Discussion - The Last Character You'll Ever Play

Let's dip into the melodrama for a bit here. It's the last  RPG you'll ever play in, literally. As in Death him/herself is the GM and you get this as one last hurrah before you go on to whatever afterlife - or lack thereof - is waiting for you.

What kind of game is it? More importantly, what character do you play?

Jedi Academy - So Much To Learn

It seems that every time I fire up Jedi Academy I end up writing a blog post about something that the game does right. Well, this time is no different. See, I'm playing through the game yet again - don't judge me, it's an awesome game - and as I'm going through I'm noticing all the ways that the game is done right. Not that the game doesn't have its flaws, but it really is a very awesome game for a lot of reasons and some of those reasons are very applicable to table top RPGs.

Areas For Character Development - Part 2

Yesterday I started talking about some core areas of your character where you might be able to find a lot of room to either develop or express your character. The goal being to make a character, or characters, that is more like a real person than just a name and version of your personality over some stat blocks. Today, I wanted to continue that trend and talk about a few more points. Like yesterday, Im going to give the disclaimer that there are some mature topics in here.

Areas For Character Development

Depending on the person and their personal approach you can develop a character in a myriad of different ways. Some people put very little thought into their characters, preferring to play the RPG as an abstract puzzle type game and there is nothing wrong with that. Others though, like myself, like to use their RPG characters as a way of telling stories, exploring personalities, and otherwise developing and presenting a character to the group with the hopes of having made a real person. Today I want to talk about this latter type of character development, and some areas of the character you may want to give extra thought to when developing just who the character is.

As a warning, at least part of this topic will deal with mature themes, please be advised when reading forward.

"I thought it was set on stun!"

Randomly last night we started a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game. It went well (I love Star Wars, so that's not hard) but more to the point some happenings in the session reminded me of one of the fun facts I tell new players when it comes to  making die rolls.  The fact? It's simple: bad die rolls make for good RP.

Discussion: Fun With Quotes

History is full of all sorts of fun quotes that can be meaningful in some way at the gaming table. Maybe it is a famous quote from a story that you use to set the mood or hint at deeper truths in the tale you are telling (Alice in Wonderland is particularly good for this,) or maybe it is just a quote that really speaks to the heart of the core themes that you want to expres in your game.

Either way, quotes can be a great thing to have and to express to players - or to characters - as a means of conveying wisdom. It stands to reason that you as the GM are not wiser and better educated than the entirety of exceptional humans in history, so why not steal some wisdom when you can?

Today's bit of wisdom is something I found in a recent trek through the internet and library databases looking for research material for a story I'm working on and my L5R game. It is a quote that I feel speaks to the heart of the samurai, but it also speaks to the heart of RPing a combat character. It is something that I hope my players understand and something I have seen a lack of understanding for in previous games - often to humorous if wasteful events in games.

the quote? Here it is:

"As for when to die, make sure you are one step ahead of everyone else. Never pull back from the brink. But be aware that there are times when you should die, and times when you should not. Die at the right moment and you will be a hero. Die at the wrong moment, and you will die like a dog." -- Izawa Nagahide, The Warrior's Code, 1725

So, what do you think? What does it say to you?

Guest Lecturer: Power Gaming vs. Role Playing

Today's post comes to us from a guest lecturer. If you've been in the comments section lately you've probably noticed that we had a recent new comer named Sean Phelan who is diving back into the hobby with both feet forward apparently. Sean is setting up a game of his own with some friends and has come across the fun obstacle of the RP gaming style versus the Power gaming style. You can find out more about Sean and his campaign by clicking this link. Now, without further ado, here's the post Sean wanted to discuss today.

Resource Collection

Short post for today, sorry.

We've all got various tools we like to use when we're gaming. Places we like to go for inspiration. Places we like to go for mechanics, ideas, or just visual references. Most GMs pull from friends and past experience a whole lot, but it doesn't mean that we don't also have our various haunts we like to go to regularly for more.

Today, I'd like us to share some of those resources. Maybe we can make this post a place to check for various links. I, of course, will share one of my new favorite haunts and places to check out. Namely, reddit.

