Review: Swordsfall Summit of Kings

Disclaimer: This is not a paid review. I did not receive a free copy for a review.

If you aren't aware of what Swordsfall is, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. Brandon Dixon, the creator, has done an amazing job of fleshing out one hell of a world. On top of his World Anvil page, he has books on amazon, graphic novels in production, and a whole ton of incredibly sweet merch out there to promote his world and the people who are helping him bring his world and his products to life.

Swordsfall is much more than a Role Playing Game franchise. Brandon clearly has plans for it to be a multi-media juggernaut, and considering his tenacity and how prolific he is, I think it is only a matter of time before he achieves that. That said, he did release the Summit of Kings: Battle for the Supreme Jalen a love letter to rap and a preview of what the Swordsfall RPG will look like.

My BIG Problem With Dungeons & Dragons 5e

I try not to be negative or harp on negative things on this blog, but this has been gnawing at my brain for the past week or more and I figure writing it down would be good for me. The original plan was just to write it down and not post it, but then I came across this article from The Alexandrian, and it got me thinking that my big problem with D&D 5e may not just be a personal quirk, but a larger problem in general. Perhaps then adding my own $0.02 to the discussion will be helpful to someone looking to make fixes. More importantly though, maybe it will be found by a new GM and in explaining some of the places the system hiccups they'll see that it's not just them not getting it, but there are places where 5e prepares you well for the game and places where it does not prepare you at all.

How Strong Are The PCs? How Rare Is That Strength Level?

One of the good things I've found to keep in mind when roleplaying NPCs, and when designing my worlds - or setting my expectations for worlds - for games is the answer to the two topic questions. Just how strong are the PCs compared to your random, normal person? What does that look like as the PCs progress mechanically through the system and gain levels/xp/power - or however your system of choice does progression. Just as important as that first question though is how rare that power level actually is in the world.

Sometimes A Helpful NPC Is Just A Helpful NPC

A conversation with some friends recently brought up this point. One friend mentioned that in a game they were in they had the inevitable betrayal from the friendly NPC, and that the GM was a little disappointed everyone saw it coming. I got unasked for kudos in this conversation because it was compared to my game where the friendly NPC betrayal came out more as a surprise, but the friend didn't quite know what the difference was. Having talked about this a few times over the years, I explained that the difference is that in my games 90% of the time or more a friendly NPC is just a friendly NPC, and that I not only make sure to keep the ratio like that, but I take pains to make sure I do.

Three Questions For An Adventure Plot Miniquest

Adventure stories are tried and true for videogames, cinema, books, comics, and - of course - RPGs. They're so tried and true, we frequently call our parceled stories for games 'adventures' and the characters - at least in fantasy games - are often considered to be 'adventurers'. So how do you catch that feel for an Adventure type scenario? You know what I'm talking about, the thing that happens in what would otherwise be the mushy middle of a story to help keep things going, and to keep people entertained with action and intrigue.

It seems to me, it boils down to answering three questions and in answering these questions you can setup your own scenarios:

Discussion: A Go To Adventure

Do you have a 'Go To' Adventure? Something in a genre or vein you could run in almost any situation or for particular game types at the drop of a hat? Something comfortable and familiar you can use to get a game going or just fill in a gap?

If so, what is it?

For me I have two, one for modern/futuristic games and one for more fantasy/historical settings.

For modern/futuristic I like doing a group of criminals/bad guys taking over a mall or shopping center. You get hostages, but also interesting public locales that give lots of options to the players while making for a tense situation and some fun action sequences.

For historical games, cultists grabbing a family works great for low level characters while being an easy one shot, or setting up a future adventure chain.

What about you? Any tricks or go to easy plot elements you keep handy just in case?

Murder Mysteries for your Game

Murder mysteries - or almost any kind of mystery - is one of the common things adventures go into when it's not just combat or saving kingdoms from possessed demons. This is also one of the places where you can get into trouble. In a book or movie, you can make sure that the right clues are found and things are strung together at the right time for maximum climactic achievement. In an RPG that's a lot harder. After all, you have 4-6 other people working on the adventure, putting clues together, and they - unlike the protagonists in a novel - know the mind of the person crafting the mystery and what they tend to do. That said, there are still things you can do. So let's go into it.

