonist NPCs are those who seek to hinder a character or perhaps besting the antagonist is the goal in and of itself.

• Primary Antagonist - If you have antagonist NPCs at all (and it's not a requirement), this is the one that you'll certainly have. Most of them have some kind of detail to them, a name, race, basic description. Most will have some kind of background and motivation for their actions, too.
• Minions - If the primary antagonist has subordinates, these are the ones most likely to be seen. Most often thought of as the basic gun toting thugs, gang members, or whatever, but not always violent. If the antagonist is primarily social based, they may be the antagonist's supporters or informants. They rarely get names and might have descriptions. Most of the time these are brought out in combat events to serve as the initial opposition.
• Lieutenants - These are the subordinates to the primary antagonist that stand out more than the average minion. Most have names and basic descriptions and often report directly to the primary antagonist. Examples here include personal bodyguards or secretaries.

Other NPCs

These are NPCs that don't quite fit in other categories, or the category they belong to varies depending upon the scene.

• Police - Police are those in an area charged with keeping order. Their use depends on their locale, the demands on the scene, and the PCs themselves. In some scenes they're used to wrap up a scene, in others they're questioning the PCs about a crime they may have witnessed, and sometimes they're actually the antagonists to the PCs (in which case the Antagonist NPCs list applies).
• Event runner PCs - Many event runners do not involve their PCs in an event at all. There are several good reasons for this that will be mentioned later. Should the PC have a part in an event, however, they are effectively NPCs for that scene, and should generally fit into one of the Friendly NPC types.

NPC Abilities

NPCs rarely need fully detailed sheets. What they need in many cases is a short list of their areas of expertise or training.

NPCs do not need to roll to determine their success in many cases. The event runner can decide if they succeed or fail at a task according to the needs of the scene. The exception to this is if they are competing against PCs.

NPC Skill Levels

The general level of competence displayed by a NPC is a generalized version of their basic capabilities combined with any equipment they may have. This is done to keep scenes moving as fast as possible.

• Minions generally have a skill level of 4 or 5 in their primary skills.
• Lieutenents have skill levels of 5 or 6.
• Primary antagonists can have higher skill levels, but should generally not go above 7 in most areas, perhaps a 10 in their primary specialty is appropriate.

NPCs in Combat

A common use of NPCs is as opposition to PCs in combat encounters. Whether they be pirates trying to board a ship, gang members, or deadly robots, the fundamental mechanics of handling these encounters are the same.

The NPC skill levels section can be used to handle the relevent skill levels of NPCs, with a couple small modifications.

• The first is to decide upon an ODF for the opposition. ODF meaning 'how powerful are the attacks the NPCs are using?' For those who need numbers, this usually means an ODF from 4-6.
• The second change is in handling large groups. The more dice a scene runner rolls, the more the scene gets bogged down. One way to handle this is to group NPCs together. A common method is to increase the NPCs attack skill by +1 per additional NPC after the first. This means if there are 5 NPCs with a skill level of 5, they would combine to have an attack skill of 9 at first (5 for the initial skill, plus 4 for each person after the first). Note that they still use a rank of 5 to defend. Attacks for this method should not go above 10, if they do, they need to be split into multiple groups. Each time a NPC from this group is hit, their attack skill will go down by 1, until they are all defeated. This makes combat easier to handle, as well as provides a way to supply a wider range of challenges to talented PCs.

Most NPCs will go down from one successful hit. This makes bookkeeping easier for the event runner, as they do not need to track wound boxes. Primary antagonists may have a full set of wound boxes and equipment, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

If a NPC attack hits PCs, the damage formula is as follows: ODF of attack - DDF of defender's defense (their armor) + Difference in rolls. Until more detailed combat rules are devised (at which time there will simply be a link to a combat mechanics page), a good rule of thumb is divide the above number by 2, round up, and use that option on this list: Scratch, Hurt, Very Hurt, Incapacitated, Near Death.

If the attack hits, attacks should always deal at least a scratch to the PC. These are minor wounds, usually, but can add up to substantial damage later.

Special Abilities and NPCs

Most of the time, when I say 'special abilities' in this guide I mean 'Psionic abilities', at least as far as OtherSpace is concerned. Fantasy games may have magic of various types, or the game may be one of high adventure like Dungeons and Dragons where even mundane characters have extraordinary capabilities. Sometimes it is desirable to have a NPC with these types of abilities. Some good questions to keep in mind when assigning special abilities to NPCs:

• Does the NPC having a given ability add anything to a scene? That is to say, is the ability likely to have an impact of the PCs interaction with the scene?
• Are the abilities possible for that NPC (in other words, could a PC buy a given ability on a character of the same race/status)?

If the answer to any of these questions is 'no', then the NPC should not be given the ability.

If special abilities are to play a large role in an event, an event runner should be familiar with how those abilities work. This not only saves time during an event itself, but can prevent problems with other players.

NPCs and Faction Alignment

Most of the time, NPCs stand on their own. Sometimes, NPCs represent generic organizations, such as many types of pirate or underworld figure. Then there are NPCs that either explicitly or implicitly represent an established faction or group.

This can be a subtle distinction in many cases. A random NPC on Comorro or Svajone doesn't represent any entity explicitly, but NPCs that are member of the local security forces would. Police, military, and government NPCs almost always represent an established faction.

