Recently I posted about my interest in running a Vampire the Masquerade game. I’m reading the 20^th anniversary book and all sorts of idea are percolating in my head. One of them is how to bring all the characters together. Games such as Vampire where characters have so many built in conflicts it can be particularly difficult, but this consideration is important for any game. Unless all you adventures begin with “You are all together in a bar…”

For the Vampire game I have been considering various options:

• The characters are all neonate vampires, recently embraced but their siresare nowhere to be found. Then there are two options stemming from this…
  • The characters are all from different clans, adding to the mystery, why would such a diverse group of vampires embrace these people and disappear?
  • Or perhaps they are all Caitiff, maybe even fourteenth generation.
• All the characters share a common benefactor an autarkis who the character’s sires all owe favors. He or she has taken the characters under his wing. But why?

 Those are just two ideas, but by their very definition they will limit the options available for players from the get go. Be it for Vampire or many other games I feel some trepidation when I do this. I understand that limiting character options can establish the tone and feel of the campaign, and if this comes out from an open discussion and agreement between all parties, players and game master, it can be a great thing. But when it’s a unilateral decision it can be frustrating.

Mind you I have done it, and when I play fantasy, which is a genre I play so often and that we have played so much, placing limits doesn’t quiet bother me as much. The players have tried many options in fantasy games. And even then if the player has some really interesting concept that may stretch these limits I’ll consider it.

Let me explain my rationale. I am a firm believer that all parties in a game should have fun, and for many players making the character they envision is part of that fun. Playing just what you want, within the limits of the game, can be terribly exciting and satisfying. If as a GM I limit these options from the beginin, then I am truncating the fun even before the game begins. As a GM I should be able to account for different player styles, interest and character types.

And then there is the fact that when we get to play Vampire it will more than likely be a short mini-campaign, in a game I have not previously run, and which many players have not played. I think limiting their options may shortchange them from the Masquerade experience. So I’ll find a way to bring the characters together without limiting them rule wise. As a Storyteller that will be my responsibility.

How do you feel about limiting player options? How do you go about it? I’d love to know!

PS – I didn’t even notice that my previous post was number 200. Wow how time flies. Thank you all for reading!

Related posts:

1. Confessions of a Gamer: Dungeon Mastering
2. Powerless player
3. Player Advice: Make your character come alive!

1. Get a desktop publishing software
   When you try your hand at layout using word processors like MS Word or Open Office etc. don’t be surprised when it looks like crap. It’s extremely hard to create a good-looking layout with a software that’s not created for that purpose.
   I prefer Adobe InDesign but it’s an extremely expensive software. Microsoft’s Publisher is AFAIK still included in some versions of their Office suite and it’s pretty easy to use. If you prefer open source there’s Scribus.
   I haven’t had much luck using Scribus, but I know that some people have created pretty cool looking stuff with it. I am sure there are many more DTP solutions for various platforms.
2. Look at what other people have done
   That’s what I did a lot. I looked at the layouts I’ve seen in books I like and tried my hand at imitating them. That’s actually easier said then done, especially when you use another software (with less features) and when you have no idea how certain things are done. I am still pretty much an amateur but people seem to like my stuff, but I still learn something new every day. That’s actually a good segue to my next tip.
3. Practice, practice, practice
   The only way to get better at doing layout is by doing layout. Period. Ok, when you get someone else to show you some tricks, this may also help.
4. Make use of textures and artwork
   Everything looks better with textures and  artwork. Luckily there’s are a lot of textures on the net that you can use royalty-free. Often textures are released in the public domain or are licensed under Creative Commons. When it comes to Fantasy/SF artwork you usually have to pay for that stuff. But there’s a lot of pretty inexpensive stock art at sites like RPGNow.
   Sometimes artists allow you to use their art for free as long as your project is non-commercial. If you find a nice piece of art at DeviantArt or somewhere else, do the right thing and ask the artist for permission if you want to use it. You might be surprised how many artists are actually willing to let you use it for free.
5. Get feedback
   Ask people for feedback. Show them a few pages and ask them how they like the layout. I actually print the layout drafts on paper so that you can better judge how the final product is going to look like. Sometimes your layout looks great on the screen but doesn’t work that well on paper.
   It also helps to have a few friends who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth when your layout sucks. And it’s even better if they can point out what they don’t like and more importantly why they don’t like it.

Please don’t forget that I am an amateur myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt. If you have some layout experience of your own, feel free to post your thoughts below!

Related posts:

1. What’s better than RPG PDFs? RPG PDFs with a discount!
2. DIY: Binding your printed PDFs
3. My thoughts on the RPGBloggers Network

Recently I had a rather lengthy chat with Joshua Macy, who has also written a couple of extremely helpful posts on the subject of sandbox games:

• Sandbox Play
• When You Set Out for Ithaka: Travel in the Sandbox
• Sandbox, Not Simulation

Aside from that I also found a few more recent posts on the topic:

• On the Superiority of the Railroad Method Over Sandboxes
• What Skyrim Does Right in the Eyes of a Table Top Roleplayer
• Kicking off a Campaign
• NPCs and the Sandbox

Of course there are probably thousands of posts out there on running sandbox games. Do you know interesting posts that should be added to that list? Or perhaps you have some of your own experiences to share. Feel free to do so in the comments below!

Related posts:

1. Sandbox in Space
2. Pirates are playing in the sandbox
3. Dungeoncraft Links

If you want to check out the map in all its interactive glory, follow this link. Mashupforge is currently in beta, and they’ll probably add more features in the future but if you look for an easy and free way to turn your campaign map into an interactive map in the style of Google Maps, mashupforge is definitely worth a look.

Related posts:

1. Stargazer’s RPG Stuff
2. Google Friend Connect
3. Surfing on the Wave

Let’s look at the most obvious ones. I read a whole lot more because of gaming. I was already an avid reader before discovering rpgs, but the games introduced me to all sorts of different authors and influences I might not have discovered where it not for the game. I became a better storyteller and developed both my oral and written communication skills due to the game, during face to face interactions as part of the game or when I sat down to write a handout or other game related document.