Reddit isn't a huge secret, especially if you are online a lot like most bloggers are. However, there is a lot of data that can be pulled from reddit. Quick visits to places like /r/rpg can get you in touch with lots of other DMs for questions, stories for ideas, and various other ideas and props you may need. Most games that are based in a known universe will have another reddit (like /r/shadowrun or /r/starwars) dedicated to that universe.

I've only been using reddit for a short time, but it has made a lot of things for my games (especially my shadowrun game) a lot easier. It's also just good to go and see what other people are doing with their games.

Aside from reddit, most of the places I visit for other types of help are actually listed on the blog roll on the right side of this page. Stuffer Shack is a personal favorite, though I haven't been there in a bit. Life and Times is another great blog, and he regularly posts campaign ideas which is always good to get the brain going.

SO what about you? Where do you like to go?

The Potential Problem With Complete-able Goals

May be a short one today - I'm honestly not sure. Today though I wanted to talk about being a player, namely running a Player Character, and one of the common traps laid out by goals that I see a lot of characters fall into when their player isn't fully paying attention or just doesn't think things through the whole way. This isn't a flaw with the Player's process either; they're just trying to make a fun character, but it can quickly rob a character from the game or worse: take the fun out of the character. Lets begin.

Naming Your L5R Character

This is kind of system specific, but as the game I've played the most for the past several years has been L5r, and it also seems to be the system I've seen people have the most problems with naming their character in, I figured it might be fun to do a post on it. My apologies for the Non-L5R players out there, as not much of this is going to be relevant to non-samurai related games. Though, it could help you with  samurai characters in other games, I suppose.

Precision Machined Metal Dice

What's that? Two posts on the same day? Well, don't get too excited yet. This post isn't full of GM advice, but it does have an opportunity you may be interested in. Namely, it's another "currently on Kickstarter" post. And the topic for today? Precision machined metal dice.

Now, personally, I'm not the kind of gamer who really gets crazy about my dice. I mean, yeah, I have a good amount and I miss the old days when touching a gamer's dice without permission was grounds for a whooping and ejection from the premises, but the dice itself - provided they're not loaded - I didn't much care for as long as they were dice. That said, I do own a set of game science dice (actually, 3 now thanks to a friend's christmas gift) but I'm also fond of Chessex and whatever other brands are lying around out there.

Still, I know some people really like their dice. I'd also be lying if I said I never wanted metal dice of my own. This kick starter may be the answer to that too.

I'll let you look into the details yourself, but essentially they're doing full dice sets (D4-D20) and casino style dice sets (6d6) along with a dice case at certain levels. Now, the price may look a bit steep but keep in mind a few things:

First, dice aren't exactly cheap. You'll drop $15 easily on a set of dice that have a few pretty colors on them in most hobby stores, and that's for what seems to be "mid-good" quality. That is also for dice that went through a rock tumbler and are made of whatever it is dice are commonly made of.

Two, the precision tooling means that these should have the same claim to 'accuracy' and 'fairness' that game science boasts with their dice. By not going through a rock tumbler for smoothing the weight of the individual die should be evenly balanced throughout and thus not have a favored number to roll.

Three, they're made of metal. Yeah, I know, duh, obviously, but look at the kickstarter page again. The metal looks pretty and shiny, the dice are going to be 125% bigger than normal dice (so they should stand out, they should also be easier to read without being so big they become combersome to lug around), and I've yet to hold a metal die that didn't have a good weight to it.

Check it out and decide for yourself. To be honest, I haven't decided if I will back this project or not, but it definitely seemed interesting enough to pass the word along. Besides, what good is an RPG without some kick-ass dice to game with?


The link again for those who missed it above.

Discussion - Winging It

Man, this week has been out to get me. Started off with a weekend of traveling across state to  care for/check on/help out hospitalized family members and ended with me being ill myself. In between work came fast and hard enough that when a player asked me if I was looking forward to game tomorrow (tonight, when you are reading this) I was honestly confused by what they meant. As in, I'd totally forgotten that game was even a thing. In my defense, the game is fairly new. We've only been at it for the past 3 years or so... (different campaigns, sadly.)

So, anyhow, a large part of tonight's game is going to be winging it. Luckily, the big thing one of my PCs wants to do I've had planned and written down for weeks. Also, my players are awesome enough that I could probably burn a straight month of sessions (like a session every day) just reacting to what they're doing and seeing the antics they get into. Still though, it does leave some room to be desired.