The reason this distinction must be made, and the reason it is important is that it can be in poor taste to use official faction NPCs without talking to someone in charge of the group. This is due to the fact that it can impose consequences onto a player without their knowledge, consent, or even recourse. For example, if a NPC police officer on Svajone is shown chasing a purse snatcher while causing large amounts of property damage, that doesn't reflect exclusively on that NPC. It also reflects on Mikage (the PC in charge of the station), the Svajone organization itself, and anyone that happens to call the place home. Furthermore, since it was a NPC that did the damage, there is no way to map IC consequences to the player who posed as the NPC officer.

This means that it's perfectly fine to have your antagonist be a Falari. It would only become troublesome if it is established that NPC represents the Falari government.

There is a simple two pronged solution to this potential problem. The first is, if possible, ask the person in charge of a faction if it is acceptable to use their NPCs in a given fashion. The PC in charge may agree to allow you to do so, or may even give pointers on how they would act in a given situation. The second is, in case an event runner needs to generate official NPCs without prior knowledge, to play the NPCs as reasonably competent and let the player in charge of those NPCs know what happened. This way the PC in charge knows what happened, can take steps to help with the situation afterwards, and it mitigates any negative consequences for a PC that lack any method of recourse.

In the case of some groups, there is no PC in charge, in which case it is wise to ask permission/inform staff via +str.

Using NPCs

So far the discussion has been on what NPCs are, what kinds of NPCs there are, and what purpose they serve. Now it is important to know how to properly use them in scenes.

The simplest answer is: NPCs exist to move events along and allow them to progress.

In a character event, the NPC effectively is the event, and thus does not need a great deal of special discussion. In such a situation, the main goal of an event runner with an NPC is interaction, and thus should have a way to attract sufficient attention from fellow PCs. As noted in the Pepper's Great Hunt commentary, I use a combination of a cat (Pepper) and a human handler (Gary) to attract as much attention as possible to the pair to get everyone together. This also serves as a good example of a setup phase of an event.

This shows the purpose of friendly NPCs quite well in goal based events as well. They serve to keep the PCs 'doing stuff.' One of the worst things that can happen with an event is for the PCs to be doing 'nothing at all.'

Antagonist NPCs, such as minions, narratively serve as roadblocks, but from an event running perspective do the same thing as friendly NPCs. They keep the PCs doing stuff, even if it's 'confronting the antagonists.'

Targeting PCs

An easy way to get a given PC's attention is to specifically 'call out' to them, or do something that makes it easy for them to act. To cite Pepper's Great Hunt again, a good example is Majors standing by his ship, the Devil May Care. He was called out to via Pepper's rapid approach in his direction.

This can be done in other ways, by either saying 'hey you!' to a PC via a NPC, or more aggressively such as posing some thugs heading towards a given PC. All of these approaches do the same thing: Give an easy opening for a PC to react to what's going on, hopefully drawing them into an event.

At this time it is required to discuss a possible ethical issue. Some who would use NPCs seek to use them to cause harm to other PCs in a way that they can avoid consequences for their own character. To do this is wrong. At the same time, however, some characters take actions that make a situation where it simply makes sense for the NPCs to go after a specific character, and this is perfectly fine. How does one operate ethically in these situations?

The answer is slightly complicated, but important to explain in detail because it is an important ethical consideration in running an event.

• The ethical consideration in this case is simply for targeting a specific PC. If a player ran an event where the goal was 'to get Mikage to show up so my NPCs can shoot at him', that would be wrong. However, if the concept is 'to send some thugs to rough up the PCs that show up', that alone is not an ethical violation on this point.
• Work on the motivations of antagonist NPCs, and make a priority list of targets. For example, if an antagonist NPC is an anti-psionist zealot, members of psionic races that happen to show up would be fair targets.
• If a PC makes themself a target via overtly aggressive action (such as drawing a weapon and glaring at the NPCs) or smack talk to the NPCs, they're fair game too. In this case a PC has taken an action within the context of the scene to draw attention, and reacting to that in character is fine.
• If other methods fail to find a PC to aggressively target, roll a die. Assign a number to each PC present at the scene and type 'think rand(1,number of PCs there)' and go after that PC. In this way an event runner can try and remain as fair as possible, given the circumstances.

Encouraging Progress

In many goal based events, there is an objective, and a reasonably obvious path to get there. If the goal is to deliver a package from Point A to Point B via a ship, most of the work is already done on 'how to get there.' The PCs will need a ship, and need to fly it to the destination.

Sometimes there is no initial path to work with. In some of these situations a PC will come forward with a viable idea. Other times the PCs may be stumped, or may be lacking a critical piece of information they need to continue. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but the ultimate outcome is the same: Progress of the event has stopped, nothing is happening, and the PCs have no idea what needs to be done to accomplish their objective.

It can be okay to let PCs struggle a little and spend some time on trying to puzzle the problem out. Sometimes they will try to use their knowledge or investigation skills to gain more information. If it goes on for too long, players can become bored or uninterested. NPCs such as Experts or Mission Control types can often provide some information that will help give PCs something they can do to keep moving.

Usually it is best to let PCs figure things out with their own skills and abilities, but sometimes they lack a character with the required knowledge (such as a doctor to answer a highly detailed medical question), these are usually ideal situations to use a NPC to supply the needed knowledge to keep the event moving and focused on the PCs.