I can’t say I learned English because of games, I already had a pretty decent grasp of the language, but I know many friends who improved their language skills thanks to gaming. On a recent discussion in the Puerto Rico Role Players group we were talking about how being a good Game Master had much in common with being a good teacher and how that has helped me in my line of work. I really believe that my interpersonal skills, something I rely on daily in my line of work, are better because of the game.

Then there is the ongoing learning… I find myself researching ideas and concepts for my writing (game related and otherwise) all the time. My creative endeavors (and role-playing games is a big chunk of that) mean I am constantly searching for ways to learn more, and more effectively. Readying articles on Wikipedia still seems odd to some people (probably the same ones who thought it was odd to read the encyclopedia for fun!), but recently I have been using the Kahn Academy more and more.

The Kahn Academy is a non-for profit that has existed for a while now (and you can read all about it on this Wikipedia page), and while I knew about it, I had not really used it that much. Then I ended up going to it to look at the Brain Teasers videos thinking I could use some of them for my games, but ended up watching many more videos, and it the process learning about many new things, some I had little interest before.

There are a lot of math and science videos, but even those can be useful for a gamer, specially if you are working on a sci-fi game, I particularly like their History section, great for giving context for historical games for your history-challenged player who might know the timeline of Krynn but might not know if the Wall Street Crash of 1929 happened before or after the Vietnam War. And that anecdotes my friends really happened!

So that’s a recent tool I’ve used to brush up my knowledge, much being applied to my current and future campaigns, such as the Cosmology and Astronomy area for my upcoming sci-fi game. What tools do you use for research when you game?

Related posts:

1. Learning to say no…
2. Fighting the good fight…
3. It’s a good time to be a supers fan!

Luckily my players are very patient with me and haven’t run away yet. Sometimes they share my excitement for the shiny new game I want to try out and so everything is fine, but I often get the nagging feeling that I never actually ran a great campaign. So what do I consider a “great campaign”? It’s the one campaign you remember for many years, that you and your friends always reminisce about when you meet. A friend of mine ran a Rolemaster campaign for us, back when we were still at the university. Even though we met an unfortunate end and the campaign didn’t end as the GM anticipated we had a blast.

So why is it that I can’t seem to see a campaign from start to finish? I think one of the reasons is that while I love to create worlds, characters and rules, my stories are usually not so well thought out. When it comes to adventures I am often sloppy and only my talent at improvising and acting out characters saves the day. The other reason is definitely the aforementioned GM attention deficit disorder that makes me want to run new games every other day.

I recently had some ideas for a fantasy setting I would love to use as a basis for a campaign. One part of me thinks it should go through with it, flesh it out, think about adventure ideas or perhaps turn it into a sandbox game. But another part of me fears that it might be another failure – a game that I start to abandon as soon as the next idea comes along. Of course I could start working on it either way. Even if I never run the game myself, perhaps my notes are useful for someone else.

The end of the year is approaching and this is often a time when people look back on what they did in the year that lies behind them. But you also make plans for the new year. And when it comes to gaming, I am not that happy with how 2011 turned out. I had great plans that fell flat for the most part. That’s why I would love to start something great in 2012. After all if the world is truly ending next year, it’s the last chance I got, isn’t it.

Related posts:

1. Unfinished business
2. The RPG Blog Alliance is now open for business!
3. Are mini-campaigns the solution?

No wonder hardcore fan-folk (and I use the term meaning no disrespect) often take this to the next level when it comes to the things they are passionate about. Be it the TV series they were really invested in and the networked axed, or the endless novel series whose author passed away before completing it. There can be righteous indignation in such occasions.

It’s no different with fans of role-playing games when a game they love is cancelled, or an adventure series they enjoy is left unfinished, but we have the very particular characteristic that what we enjoy is not solely dependant on the actions of others. If a TV series gets the axe, or a novel series is never finished, well there is not much we can do about it. We can petition and protest and that sometimes has a result, but that’s usually not the case. Some people write fan-fiction and present to the world how they think the story would have ended. But we never get to know how the original creator (be is a sole writer or a production company) had planned for the story. We just won’t know…

Enter our hobby. True some people only play pre-published adventures, but even those who do end up modifying or changing the story by the mere act of playing it, even if they use pre-gens and the GM sticks pretty close to what’s written. Our hobby is not passive; we are the weavers of the tales we tell.

So it is no surprise that when a campaign is not finished we get the same feeling of being let down. No let’s call it what it is, the sense of FAILURE when a campaign we began with such gusto just peters out and dies. As I mentioned this line of thought on Twitter last weekend (follow me as there as @Sunglar) @NookHarper listed the reasons this happens.  He correctly said some reasons include players leaving, new games starting, starting games full of enthusiasm but with little or no planning, among others.

And I agree those are among the common causes that campaigns die. Some will say that’s why they don’t play campaigns, that they prefer one shots or short adventures, and I say, more power to you, to each and everyone his or her own. Play what makes you happy! Me? Well I just love campaigns, the possibility of telling a long term story, the nuances developed as characters interact with the world, be it for a hundred sessions, or just ten. If you have never played a campaign I recommend it, it’s a different experience and well worth the work and aggravation (and there will be a little bit of both I assure you!).

I have finished various campaigns, some years long. I tend to stick to something until the end. I, like any other human being, am a completist. Logically you might now expect my advice on how to make sure that campaign keeps going, tips on how to reach the finish line. Well no! That’s not what this post is about, on the contrary, I will go ahead and say it. That campaign you are sorry you did not finish, well it might be a good thing it never did.

