Some RPGs still list an appropriate trainer under the requirements needed to be fulfilled before a new ability can be picked up, but – when I am not totally mistaken – most don’t. I guess this is just one of the things that have been streamlined away over the years. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, since the method I mentioned can easily lead to frustration on part of the players.

An inexperienced GM might not allow characters to get access to certain abilities or there’s just no way the characters can go on a side trip to purchase new skills. But in a lot of RPGs acquiring new abilities and improving existing ones is one of the main incentives for players.

On the other hand, when done right, making character advancement quests in their own right can be a very powerful tool at the GMs disposal. During a journey to that old wizard who supposedly can teach the spell-casters of the party a few new tricks, the GM can easily introduce new lands or NPCs to the campaign, let the players face some new challenges or drop some hints that may later help them with the “main quest” at hand. These side trips are perfect opportunities for role-play or can be employed when not all players could make it or the GM is not fully prepared.

In addition to that players get more attached to their characters when they had to make an effort to get their abilities. Its the same as with treasure. The sword found in the hoard of an evil dragon the party has slain is much more memorable than the one found in a random barrel somewhere.

Forcing player characters to actually “work” for their advancement might be an old-school concept but it can be a powerful tool for GMs and help players to immerse into the game. If you haven’t tried this technique I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Related posts:

1. Superhero games are hard!
2. Improve Your Game: Character creation as a team effort
3. It’s hard to be a reviewer

Ok, enough with the melodrama, let’s get to the good part. Just like last year, you can download a free copy of Kobold Quarterly as a PDF, specifically issue #11, until February 9^th.  Michael has reviewed issues before, and I recently reviewed issue #16. This issue from the fall of 2009 is up to par with their usual quality, excellent layout, a great diversity of articles, and a format reminiscent of the bygone magazines of old. If you are a fan of D&D 4^th edition there is a good spread of articles for you here covering insanity, wishes, and paragon paths for monstrous creatures. For D&D 3.5 fans, and I know there are many of you out there, you’ll find some gems like an alternate dwarf, playing were-creatures, and (my favorite article in the issue), the Ecology of the Vampire. There is little material for Pathfinder as this was back when the game was still coming out, but most of the material for D&D 3.5 are perfectly usable for Pathfinder fans.

What they DO have for Pathfinder is the spell-less Ranger. This seems to be something fans always want, a ranger that casts no spells, like a certain ranger from a popular fantasy series… This was the selling point for me and the reason I got this issue on the first place when it came out. This has been part of the available classes for my Pathfinder game ever since I decided to switch my homebrew to that system. Besides what I just mentioned there are advice columns from some of the biggest names in game design, book reviews, and a city write up, with accompanying map.

If you are unsure whether to buy Kobold Quarterly, here is your chance to try it out for free. Download it, read it, I bet you’ll like it. Navigate your way to the KQ Store and use the coupon code KQ11Gift to download it. Once you read it, be sure to come back and let me know what you think. I’d like to know if my opinion matches those of our readers.

PS – I went through a few possible titles for this post before finally writing it down. The one that actually became the title and the caption accompanying the post are just two of them. Some of the other titles were:

Have Kobold, will download!

The good, the digital and the Kobold…

Wrestling History in the making… Kobold Mania #11

Kobold Evolution…

Related posts:

1. Get Kobold Quarterly #14 for free
2. Spring is here… Can’t you smell the kobold? The Kobold Quarterly that is!
3. What about Kobold Quarterly #18? A review…

Without further ado, here are the questions and answers:

Stargazer’s World:
Thanks again for answering a couple of questions for us. Although I think most of our readers already know you and some of your products, but perhaps you could start by telling a bit about yourself. What do you do when you don’t design worlds? How long have you been working in the RPG industry?

Wolfgang Baur:
I spend my RPG time working at a game company on video games. I worked full-time in the RPG industry from 1991 to 1998; since then, I’ve been a freelancer and a publisher.

