Ravenous Role Playing

In order to satiate your hunger for comments and cool links, I’m back on track this week to provide an actual Friday Five. As an apology for the past few weeks, I’ve tossed in three more links that I just couldn’t go without calling out and linking to.

Enjoy!

Annotating Every 1st Edition D&D Adventure

This is a great list of every 1st Edition adventure ever made. I love it. If you bookmark the page and come back to it (or just follow metaDM’s RSS feeds) you’ll find that he updates the page with links to pages where he goes into great detail about each adventure in the list. It’s really cool stuff for anyone interested in adventures from the “good old days.”

The Fantastic Through Obscurity

I’m a security expert (a fance certification and a masters degree in the area, plus I work in the field) so the phrase, “security through obscurity” caught my eye. This style of security is never a good thing, because nothing on a network or the Internet stays obscure for very long. I love the idea of “fantastic through obscurity” though because it allows the GM more free reign to come up with whatever he pleases. This, of course, requires a high quality GM with a great imagination in order to do this kind of thing. Like most people, I tend to avoid the mediocre GMs, so I love it when my GM comes up with a bigger, better or more bad-ass way of “creating” a magic item or artifact and dropping it on the party for them to figure out how to use and apply to their situations.

Piledriver: The Most Popular Game Ever Played

When I first read this title, I thought, “But I’ve never even heard of it! How could it be the most popular game ever played?” After reading the article, I’m now fully aware that I’ve played this game damn near every session of every game that I’ve ever played. I’m sure you have to. Oh, wait? Not sure what the game is? Follow the link!

Traps: Challenge the Players and the Characters

One of the best traps that I ever encountered at the gaming table was at a conference back in summer of 1991. The GM tossed out a 2D Tetris-style puzzle, and we had to fit it together. Between the six players at the table, we were all either spatially challenged or exhausted (it was near the end of the conference) and we just couldn’t get the puzzle to go together properly. However, for each of the squares that we put in place to cover the baseboard of the puzzle, a square hole in the prismatic wall in front of us vanished to allow us to pass… kind of. Since we didn’t complete the puzzle, we had parts of the prismatic wall intact in front of us and had to roll dice (dex checks, if I recall) to get past the wall without touching the light. If we failed, then we rolled on a chart (per prismatic spray) to see what color of light we touched and suffered the ill effects. It was a great moment in gaming for me. I highly recommend this style of approach for traps for all GMs. Make the players think their way through it, and make the characters roll their way past the rest.

No rules lookups in play

I love this concept as a way to speed things up. I really need to do this more and more often. Of course, I’ve said this plenty of times and still haven’t managed to make it a hardcore rule of mine. Maybe if I announced it at the start of each session it would remind everyone (including me) to not touch the rule books during the play of the game.

OSH Original Template Motives

This is a great list of motives for all sorts of characters out there. I highly recommend taking a gander at this (even if you’re solely a GM) because of the great ideas that can be culled from the list.

Monster Blood!

Wow. What to say about this one. I’ve skimmed this article three times and read it through once, and I’m still trying to absorb everything it says. If you follow the link (why wouldn’t you,) I highly recommend that you read the whole thing. Yes, it’s a long article, but don’t pull a “TL;DR” on this one. It’s worth your time!

Top 10 Tricks to Make your Villain Stand Out

I love long, in-depth articles that make me think. This isn’t one of those hefty tomes of a blog post, though. It’s a quick in-n-out kind of read that really highlights what a Bad Guy should be if he’s going to be a memorable person in your game. PS: If you’re a fiction writer (like me) then this isn’t a half bad list of things to apply to your “Shadow” character or Major Villain.

The Most Dangerous Site in Gaming

I’ve been using the PRD for a while for our games, and I haven’t a clue why I haven’t linked to it before…. Ah well, I’m linking to the blog post that tells all about it. If you’re a Pathfinder player or GM, you really need to check out the Pathfinder Reference Document.

Old School Module Name Generator

I love this post because of the name generator tables that are included. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s elegant in its simplicity. Go check it out!

Why Are We Doing This?

Why do we role play? For me, it’s to get a sense of the fantastic, to accomplish things that I never can in real life, to escape my real life for a few hours a week, to hang out with friends and to enjoy myself. It’s that last one that is most important to me. I’m not sure why it’s at the end of the list as if it’s an afterthought. There are so many reasons for gaming. What’s yours?