Before you get offended and think I dismissed your campaign, let me tell you why I say this. Have you always been happy with the way a story ends? Be it novel, television series or movie. I can tell you the finale of LOST was one of the most disappointing TV watching experiences of my life. Oftentimes when we like something a lot, there is no way the end is going to be as good as we thought it would be. True with campaigns the attentive Game Master can tailor and shape the flow of things to meet player lies and expectations and hopefully come to a satisfying conclusion. But I have the nagging feeling that more often than not the ends of campaigns happen after some measure of fatigue has set in and they are either, rushed and feel too premature, or dragged out to long and disappoint. I will admit that, while some campaign closings have been successful, some of my campaigns have suffered from the abovementioned ills.

Maybe the campaign wasn’t that good to begin with. It could have been fun but not as entertaining as the GM thought, we are no perfect after all. But maybe it was really good and it ended for reasons beyond your control. When a campaign is just left unfinished and players keep talking about what could have been, all the possibilities, sometimes its better to leave it like that. Specially if a long time has passed. You will probably never be able to recapture the enthusiasm, the thrill of the original games. Better to live of the memory and what if, than to try to go back and end it…

It’s not easy, but I am trying to come to terms with the idea. I fear George RR Martin will die without finishing A Song of Ice and Fire. I’ve made my peace with it. I’ll read the novels as they come out, I’m along for the ride, if I get to the end that will just be s plus. The same with other media I enjoy.

This line of thought came to me as I ponder the end of the current storyline in my Mutants & Masterminds campaign; which will go into hiatus as its proven popular enough with my players to merit a return to it eventually. We have not played out swashbuckling Pathfinder RPG game since last December and as much fun as we had I know not all the players were equally enthusiastic by the end, and we ended it abruptly because everybody wanted to play supers. For a moment I thought, perhaps its time to let it go…

Well I’ll be a stubborn ass and I think I will disregard my own advice and try to retake it. I have some specific plans to overhaul the game, switch the focus and discuss with players the necessary changes. Well see how that goes… I’ll let you know if I was successful or if it should have remained unfinished business.

Related posts:

1. My take on “unfinished business”
2. The RPG Blog Alliance is now open for business!
3. Letting go of that NPC

The second available dice roller widget was created for White Wolf’s World of Darkness. Again you can choose the title of the widget. But in addition to that the widget lets you set the needed target number, if 10s are allowed to explode, you can toggle whether 1s cancel successes or not, and you can even colorize results. Very nice indeed.

My blog’s widget area is already a bit overcrowded, so I doubt I will include these dice rollers on my own blog, but they could come in handy for anyone interested in running or playing games online.

And if you need an all-encompassing solution, Awesome Dice has something for you, too. The Gaming Dice Roller let’s you roll any number of dice from d4s to d%. It doesn’t have the added functionality of the WoD Dice Roller, but is probably your best choice if you play neither D&D nor WoD.

All three widgets are available as plugins from WordPress.org (I included the links in the text above).

If you want to see the widgets in action, check out the Awesome Dice blog.

Related posts:

1. Rock’n'Roll
2. iPhone app “Mach Dice”
3. Review: Printed Dice

I took my quest to the next level. I pored through just about every single RPG book and PDF I have collected in the last three years since I got into table top RPGs. It’s a shockingly large amount of material I have collected. I focusing my time on reading how each different RPG handles character creation and game mechanics as those are the areas I have issues with in the RPGs I have played.

The truth is, I didn’t know what to look for, but I will know it when I see it. I wanted simple character creation with lots of choices for races and classes. Something that would fit on one piece of notebook paper old school style. You should not need several sheets of paper and index cards to build your character and track all of their powers. To me that is no longer a pen and paper RPG. It’s something else that I don’t think the hobby has developed a name for.

I also want simple gaming mechanics. When I first started playing RPGs with my friends it was, for me and everyone else at the table, all about rolling dice. We all eagerly awaited our turn to roll dice. Now that our dice addiction has subsided we have all learned that the story is the most important part of any RPG. I would like to find a game where the conflict resolution, from jumping over a pit to slaying a dragon, to intimidating a Non Player Character (NPC), is solved quickly by a dice roll. Where I don’t have to memorize or keep large tables of numbers.

As I near the end of my quest. As I finish up reading through the last few RPGs left on my book shelf, I have resolved to the fact that I will not find this perfect game. I don’t think it exists.

I don’t view my quest for the perfect RPG as a total failure either. With each RPG I read through I gain knowledge about RPGs in general. I learned that even though not one RPG fit 100% into what I was looking for I did find a handful or so that appear to be very close. Of these books I am going to go back and dig deeper into them before settling on one that will be my gaming groups next RPG.

The games I found to be top contenders for my group are:

• Old School Reference and Index Compilation (OSRIC) [FREE]
• The red and blue box original Dungeons & Dragons.
• Castles & Crusades
• Serenity
• GURPS

My game plan is to stick with a medieval fantasy game (OSRIC, Dungeons & Dragons, or Castles & Crusades) as my group’s main game while tossing in the occasional one-off of something like ‘Serenity’or ‘Ghostbusters’ to just give me as game master a change of pace and a chance to recharge.

I wrote this post to not only share my experience with you, but to hopefully start some good conversation in the comments section. I would love to hear what anyone has to say about finding the best RPG out there.

Related posts:

1. Other Videogames That Should Be Turned Into Pen and Paper RPGs @ allgeektout
2. Free Stuff Friday: John Kim’s FREE RPGs ON THE WEB
3. Fighting the good fight…

Dear Michael/Stargazer,
My question for you sir, is this? How should one go about starting an RPG blog? I have some ideas for content but my technology-fu is pretty weak. Some folks recommend Blogger to me and others WordPress. I was wondering if you have any tips for getting a blog up and running and then maintaining it?
Thanks!

Best regards,

Matt

Luckily that’s a topic I have already written a lot about. Some of you might actually remember my RPG Blogging 101 series, that I have written back in early 2011. If you are looking into starting your own blog, it wouldn’t hurt if you check out these posts first. But let’s have a deeper look on Matt’s question first.