Stargazer’s World:
What was the first RPG you ever played?

Wolfgang Baur:
The first RPG I ever played was Dungeons & Dragons. I have played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, Alternity, and a bit of Pendragon since then, but mostly I prefer straight-up fantasy.

Stargazer’s World:
Recently you started Midgard as an Open Design patronage project. Can you please explain what’s Open Design and how patronage works?

Wolfgang Baur:
Sure, Open Design is my publishing company, and it publishes Kobold Quarterly magazine plus adventures and sourcebooks. It was founded in 2006 and re-instituted the patronage system, which was popular in earlier times, before the rise of joint stock companies and the like.

Patronage is a way for gamers to participate in designing adventures and supplements, by both funding the work and by critiquing, brainstorming, and improving the design as it goes along. It’s collaborative design, guided by an experienced designer who has the professional chops to keep the project on course. In the case of the Midgard campaign setting, those professionals are me, Jeff Grubb of Dragonlance, Guild Wars, and Forgotten Realms fame, and rising RPG star Brandon Hodge.

Stargazer’s World:
How much influence into the design process do the patrons have?

Wolfgang Baur:
The degree of influence patrons have depends on interest and ability as much as anything.

Patrons who comment, test, and contribute can wind up writing a section of a book, and they are paid and credited as designers for the projects. Others patrons playtest, or throw out ideas for others to develop.

It’s really up to the particular gamer; some lurk and are just happy to see the quality of the resulting books. Others are deeply involved in pitching adventures, monsters, and sections of a book.

Stargazer’s World:
Using the patron model forces you to write the material for the system voted for by the patrons. What system do you prefer to use when you GM or play in a game, since this was your home setting to begin with?

Wolfgang Baur:
I have run the Midgard campaign setting using 3E D&D, 4E D&D, Pathfinder RPG, and Dragon Age RPG. They all have their advantages, frankly, and I’m not a believer in the One True System for RPGs. I’ve probably run Midgard for 4E more often than other systems, but that’s likely to change.

The question sort of misses the point of a multi-system setting, though. The Midgard campaign setting focuses on player action and changing the world, with options for conflict and adventure in any system. So far, mechanics have been secondary to world development. I’m pleased that the setting doesn’t require a particular rule set, though of course the play experience is slightly different with each system.

Or put another way, I’ve run Forgotten Realms in 4 editions. I’m sure Midgard will work in just as many.

Stargazer’s World:
Can you give us a short introduction into the world of Midgard? What sets Midgard apart from other fantasy settings? What players will it appeal to?

Wolfgang Baur:
It’s built on Germanic and Slavic foundations, rather than the usual pseudo-Celtic and British mythology, so it’s perhaps a little darker than some.

Midgard’s pseudo-medieval societies are definitely warped by magic and non-human races—it will appeal to anyone who thinks that a Sultan of the Dragon Empire is a fine villain,  anyone who wants to sail with the minotaur corsairs or fight against gnomes who serve the Dukes of Hell. Baba Yaga plots and schemes, vampiric princes rule sections of the world, and steppe centaurs serve tsars and slaver despots. It’s a nasty place, a lot of the time, with large stretches of wilderness, forests where no one rules, land no one claims.

At the same time, players who enjoy history will see echoes of that: a ruling house with a lot of scattered holdings, an electoral kingdom of hussars and nobles, an oracle who has grown enormously wealthy. But these elements are all done with a twist, just as Planescape was done with a twist: Midgard sea-reavers are dwarves, Midgard’s tsars are pawns of greater evils, Midgard’s rivers really are haunted by the lorelei. Players have a ton of places to explore and treasures to recover.

Midgard appeals to traditional fantasy gamers who don’t want another kitchen sink campaign, and who enjoy a little more depth in their setting. The design goal is to focus on what players do in the here and now, not long-winded backstory!