Still, that's neither here nor there. My question for you guys today is, what is your favorite technique to go to when you have to wing it? Do you just try to make the best of a bad situation? Do you pretend you had it all planned while hiding specifics in vagueries? Do you drop a big combat on the group to eat up a large amount of session time with the mechanics heavy portion of the game?

All of these are viable, and done right can make for a very entertaining night. I'm just curious what works for you?

Sick Day

My apologies for having so many of these lately, but I'm once again feeling under the weather. I'll try to come back Friday with our regularly scheduled update. Hope you guys have a good Thursday.

STAR WARS! - What It's Taught Me

Alright, look, I'm going to level with you: I'm pretty much obsessed with Star Wars. I love it. I love the universe. I love the stories that are told in the universe. I love the characters. I love all of it. Well, I don't love the prequel trilogy stuff but I don't hate it like a lot of other people do. I am not sure what it is, but there is just something magical about the Star Wars universe that makes everything feel epic and awesome and fun. Today I wanted to look into what some of those reasons could be, and maybe flag a few pointers for those of us who are doing our own world building on the side.

Kickstarter Update - Achtung! Assault on the Mountains of Madness

Discussion - Back Up Characters

It's been kind of a crazy weekend for me and I haven't had much in the way of time for writing or preparing for this week. Between that and the lack of a discussion last week I figured it might be fun to start this week off a bit quicker and shorter and do a discussion now. The topic I'd like to discuss? Back up characters.

Guest Star Aftermath - How It Went

Last Friday I had a player in my game who was only going to be there for one session. I decided to use the session as an opportunity and wrote up a special character for the player to play. The idea would be that the character would show up and be like a Guest Star character in a serialized TV show. Someone who could maybe show up again later on - if the fans demanded it - and who would, in the TV show, be played by a visiting/guest celebrity. The end result worked out fairly well, but as I had some requests to go over it in more detail I figured I'd share those details today.

Something Soothing To Plot To

Forgive the short post for today, I'll return to the normal length tomorrow with the wrap up of how last week's Guest Star session went. Today though has been a drag. Spent almost the entirety of the day on the road running errands and delivering people back home. Not saying it to complain, just that it was a full day that capped off with GMing Shadowrun, and I'm tired but would really like to share something with you today. What do I want to share? Click the link to find out.

RPG Blog Carnival - Epic GM Moments

The Sole Trick To Being A Good GM

Hello people. I don't normally do this, but after a conversation I had yesterday with a housemate (hilariously, not even about table top gaming) I've come up with a trick. Maybe trick isn't the right word. Maybe it is a rule. Maybe it is something else. Eitherway, this trick/rule/whatever is, in a lot of ways, the culmination of three years of writing this blog and a life time of gaming, thinking about gaming, and trying to improve at being a GM.

Ludonarrative & Why It Matters

A friend introduced me to this term recently and after reading this article I've found that the term lets me talk about some of my feelings in regards to gaming in a new way, a better way in my opinion, and I figured I would share that with the rest of you. The article there is about video games, but the concept of Ludonarrative and of Ludonarrative Dissonance, Resonance, and Alienation are things that can be very real at the gaming table. For today, I figure I would talk about the term itself. Perhaps later, in another update, we can use it to really dissect some issues you may come across at the game table.

Discussion: How Often Do You Change Systems?

How often do you and your group change systems? I'd imagine the answer is different for everyone. I know groups that are still out there playing in AD&D Revised campaigns that have been going for nearly twenty years or more at this point. I have a friend who has been running an L5R game for the last 10 years but they switch to the newest edition a little bit after it comes out (usually at generation gaps and such.) On the other hand, I'm personally hard pressed to have a game going for more than a year or two and regularly like to try out various systems.

How about you? How often does your group change systems? Each game? Do you finish one campaign and then swap systems or do you swap a lot in the middle? Even if your games end, do you stick to the same system? Are you an AD&D group? Maybe 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder group? Maybe a different game altogether like Shadowrun, the West End Games' Star Wars system, or something else?

How many folks out there change systems regularly? How many stick to the same one? Has anyone never actually tried more than the one system that they've been playing for months if not years?

Sound off in the comments.