Cool stuff happened today. About 24 hours ago I tweeted I was doing a follower target thing for 300 followers. It wasn't a giveaway or anything silly, but someone 20 people still followed me. You asked for Random Character Creation for Best Left Buried, which I am going to do, but there are (understandably) a lot tables involved, and editing them takes time.
To appease you all until I can finish tables, here is some Doomsayer (Referee/GM) Advice for you to feast on in the mean time. While this is all about Best Left Buried, you could also use it for any other horror game, Call of Cthulu, WHFRP, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Whatever. It's split into three sections: Fun, Challenge and Omens. It mostly talks about entertaining your players when the game is horrible, and also working with information to make sure no one feels cheated. Some stuff is borrowed from other people, including Joseph Manola of Against The Wicked City, and Skerples of Tombs and Scrolls...
I apologise for spelling mistakes and my general misunderstanding of grammar. This material has not yet reached my team of capable editors. In fact, fun announcement! As of 4 hours ago, Best Left Buried: Deluxe Version is finished! All of the written material is now with editors, due to return to me in a few weeks so I can start on art directing and layout.
If you are reading this, thanks for following me and paying attention to things I create. If you fancy playing games, drop me a message on Twitter (@JellyMuppet) or Discord (same name, I'm on all the big servers) and I'd be happy to add you to our Best Left Buried Discord server. There you can grab sneak previews of new rules, as well as take part in playtests and generally chat about RPGs.
See you soon!
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| Get a look at this Ben Brown classic! Poor Lilith the White looks very small under the hand of the Doomsayer. |
Fun
in Best Left Buried
Best
Left Buried is a horror game. Before start your first session, sit
down and think about what players enjoy. It won't even hurt to ask
them.
Some
enjoy seeing and defeating crazy monsters. Some just like rolling
dice. Others like gaining awesome treasure. Some love overcoming
impossible challenges against all odds. Some like being scared. They
might enjoy the escape from droll reality, the sense of adventure.
Many get a kick from pretending to be people completely different to
themselves. Some just like hanging out with their friends with snacks
and drinks. A deceptively large percentage are spectators who like
watching other people have fun.
For
all the talk about killing, maiming and generally emotionally abusing
the player characters, nobody enjoys dying. Some people enjoy their
character nearly dying and the adrenaline rush of the near escape
from certain death, but they are a rare breed of sadistic maniac.
As
the Doomsayer, it is not your job to kill your players' characters.
You want them to have fun. Work out the kind of game your players
enjoy and do everything you can to deliver that exact game. Cater to
your audience. For all of the talk of preparing three characters,
just let the players play their favourite.
Describe
everything in as vivid detail as you can muster. Talk about the
sights, the smells, the sounds, the taste of the air, even the
textures of the environment. If you aren’t a skilled improviser of
such things, write out detailed notes for your Crypts, Monsters and
Characters.
Do
stupid voices for NPCs. If you players laugh at you, you might be a
little bit rubbish, but you’ll better and eventually they’ll join
in.
During
combat, keep everything moving at rapid pace. Get the adrenaline
pumping. Describe the action, encourage players to narrate their
actions. If they ever say ‘I hit them with my sword, it deals five
damage’ then that’s boring. As an incentive, offer players with
particularly exciting or dramatic description the Upper Hand on
attacks.
Finally,
avoid fights and traps that seem arbitrary and repetitive. If you
have ask the party 100 times how exactly they open a door to see a
trap if is triggered that’s probably not exciting. Avoid making
fights that are just “five insert generic bad guys here in a blank
room”. This is repetitive and bland. Present innovative and strange
environments that can reward quick thinking and keep the game fresh
and exciting
Challenge
in Best Left Buried
Roleplaying
games always need to be challenging. If the game is trivially easy,
it probably isn’t fun. At the same time, the challenges you present
aren’t designed to kill to the players, they are meant to give them
room to show off their skills and ingenuity.