Matt is currently deciding whether he should use WordPress or Blogger as his platform of choice. I have to admit that’s not the easiest choice to make. Both platforms offer a lot of great features and are totally free to use. But from what I’ve seen in the last few months Blogger is actually winning on almost all accounts, especially when it comes to the number of features available to bloggers. And especially if you already use a lot of Google Services aleady, it’s probably best to stick with Google for blogging, too.

If you are tech-savvy enough I would recommend using a self-hosted WordPress blog, but when you don’t want to worry about all that tech stuff, use Blogger.

You might also want to check out the following posts about blogging in general and RPG blogging in particular:

• RPG Blogging 101: Primer
• RPG Blogging 101: Let’s start at the beginning
• RPG Blogging 101: Writing posts
• RPG Blogging 101: Attracting Readers
• RPG Blogging 101: Be different!
• RPG Blogging 101: You need to have a thick skin!

I hope I could help you with your question, Matt! Feel free to add more questions on the topic below!

By the way, if you have a question you want to ask the Stargazer, send an email to askthestargazer@stargazersworld.com!

Related posts:

1. Stargazer’s World is “Best Gaming Blog” according to RPG Blog 2
2. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
3. RPG Blog II says “Thank You” to its readers

• Book binding. (I can’t be the only person who bemoans the way new rulebooks tend to fall apart like a sheaf of dry leaves after about 5 seconds of use).
  I have to admit that I don’t a single RPG rulebook that had serious binding issues. But I also treat my roleplaying books with a lot of care. Even some of my oldest books still look pretty new. And since I do not tend to stick to one game for many years, most of the books don’t see constant use, so that’s not a big issue for me.
• "Doing a voice". How many people "do voices"? Should they? How do you get better at "doing a voice" if that’s your thing?
  I do voices a lot. I still remember one session that actually almost caused me to lose my voice. I was running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition at the time and the players investigated  body-snatchings at the local Morr temple. The Morr priest was a pretty old guy with a coarse and craggy voice. And since the players talked for quite some time with the guy, I had to use my "old guy voice” all night. The next morning I was actually hoarse.
  In addition to using voices I actually use various accents in my games. Especially when I use my hometown’s local accent for portraying some country bumpkin in one of my games, a lot of laughter is assured.
  But you have to make sure you don’t overdo it. Using accents and doing voices can get old pretty fast if overdone. In order to these techniques with great effect you have to use them sparingly.
• Breaks. How often do you have breaks within sessions?
  We usually start playing in the afternoon and have one break to eat dinner. Aside from that shorter breaks may occur when necessary. But usually I try to avoid breaks because after each break it takes awhile until everyone is really “back in the game”.
• Description. Exactly how florid are your descriptions?
  That depends a lot on my mood and the situation. I can be very florid and describe everything in miniscule details but I can also paint the picture in a few braod strokes. But most of the time I try not to be to florid in my descriptions. The more you describe the less the players are able to use their imagination.
• Where do you strike the balance between "doing what your character would do" and "acting like a dickhead"?
  That’s pretty easy. As soon as the other players’ fun is negatively affected by the character’s actions, you have to act. But normally I try to avoid issues like that during character creation. Especially when a player wants to play the mysterious loner type, I politely remind him that in my games the characters are meant to cooperate. And the mysterious loner is usually not a good team player.
  Evil characters are banned at my game table.
• PC-on-PC violence. Do your players tend to avoid it, or do you ban it? Or does anything go?
  As far as I remember there hasn’t been any PC-on-PC violence in the games I’ve run. And if there was it definitely was not that often. There might be situations where a fight between two PCs may actually be acceptable, but in most cases it’s not. But I don’t have a special rule that bans in-party violence.
• How do you explain what a role playing game is to a stranger who is also a non-player? (Real life example: my friends and I were playing in the local M:tG club space. A M:tG groupie teenage goth girl came over and asked, "What are you playing?" "[We answered.]" "Sounds kind of gay.")
  Most people know about the kind of roleplaying that is done in communication training or in a psychotherapy setting, so it’s actually easy to bring the basic idea across. Sometimes I start describing what could be a typical scene in a roleplaying game and ask the interested stranger how he or she would react. That’s usually the point where they “get” it. Overall I haven’t had many bad reactions. Most people think it’s at least sounds interesting in theory even if they can’t imagine playing roleplaying games themselves.
• Alchohol at the table?
  I don’t drink any alcohol and I don’t serve alcoholic beverages to my guests either. I think in some games I ran during our regular RPG pub meeting players were having a beer, but I would never run a game to drunk players.
• What’s acceptable to do to a PC whose player is absent from the session? Is whatever happens their fault for not being there, or are there some limits?
  As a GM I never do any bad things to a PC whose player is absent. The PC is in a state similar to the one Schrödinger’s cat is in. He or she is both there and not there at the same time. Yes, it helps to understand the basics of quantum theory to play in my games.

Related posts:

1. Five good things I learned playing D&D 4th edition (or… How I learned not to care about diagonal movement!)
2. “A rose by any other name…” Poetry and Role Playing Games
3. Time to Speak Out with my Geek Out… Role-Playing Games in my case!

I mainly intend to use the Kindle for what it was designed which is reading normal ebooks. But as a gamer I also look for ways how I can use this new device at the game table. I’ve done some research and found out that a few roleplaying publishers have started to release their books in ePub or Mobi formats. There are also free ebook versions of the Anima RPG and the German translation of FreeFATE. If you have a long trip on the plane or train ahead of you, you might want to put some RPG book on your Kindle to give it a readthrough from cover to cover. And that might actually work pretty fine when you have a version of said rules optimized for an ebook reader.

I even tried reading a PDF on my Kindle and was surprised that it worked better than I expected. But that doesn’t mean I would recommend it. If the PDF was created in a digest-sized format it might actually work, but usually the font size is just too small to read anything comfortably. Zooming is possible but not that user-friendly. The Kindle is no iPad, folks. In addition to that I am pretty sure that very artwork-intensive PDFs might be too much for the device.