Stargazer’s World:
What role will each of the three designers fill during the design phases of Midgard?

Wolfgang Baur:
The project is divided by regions. Jeff Grubb will be leading on one of the 7 regions, Brandon one or two more, I’ll take two—and the remainder are for patrons to design together with a lead designer, if they so choose. Which region will we do first? That’s up to the patrons!

The choices include the Dragon Empire, the Domains of the Princes, a wilderness region with Mythos influences, the Zobeck Crossroads, the Steppes, Trollheim, and the warring states of the Seven Cities region.

Some of those are almost entirely blank slates for patrons and designers to create. Others (like Zobeck) have a lot of lore and prior adventure for us to streamline into a campaign setting summary.

Stargazer’s World:
How do you plan on incorporating, or not incorporting, material like Courts of the Shadowfey, Sunken Empires, etc. into the lore and presentation of the world of Midgard in the campaign setting itself?

Wolfgang Baur:
Courts and Sunken Empires and the other adventures and supplements are all part of the setting. I’d go so far as to say they’re the reason I’m doing the setting; gamers have asked for the setting to be knit together from the many hints and setting elements found in the books so far.

Stargazer’s World:
Midgard is your largest Open Design Project so far. Will you be working on smaller projects until its release, too, or will you focus exclusively on Midgard?

Wolfgang Baur:
I won’t be working on anything but this. Other experienced designers are working on other Open Design projects, and some of those will ship in spring and summer of this year: Logan Bonner’s Lost City for 4th Edition D&D, Ben McFarland’s Streets of Zobeck noir adventures for Pathfinder RPG, and the Northlands sourcebook by Dan Voyce, to name just three.

Stargazer’s World:
Do you plan to support Midgard with adventures, regional sourcebooks, etc. after its release?

Wolfgang Baur:
Absolutely! The patrons have already made two suggestions that seem like good expansions of the core setting: an intro adventure and an adventure collection are a certainty. The first of those may be announced this summer. We’ll also release the first completed region of Midgard this summer!

Stargazer’s World:
Thanks again for taking your time for this interview. The team of Stargazer’s World wish you good luck with Midgard and all your other projects! And please send our best wishes to Jeff and Brandon!

By the way, if you got interested in becoming a patron of the Midgard Campaign Setting, check out this Kobold Quarterly store page for details.

Related posts:

1. The Kobolds launched a new patronage project: Dark Roads and Golden Hells
2. Midgard
3. Interview with Wolfgang Baur

For some reason I can’t just focus on one campaign and one system. Dozens of ideas are floating around in my head and every time I think I am on to something I want to pursue further, I get distracted by something new and shiny!

Of course it’s not always that bad. Sometimes I can be very focused, working concentrated on one single project only. That’s why I am currently so glad that I can play again. A friend of mine is running Deathwatch for us, so that I don’t have to worry to get something done for next week’s game.

If you have been following my blog for the last years now, you’ll have noticed that it’s full of unfinished ideas and announced but never finished projects. I am now asking myself if this is a common problem of GMs, wannabe game designers and bloggers? Or is it just me. And what have others done to cope with that issue?

Related posts:

1. Fighting the good fight…
2. Confessions of a Gamer: Dungeon Mastering
3. The one RPG I wholeheartedly recommend to any gamer is …

RAG uses the Wyrm System, popularized in Michael Wolf’s Warrior, Rogue & Mage, a lightweight engine that bases character attributes on archetypes of the genre. The system has been adapted, with tweaks to combat and expansion of the Talent mechanic to present a range of powers and abilities that set characters apart from normal people.

The document includes character creation, resolution and combat and a range of skills and powers that can provide for a full game experience, but are also easily expanded. Like WR&M, RAG is a free game released under a Creative Commons license. It is available for download at DriveThruRPG as a 36-page PDF.

