The Roleplay Workshop

February '04
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Hello All!
(If you would like to be removed from this email list - please let me know!)

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Program Announcements
There are NO sessions for the following days in February and March:
Saturday, February 14th (all staff out of town for a convention)
Monday, February 16th (all staff out of town for a convention)
Tuesday, March 2nd (Home school group)

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Upcoming Holiday Sessions
Wednesday, February 18th, 9 am - 5 pm, FULL
Thursday, February 19th, 9 am - 5 pm, 2 spaces available
Friday, February 20th, 9 am - 5 pm, 4 spaces available.

Possible Holiday Sessions
** Reserve your space now! **
Friday, March 5th (Berkeley)
Friday, March 19th (St. Paul’s)
Monday, March 22nd (St. Paul’s)
Monday, March 29th (Oakland)

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Liberty’s Column
Dear Parents,
Things are getting pretty exciting at the Roleplay Workshop. Enrollment is up, and Abantey is starting to gear up for another great summer of programs. Becky is almost ready to unleash a calendar online that will allow you to get a real-time look at the scheduling. Look for a link on the scheduling page of the website.

This month we have a great question that will give you an entree into the real workings of this fabulous game. Becky responds with an answer that may take some effort to understand, but is clear and helpful. Hang in there (your kids do this everyday!).

All the best,
Liberty

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Parent Questions/Discussion
If you would like your question answered next month, just send us an email.

“How do the Game Masters decide the fate of the characters?”

First, the fate of the characters is rarely ever left solely to chance (or the roll of the dice, in our case). What happens to the characters is based on the players’ decisions, and, as much as possible, the real life consequences of those decisions. Additionally, if the outcome of a situation depends upon their character’s abilities, we do use dice to determine their success or failure. In all cases where the players or Game Masters are rolling dice we strive to make the outcomes as realistic as possible. However, we also include chances for things to go wrong.

Perhaps this is best illustrated using an example. Let’s suppose that the characters need to find out if a person is registered at an expensive Hotel. There are many ways they could attempt to get this information and many possible outcomes. Following are some of the things that could be done, possible realistic outcomes and examples of when a character would use a dice roll.

1) They could ask an employee of the hotel.
    a) in most real life cases, a hotel will not reveal information about their guests to casual inquiry, particularly if you look suspicious. So, the players would not get the information with casual inquiry.

    b) If you’re another guest or meeting them there, the hotel might give you the information, particularly if you, say, left a message for the person. If the players say things that fit the situation they would get the information. This is also a place where we might use dice rolls if the player wasn’t comfortable speaking.

    c) If the person was rich and/or famous, the hotel would definitely not reveal the information, and might call security to escort out disruptive people who are asking too many questions.

    d) Depending upon the quality of the hotel, you might be able to ‘buy’ an answer to your question. The outcome here would depend upon who the person was that the characters are looking for and what class hotel it is AND how much money they used for their bribe.

    e) If they were able to make up an acceptable reason for needing the information (you are a police officer, you have a package to deliver, you’re their personal assistant and they aren’t checked in at the correct hotel), the hotel would give it to them. Here is a great place for the players to roll dice. If they have the skills to disguise themselves and act like someone else, they would roll dice based on their probability of success. If their character(s) were very skilled they would in all probability succeed. If they were not very skilled, they would in all probability fail. Good role play in this case could tip things in their favor.

2) They could ask some of the guests of the Hotel. You’d have to be extremely lucky to randomly find a person who knew about the person you were looking for. This would be a case where the Game Master would roll dice to see what happens.

3) They could sneak a peek at the register. Here, the outcome is based entirely upon how the players plan to accomplish this combined with their dice rolls. If they have a solid plan to keep the front desk clerk occupied and have made sure that no one else can see them do it, the probability is high that they will succeed. If they have little or no plan and aren’t paying attention, they have little chance of succeeding.

Suppose the players choose to pretend they are police officers - they’ll get into a ton of trouble if they get caught! To figure out if they succeed, we start by assigning a ‘difficulty’ to the task. Difficulties range from easy (5) to very difficult (60). If the hotel is high quality, the difficulty will be high, if the hotel staff is poorly trained the difficulty will be low.

Let’s say the difficulty is medium (30).

The players have 2 people who are skilled at acting and disguising themselves and they have a person who is an off duty city guard. The skilled characters have skill numbers for acting and disguising of 25. Actually having a trained guard present, gives them a +5, bringing their total to 30.

