Chris Sims - World Building Imaginary People

If you're unaware, there is a conversation going on right now in the D&D/Pathfinder space about bio-essential evil. To sum it up, after years and decades of having entire races be evil because that is just the way the race is, Dungeons and Dragons made an official announcement saying that the views of race in Eberron and the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is more in line with their current view of race. That races like Orcs and Drow deserve to be as culturally nuanced and varied as any other race - especially playable ones - and that they would be making changes in that line for the future.

This sparked a huge conversation with many old guards - and some less than savory people - saying this is a problem because smiting evil, and having clear delineated lines of good and evil, is essential to D&D and that this would ruin the fun. It is not an argument that I particularly truck with. I, in fact, am firmly on the other side. You can have blatant, clear, evil without making entire races of sentient creatures with free will and the ability to make their own choices evil because "that is just how all of them are" with a few notable characters like Drizzt who are "one of the good ones," a "credit to their race," or - what they really mean - the exception that proves the rule (i.e. Except for Drizzt, all Drow are evil.)

However, you don't have to take my word for it. Chris Sims has an article up, expanding on a twitter thread and facebook post where he talks about how having Evil not be a trait of race actually costs us nothing when it comes to clear, evil people we can fight while giving us more interesting and better villains.

The beginning of his argument is thus, and I'll let you read the post for the rest. Click the quote to go to the article:

In a fantasy game, we needn’t treat a whole strain of people as evil any more we need to treat every human as evil. Every elf. Every dwarf. Every halfling. The belief that we do for escapist fun, heroics, or moral lessons is a misguided failure of imagination at best.

Lessons from Others: Decolonizing your D&D/Fantasy Game

This is an interesting post about why you may want to take another look at your fantasy races, especially the halfbreeds, and do them differently...even more scientifically.

Click her to go to POCGamer's article. Read his other stuff. It's great stuff!

Discussion: Beginnings and the Tavern

This video got me thinking about how we begin our games, and how with a little work the classic beginning can also be the best beginning. I'm curious your thoughts on it as well. Also, if you're not checking out Matt Coleville on the regular, you should fix that.

Verbs! By Matthew Colville

I had an idea for a long post about some lessons I recently learned, but then I realized something. The biggest improvement I feel I've made as a GM lately came from this video. How often do you consider the verbs you use when giving your players tasks? RPGs are fond of "What do you do?" but that question can be daunting with its openness if a good mission isn't set before the PCs, and a good mission has a good verb.



Watch this. Digest it. Consider it when planning your sessions. You might be surprised how much better your sessions go when "Find information on the missing Count of House Antioch" becomes "Recover the Book of Fallen Leaves, a detailed History and Study of House Antioch."



But I'll let you watch for yourself below.

Guest Lecturer: Narrative Role Play Gaming

Today's post is a Guest Lecture from Joseph Gambit. Joseph is here to explain the concept behind a site he runs called Role Pages. Normally I don't like using this blog as ad space, but Joseph's page is more like telling you about a game then it is selling something so I figured we'd give it a shot. Anyhow, that said I'll let Joseph take over after the break. Give it a ready, give Role Pages a shot, and if you like it be sure to spread the word.

Bad Cancellations

This was supposed to have gone up yesterday, but I derped the placement and so now you get it today instead of yesterday.

Anyhow, writing credit for this post goes to Sean Phelan, and he's here to talk about a bad game cancellation. So, without further ado, Sean?

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.

Guest Lecturer - Colin's Choice From The GM's Perspective

Monday and Tuesday were about a choice my character in a Dresden Files game has to do. I liked it because it is one of the times where I get to be the subject of a post on the approach to GMing concepts. Based on that post though, the GM for the game wrote the following piece. I am sharing it with you guys today because, among other things, it shows an interesting - and strong - approach to dealing with characters in the FATE system. Particularly when it comes to looking at Aspects, what they may mean, and how to present the meaningful choices to the player of that character. I hope you enjoy it.

Guest Lecturer: Group Backstories

Today we have our second guest lecturer in the form of 1D12. 1d12 has been a regular on the blog for a while, and generally provides a lot of good and insightful comments, so I'm really happy that he's decided to step up and write a full on guest post. You can find 1d12's personal blog here, and you can find them on facebook here. Be sure to click the links. All that said, let's see what 1d12 has to say on how to formulate a group backstory.

Guest Lecturer: Intriguing Play

Today's entry is a guest submission by frequent reader/commenter Emmet. In it, he talks about ways to compel intrigue in your game, to hook your players and keep them coming back for more. So, grab your chair and take up a glass, and let's see what Emmet has to say.

Crime 101: The Anatomy of a Mugging

Today's post is written by Atraties, and is about the difference between an amateur mugging, and a professional mugging. He, or I, will probably revisit this topic later in the week to go over some of the details, or at least examples of ways to use this in your game, but for now - and how I think all the Crime 101 posts will be done - let's just focus on the topic at hand. That being said, read on to see Atraties' debut post on the Anatomy of a Mugging.

Also, if you are interested in writing a guest post about anything related to gaming, drop me a line. There is a link with instructions on the right side of the page.

Dire Peril

Sorry, todays blog post is going to be short.

So I was watching Reddit's interview with John Wick and he mentioned something when talking about mechanics he doesn't like. Namely the concept of Dire Peril. Basically, in his games you can't die. Your character will not die in a scene, even if you mess up, unless he has called Dire Peril on the scene.

It is an interesting concept, one that I think speaks to what Wick has been trying to express in his view of games lately. Narrative control, telling a story. That means protecting your main characters. However, I also want to note that what he is doing is different from what I said before of simply not killing PCs. There is still a risk to failure, your character can be maimed or injured in some way (losing a finger, losing an eye, etc). Also, there are parts in the story where you can die. Those parts are however told to you, and he uses that to increase the tension in those scenes.

I personally am curious as to how this would work in a game run by someone aside from John Wick. Could I pull it off? Would it have the same meaning or would it clash with my style? I am intrigued by it. Permission to maim, if only in small ways, in exchange for safety from death aside from in specific pre-called for ways. I think I may have to try it at some point soon, perhaps in the next game I run. Or maybe something to incorporate into my Greymoore game where I am specifically going for that feeling.

Either way, you should check out the interview. The first video can be found below.

Driving the Story with Character

So, I was going to write today about ways to make a character capable of driving a story. Things to look for, things to do, things to have and things to avoid. It was going to touch on some things I've mentioned, and hopefully bring up some new ones.

Then I read this entry over on the Script Frenzy page and realized it was said so much better by this man. So here you go, 3 things that can make a VERY good, interesting, and popular character.

Click Here

He is talking more about writing than gaming, but at the same time character development is character development. Even if parts of it are harder to do around the table than with the pen.

Happy Gaming

Guest Lecturer Part 1

Sorry, but between school, starting a new job today, and my weekly friday night table top I had no time to write out an entry for today. Instead, I'm going to give a link to two of John Wick's youtube "Play Dirty" clips. Stuff in these, with my own take on them, will probably be coming up in future blogs, but in general they are also full of good (if dangerous when not done properly) advice.

For the record, I'm linking to these as they're put up for free access on youtube. I have no connection to John Wick aside from being an avid reader and fan of his work. I am hoping, if he ever noticed this, that he'd be happy to be a part of this. Though maybe he won't who knows.