Related posts:

1. Coming Soon: Resolute, Adventurer & Genius
2. Dungeonslayers: Dungeon2Go #4 released
3. Six-Sided Fantasy SRD released

I think that the fact that I mentioned my preferred game system was Castles & Crusades was hint to this line of thinking. It does use some things from the d20 era along with somethings from the older versions. I like this because I can use pretty much any material printed with very little conversion. Older or newer it doesn’t matter.

What I would like to talk about is how to take this one step further. Let us take a more modern game and see what we can mine from it to use in an old-school game or any game for that matter.

Today I want to talk about the FATE system and what I took from it. Ever since I read the old FATE 2e book a couple of years ago the idea of fate points stuck in my head. I thought I would try to bring this to my game and did so successfully.

Instead of making the fate points tie into aspects or having to make any rules changes, I simply gave each player 3 coins. They could use these coins to add +2 to a roll, re-roll any dice, or take narrative control. If they contributed something meaningful to the adventure, I would give them another coin.

Narrative control is the big one here. Not many old-school people would allow this type of thing. Since I am the type of GM that likes wing it, I didn’t think this would be a problem, and it wasn’t.

Let me give a quick example of how this went down and you may see where this could be fun.

We were of course playing C&C and the setup isn’t too far from the fight scene in the Mines of Moria from The Lord of the Rings. Five PCs fighting a lot of goblins, I don’t recall exactly but I would say about ten. One PC rolled and hit a goblin but only did 2 points of damage, he used a coin to add +2 for 4 points. One PC fumbled a roll and decided to re-roll. Standard usages for a coin.

Then the narrative started. (After a bit of prodding by me.) Realizing they were kind of hurting at this point. One of the PCs decides to say, “Something scares off the goblins.” I’m thinking okay, now I gotta come up with something. Then one of the other PCs says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if it was a big ass cave troll like in the movie.” I thought, hell yeah, here’s a coin. Then another of the PCs, “We are too weak to fight that. It’s an illusion.” Coin spent. Now I had a magic user to add to the combat, awesome.

Now this isn’t far off from what normally gets talked about at the table, the only difference is what they speculated was true. They really had a good time with this and I think others could too.

Have you used something like this in your games, or do you have any tips on merging old and new?

Related posts:

1. Bridging the Gap part II
2. Old-school renaissance
3. Is the OSR mainly driven by nostalgia?

When I am ask what I would to give to my roleplaying friends as a present, there are a couple of things that come to mind:

Eureka
Eureka is one of the coolest products I had the honor to review this year. It’s the perfect gift for any GM and it’s not some weird novelty but something you can really put to use all the time. Let me quoute from the review I wrote in August:

So why should any GM get Eureka? In my humble opinion it’s the most useful tool a gamemaster could probably have. We all know that sometimes coming up with a unique adventure can be very hard. Especially when you get older and you don’t have that much time to prepare your games, you’re happy for any help you can get. I am pretty sure I could open Eureka at any page, read the adventure plot I find there and run an adventure after only 15 minutes of prep, probably less. That’s the power of this book, and that’s why I wholeheartedly recommend it.

You can get Eureka from your local brick & mortar store, the Engine Publishing online shop or from DriveThruRPG, if you prefer the PDF version. Regardless where you buy it, it’s an awesome product and a great gift for any GM.

Open Game Table Vol. 1 and 2
The Open Game Table is one of the greatest projects I had part it. The two books currently available contain the best articles from the RPG blogosphere and are perfect gifts for anyone interested in RPGs. The 1st volume is a bit D&D-centric, but still has a lot of high-quality content even if you are not into that game. Let me quote from my friend Roberto’s (aka Sunglar) review of OGT Vol. 2 and my preview of OGT Vol. 1. Let’s start with Sunglar’s review of OGT Vol. 2:

I could muse on and on about more pots, probably about the whole book, but let me summarize it by saying this. The idea of collecting a selection of outstanding blog posts must be commended and applauded; it is a great opportunity to share ideas with gamers out there who might have missed them. If you have a friend who loves gaming, but may not be as active in the online community, this will make an excellent gift. If you are a gamer and just don’t have time to follow every blog (and who does), this is an excellent book to get. Even is you are a blogger and follow many of this talented authors, do yourself a favor and pick a copy, it is a different experience readying all these posts together, playing off each other and creating a greater whole out of the awesomeness of its parts.