Here is where the dice roll comes in. Chances are, they will succeed, however, their degree of success or failure varies AND they could just mess up. We roll a 10 sided die. We get a +1 one for each number above above 5, and a -1 for each number below 6. A roll of ‘10’ is a critical success and a roll of ‘1’ is a possible critical failure.

Suppose the players roll a ‘7’, that is 2 above 5, so they get a +2, bringing their total to 32 - so they succeed. Suppose that their roll is a ‘4’, that is 2 below 6, so they have a -2 or a 28. A 28 does not succeed - but is not horrible, so we’d have the desk clerk ask questions or be hesitant to answer their questions. At this point, the players can roll again and/or try to role play their way through the situation.

When role playing, what comes out of the player’s mouth is what their character is saying to the clerk. If the players hesitate and mumble, the clerk is not going to believe them. If the players speak confidently and what they say makes sense, the clerk is going to believe them and give them the information.

The chances of failure add excitement to the game, as well as occasionally throwing a wrench into the works. When that happens, the players must find a way to deal with the new situation. In the above example, suppose there was a critical failure on the dice roll. The easy thing for the game master to do would be to just have the desk clerk tell them nothing and ask them to leave. The challenging thing the game master could do is have a town guard choose that moment to walk in the door! This puts the characters in the position to deal with their choice of impersonating a town guard.

So, as you can see, the fate of the characters is decided by many things, not just the Game Master’s choices or the roll of a die.

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Session Summaries

Mondays
We have one group on Mondays. We have space for 8 more students.

Greg
Questions continue to arise about the goals of the GM-05, the secret Plajet organization, that seems to be using the players as pawns to rob Fort Candy Brain. As the players question their employers motives, they are sent to retrieve the next part of the puzzle in Northern Plajet. While they take the train towards their destination, they are attacked. Though they are able to defend themselves, the train is shut down. Now they are stranded deep in the mountains in a snowstorm. Will they be able to survive?

Tuesdays
We have two home school groups meeting from 12:30 - 2:30 pm, and one after school group on Tuesdays. We have space for 7 more students.

Becky Home School
Off to Tabur we go. Our party of adventurers is very confident - after all, they have good descriptions of the people they’re looking for, AND they have a special magic obsidian trace so they can find the people anywhere. After they get themselves set up in Tabur, the biggest trade city on the planet, their confidence appears well deserved, as their obsidian trace leads them unerringly to a circus out side of town. There, things begin to go sour. The circus workers swear that they have never seen either of the people they are searching for. Yet, their magic trace leads directly to the circus. The party buys tickets to both evening shows. They also check with some down-on-their-luck adventurers who are camping out across from the circus. They have not seen people matching the description, but mention some robed people who may be part of the mysterious ‘freak’ show…

Greg Home School
Having been shrunk to the size of mice, Greg's Home School group finds themselves in a precarious situation. They manage to fight off a giant house cat, only to find out later it's Os'Plajet's cat! As punishment, they are trapped in an underground sewer dungeon, where they have to think critically in order to escape alive. After a couple close encounters, they are safe, and free to continue their mission to save their friend Chi-Chi, a Sakeet who thinks he is a chicken.

Becky After School
Our party is still struggling through the winter wilderness, en route to Pak’s Treasure. Their bad luck continues… snow laden branches break onto their tents… drying socks fall into the fire… mistaken consumption of Pak’s super spicy food… and worst of all, a fall into an icy stream! By this point, the party is beginning to wonder why their luck has been so bad. Pak is quick to point out their inexperience in the wilderness, but the party is not convinced. It is late in the evening when the party sets up camp on a ridge overlooking a valley. In the valley, the ruins depicted on Pak’s map. In the morning, they will venture down, but first, the party decides to cast some risky magic - trying to determine Pak’s identity. It has occurred to some of the party, that they have a very serious family enemy - a Marked Plajet woman who is a very high-ranking Juggler. Perhaps Pak IS the juggler! Using all of their magical power, (injuring the casting magic user, Ookami, in the process), they discover that Pak is a woman… Plajet… and Marked! What are they going to do now?

Wednesdays
We have no current enrollment for Wednesday. If you would like to start a Wednesday group (4 students minimum), please let me know. We can enroll up to 12 students on Wednesdays.

Thursdays
Our Thursday group is mostly girls (6 out of 8), ages 10 to 12. We have space for 4 more students.

