Return to Form: It's Not Over Yet

Hello all again.

It's been a while since I had much to post. Nearly a year. In that time I've had a couple of games take a brief hiatus (both of which are restarting soon) and an intermediary campaign ended and I took over as GM. With that eating up a bit of my mindspace, I haven't had much time for tertiary philosophy. With that concluded, I think I want to get back into the habit, but maybe not on as regular a basis. Mostly just as things come to me.

Hunter's Haven

Just a little writing practice this week, folks. Sit back and enjoy!

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Not two miles South of town, you find a lodge alone in the wilderness. The sign above the door claims it to be the Hunter's Haven. A fitting title evidenced by the gentleman dressing this morning's kill. Two older travelers occupy the front steps, smoking their pipes and sharing impossible stories of days long past. 

Within, you find more of the same; rough types spinning yarns of one-ups-manship and partaking of the house's best ale. The interior decor screams proudly the profession of the clientele. Walls are adorned with animal skulls and pelts of every color. Chairs and tables fashioned from bone sit beneath a chandelier composed entirely of antlers. Racks of bows and spears are placed evenly around the walls. Above the hearth hangs a truly massive skull of unknown origin. A blackened bow of impressive size rests reverentially across it's horns.

The proprietor, "Dodgy" Hollins, wipes the bar with a rag before pouring you a tankard of sweet smelling ale. His smile is warm and friendly despite the trio of scars running from his ear to his lips.

"Welcome, friend. Can I get you a room or are you here to hunt the beast too?"

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Hmmm? What have we here? Would this work for an intro? There's plenty to hint at story hooks. The place has some character to it. Too long, do you think? Does it have the right details? Does it need more? Less? What would you do differently if you were presenting this to your PCs?

Stay Classy?

Another Day Older

Well... another year, actually. Today I turn 30. The fun part is that I've met gamers who have been gaming as long as I've been alive. As I celebrate my third decade of existence, I've decided to take a few moments to relate the subject to tabletop RPGs, as I tend to do. I think this is as good an opportunity as any to explore characters and age.

Can I Borrow a Cup of City?

To this day, I have never once gone to a neighbor to ask for a cup of sugar. Between my love of tea and baking my own sweets, it'll probably never happen. To add to that, I've never been fond of borrowing anything from a neighbor. Too many questions about when it'll be returned... On the other hand I have no major compunctions against borrowing ideas. At least while conforming to copyright laws. Since we're here to discuss tabletop RPGs, this would primarily involve taking things from various other influences to add to my own little campaign world. In the case of this specific blog post, I'm going to borrow a city from an outside resource to use in a campaign, and I feel it would be good to discuss the reasons for doing so. Hopefully in the name of spurring thought through other people's heads.

Pumpkin Season

October is here and every year I make a point of celebrating. It's a pretty big month for me. Lots of birthdays in the family, my own included, as well as the whole Halloween thing. While I haven't gone Trick or Treating in ages, I do still kind of enjoy the particular flavor of this holiday. So much so in fact that my own version of celebrating October includes a month long marathon of horror movies to keep the spirit intact (no pun intended). 

For those in the tabletop RPG hobby, I highly recommend letting this season flow into your gaming for at least a session or two. If you're in a campaign, maybe let it dip into a one-off session for some Halloween fun. If you're not in a campaign, then it's the perfect excuse for a one-shot! Really quick-like, here's a handful of ideas to get you started.

Dead By Dawn

One of the most important points in any undertaking can simply be summed up as having the right man for the job. Or woman, but let's not argue semantics. With this past weekend dead and gone, I continue forward with the memories of two really good games. Oddly enough, both occurred in the same night for once. We started out with a Pacific Rim themed Mekton game. Mostly just a thinly veiled brawl, we settled in for a whopping three mass combats of Jaegers versus Kaijus. Wall to wall cinematic action. Not yet settled for the evening, we carried on into my first exposure to All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Another momentous event happened as a direct result: my first character death! And a TPK! (that's a Total Party Kill for the uninitiated)

This probably had less of an effect on me than it should by pure luck: it was a one-shot character rather than something I had run for months on end. I had heard of AFMBE so I kind of expected it. The best part of it all was that all deaths occurring that evening happened in what could be stated to be the best mode possible. Follow along with me while I explain my point of view.

Pub?

Sometimes in life we come across personal challenges or goals that may seem ludicrous in the eyes of others. We all have our own mountains to climb or our white whales to hunt, and after all who apart from ourselves can see any difference between our victories and our defeats? Stumbling blocks come in all forms, whether from outside foes or simple physiology. While standing on big rocks and learning to love the taste of cinnamon can be fine and dandy for most, I have something else in mind.