And that’s what I had to say about OGT Vol. 1:

You don’t get articles written by detached game designers sitting in some emerald tower but every article was written by one of us, a roleplaying game fan, who writes about his hobby on the internet. So you probably ask yourself why you should buy the book when you can read the posts on the ‘net for free. In my opinion there are several reasons: you get a beautiful book that you can read while commuting, sitting in your garden or wherever you like without the need of a computer or internet access, the anthology also contains only the very best RPG blog articles of 2008 and it is organized in a clear and sensible manner. You’ll probably find many awesome articles you’ve missed on the ‘net, mainly because trying to follow everything that has been written on the network is like drinking from the proverbial firehose.

Both books shouldn’t be missing in any gamers’ library and are the perfect gift for anyone interested in gaming! You can get them from Lulu, Amazon.com and many other places. You can also get both the Open Game Table Vol.1 and Vol.2 as PDF documents at DriveThruRPG. There’s also a bundle deal that gets you both volumes for mere $17.

Last but not least there’s Savage Worlds, undoubtedly one of my favorite roleplaying game systems. It’s pretty inexpenisve, can be used with almost any setting and easy to learn and play. In my humble opinion every roleplayer worth his salt should at least own one copy of the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition. Here’s an excerpt from a review I wrote ages ago:

If you are looking for a complex ruleset that has rules for every situation then SWEE is probably not the right choice for you. Check out GURPS instead. But if you need a simple and fast roleplaying rules system that can easily work with any setting, than SWEE is worth more than a look. The rules are very easy to learn and the edges and hindrances give players a lot of opportunities for creating unique characters. Another major selling point is the low price and the compact format. SWEE could be perfect when going to a roleplaying convention. Just throw the rules, some character sheets, a pencil, your dice and a deck of poker cards into your backpack and you’re good to go. If I should rate SWEE on a scale from 1 to 5, I would give it a 5.

Related posts:

1. Handmade Gamer Gifts
2. Christmas in July!
3. Post Christmas Gaming Loot!

Building off form Michael’s earlier post today, I think that collaborative endeavors like Blog Carnivals are a great way to build a sense of community, start discussions and collaborate in some way despite distance, differing views or tastes. How does that sound to you?

Since this network  is a RPG themed social media outlet I propose our first topic should be the impact of social media, firstly in the RPG hobby, and secondly how the evolving social media changes what we do as bloggers, podcasters, etc.

As a relative newcomer to the blogging scene I have just plunged right in to all the possibilities. At the moment I am just blogging, but I’d love to podcast and here in the RPMN participate more activelly and help promote a sense of community, or partnering up, to not only cheer each other on, but to help and aid each other when we need technical help, inspiration, discussions, etc.

Personally I am also using social media to keep in contact with my gaming group. I use a combination of e-mail and Facebook posts to remind players of our game schedule, distribute information about the campaign and do some campaign upkeep between sessions or when sessions need to be reschedules or cancelled. On the off week when we can’t meet I can use Facebook to do some light role playing and keep the events of the campaign fresh on the player’s minds despite interruptions.

I have even used my posts on Stargazer’s World to showcase fiction about an upcoming campaign, granted with limited success, but experimentation is part of the social media experience. You have to try it out and see if it works. I’d love to try Wikis and maybe a dedicated forum for my long running campaign, but not all my players are as interested in social media as I am. Any idea how to motivate and involve players in the experience to enhance RPG games more?