Since you can copy your own documents easily to the Kindle, you could for example copy all the notes you need for the game you’re running to the Kindle. And searching for something in actual ebooks (not PDFs) is pretty reliable, so you might actually use the Kindle as an alternative to flipping through a physical rulebook when you want to look up some obscure rule. I am sure some Kindle owners and D&D 3.x/Pathfinder players have a copy of the SRD on the device.

So what are your thoughts on that subject? Do you own a Kindle or a similar ebook reader and have you used it successfully at the game table? Please share your experiences in the comments below!

Related posts:

1. Ask The Readers: Can I use the Kindle as a GM tool?
2. Open Game Table Vol. 2 is coming!
3. Preview: “Open Game Table, The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs”

One problem that fantasy roleplaying games often have is that they are often very clichéd and cover all the common tropes you would expect. Of course there’s magic, fantastical places and all kind of weird creatures, but after a while you know what to expect and a horde of walking dead is not really frightening anymore. It’s just another obstacle on the way to the big bad guy at the end of the dungeon.

Chris’ game is different. The majority of his world is pretty mundane. There are no elves, no dwarves, not one of the common fantasy monsters like kobolds, orc, dragons, you name it. Magic is something noone really understands and you need ancient artifacts called Arcana to use it. And if you get into a fight things get messy pretty quick.

Instead of common fantasy tropes he regularly confronts his players with weird creatures and places not out of this world. In our first adventure we travelled into the “Iron Coral”, a strange set of tunnels and rooms that was inhabited by various strange creatures and that suddenly emerged from under the sea. With each new room we explored and which each creature we encountered we faced something we never had seen before. Every encounter was truly unique and we couldn’t make use of our prior knowledge of fantasy tropes to deal with them.

That’s part of what makes his game so great. You really feel like explorers into a strange and foreign place. You never know what to expect, every encounter is a unique challenge and the high lethality of combat forces you to think first and not just rely on your weapons and armor. The atmosphere Chris is managing to achieve in his games is – sorry when I have to use this word again – unique. Compared to that most fantasy worlds feel like cookie-cutter settings. I actually thought about giving you a few more examples of what we’ve encountered during our recent games, but I don’t want to spoil too much.

So what can we do to get back some of “magic” most of the common fantasy settings have lost over the years?

• Make magic more “magical” by making it uncommon, unpredictable, dangerous. Avoid bland magic items like D&D’s longsword +1.
• Try to avoid using the same creatures over and over again, create new variants with unexpected behaviors and abilities
• If it’s possible don’t let the players play non-human characters and portray non-humans as truly alien – if not by their looks by their thoughts and motivations. An elf should not just be a human with pointy ears.
• Use elements from the horror and SF genre to bring new ideas into your fantasy game.

At this point you’re probably already thinking about what you would do to put fantastic back into your fantasy games. Or you may be among those players who actually like your fantasy setting as it is, which is of course equally fine.

I can’t wait for Chris’ game “Into the Odd” to be released. He mentioned he might use the “Iron Coral” as an example location in the rulebook and I would love to run that particular adventure for my group of players.

Related posts:

1. Fantasy Craft
2. Putting my (hypothetical) money where my mouth is!
3. Fantasy Superheroes

So what’s the idea behind this new feature? You can send in your questions and the team of Stargazer’s World will try to answer them to the best of their abilities. You have a question about an existing or upcoming Stargazer Games product? Ask away! You want to know what we think about a recent development in the RPG industry? Send in your questions. You always wanted to know what we think about game X? Send us an email.

Of course this will only work with your help. So please think about what you want to know and send your questions to askthestargazer@stargazersworld.com! Please note that it may take a while until we publish our first “Ask The Stargazer!” post here. And if it’s possible try to keep questions short and to the point.

So what are you waiting for you? Send us your questions!

Related posts:

1. Update on the status of “Ask the Stargazer!”
2. Support the Stargazer!
3. Ask the Stargazer: WTF Edition

Of course there are a few rules (it wouldn’t be fun without those!):

• Create the game in November
• Finish the game in November
• Play the game in November
• Talk about your experience

By the way, the NaGa DeMon is not just about pen & paper RPGs. If you want to create a boardgame, wargame, cardgame or even a computer game, you can do so and it’s still part of the official NaGa DeMon! I am basically working on some game design project all the time, but perhaps I will use this event to see a project through next month!

And there’s one more thing. For a while I have followed the development of the Windows version of Scrivener. Scrivener is software that was initially developed for Mac only that was meant as a tool for writers. I think explaining all the features of this software would definitely be beyond the scope of this post, so it’s perhaps best you check out the official website for more details. What I have been wondering for a while now was if you could use Scrivener to help you in game design, too. And November may actually be my chance to do so!

You can get a special NaNoWriMo Trial Edition of Scrivener for free that you can use until December 7th. And if you are among the NaNoWriMo winners you’ll get a 50% discount on the full version of Scrivener. And even if you don’t manage to churn out a novel of 50,000 words next month, you still get a 20% discount  by entering “NANOWRIMO” as coupon code at the purchase!

But there’s more. I actually found a very interesting blog post on “Population: One” today, that shows how you can use Scrivener for RPG Writing. If you are interested in using Scrivener for NaGa DeMon, you definitely should check the article out.

Related posts:

1. My Plans for NaGa DeMon
2. NaGa DeMon: I surrender!
3. My NaGa DeMon diary #1

This past Sunday Puerto Rico Role Players held its very first GM Workshop. We’ve had some other activities before, Geeknics, miniature painting workshops, model building, but a friend and fellow member suggested we needed to do something to help Game Masters. So new people get excited about running games, newer GMs can learn from others that have been at it for a longer time, and even those that have GMed for some time learn from others. Thus the GM Workshop was born.