Redesigning an Adventure

Having a party raid, fail, return and raid a single location again is a rare occurrence, but it does happen. How do GMs have their NPCs react to this kind of thing? Well, it all depends on the situation as to what a GM should do. For a breakdown of what a GM did do, check out the post. It’s a good one.

Say What? – Languages in D&D

Languages are always key for me in my role playing. It doesn’t matter if I’m a player or a GM. I always bring languages into the core of the adventure. When I first started running games for my current group, they weren’t expecting it, so I allowed them to retcon their characters a bit to add in some languages that they didn’t think they would need. Now, they know that choosing those “free starter” languages and taking a few extra on top are vital to their smooth success in an adventure.

Sorry folks. No Friday Five today. I’ve barely had time to keep up with the blogosphere this week beyond skimming about half of the articles in my RSS feed. Work has been kicking me in the head today. The only reason I have time to post this right now is that I’m between calls with network engineers. Hopefully next week there won’t be as many issues and I can do more than skim.

Have a good weekend!

I just spotted this link (yeah, I’m a day behind on my blog reading) over at The Other Side Blog. He describes the sale and the details, so I won’t copy/paste his entire post here. It does support The Wayne Foundation, which works to prevent child sex trafficking. Yep. Even in these modern times, there are children being traded about as sex slaves as if they were property, not people. Sickening to my heart, so I’ve already pitched in my $15 to help out.

Sorry folks. No time for commentary this week. The in-laws are in town, and I’m eyeball deep in dealing with them. Don’t get me wrong. I love ‘em to death, but they always make a ton of plans for us when they’re in town. I’m off to get to bed early in preparation for the long day tomorrow.

Magic Items Belong to Somebody
Dungeon Doodles & a CrossHatching Tutorial
Ask The GMs: How to Deal with Players Who Disagree with Game Calls
time as a pc resource
Campus Maps are Solid Gold

The Light Fantastic … and Eight Other Fantasy Esthetics

The main reason I’m linking to this page is for the matrix near the bottom of the post, but the rest of the post is a great one to read. I love the matrix. I’m not sure I 100% agree with the placement of every item on the chart, but it’s a great start and a good way to judge RPGs in general to find what you want to play.

Campaigns Set in One Location

When I first read this title, I thought, “I’ve done that!” Once I got deeper into the post, I realized that I’ve had story arcs that follow this concept, but not entire campaigns. This is an intriguing idea to say the least. I’m not sure I have the chops to pull it off or the right group at the moment to survive a long-term campaign that is set in a single location. Even if you don’t attempt to do something like this, it’s still a good read for getting ideas for how to make a single location much more interactive in the long run.

Mythic Monday: The Vampire

I couldn’t agree more with Beedo on this post. Vampires should be dark, scary, downright horrifying in fact and something of nightmares. This is true of all undead, but especially so of those that have free will behind them. Vampires have haunted our nights for far too long for them to be demeaned and brought down to a “sparkling” level that they are today. Having a creature tear into your friend’s neck and release the life blood contained within them should rank high enough on the Scary Meter to make you shit your pants right away. No saving throw. Period.

World Building Part III: History, Mythology and Stocking Dungeons

Stocking dungeons is so hard these days. When I was a kid, you could throw in a random monster from the manual and your friends got all excited to fight the hippogriff in a 20×20 room that was nine levels underground. Why? Because they hadn’t seen one actually used, so it was exciting! Well, we’ve all seen (or read) every monster there is in the book and things need to be logically placed within the dungeon. Borrowing from mythology can help guide you through this process. I could go on for a while on this topic, but I’ll leave it to the link to do the rest of the talking. Go check it out.

Forging Unexpected Connections: Putting PC Dossiers To Work

I love and hate PC dossiers. My reasons for hating them is that when I see a blank on a sheet of paper, I feel the need to fill it out. Even when the character has never been played. This adds an extra burden on me during character creation. I also love PC dossiers because it gives me a place to record events that happen to a character as they happen. I guess I need to do a mix-and-match approach of storing character information. Start with a character sheet and when the game play starts, shift to a dossier. Either way, if you’re looking to create your own character portfolio, I’d suggest checking the link and seeing what information Mike suggests you track. It’s good stuff. Trust me.

Ok. So maybe I can’t count, but I have six links for you today. They were all so awesome, that I couldn’t help but include all of them.