I have, this past weekend, enjoyed yet another movie penned by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. While I won't say that it's the best of their movies, I will say that 'The World's End' is an extremely enjoyable film. In it, a group of high school friends reunite in an effort to tackle one of the last great challenges of their youth, the Golden Mile. The goal of which is to drink a pint of beer in each of twelve pubs in their old hometown of Newton Haven. As with most incidents involving large quantities of alcohol, hilarity ensues. While I'll not go further into the film, I will say my inner GM was taking notes.

One-Shot at History: Post-Mortem

This past Saturday, my one-shot went off and was, when it comes down to brass tacks, successful. The group had a good time. I introduced some players to one of my favorite systems. Dice were rolled. Mooks were mashed. All-in-all, yes. I'd call that a success. As I often do after a game session, I've spent plenty of time fretting and analyzing what went down and what worked in order to make the next one just that much better. There's a couple of points that kind of stick out in my mind, if anyone is interested.

Critical Thinking

Problem-solving is a basic intellectual skill. When presented with a goal and a set of obstacles, creative methods of problem-solving are sometimes required where simple methodology fails. By reputation, gamers in general exhibit a certain degree of creative thought bordering on ludicrous in regards to hypothetical scenarios. At least this is what I've come to believe and expect. I've heard tales of players going to outrageous lengths to surmount various stumbling blocks to mixed degrees of success. Examples range from launching arrows at pavilion-like structures before ascertaining breed or disposition to conquering dungeons by simply digging around them to constructing Rube Goldburg inspired contraptions in ad hoc attempts to open unlocked doors without touching them. 

The critical thinking involved in these kinds of exploits (the successful ones at least) is one skill I feel I could and should develop further. Tabletop games often present opportunities to do so in a fun and creative environment, so what better way to practice than to pull a heist? That's right. I'm talking Shadowrun.

One-Shot at History

As I type this, I find myself in the midst of preparations for a one-shot: a single session game to entertain our group of miscreants for a single evening while our current GM conjures up the next branch of our main campaign. I'll be running a pre-written scenario and I had to ask the question of whether or not the PCs would be built by the players or pre-made by myself. For the most part, the players will get to make their own barring one or two people new to the system I'm using. This leads me to yet another question: If I'm going to make a character for another player, do I need to hand him a background for that character? Or more importantly, if the scenario is pre-written and it's only one session, does the background material really matter?

GenCon 2013

Just got home from Gen Con, Indy: The Best Four Days in Gaming. Probably one of the biggest gatherings of gamers in the world. This was my third trip to this magnificent convention and, despite some tragedy, I really enjoyed myself. If you haven't yet had the opportunity, it's a tremendous place to experience an awful lot of things and the city itself is very welcoming for this particular event. 

Drop Dead Simple

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” 

― Leonardo da Vinci

I have within the last twenty four hours acquired and played Vanillaware's latest endeavor, Dragon's Crown. It's a side-scrolling beat-em-up very much inspired by Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons arcade games: Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara. At about five hours into it, I can say I'm having a blast! It's even got me thinking of campaigns and my next turn at GMing again.

The premise is rather simple. A group of adventurers goes from dungeon to dungeon in search of the mythical Dragon's Crown, aka: the McGuffin. Sounds like a basic campaign to me. The details of the plot and all related events are a thinly woven excuse to get you from scene to scene. Still sounds like a campaign to me. Go from dungeon to dungeon, killing things and taking their stuff. Alright, it's an extremely basic campaign. That can still be fun, right? Let's analyze it a bit.

Make It Stronger

Recently, my Saturday group ended up in a rather interesting scenario: our GM humored me in designing an encounter for him to run. I gave him the bare-bones concept and some points of interest and he filled in the blanks and turned it into a really good session. Being an artist who is his own worst critic, I've already started looking at how I could have improved it. I'm not saying that our GM did a bad job. In fact he did incredibly well. On the other hand, I'm more looking at how he or I might improve our skills for the next time.

I can't emphasize this enough here, this is not for bragging rights or to belittle anything. This is entirely for analytical purposes. I want to turn a good scenario into a great scenario, not to reduce what was done. In picking this thing apart, you might find something you may use for your own game.

Good Question

Saturday's campaign, using the HERO System, our GM asked a very interesting question: How do I make it scary when you can hit everything?

Let's add some context. We have the latest chapter of an ongoing campaign with a major horror theme attached to it. Basically, anime-themed supernatural cops versus eldritch abominations. Admittedly, I went a little overboard conceptually, and made a character that was a tad on the broken side in combat. It's ridiculously hard for her to miss a shot. I've been doing my best to try to balance things out, going so far as to create opportunities for the GM to mess with her and not using everything she has at her disposal. Barring that little oversight, though, it is a good question to ask. 

