Ravenous Role Playing

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.

Man, I’m such a leech. I haven’t had time to comment on a single link in what feels like forever. It’s been a combination of things, but it seems like my Fridays are busier than ever lately. I may shift this post to Sundays and make it a “Sunday Seven” or something like that. Maybe I’ll retitle the category to “Leech Links” and it’ll free me up to post on Friday, Saturday or Sunday as I have time and see fit. Either way… here’s the links for the week:

500k Retrospective – Dungeon Maps
500k Retrospective – Urban Mapping
Revised and Expanded Long List of Old School Games and Clones
World Building Part I: Geography and Landmarks
Dead Sea Inspiration
Mythic Monday: Old Gods Never Die…

How was the overall offering for this year’s Free RPG Day? Very excellent, I must say. The highest grade was A+ and the lowest was C-. A good range and none were failing scores. Most of the books from this year received at least an A- or higher.

Here’s the breakdown of the final grades in the order that I reviewed them:
We Be Goblins (Pathfinder) / A-
Rescue Mission (Tunnels & Trolls) / A
Dragon Age Quickstart Guide / A+
Broken Chains (Black Crusade) / A-
Histaven (D&D) / C-
Hollow Earth Expedition / A+
Aspect / B-
Arcanis / A+
The Waking Dead (AFMBE) / A-
Castles & Crusades / A
A Day Late, A Shilling Short (WFRP) / C-
Prime Directive / B
Dungeon Crawl Classics / A
Final Sanction (Deathwatch) / A
Under the Rose (Exalted) / B-
A Nightmare at Hill Manor (WoD) / A+

I want to extend my most heartfelt thanks and gratitude to the organizers of Free RPG Day and the participating publishers. I may have been a little harsh on some of you at times, but I do thank each and every single one of you for giving me the chance to review the materials you worked on with every last drop of your blood, sweat and tears. Keep up the good work, everyone!

The average grade point average for this year’s Free RPG Day came out at 3.41375 on a 4.0 scale. That’s a solid ‘A’ grade, there.

Again, thanks to everyone participating in Free RPG Day (organizers, publishers, consumers, readers, commenters, players and everyone else.) I hope see you here again between now and next year’s Free RPG Day as I start reviewing various RPG materials that I come across. Of course, I’ll still keep on doing the Friday Five offerings as well.

Enjoy!

I’m amazed that I’m even getting the links out this week. I’m out of town at a writer’s retreat at the moment, so I should be working on my book. I did steal a little bit of time to get these links out to you, though.

Corridor Features
Draco Inadequatus: Beefing Up 3.x Dragons
easy peasy demihuman clan relations
Long List of Old School Games and Clones
7 Appalling Things I Witnessed at the Gaming Table

At 64 pages in length, this is a tome for a freebie! When I first picked it up, I thought I had two copies in my hand because of the thickness and weight. When I realized that it was a single offering from White Wolf, I was quite happy to have it in my pile o’ loot. I didn’t save this particular book as the last review (oh, btw, this is the final Free RPG Day review for this year) for any particular reason. It just happened to be on the bottom of the pile when I stacked them all up after scanning the covers for the images that you’ve seen here.

The first 28 pages of the book cover rules, Storyteller adjudications, character traits, skills, merits, combat, morality, derangements (these were especially fun!), and the basic seven steps of creating a character. I truly believe that a fresh character can be created based off of these 28 pages instead of relying on the four well-done pregenerated characters that are found at the back of the book.

Following these sections of the book comes the Storyteller section: the adventure. This section of the book runs from pages 29 through 53 and is some of the best, creepiest, darkest and most inspiring adventure work that I’ve seen thus far this year in the Free RPG Day offerings. Maybe I just like the dark stuff over the light and fluffy stuff. Who knows? Regardless, this really reached out and stroked my inner gamer with a glancing touch that left shivers up my spine. It’s good stuff. Even if you don’t like the World of Darkness setting or rules (I happened to like [but not love] both), then I’d suggest you find this somewhere on the Internet and give it a good, hard read. Even though there are no maps, there is a “flowchart” of sorts right up front that assists the Storyteller in how the flow of the game should go.

After the adventure is a three-page appendix covering how ghosts work in their basics. Why an appendix on ghosts? You’ll just have to play the game to find out!

Grade: A+ / This is a well-written piece. When I got into it, I was expecting 60 pages of fluff and 4 pages of crunch since it’s a White Wolf production. I was pleasantly surprised to find it evenly balanced and very exciting.

Wow. This Free RPG Day adventure for the Exalted system by White Wolf jumps right into the adventure and keeps on running. I was a little taken aback by this development as I was expecting some form of introduction to the game, the system, the setting or the general feel of the game system. None of that was to be found, so it took me a bit to get into the adventure. There was quite a bit of assumed knowledge on the part of the book, so I found myself lost from time-to-time while grok’ing the adventure.

Despite the fact that I felt lost at time (and I’m sure that if I knew the Exalted genre/feel/system/etc. that it would have been fine,) the adventure was well written, very thorough and looks like a hoot to play.

After the 23 page adventure concluded, there were five pregenerated characters for use within the system. The characters were prefaced with a short blurb about their power level, so that an existing group or Storyteller could inject this adventure into an ongoing Exalted campaign or series. That’s a key piece of information considering the power level for the adventure is quite a bit higher than the “just beginning” level that is normally found in most freebies.

The five characters are packed with crunchy knowledge, but very little fluff on how the character’s attitudes are supposed to be played. This is kind of odd coming from White Wolf which is known for their top-notch fluff. (If you don’t know what I mean about crunch vs. fluff, then hit Google and type it in. There’s a wealth of information [and opinions] on the matter.)

Grade: B- / They didn’t include rules or enough information for this to be a stand-alone, but the writing is so well done that the grade gets a bump up from the standard ‘C’ that I give folks that don’t allow me to run a freebie stand-alone.

Sorry folks. No time for commentary this week. Just some links. Enjoy!

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