Unlike past weeks, I actually have time and energy to comment on each one. Yay!

Here goes….

Fantasy Cuisine – Get It While It’s Haute

This is a fantastic post with tons of information and charts about eating and possible dishes to have during fantasy-style times. If anyone wants to spice up (pardon the pun) their environments by surrounding the players with top-notch food, this is a link to bookmark!

The Cyberpunk Sandbox

The title of this article is what first caught my eye because I thought to myself, “Is there any other way to run Cyberpunk?” When I’ve run CP2020 in the past (and I used to run it quite a bit,) it was always a sandbox game within the limits of the city (usually Night City or a modified version of my hometown.) Because of the rapid transit possibilities, a GM really can’t push the PCs from hex to the next in any orderly fashion. I would just allow my players to run amok to their heart’s extent, and see where things went. There were a few times that I tried to follow a pre-planned storyline with CP2020, but it never did turn out too well. I’ve learned my lesson from those games and will now only do sandbox-style games for that system.

World Building Part II: Communities and Politics

Cities and nations are made up of more than just locations and NPCs. There are many interlaced relationships going on that mold the world and environments into what they are. This post is full of great information and awesome links to books and other web sites about how to go about doing this in your world or nation or city or whatever. It also applies to more than just fantasy games. All of this advice can be well applied in many different genres.

Quick and Dirty Location Template

I just said that the world you’re running is made up of more than locations and NPCs. While this is true, the locations that you decide to drop into your world need to have some detail and importance to the PCs. Otherwise, it’ll feel like you’re just showing off your creative muscles for no good effect in the game. This template is a great one for detailing pretty much any kind of location that you can imagine dropping into your game.

Listen To Your Players When They Aren’t Talking

I’ve had many a new player join my games in the past and I always get to know them as a player, so I can try to customize how I run the game to help fit their desires. Even after doing this, I sometimes become complacent and start running a game that I want to play instead of ones that my players want to be in. The best way for me (and other GMs) to avoid this is to listen to them. Not just their voices, but their inflections when they speak, their body language, how excited they are to be involved in the game and many more things. Go check out Callin’s post for more details.

Learning The Game

There are many approaches to learning a new game, but this one post seems to incorporate all of them. The key piece of advice that I can echo here that is mentioned near the bottom of the post is to create your own GM screen. Don’t just scan charts from the book and tape them to a card stock screen. Actually type out (or write out) the charts from the book that you feel are important. Dropping things into an Excel spreadsheet, adding borders and printing it out is immensely helpful. It really helps you focus down on what you think is important and by typing/writing the charts out yourself, you’re more likely to remember what the chart is all about. Don’t forget to include page numbers for reference when putting a chart on a GM screen!

Stuart over at Strange Magic posted this blog with a list of merit badges for GMs and tons of people have jumped on the bandwagon. In an effort to be part of the droves, I’m posting the one merit badge that I think best exemplifies my gaming style as a GM.

I didn’t choose this particular badge because I hide my style from my players. Rather, it represents the shifting nature of how I run a game. Sometimes there is mystery. Sometimes (though rarely) there  is PvP action. Sometimes I follow the book like it’s the Holy Bible and other times I invoke “rule zero” just to make the game run smoother.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s hard to stick labels on how I run my games. I change things up depending on system, style, players and other factors. I try to do what’s best for the game. Usually I succeed, but sometimes I fail. Just part of being human, right?

A post over at Hill Cantons challenged the RPG blogosphere to take up arms and give some advice to GMs across the world. I’ll take that challenge!

He stated that we should focus on three ideas, describe how they “pop” and what are the hows and nut-and-bolts of the ideas in action.

Here goes!