We had to reschedule it once (mea culpa!) but we eventually made it to a local burger joint in the Guaynabo area called John Doe’s, had some burgers, some sodas, some beer, and talked about games. About 26 people made it out to the workshop and we had a semi- formal plan with a group of GMs chiming in about topics such as how to put together a group, whether to use pre-packaged settings or creating your own, and even round robin GMing.

We had a nice mix, a younger newer GM, some old farts; I mean experienced GMs, and everything in between. I hope we get more newbies next time; the more GMs there are the more groups get created and the game community keeps growing. And now you know my nefarious plan!

I was amazed at all the good ideas; I shared some of my experiences and was really excited about all the new strategies and tools I heard about. Some I will use in my game tonight! I would like to thank all the friends, old and new, that made it. The group keeps growing, we are at over 350 members already, and I look forward to future activities together. We have more activities planned, the next Geeknic, a possible Christmas dinner, and people have suggested another minis paining activity, maybe even a terrain building seminar. So many games so little time!

I encourage you to try it in your neck of the woods, get together, exchange ideas and help other GMs become better at what they do. I know I certainly will be thanks to all my fellow GMs who participated in the GM workshop.

Related posts:

1. Puerto Rico Role Players: spreading our wings… And our horizons!
2. The State of the Game: Puerto Rico
3. Ask the Readers: Do you know of any gaming supplements where Puerto Rico is mentioned?

Recently I decided to switch to Free FATE for my current FATE games. This has mainly three reasons:

1. It’s free. We used Starblazer Adventures before, which is an awesome FATE game, but I just can’t expect all my players to get the book.
2. It’s short. With just 48 pages is much more compact than most other version of FATE. Of course it doesn’t genre-specific rules, but I can easily use what I need from other FATE games.
3. It’s available in German. One of my players don’t speak English at all, so I had to translate everything for him. Especially when it comes to stunts this can become quite the task.

Some people might say that my first reason is moot, since not every player needs a copy of the rules. That’s of course true, but some players are interested in reading the rules themselves – which I support if possible – but I just couldn’t lend them my book because I needed it to prepare for the next session. And SBA with it’s 600+ pages is not what I would consider “light reading”.

Free FATE is basically the shortest version of FATE I could find that doesn’t oversimplify things. I especially like the way stunts are handled. Instead of listing dozens of individual stunts Free FATE provides you with guidelines for your own stunts.

From what I’ve seen so far the rules presented in Free FATE are 100% compatible to Starblazer Adventures. So the switch from SBA to Free FATE should be pretty painless.

By the way, Free FATE is one of the few games where the German translation is actually better looking than the original one. While R Grant Erswell did a great job collating, modifying and augmenting the FATE rules, he’s layout skills are not up to par. It would be awesome if Kathy Schad, who did the layout for the German translation, would give the English original a facelift as well.

Related posts:

1. Freebie: Free FATE
2. Strands of Fate
3. First Look: The Kerberos Club FATE Edition

Like the last time Chris ran “Into the Odd” for us. After the game I realized that because of Google+ I have actually played more during the last two weeks than in a long time before.

Scheduling a game has always been a major issue, and since most of my local players live up to an hour’s drive away from me, the time they need to get home after the game has always been another problem. So most of the time we tried to play on the – much too short – weekends. And if then one or more players can’t make it you have to reschedule to the next weekend or the weekend after that. The end result is that you don’t get to play that often.

It’s much easier to get a two to three hour game over Hangout going. Nobody has to drive long distances to get to the place where you want to play. And when the game is done you can go to bed directly without having another long drive ahead of you. Especially when you want to play during the week this really opens up opportunities.

So, do I think that playing via some kind of videoconferencing tool can replace regular gaming altogether? No, I don’t think so. But it can help you to game more often, especially when scheduling in addition to long distances are an issue. And it can help you to play with people you would probably never even meet in “real life” because they live thousands of miles away.

Of course some games are easier to run over Hangout than others. In my opinion it’s perfect for rules-light games. I guess you could even use the sketchpad to realize a battlemap if you like to play with miniatures. The only thing missing so far is a dice rolling feature, but there’s hope third party developers will add something like that with the newly released API. But if your GM trusts you, you can just use your own dice. That’s the method we used in our games and it worked fine.

By the way, I already convinced one other GM to run a game over Hangout for me and I am currently thinking about running games this way myself. I think great times are ahead of us!

Related posts:

1. Almost as good as the real deal: playing RPGs over Google+ Hangout
2. “Roleplaying games as a teaching tool” @ Musings of a ChattyDM
3. Random musings

“Into the Odd” is basically a highly streamlined and simplified version of D&D that did away with classes, three of the attributes and includes a totally new magic system. In this game magic is not fully understood and based on artifacts left behind by some race that supposedly came from the stars. While it’s a fantasy games it brings a lot of horror and SF themes to the table. The focus of the game is exploration and in our game we explored the “Iron Coral”.

I don’t want to spoil things here, because you might want to join Chris one day or eventually your local GM will pick the game up when it’s done and run it for you. But rest assured there was a lot of exploration to be done and it was very exciting and weird. I loved it. I can’t wait to join the guys for the next session sometime next week.

What I also enjoyed very much is that the “Into the Odd” rules usually only call for dice rolls when you are in trouble. You can do pretty much everything without rolling, but when the GM asks you to roll it’s usually because you need to evade damage or during combat. “Into the Odd” feels quite deadly and we were extremely cautious. In the end the whole party safely escaped from the Iron Coral but one player was down to just 1 hp. Ouch!

If you want to learn more about “Into the Odd” check out Chris’ blog and his playtest document.

Now let’s focus on Google+ Hangout. Google+ is the new social network by Google. Think of Facebook with a better UI, better privacy options, and a freakingly awesome video conferencing feature called Hangout. Recently Google added a few extras to Hangout that are almost perfectly suited for online gaming. Basic Hangout allows you to see each other (if everyone has a webcam) and to use voice chat. In addition to that there’s a text chat and you can watch YouTube videos together.