We even have used social media as a way to bring together the role playing community in Puerto Rico where I live, and through online forums and groups organized RL activities like geeknics (picnics for geeks) and demonstrations at local conventions. A stronger, better informed and more unified RPG community, virtually and in real life, translates to a more vibrant and involved hobby.

How does that sound, any takers? Doesn’t have to be everybody… If we write it they will come!

Feel free to join in and offer your views and opinions on this matter. Make sure to link back to this post so we can hear what everybody has to say. Thank you in advanced for your participation.

Have a good day everybody.

Related posts:

1. A social network for gamers done right!
2. [Blog Carnival]: “We travel light. Let’s hunt some Orc.”
3. What’s going on at the RPMN?

Characters in Arcane Heroes are members of ancient bloodlines which have produced many great heroes (and dreadful villains) in the past. But the world has changed, the industrial revolution has shaken up the old order. The ancient bloodlines are all but forgotten, but in these dire and gloomy times, heroes are needed more than ever.

Arcane Heroes uses a simple dice pool mechanic and contains all the rules needed to play a game. Currently there’s no real campaign setting nor a character sheet. Since I have pretty much written the whole document in one session earlier today, it’s not edited nor play tested. (Hmm, why I don’t participate in any 24-hour-RPG contests is beyond me…) So, you have been warned!

If the rules survive the first playtest I might release a more complete edition of Arcane Heroes (including a setting and a character sheet) in the future. You can check out Arcane Heroes by clicking here. I’ve also embedded a preview into this post which you can access by clicking “Continue Reading” below.

[UPDATE]: Some people are not comfortable with Scribd, so I added the download to my Google Site as well.

Arcane Heroes

Related posts:

1. Arcane Secrets, for Arcane Heroes
2. First Look: On Her Majesty’s Arcane Service
3. Heroes’ Guild

These days there is a lot of speculation about the death of the pen and paper RPG industry. Those who see the glass half empty make some excellent points about units sold and speculate whether RPGs remain a viable business. Those who see the glass half full proclaim that there are ups and downs and that as long as there are people playing there will be role playing games.

I’m a glass half full kind of guy myself and instinctively try to see the best of any situation, so count me among those who think RPGs will survive the current slump in sales, if there is one. Mind you I’m not challenging the analysis of the numbers out there. I do not work in the RPG industry, nor do I make any money from it. I am just a fan writing my thoughts in a blog. I did use to work at a comic/gaming store fifteen years ago but that was ages ago, and the way we interact with our sources of entertainment has profoundly changed since then.

I won’t use any of the newfangled terminology out there but suffice it to say the publishing landscape has changed profoundly over the last ten years, so has gaming (electronic or otherwise), and how we spend our leisure time is something our own parents find weird. Since RPGs fall into all those categories I believe it is inevitable that we would see some profound change in our hobby.

In the lasts few decades we stopped being passive receivers of entertainment and began to interact with it. When I was growing up there were three TV stations and I had to see whatever they were showing! I remember as a kid turning off the TV just before a show ended (to the endless complains of my friends) and then playing out the ending as I believed it would happen. Now we have hundreds of channels and every conceivable niche (well almost everyone) has a TV station. Are you into food, travel, cartoons, crime or soaps? There is a channel for you!

The internet has even broadened that offering, fans make their own versions of shows they love and interact with creators and other fans in ways we only dreamt of before. I grew up expecting the future I saw in The Jetsons but ended up with something much more amazing (Except for Jersey Shore! What is up with that?).

I really believe we are in the midst of a profound change in what is traditionally classified as media. Blogging, digital publishing, POD, e-book readers, these things are restructuring a landscape that resist change. People are always afraid of the unexpected, much more so when the changes are ongoing an unlikely to stop in the near future. We are in the midst of a revolution not unlike the Industrial revolution, but this time it’s the revolution of information. Actually it has more in common with Gutenberg’s Invention of the printing press, who knew that Police Academy guy had it in him!

