What makes for a good pick-up game?

thrash · 04-25-2021, 10:44 AM

I've been thinking more about rules-lite, low-prep, pick-up-and-play games, and what characteristics one should have to be useful. It seems to me these fall into two categories: system and setting.

The key feature of such a system is simplicity. Not only should it be easy to learn (few rules in total, relatively broad or low-resolution, and ideally no special cases or exceptions), but easy to implement.

This is particularly important for character creation. The number of decisions the players need to make (or understand, in the case of pre-generated characters) should be sharply limited. After all, there is no "Session Zero" -- rather it is "Session Only." On the other hand, the system needs to be robust, with enough options for reasonably serious play (unless comedy is the goal, of course).

One rule of thumb is the "magic number 7 +/- 2" for short-term memory. Since the players are (by definition) not familiar with either the system or their characters, it would be helpful to set the number of important chunks of information the players need to keep track of in play within this range. What constitutes a "chunk" varies from system to system, though.

The choice of setting is also important, and can help manage the range of information the players have to absorb. One useful technique is to invoke a familiar genre with an easy-to-understand framework for what the characters are expected to do: not "space opera," which is too broad, but "pirates IN SPACE." Rather than avoiding cliches and tropes a setting can leverage them to sketch out an implied background, one the players can grasp without tons of exposition.

Another useful setting feature is one where the characters operate beyond the easy reach of civilized society. There's never a cop when you need one, and no organized power to judge the character's behavior. The border here may be external (the Great Beyond) or internal (the darkest heart of the City, where the cops venture in groups if at all). The setting should be unfamiliar to the characters (as it is to the players), but not entirely unknown or uninhabited -- there need to be places to sell loot, find work, or pick up supplies, and people generally offer more varied and interesting options than forces of nature.

So, my questions for the group:

(1) What do you think of this analysis. Too much? Have I missed something critical?

(2) What are some examples, good or bad, of games to fit these parameters?

thrash · 04-25-2021, 11:09 AM

Sample analysis: Original Dungeons & Dragons

This game may be the gold standard for creating starting characters: roll six abilities; choose race (of 4), class (of 3), and alignment (of 3); roll initial hit points and (if a magic-user) pick one spell (of 8). The equipment list is limited to one page. (Obviously, later supplements and editions greatly complicated this picture.)

The implied setting is strong, as well, spawning an entire industry and numerous imitators. Where the game falls short is in simplicity of system: as written, it is a mess of special cases and exceptions, even more so if one uses Chainmail for combat rather than the alternative.

I don't think it is any coincidence that this is the game that so many of us started with, yet (as the OSR tacitly acknowledges) hardly anyone ever played with the full rules as written.

Fred Brackin · 04-25-2021, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrash

I'

So, my questions for the group:

(1) What do you think of this analysis. Too much? Have I missed something critical?

(2) What are some examples, good or bad, of games to fit these parameters?

There might be another criterium in terms of "flexibility of roles/play styles". An anti-example would be the way how in AD&D (1e or 2e) a party _has_ to have Cleric. This leads you to "But what if no one wants to play a Ceric?".

I won't swear you don't have to have a Cleric in D&D 5e but you can come a lot closer.

thrash · 04-25-2021, 05:45 PM

My first reaction is, "that should go without saying," but obviously not for some people. Fair point.

ak_aramis · 05-04-2021, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There might be another criterium in terms of "flexibility of roles/play styles". An anti-example would be the way how in AD&D (1e or 2e) a party _has_ to have Cleric. This leads you to "But what if no one wants to play a Ceric?".

I won't swear you don't have to have a Cleric in D&D 5e but you can come a lot closer.

Both bards and Druids can fill the healer role in 5E. A Cleric proper isn't essential. If someone has the healer feat, none of those classes are essential.

I haven't played enough 4E to know about it.

I've run no healer parties under 3.x. It's doable, but very different.
Under AD&D 1E and 2E, it also is doable to play without a healer, but again, is a rather different experience, especially since the non-magical healing (even under 2E's proficiency rules) is so slow.

Agemegos · 05-06-2021, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrash

The choice of setting is also important, and can help manage the range of information the players have to absorb. One useful technique is to invoke a familiar genre with an easy-to-understand framework for what the characters are expected to do: not "space opera," which is too broad, but "pirates IN SPACE."

Ken Hite's dictum "start with Earth" is especially cogent in this context.

If you are playing in private, and not publishing, setting an adventure in a well-known franchise can be the fast lane to an easy start.

Quote:

Rather than avoiding cliches and tropes a setting can leverage them to sketch out an implied background, one the players can grasp without tons of exposition.