If you decide to use “Hangout with Extras” you don’t get the YouTube feature BUT you can share your desktop, Google Docs documents or a Sketchpad with each other. The latter is great for drawing maps and we always had a document open with our character stats. Very handy indeed!

We had some minor audio issues, but overall the experience was great. After a few minutes you almost forgot that you were sitting in front of your PC with the other players scattered across the globe. For me it felt almost like sitting with friends around the table.

By the way, one of the other players, David Reichgeld posted about his experience on Google+. His post is public, so you should be able to check it out here.

Related posts:

1. More Google+ Hangout musings
2. Google Friend Connect
3. Google Friend Connect integration

As I wrote in the comments of yesterday’s post, there’s only one thing you can do when you want to try something new: don’t expect them to buy rulebooks and learn rules. You have to do the heavy lifting all by yourself. Learn the rules, teach them to your players, and help them to create characters. When you expect your players to take initiative you can often wait until hell freezes over.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not scolding players for this. Buying new games might be expensive, learning rules costs time, and if not everyone is happy with the new game, it was a waste of time and effort. Not everyone is willing to take that risk.

But there are ways to make the transition to a new game easier for your group. Yes, this involves work on the GMs part again, but it’s worth it.

If there’s a free version of the rules, a quickstart PDF or something similar, print it out and make one copy for each of your players. Talk with them about the new game you plan to run and hand them the quickstart rules you prepared. If the player in question is not so much into rules, try not to focus on the rules but sell him or her on the background of the game in question. Tell your players what you love about that game and why you want to run it.

When it comes to creating characters don’t ask them to create them on their own, but offer your help and advice. If they have special wishes try to grant them a few of those if they are not too abusive. Remember that you want them to feel good about the new game. Try to avoid “No” but try to employ the “Yes, but…” method instead.

I have to admit that I am quite lucky with the groups I’ve run games for. They were always willing to try new things, and in some cases they even bought and read the rules themselves. But that’s not the norm. Chances are high that your group consists of players hesitant to change. The best way to get them to agree to give something new a try is to ease them in. Expecting them to dive in head first will usually end in disappointment on your part.

Related posts:

1. “Roleplaying games as a teaching tool” @ Musings of a ChattyDM
2. A Gamer In Japan Part 1: The Group
3. Minigames in roleplaying games

When I first read about the Speak Out with your Geek Out I was intrigued. As I wrote recently I am a big proponent of sharing my love of the role-playing hobby, showing other people how to play, and supporting gaming groups locally. For these reasons we have a local group called Puerto Rico Role Players and through posting in this blog I feel ever closer to the greater gaming community.

So to the question at hand, why do I love role-playing games?

As a kid I used to watch TV programs and fantasize about how I would do things differently if I was the protagonist.  Eventually I began turning off the TV before the program ended and playing out my version of the ending.

See I have always loved stories. I am lucky because my family read to me constantly as a child even before I was able to hold a book. In kindergarten I had a Star Wars picture book that I took with me to school every day. I could not read and my 5 year old mind could not recall every detail about the movie, so I would use the book to tell a different story every day with the same characters. Every time I opened the book the characters were having a new adventure.

Back then I developed a love of telling stories. I would keep telling stories to my friends and neighbors through the years. My family and teachers fostered my love of writing and I discovered another way to share what I imagined with my friends. I remember the thrill of seeing someone enjoy the stories I told them or what I wrote. I also distinctly remember wishing I could share the thrill of creating the story with them. Maybe not is so many words but I remember wishing they were not passive observers but active participants in the story.

That is why discovering role-playing was such a turning point in my life. I could create stories like the ones I loved to watch or read about, and then share them with my friends. They could be the protagonists of their own adventures, the heroes on their own tale.

I still feel the thrill of telling a story every time I get together with my friends, even after twenty plus years at it. I love imagining situations and challenges to present to my players. I love when they surprise me with an unexpected plan or become so involved with the action that we forget these are just characters and think they are real, if even just for a few minutes.

If you have ever wanted to tell your own stories with your friends, if you have ever screamed at the protagonist of a book or movie not to do that, and you are sure you could do better, if you want to go beyond a scripted computer or console game, the mission of an MMO and want to explore the outer limits of your imagination, role-playing games might be for you.

On the odd chance this is the very first time you hear about role-playing games, there are plenty of resources out there that can show you what RPGs are about. Search for them. This blog can help you. Me, my fellow writers and the greater community formed by our contributors and readers are here to help. Try out a game tonight. You just might like it!

To our regular readers, I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Share your love about games with others. Do what you can to support your local gaming community. One great way is the Speak Out with your Geek Out campaign. Follow the link and participate in the initiative, no matter what your geeky pastime is, or how you do it. Speak out, I dare you, I double dare you!

PS – Thanks to all our readers, especially to those who commented on the Caught Unaware post, I paraphrased some of your ideas while writing this post.

Related posts:

1. Gen Con 2011, a retrospective… Part 1: Role Playing Games
2. Five Great Blogs About Role-Playing Games @ GeekDad
3. “A rose by any other name…” Poetry and Role Playing Games

The web-based generator allows you to generate up to 15 randomly generated male or female names suited for a game set into the Victorian Age (or a Steampunk equivalent). You can choose between the various social classes. I am sure this random name generator will be invaluable for me in the future!

Related posts:

1. Ask The Readers: What’s your favorite Steampunk RPG?
2. Review: Kingdom Builder Generator Pack II
3. Review: City Builder Generator Pack

The City Builder contains the following random generators: a Complete City Generator, a Tavern Generator, the Feature Namer, a Crowd Generator, a Rumor Generator, the Merchant Generator and the totally awesome Market Map Generator.