Feeling Adventurous?

You know what time it is. Come on and grab your friends! One of the things that drew me to tabletop gaming was the idea of building a character and having them go on wild and crazy adventures. In order to do that, I guess it might be a good idea to figure out what and adventure really is. That may seem like a duh-thing at the outset, but keep in mind that not everyone's idea of a good time is the same. To emphasize the point, when I was a kid I thought that running around the back yard with an old broom handle, 'slaying' dragonflies and defending a pillow fort was an adventure. Not that I wouldn't do that now (or haven't), but my definition of adventure has expanded over time.

Back then, adventure was a thing of going on quests, slaying dragons and rescuing distressed (distressing?) damsels. It still is in some regards, but sometimes it also includes car chases. Sometimes it's purely political and dialogue driven. Other times it's purely about retrieving fat lutes from Windex-drinking mages, or silver monkey statues from hidden temples. So what really goes into adventure? I don't know, but I'm about to speculate. Or regulate? I don't know that one either...

What's In A Name?

Sunday's Fantasy Craft game has reached it's first mile marker, and concluded it's first arc. Our group has decided to take a break so the GM can pen up the next one, and so we move on to a bout of Shadowrun. I'm probably the least savvy in sci-fi, and my experience with Shadowrun 4e is minimal at best. Needless to say, coming up with a character concept is going to take me a bit longer than usual. As I begin to pour over options and story ideas, one element that sticks in my mind is a very important one. One that many people, myself included, often have trouble with. The name. 

Considering that this is Shadowrun, we're also talking about an alias. A nom de geurre to protect the actual identity of the criminal I happen to be designing. As much trouble as some people have coming up with a decent name, this particular case calls for two. As much as this is going to cause me no end to headaches, I do consider this an opportunity. As much as a rose by any other name stills smells like flowery plant matter, names do have power. The idea is to tap into that power.

Art Imitating Life: Party Time!

Last weekend, I had the honor and privilege of being one of the groomsmen in my cousin's wedding. What a grand event it was, too! Plenty of new faces to get acquainted with. Myriad handshakes. Great food. Good booze. Loud music. A general party atmosphere, and at the end of it all I have a much larger family! 

I also got a little behind the scenes view of the planning and pitfalls leading up to the event. Coordination. Timing. Scheduling. Human error. It all played out like a train wreck all the way up until 'go' time. While I was meandering about the location for this joyous event, the nerd in me decided to do what I do best; take an innocuous event and turn it into an exercise in absurdity. To all you GMs out there, I started thinking about how I could turn this into event at a game table.

It Starts Here...

Last Sunday, our campaign wrapped up it's first arc. Syrinx, my gorgon martial artist, still has a petrified hand. And it's starting to creep up her arm. The bastard responsible is now dead, several times over. Our client is now safe and sound, and ready to pay up. Things are as well as can be, all things considered. Now our GM is ready to put this campaign on hiatus long enough for him to write up the next leg of our journey. 

In case you haven't guessed it by now, our Sunday group operates on a round robin kind of system. Each of us takes turns running a short story arc and then hands control over to someone else. This allows us to try out different genres or different game systems. It'll likely be a while before I end up running again, but the idea of a new beginning to a campaign does get my gears turning on how I would handle the situation. 

Them's Fightin' Words

Just so we're clear, I'm a guy who likes movies. I'm a guy who likes movies for guys who like movies. Comedy. Drama. Suspense. Horror. Good stories with good cinematography. And action. I was born in the 80's, which was the age of the cheesy action flick. Everything from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Stalone to Norris to Van Damme. The Expendables and it's sequel were a real treat for me. I've watched action scenes in cinema evolve over time and I have a certain appreciation for their art.

Now that I'm involved in tabletop gaming and RPGs, I love having the means of choreographing combat rounds into each other. One of the most important aspects of this, and one that is occasionally overlooked, is the environment in which a fight scene takes place. Sure, sometimes you might want an open fight in a large open arena, but that does limit things from a tactical and cinematic standpoint. What I present to you, dear reader, is a list of ten places for a fight scene! In no particular order, I might add. Just the first ten to come to mind.

A Little R & R

So the latest campaign for my Saturday group is a combination of Silent Moebius, BladeRunner, and Lovecraftian Horror. The PCs are all high powered super cops facing down horrors from beyond mortal understanding. The first two sessions involved putting down a spell slinging corpse, being attacked by flayed sacks of human skin, braving bent and warped reality, facing a minor eldritch abomination and that was all on their first day on the job.

This immediately begs the question of 'What next?' for the players. Did we begin researching the next case? Maybe start looking for other nasties to go kill? What about ticketing a shoggoth for jaywalking? I'll tell you what we did next. We did what any self respecting group of PCs would do.