Yep. Tropes and genre conventions are your friends, even (or perhaps especially) if you plan to subvert them in a third-act twist. You can mash a few things together, e.g. "cyberpunk meets Lovecraft", but I think it's best only two or three.

thrash · 05-06-2021, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agemegos

If you are playing in private, and not publishing, setting an adventure in a well-known franchise can be the fast lane to an easy start.

This can be a double-edged sword, though, if the players' expectations of the franchise turn out to be very different than yours.

Quote:

You can mash a few things together, e.g. "cyberpunk meets Lovecraft", but I think it's best only two or three.

If the potential players are familiar with your references, the Hollywood cliche "X meets Y" pitch may be an effective way to convey a lot of information (and inspiration) about what you're trying to do. It also sets a low bar for fidelity to canon. It should probably be followed up by the two or three line "elevator pitch" to clarify how you expect the mash-up to play out.

Most of the con games I've run (for example) have allowed about this much text to advertise the session.

thorr-kan · 05-07-2021, 08:09 AM

Tiny d6 might be an option. Character creation is fast, all actions require 1-2d6, and it's mostly trait driven.

There's a lot of different genres available if you want expansion.

Black Leviathan · 05-07-2021, 03:09 PM

The setting should be high-concept. Time you spend having to explain the intricacies of the world is time taken from the story. If you to say more than It's Blank, but with Blank, (IE It's Pirates of the Caribbean but with D&D Magic) then explaining the world and answering questions is already eating up your time.

On the subject of not wasting time, streamlining character generation with templates or premade characters just makes more sense. Not just because character generation can be time-consuming but because the looser the leash is on character options to more wobbly the story will run and the more time that will have to be spent accommodating unusual characters in game.

The best one-shot games have a packaged background concept like "You all work for the University's Rare Books Acquisitions team" Or "Your characters are enforcers for a Warlord who is fighting against the Temple of Acadia" Or "You all answered a newspaper add for 'Time Travelers Wanted, No experience necessary'". The Characters could still be farmers or scholars or soldiers but they all have a unified purpose and responsibility out of the gate, nobody has to be cajoled or explained into the story.

Convoluted plots don't work very well for a pick-up game. There isn't usually time to regroup, change the investigation strategy, round up suspects or break-in and steal the data. If you only get one session your plot needs as few moving parts as you can run a story on. Introduce the problem, introduce the clue or both clues (And I mean bigass non-convoluted clues like "Hey, he left a map to his secret lair and a note telling you when to drop by), very simple plot-turn (Often combined with the justification of why the players were the ones to solve this problem or mystery), Climax and resolution. If your players have to huddle for more than a few seconds to address where to go next, that's trouble. Always lay out a thick tapestry of places the characters could go to to get answers at a price.

I personally believe a one-shot requires a conflict. In longer games you can go sessions without a serious die roll but if you only have one chance with your characters you want to do something in that one game. It doesn't have to be fight, you could have a foot chase or have the players struggle to not be lost in an avalanche, it could be a drinking contest but I feel at some point in a pick up game everybody should be staring intently at the dice roll someone is making and genuinely worried about the consequences of bad luck.

thrash · 05-08-2021, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

Tiny d6 might be an option. Character creation is fast, all actions require 1-2d6, and it's mostly trait driven.

I've looked at Tiny d6 before, and some people around here (Phoenix) swear by it. I've never been able to get past the central mechanic, which is grainy and doesn't seem to actually produce the results the authors claim for it.* An extensive list of traits, each with their own distinct rule effects, is a problem as well: players have to sort through the list to determine which they want for their character (even the quickstart characters have 10-11 to choose from), and the GM has to keep track of 4-5 traits per player.

Maybe it's time I take another look at it, though. Thanks for the tip.

*Roll 1, 2, or 3 d6, depending on whether the test is disadvantaged, normal, or advantaged (respectively). If any die shows a 5 or 6, the test is a success. Additional 5's or 6's don't contribute to the result.

So there are only three levels for chance of success (33%, 56%. and 70%), and the top level (70%) doesn't seem particularly impressive. I don't really see how this is preferable to a "roll n d6 plus mods to beat a target" system.