When
setting up puzzles or encounters, try to challenge your players not
your characters, and definitely not their character sheets. Good
puzzles should be solvable with common sense, have no simple
solutions but lots of complicated solutions. If you do have to attack
the characters, do it in novel ways. The very best puzzles don't deal
damage; they impede, obstruct, confuse and misinform the party and
allow player skill to shine.
Remember,
characters don't have the wide array of spells and cool abilities
they might have in more modern games. Generally speaking they start
with one cool thing or trick, and 5 items they can use to their
advantage. If players run into trouble with a trap, puzzle or
obstacle, remind them to look on their character sheet and see if
they have any equipment that will help. The right tool can make am
impossible task possible, a hard task easy and an easy task trivial.
There aren't a lot of problems in a dungeon that can't be solved with
rope, pickaxes and time (and usually a lot of noise).
The
approach to fighting monster should be though as another type of
puzzle. The most simple way to solve a combat is usually the worst,
and have the highest tax in Grip and Vigour.
Monsters
should be dynamic and have defined weaknesses that are (at least
slightly) telegraphed and therefore exploitable by characters.
Your
NPCs can also be an obstacle. Make them dynamic and as real as
possible. Think about their motivations and desires. Think about what
they will do in response to a given situation. Reward players for
guessing their intentions and foiling their plans.
In
the dungeon, Only fanatical or insane enemies will fight to the death
or attack on sight. Wherever possible they will retreat when
disadvantages, and try to find more information or allies before
attacking. Even the strangest of monsters have other things to do
then mindlessly throw themselves at the enemy, and if wounded they
might retreat to lick their wounds.
Sentient
and sane bad guys might tactically retreat, surrender, attempt
negotiate terms or some kind deal, or even just avoid the players.
Clever players can turn combat encounters with the these kinds of
enemies into social encounters, allowing them to save points of Grip
and Vigour.
Combat
in Best Left Buried is not intended be balanced or fair. Bad guys
should be real antagonists who try with all their heart and soul to
destroy the party. Players should do everything they can to scrap out
every single advantage they can and turn the odds in their favour.
Quoting
(sadly, far from verbatim) Joseph Manola, “Getting into anything
resembling a fair fight is a terrible idea (...) The good guys don't
win because they're good; they win because they are able to attain a
greater capacity for acts of spectacular mass violence than their
enemies.”
In
short, all is fair in love and war.
Omens
and Fear in Best Left Buried
Being
scary in an RPG is hard. The best type of fear you can project is
visceral, genuine emotional fear. I think Stephen King, America’s
premier crafter of horror stories, said it best in the following
quote:
“I
recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize
the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to
horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the
gross-out. I'm not proud.”
Terror
is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that
precedes the horrifying experience. By contrast, horror is the
feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound,
or otherwise experience. The gross-out is something that is
disgusting, repellent, or shocking, usually involving blood, ichor or
something obnoxiously creepy.
If
you can scare them with the looming threat or something hiding just
around the corner, then that’s a higher cause than a jump scare,
which in turn is more elegant than something gross.
You
can also use the terror creating elements to provide and hide
information. What is more terrifying than the unknown? We call these
features “omens”, the evidence a monster or trap exists.
When
traps, monsters and other obstacles are dangerous, they should be
obvious. This is why we never instantly kill a player without
warnings or telegraphing it in some way. Creatures that are large,
lethal or terrible should leave omens of their passage: scraps of fur
or skin, huge footprints, mutilated corpses of other monsters or
fellow adventurers, screams in the distance, graffiti scrawled on the
dungeon walls, trails of blood or ichor. Stuff like this not only
acts as interesting set dressing, but also shows the monster the
monster is there and that the characters have passed into its
territory.
Perhaps
other Cryptdiggers in the company have seen the creature in scouting
missions, or heard about it from other NPCs. Maybe something near
that area of the dungeon wiped out a whole other wing of the company.
All
of these things are rock solid horror tropes you can use to set up
players with information. The omens can give them tools to outwit and
eventually defeat the monster.
And
if they can't feasibly kill the creature, they should be able to
avoid it. Until it starts hunting them, that’s when it gets really
scary.
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