Alicia
On their search for a missing companion, the adventurers find themselves in a strange clearing with an enormous tree in the middle carved with every animal living. There they encounter Falcon, the Baluud man they have been unwittingly sent to find. They must convince him to return with them to the city after fifty years alone in the rain forest. He is needed to settle a dispute which has cost the characters their home, livelihood and possibly some of their family. However, there is one small problem--Arun the mysterious Plajet who had been traveling with the party was sent to kill Falcon, and Falcon has no scruples about killing him first. The question falls to the party and through elaborate planning they manage to convince Falcon to leave Arun alive as long as the party keeps him under guard until they get back to the city. Now all that remains is to get themselves back to civilization, hopefully unnoticed...

Fridays
We have one more space available in our Friday groups.

Becky
In the abandoned Sakeet city, our party begins to have some problems. First, they need to close the gate - the one opened by our Blue Sakeet party members using some mysterious magical items. This proves to be a problem as the gate turns out to have some magical traps! Once, twice, three times Nezumi and Azunai trigger the trap and are shocked with lightning. Two of our Runts, Garjakd and Drahcir, help keep them alive by redirecting the lightning harmlessly into the ground. Just when it seemed that they would never be able to get the gate closed, Ben remembered that their magic item keeps track of things and recorded the code that opened the gate in the first place! Now they are working on a plan to explore each of the seven family compounds of the city, so they can get out as quickly as possible.

Greg
The adventurers are stuck in a Marked Feeshan town looking for an art collector (and thief) named Pierre. After much multicultural and language confusion, they manage to find out where he lives. They go there, meet Pierre, and proceed to pretend to be fellow art collectors interested in a trade. In truth, they are checking out his castle to see if they can find the 'Mesmeric Feeshan', an ancient artifact Pierre stole. Hopefully they can find it before Pierre figures out what's going on!

Scott and Marcus
After our intrepid party of heroes rescued the traders from lions and sent them on their way, they realized that their friend Jimmy, whom they had left on the road to watch for the shipment they were hunting, had disappeared! Using magic to search for his mind, they soon found him unconscious, but moving rapidly down the road. They followed him and eventually he stopped a few miles outside of a nearby inn town. Checking with the local sheriff, the party discovered that there were a few bandits in the area. The party asked the sheriff to watch the road for the shipment while they went in search of the bandits and hopefully find Jimmy. The party soon found the bandits’ small encampment. After a quick battle (including a magical slip which left the bandits’ leader dead) they apprehended the trio of bandits and rescued Jimmy. When they returned to town they discovered that the wagon that they are searching for had just roared through. After a quick stop to the towns healer, they charged after the wagon as fast as they could. The members of the party who could ride horses sprinted ahead, and are, at this very moment, in a heated chase with the wagon they must intercept.

Saturday (1st & 3rd)
We currently have two tables. Becky’s table is full with kids ages 12 - 14 year olds. Greg has 2 spaces available at his table of 11 - 12 year olds.

Becky
We haven’t had a meeting since our last description. Look for their decision next month about their daunting task: getting the survivors, 75 children and 36 adults, all wounded, away before the army catches up to them, or getting help from the closest major town - 140 miles away, or somehow slowing the army’s advance …. The numbers look very bad… but I believe the players will come up with something!

Greg
Saturday's Adventurer's have been captured! Deep in the deserts of Wa'la, they were caught off guard by their enemies. After being taken to the secret hide-out of their Arch-Nemisis Bily Bonqa, they are thrown in prison, to rot away, who knows for how long! But, quickly the party realizes the fortress is a Giant Sand Castle! Able to dig through the walls, the party is quickly free, but they must be careful not to cause the whole fortress to collapse on top of them! And what of Bily Bonqa? Can they find him before he gets causes more trouble?

Saturday (2nd & 4th)
The 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month has one regular group (full) and 1 to 2 tables of training for our assistant program. Assistants (ages 13 and up) play in advanced games that stress the more difficult aspects of the Abantey game. They are polishing their skills in preparation for assisting with the summer program.

Dominic & Eric (regular group)
After tracking the elusive mad genius Leon to the decimated pirate city of Soloman, the party try to find him. After getting an idea of Leon's exact whereabouts using Emerald magic, the party enlists the aid of a local street gang. They then create a massive distraction by destroying an Amethyst BSV stone and unleashing the powerful energy stored within. Under the cover of this distraction, the party approaches Leon's location. The party captures Leon, although some are wounded in the struggle. Suddenly, all goes dark. They wake in a mysterious compound with equally mysterious hosts, who give them healing and teleport them back to Tabur, where Leon is handed over to the Guards' Guild.

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Rebecca L. Thomas
Director
(510) 654-3582
The Roleplay Workshop
http://www.roleplay-workshop.com