04-25-2021, 10:44 AM	#1
thrash Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: traveller	What makes for a good pick-up game? I've been thinking more about rules-lite, low-prep, pick-up-and-play games, and what characteristics one should have to be useful. It seems to me these fall into two categories: system and setting. The key feature of such a system is simplicity. Not only should it be easy to learn (few rules in total, relatively broad or low-resolution, and ideally no special cases or exceptions), but easy to implement. This is particularly important for character creation. The number of decisions the players need to make (or understand, in the case of pre-generated characters) should be sharply limited. After all, there is no "Session Zero" -- rather it is "Session Only." On the other hand, the system needs to be robust, with enough options for reasonably serious play (unless comedy is the goal, of course). One rule of thumb is the "magic number 7 +/- 2" for short-term memory. Since the players are (by definition) not familiar with either the system or their characters, it would be helpful to set the number of important chunks of information the players need to keep track of in play within this range. What constitutes a "chunk" varies from system to system, though. The choice of setting is also important, and can help manage the range of information the players have to absorb. One useful technique is to invoke a familiar genre with an easy-to-understand framework for what the characters are expected to do: not "space opera," which is too broad, but "pirates IN SPACE." Rather than avoiding cliches and tropes a setting can leverage them to sketch out an implied background, one the players can grasp without tons of exposition. Another useful setting feature is one where the characters operate beyond the easy reach of civilized society. There's never a cop when you need one, and no organized power to judge the character's behavior. The border here may be external (the Great Beyond) or internal (the darkest heart of the City, where the cops venture in groups if at all). The setting should be unfamiliar to the characters (as it is to the players), but not entirely unknown or uninhabited -- there need to be places to sell loot, find work, or pick up supplies, and people generally offer more varied and interesting options than forces of nature. So, my questions for the group: (1) What do you think of this analysis. Too much? Have I missed something critical? (2) What are some examples, good or bad, of games to fit these parameters? Last edited by thrash; 04-25-2021 at 11:16 AM. Reason: "Chunk,' not "bit."

04-25-2021, 11:09 AM	#2
thrash Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: traveller	Re: What makes for a good pick-up game? Sample analysis: Original Dungeons & Dragons This game may be the gold standard for creating starting characters: roll six abilities; choose race (of 4), class (of 3), and alignment (of 3); roll initial hit points and (if a magic-user) pick one spell (of 8). The equipment list is limited to one page. (Obviously, later supplements and editions greatly complicated this picture.) The implied setting is strong, as well, spawning an entire industry and numerous imitators. Where the game falls short is in simplicity of system: as written, it is a mess of special cases and exceptions, even more so if one uses Chainmail for combat rather than the alternative. I don't think it is any coincidence that this is the game that so many of us started with, yet (as the OSR tacitly acknowledges) hardly anyone ever played with the full rules as written.

04-25-2021, 05:45 PM	#4
thrash Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: traveller	Re: What makes for a good pick-up game? My first reaction is, "that should go without saying," but obviously not for some people. Fair point.

05-07-2021, 08:09 AM	#8
thorr-kan Join Date: Sep 2008	Re: What makes for a good pick-up game? Tiny d6 might be an option. Character creation is fast, all actions require 1-2d6, and it's mostly trait driven. There's a lot of different genres available if you want expansion.

05-07-2021, 03:09 PM	#9
Black Leviathan Join Date: Sep 2018	Re: What makes for a good pick-up game? The setting should be high-concept. Time you spend having to explain the intricacies of the world is time taken from the story. If you to say more than It's Blank, but with Blank, (IE It's Pirates of the Caribbean but with D&D Magic) then explaining the world and answering questions is already eating up your time. On the subject of not wasting time, streamlining character generation with templates or premade characters just makes more sense. Not just because character generation can be time-consuming but because the looser the leash is on character options to more wobbly the story will run and the more time that will have to be spent accommodating unusual characters in game. The best one-shot games have a packaged background concept like "You all work for the University's Rare Books Acquisitions team" Or "Your characters are enforcers for a Warlord who is fighting against the Temple of Acadia" Or "You all answered a newspaper add for 'Time Travelers Wanted, No experience necessary'". The Characters could still be farmers or scholars or soldiers but they all have a unified purpose and responsibility out of the gate, nobody has to be cajoled or explained into the story. Convoluted plots don't work very well for a pick-up game. There isn't usually time to regroup, change the investigation strategy, round up suspects or break-in and steal the data. If you only get one session your plot needs as few moving parts as you can run a story on. Introduce the problem, introduce the clue or both clues (And I mean bigass non-convoluted clues like "Hey, he left a map to his secret lair and a note telling you when to drop by), very simple plot-turn (Often combined with the justification of why the players were the ones to solve this problem or mystery), Climax and resolution. If your players have to huddle for more than a few seconds to address where to go next, that's trouble. Always lay out a thick tapestry of places the characters could go to to get answers at a price. I personally believe a one-shot requires a conflict. In longer games you can go sessions without a serious die roll but if you only have one chance with your characters you want to do something in that one game. It doesn't have to be fight, you could have a foot chase or have the players struggle to not be lost in an avalanche, it could be a drinking contest but I feel at some point in a pick up game everybody should be staring intently at the dice roll someone is making and genuinely worried about the consequences of bad luck.