Sweating the Small Stuff, Part One

By Teramis

Part 1. Skills Training: "It's not just a job, it's an adventure."

"You return from the adventure, sell your loot, level up, and get new skill points. Roll hit points, and get the skills you want. Everyone done with that? Ok. It's the next week and you're sitting in the tavern. An old man comes up to you and says..."

Wait. What's wrong with this picture?

Many gamers find nothing wrong with it at all. This is arguably how most adventures play out: the transition between one episode and another is a flurry of factual housekeeping, dealt with as quickly as possible so the adventure can continue with the next encounter and set-up.

Yet in doing so, people deprive themselves of what can be one of the greatest pieces of fun in a campaign, one that builds a great connection between player and game world. What is it? It is simply this: "sweating the small stuff".

This means handling the details of life - or selected portions of PC life - in a way that adds depth to the character, grit to the game world, and, most importantly, can heighten dramatic tension in the game.

Traditionally, high fantasy games are most likely to gloss over the details of daily life in favor of keeping the focus on the heroic and the broad sweep of action. Low fantasy games are more likely to delve into that level of detail - but neither style generally pays special attention to the things I want to point out in this article.

This article is the first of three that will look at how to sweat the small stuff in ways that make a game more enjoyable and the PC's life more meaningful to the player. In this series, we'll explore skills training, housing and household concerns, and food and entertainment. We're not talking here about drowning PC or GM in tedious bookkeeping that accounts for background activities (though you can certainly keep tally of costs if that's how you like to account for money in your campaign). What we are talking about is finding a way to focus game attention and role-play action on selected scenes and encounters that both ground the character in the game world, and move the larger campaign forward. Small stuff does this by creating ground for plot-related interactions, meaningful NPC connections, and dramatic encounters related to the meta-adventure. Even high fantasy campaigns can benefit from these sorts of interludes, and low fantasy might find it blends very neatly into an already relatively gritty milieu.

So, let's see what this approach can look like when it comes time to gain skills.

More than Just Skill Points

Most rpg systems use some version of spending points to acquire skill proficiency. When we sweat the small stuff in this regard, we do more than simply allocate points. The acquisition of skills becomes a role-playing encounter in and of itself.

Doing so makes several things possible. First, and perhaps most importantly, the characters gain connection to a specific NPC - the trainer or instructor who is spending time to improve their skills or teach them a new one. This relationship is rich ground to plant plot information and adventure hooks, or build alliances. Introducing a training master is an excellent way to bring an NPC onstage who knows more than the PC and with whom they have daily intense contact. This character can give them free advice and information, or can be used as a dramatic foil as needed.

This is also a great way to emphasize and give more stage time to ongoing themes and subplots from existing adventures. Imagine the following:

Mungo the Fighter has a villain after him from two adventures ago who has sworn his death. Mungo is taking advanced weapons and unarmed training with Vigo, the master-at-arms of a local nobleman. During his training, the PC fighter stays in the barracks at the keep, away from the protective company of his adventuring companions.

One afternoon, returning from a wrestling session in the practice courtyard, he discovers his belongings have been riffled through. Is this the doing of other trainees, or is it more ominous than that? His sword still hangs off his bedpost; neither it nor anything else of value seems to have been stolen. But the next day, his trusty blade shatters during weapons practice, and he barely misses being skewered by his sparing partner. Was it chance or the work of a lurking assassin who'd tampered with his blade? Mungo starts to look over his shoulder as he goes about his business...

This approach can make storylines like "an assassin is after you" much more up-close and personal, not least of all because these meta-events are hitting the PC during a time (i.e., the training period) that they ordinarily think of as routine, sheltered and mundane.

Second, characters who role-play their training become more invested in that training and their skills. They often grow attached to the process, as well as the NPCs who teach them. Roleplaying skill and feat acquisition allows players to get into the skin of their characters more closely. Characters often become more reactive to things which hinder or halt their training process, or endanger the NPCs they train with, and this can be leveraged to good end by the calculating GM. The roleplaying of training especially boosts game drama when a challenge looms that the characters must face, and for which they must prepare by acquiring an appropriate (or better) skill set in order to surmount that challenge. In that case, what they learn and how (or even if) they master it, becomes very important to the entire adventure. Their training experiences take on a whole new level of import and consequence for the future.

Third, it should be noted that when training is gamed out, time suddenly becomes much more relevant than in the "ok, you spent your skill points" approach to skills. The D&D rules systems assumes that about a week is spent training for any new skill; other rules systems have other time assumptions or do not address the issue at all. Whatever system is used, the GM should apply a common sense approach to figuring out how long a character commits to train and learn something new or improved. Some skills assume that all during the previous character level, the PC was working upon improving a given ability. (This accounts most neatly for improvement in weapons skills and feats.) But for abilities that require some kind of sit-down-and-work-your-brain education, it may be very reasonable to assume a period of weeks (or longer) is required to master the new material. When time is accounted for, this may affect other gaming events, such as when the group can come together again to set off on the next quest, and background plot events may roll onwards regardless of the fact that a given PC is off getting trained. This may require the GM to adjust the timing of meta-events in the campaign, but the trade-offs for character involvement at the micro-level might well be worth it.

Fourth, getting trained involves two discrete role-playing challenges. One is the training process itself. The other deals with locating an appropriate trainer in the first place. In some settings this can be especially challenging, while in others it is a given that an NPC with the needed skill set is nearby.

For more rare or unusual skills - or those directly related to an imminent adventure challenge - it is not unreasonable to turn these "skill quests" into a mini-adventure in their own right. Let's say spellcaster Kiev wants to acquire Craft Wondrous Item. But what if there are only two other mages in the area, and neither of them have this ability? The quick and dirty non-role-playing approach is to simply spend skill points and assume that somehow, in the course of his meanderings that week, Kiev stumbles across someone to teach him what he needs to know.

In the small stuff approach, however, Kiev needs to actually locate a trainer. What might have been five minutes of skill point allocation can become an entire gaming session's side adventure, if the GM desires. Or, there is an in-between step: make up some dice tables that reflect the chance of Kiev finding a teacher locally, and related rolls for his chance of finding one for each day farther afield that he wanders. The GM can story-tell Kiev's way through this process, letting the player roll for each critical juncture.

In either case, the training process covers a logical progression of issues. Taking the above example, we would ask: are there mages in this town? Does one have the Craft Wondrous Item ability? What's her response to Kiev (reaction roll)? How much will she charge? Will she do this for money, or does she "need a little favor" done in exchange for the training? How long will it take Kiev to learn this skill from the master? Is this training hazardous? If yes, does it include risk of injury or death? Does such a thing occur? What relationship does Kiev develop with the master along the way? Did any bonding happen or was it merely a business-like instructional engagement? Is the master someone Kiev can return to in the future for help, information, or additional training?

Whether handled briefly or in depth with role-playing, working through such issues in a training encounter adds weight and reason to what the player character is doing. This foundation builds consequences and future game hooks into the interaction as well. Sweating the small stuff can pay off big time when training encounters are treated in detail.

Part 2 of this series continues with the nitty-gritty of homes, households, and why roaming adventurers should bother to sprout some roots.

- Science fiction/fantasy novelist Deborah Teramis Christian has wrestled with training issues a lot lately at Storybones design studio (www.storybones.net), where she has just authored and released the Crash Course Training Manual, a d20 rules supplement that permits creation of specialized abilities and the gaming of the training process. Comments welcome to Teramis at Crone@Storybones.net.