1. Pay Attention: This is usually what the players have to do, but RPGs are a two-way street. The GM must pay attention to the players. Not just what they say, but how it’s said and their body language as well. If the GM finds the players stacking dice, then they’ve checked out. The game is not engaging, exciting or popping. Something has to change. Sometimes, it means tossing out the entire campaign/system, but most of the time subtle changes can be made to the storyline or adventure as it’s laid out before the players. Make it personal. Don’t kidnap the princess and offer great monetary rewards if she’s returned. Kidnap a PCs little sister or mother or father or favorite pet. This will engage at least one of the players. If the GM can layer together personal threats, then the entire party can be drawn together and the players will eagerly join the GM at the table each week.
2. Be Involved During Character Creation: The GM should not sit back and watch the party get created while answering the random, “Is it okay if my character has X power for Y reason?” Before party creation even begins, the GM should have a world setup, a background about the immediate area written for the players and a “set the scene” page or two written on why the party is together. Encourage the players to write backgrounds about their characters, tie themselves to the other PCs in the group and the area in which they’ll be starting. Award special items (like silver daggers or something else along those lines) or experience points for performing these types of actions. It will really help the party cohesion in the long run.
3. Be A Boy Scout: In other words, be prepared. While I pride myself on being a great impromptu GM, I’m still prepared. I know the city/nation/state/area that the PCs are adventuring in. That way, when they say they want to sell a boat that they don’t own to the richest gambling hall owner in town, I know what they’re up to… even if I didn’t until they declared the action. I know the largest/richest gambling hall in town and can easily find the NPC in the book (or make him up on the fly if necessary.) I know where the docks in the city are located. I know where they’re going to go to get the proper paper to use for the forgery. I know all of this because I’ve read the materials in question about the setting in which we’re in. If I’m building my own city/nation or other setting, then I know that I have artistic freedom to do what I will. I’m still prepared with notes about ideas that I’ve already had about the area, though. I’m also prepared to scribble my impromptu decisions about NPCs and locations within the area, so that I can incorporate them into my wiki about my world.

There you go. There’s my list and my nuts-and-bolts that go with it. Hope it helps someone out there!

Randall over at “RetroRoleplaying: The Blog“, wrote this post about how he ranks the various incarnations of (A)D&D. I liked the idea and my favorites are different from his.

Don’t misunderstand my intentions here. I’m not post this to say that Randall is wrong. Far from it. His post was all about his rankings. This post is about my rankings. Neither one is right. Neither one is wrong. This is pure opinion.

So anyways… here’s my rankings.

2e with Player’s Option books: I really enjoyed the player’s options books because they opened up so many, well, options and made the game more exciting to me. I’ve always been a player that gets enthused about options and ways to tweak characters.

2e: While I cut my baby RPG teeth on BECMI, I didn’t get into real role playing with a true group of mature role players until 2e came out. I remember joining Joe’s game as he was “converting” it from 1e to 2e because the 2e books had just come out and he was so excited about the layout, formatting and general ease of use that 2e had over 1e.

1e: I’ve played in lots of 1e games since meeting Bill & Nat with Bill at the helm, and I must say that 1e is one of those games that require a good GM. There’s lots of “wiggle room” in the rules to where each GM can make the game his own. This can be good or bad, but usually turns out great. I had a lot of fun with this system, and I hope to play it more in the future.

BECMI/RC: Since this is what I started with, it’s higher up on the list. I never did understand, though, why an “Elf” couldn’t also be a “Thief” or vice-versa. I like the race+class combos allowed in the AD&D versions of the game. However, these box sets are still near and dear to my heart since they are what I started gaming with.

3e/3.5e: I rank these guys together because they are close twins of each other. I had a lot of fun with 3e/3.5e because I was in a handful of good groups during the “third party publisher hay day” that 3e brought about. I loved the different takes that different publishers would have on the game, but I also hated them at the same time. Some publishers (Mongoose) were more in line with the game balance of WotC while other publishers (AEG) seemed to push the boundaries of sane play by making each book’s abilities more potent than the previous publication. Still, the overall mood of most publications was a good one.

4e: I’m sorry to all of the people that love this game, but I hate it. The “perfect game balance” in which all characters at the same level roll the same dice with just merely different special effects bores me to tears. It honestly doesn’t matter what character type you play because the game is dumbed down, so that even the best strategist has limited effect in combat. Because all of the characters have the same abilities with different flavors, it’s  damn near impossible to stand out. Also, skill challenges are lame as are PC wishlists for treasure. PCs should take what treasure they get (preferably at random) and make do with it.

Others: I’ve never played OD&D or B/X, so I can’t rank them. I started gaming in 1983 with the classic red box D&D and I’ve gone from there. I didn’t play 1e until I was well versed in 2e. As a matter of fact, I thought 1e was the original version. It wasn’t until about a decade ago that I was aware of OD&D, and I’ve just never pushed my bankroll to purchase a complete OD&D set with all supplements. I’ve also never played a B/X retroclone or update. If I were to go that route, I’d pull out my old red box and blue box sets and play them.