Discussion: Custom or Found Maps?

This was meant to go up on Friday, but apparently didn't so I figured I'd use it today.

Assuming you use maps for your RPGs, do you make custom maps or do you use pre-made/found maps? For book adventures and campaign settings there is often a bunch of professionally made maps for you to use, and that can be an awesome reference. Even for custom content, there is often publicly available maps from various artists put up for free for everyone to use. All you need to do then is modify it to your needs.

And then there are people who make their own maps, either with simple drawing tools on a mat or with software/tools designed to do it.

In person I like using a Chessex Battle Mat and drawing things out as needed. It is even fun sometimes to have one of the players draw the map for the area we're in while I get other things set up, and then placing things around that scenario as I can to get the fight going.

Online I was using scavenged maps, but with Dungeon Draft I find it is just as easy - if not easier - to whip something up on the quick as it is to go looking for things. The best part of that is I can put in the specific challenges I want to have while doing so which makes it all the better.

What about you? Custom, Savenged, or book adventures? Or do you have something that puts you somewhere in between like tile sets you can mix and match as you desire to get something custom made out of something made/found?

Dungeondraft

When talking about map making before I think I made it known how much I like Wonderdraft. It's not the best or most in depth  map making program I've ever seen out there, but it makes good looking maps quickly with little skill on the part of the user. And ultimately, that's all I need. I'm not looking to make professional maps to sell to Wizards of the Coast. I'm looking for a visual guide to my world that I can share with players.

You can imagine how delighted I was to find that Wonderdraft now also makes a dungeon mapping software called Dungeondraft. Like Wonderdraft, Dungeondraft puts out solid quality maps quickly and with little skill required on the part of the user. You can see more about it in the video they have advertising it here:

And below you can see a map I made earlier today for a game I'm running on Friday. As far as battle maps go it is serviceable. But it didn't take long to make, just a bit of futzing around with the tools.

My favorite part though is there is a random generator for dungeons or caves so you can just click a few buttons and get a random layout that you then populate with decorations. Definitely useful when you just want something small and quick, or something you can potentially reuse in different scenarios.

Not bad for $20.

Two Questions You Should Be Asking Your Players

People often have different ideas of what exactly is going on, and how things are happening in a game. This isn't so much a problem - for the most part - as it is just a fact of the way the game works. Everyone takes the data of what the GM says and filters it differently, and they have their own assumptions and thoughts on what and how the other characters act when they're not being actively updated with description or narration.

People also often use simple statements. "I attack" or "I steal the item" or "I cure the disease." To the functional plot movement aspect of the game, these are totally functional, valid options that get the important message across of what is being done. What they don't do is engage the story telling aspect of the game, or the characterization in how those things are happening. Which brings me to the topic, and two questions I find very useful to ask players to get them to give that information:

1. How do you do that?
2. What does that look like?

How Do You Plan NPCs? (Discussion)

I believe I've mentioned before, but I change the way I prep everything from sessions to NPCs fairly regularly. It's like how I'm doing things stops working, or I forget some of the key steps that I am supposed to focus on which makes it lose the 'magic' so to say. I am always looking for new/better ways too, so it's not long before I find something and then I go off in that direction.

That said, while I've gone through a bunch of ways to make NPCs I don't know I've ever had one stand out to me as a solid, quick way to make an NPC that covers all the bases I need. Obviously there is more needed for a major NPC than a minor one, but sometimes an NPC is straddling the line where you're not sure if they'll be a big deal or not until you're in session and need that.

At present I am using a method where I try to define their weaknesses, wants, needs, allies, and enemies. It works ok, but leaves out some qualities that could be useful. I've previously done 3 aspects like I was making a FATE character which can also work, and you can scale to 5 aspects for bigger characters.

How about you? What method do you use? What have you found works well for you?