The City and Tavern Generator each create a pretty detailed description of a complete city and a tavern respectively. You just press a button and a new randomly generated description is generated, there are no setting to be made. But the software allows you to edit your results and save it to a RTF file. Following are examples of the output generated by the City and Tavern Generators:

Miyl is a city with loud streets.

There are seven major districts: Guild, Temple, Military, Merchants’, West Quarter, Nobles’ and Fortress

Areas of interest include: The Pine Statue, Radarus Forum, Troll Museum, Messcrown Storehouse, The Smiling Dog Inn, The Barkshark Spire, The Limping Blade Inn, and The Daring Duchess Inn

Its people take pride in their beautiful ancient architecture, patriotism, superstitions, monks, enchanters and local fighting schools. Their patron deity is the God of Names.

Some current rumors:
Kakil the butcher is being unusually quiet.
Chaemn the servant believes that Troumner the bandit is involved in business dealings with Isairakri the shepherd.
Criv the assassin claims to have proof that Elath the moneylender’s father is planning something.
Tramnax the gambler’s father is waiting in the tavern.
Jatimo the moneylender is going to run off with Nykur the guide’s daughter.

Golden Duke Tavern

Overall quality: Shady    Cleanliness: Somewhat grubby, but decent    Size: Large

Drinks: Fairly priced, poor quality, far above average variety
Food: Overpriced, poor quality, somewhat limited variety
Rooms: Overpriced, small and medium sizes, most vacant

Popularity: Very crowded, a few shady characters
Noise level: Loud        Sobriety: Most patrons sober
Dark corners occupied: 25%        Patrons openly armed: Most

Attractions: major brawl
Menu: slightly torn around the edges

Bartender: female, green eyes, very busy, glares at party immediately, speaks with a heavy accent

Noteable patrons: the amourous drunken druid wearing a religious symbol and the drunkenly ranting bard who clearly has a bodyguard

House special: Semi-transparent blue with blue flecks and a stick of cinnamon in the mug. The drink smells heavenly and tastes like ginger. It can be smelled on a drinker’s breath for several hours.

The Feature Namer, Crowd, Rumor and Merchant Generators let you choose the number of results you want to have generated. In addition to that you can choose what type of Feature or Merchant you want to be generated. The Merchant Generator also allows you to exclude sellers of magical items by checking the “Historical” check box. I especially like the Rumor generator which can also be used to generate adventure hooks if you have trouble coming up with ideas of your own.

In my opinion the Market Map Generator is the highlight of the pack. It generates a beautiful map of a market place including descriptions of all the market stalls and buildings. The generator gives the user a plethora of options. You can change the scale of the map, choose which types of merchants and other structures you want to include. You can also choose between four different background decorations (blank, parchment, cobbles and grass). The map can be saved as PNG file.

The software has been written in .NET and should run fine on Windows XP or newer. The City Builder sets you back mere $3.95 and comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. But I doubt this guarantee is actually needed. It’s a great piece of software for a very reasonable price. If you like random generators you should definitely get a copy of the City Builder Generator Pack!

Related posts:

1. Review: Kingdom Builder Generator Pack II
2. Roleplaying City Map Generator
3. Preview: Kingdom Builder by Chaotic Shiny Productions

The World’s Greatest Screen actually solves these issues. Like the SW Customizable GM Screen it’s created from cardboard and vinyl. It has a total of 8 sleeves sized 8.5” x 11” so even A4 paper fits if slightly trimmed. Please not that I picked the portrait variant, but if you prefer landscape, you can get it, too. There’s also a mini version with 4” x 6” sleeves.

Quality-wise the World’s Greatest Screen is on par with the Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen. It looks sturdy enough to survive years of adventuring. With a price of $29.95 it should be affordable for every gamemaster.

According to the product description you can write on the screen itself using wet erase markers. I haven’t tried that yet, but I think this could come in quite handy. If you are looking for a sturdy, affordable and customizable GM screen, you should consider getting “The World’s Greatest Screen” by Hammerdog Games.

Related posts:

1. One GM screen to rule them all
2. Does the GM Screen deserve to go the way of the Dodo?
3. Starblazer Adventures Storyteller’s Screen

That’s the reason why a lot of game masters use background music when running roleplaying games. Alas it’s often not so easy to find fitting music for your game. Often you have to rely on movie and game soundtracks, but they are not as perfectly suited as one might hope. What some GMs end up doing is creating elaborate playlists for their games with background music, music for combat scenes, music for chase scenes etc.

Things would be much easier if there were soundtracks especially created for the game or campaign you’re currently running. Luckily there are a few of those. A shining example is the “Eternal Lies Suite”. James Semple and his team have created 27 tracks perfectly suited for the upcoming Eternal Lies campaign or any ToC campaign for that matter.

The German band Erdenstern has created the soundtrack for “Mountains of Madness”, a Call of Cthulhu campaign, “Die Chronik Aventuriens”, a soundtrack for “Das Schwarze Auge”, and the soundtrack for the German steam-fantasy game “Elyrion”. They are also known for their more generic “Into the …” soundtracks which have been composed with roleplaying games in mind.

So there are already a few soundtracks created for certain roleplaying games but it’s still the exception and not the rule. In this day and age some publishers experiment which the transmedia approach, telling stories across multiple platforms and formats. So why not add soundtracks to the mix that are not only composed with the regular listener in mind, but that also takes the needs of roleplayers into account?

In my opinion it would be awesome if every new roleplaying game would come with a soundtrack of its own. There are of course various reasons why this will never work. Not every publisher can afford to pay a composer, musicians etc. for such a project. But wouldn’t it great if at least the larger publishers would put some thought into this?

P.S.: I actually know of one game that did it the other way around. The upcoming steampunk RPG Airship Pirates is actually based on the music and lyrics of the band Abney Park.

Related posts:

1. Instant soundtrack for your Cthulhu campaign
2. Roleplaying music: Elyrion Soundtrack
3. Roleplaying music – Five essential soundtrack albums