We just don’t sit back to entertained; we want to control it, to make the choices, to interact with our entertainment. I think pen and paper RPGs were part of that change. You no longer had to read about the fellowship taking the ring to Mordor, now you could actually tell the story, ride the eagles and get there sooner (sorry I know it’s been done to death, but it DOES make sense!). RPGs were part of a change, not the only influence mind you, but an important part of realizing WE could tell the story. It happened right along the development of electronic games, and as an example of the influence of RPGs, see how many of our electronic games integrate ideas originally develop for pen and paper games. If there had been no role playing games to begin with, the world’s most popular MMO would be a beautifully rendered version of Pong. I’m not claiming this happened in a vacuum and that RPGs are the sole influence, but the organic interaction of all these elements (and I said I’d use no fancy words) is part of the evolving landscape of games.

Are games selling in the volume they were in the heyday of the 80’s? I guess not. But there is a much more fractured market for entertainment. It used to be we would go to the theater to see a movie and then wait for it to be shown on TV. Now the movie is available in the cinema, and on a DVD in a box in the gas station, or we can get it delivered home, via the mail or through our TV, game console or online. Likewise the options for games used to be cards, dice, board games and then RPGs. Now we have game consoles, card games, games in our phones, and don’t get me started on smart phones and tablets!

Change is happening all around us and it won’t be over for a while. Maybe in twenty or thirty years we will have a new media landscape that stabilizes; although I doubt that at the rate technology changes that will be the case. Change will be the new status quo.

What does all this have to do with pen and paper RPGs? Well right now RPGs may not be a viable business for everybody, and I admire those that have properties they want to see grow for branching out into other media. RPGs are a niche market, always were and always will be. Games are not selling the same number of physical books you say, well there is a slew of new digital products coming out. Are they all of the same quality as physical books? Well that is debatable.

Barriers to publishing meant some of the less than stellar stuff never saw the light of day and you expected a certain level of quality, but now if you have the right software you can put your stuff out there. This requires that the consumer be a little more savvy, and guess what, the same tools that allow the ease of publishing also allow for the buyer to be better informed. And this is not a problem for just pen and paper RPGs, but for music, fiction and movies as well. And it is all so subjective, one person’s junk may be another another’s gold.

And hey, if you disagree with the naysayers, don’t get all riled up about it. We don’t have to agree, but neither do we need to rip each other’s heads over it. Why can’t we all just get along? I don’t think pen and paper RPGs will return to the “glory days” of old. But the hobby will not die anytime soon, it will just be different, and that’s fine for me.

Related posts:

1. The Importance of Dice
2. Secret dice rolls
3. Unusual dice

Stargazer’s World

This channel is accessible both by chat client (mIRC, Xchat, and so on). It is also accessible by a browser-based Java applet on the network’s website. I will provide instructions for both forms of access:

Using an IRC Client
0.) If you do not have a client but wish to use this method, download mIRC for Windows, Colloquy for Mac, or Xchat for Linux (Xchat for Windows cuts itself off after a trial period and is, in my opinion, far too expensive for a program which is free under Linux). Be aware that mIRC asks you to pay after a trial period, but does not actually cripple itself after that period; it’s on your conscience and honor whether you pay the requested money. Spend some time learning how to use the client — help files!

1.) Point your IRC client at the server irc.sorcery.net on port 6667, 7000 or 9000.

2.) Join #StargazersWorld

Using the Stargazer’s World Blog Chat Page

1.) Go to http://www.stargazersworld.com/irc/

2.) Follow the instructions.

Using the Network Website Java Applet

1.) Go to the Sorcerynet website, http://sorcery.net/

2.) Click “Chat Now” in the top bar.

3.) In the page that loads, enter your chosen nickname in the “Nickname” box, and “#RPMN” in the “Channels” box.

4.) Give the applet time to connect. You’ll know when you’re in the channel.

5.) Begin chatting!

Be aware that your chosen nickname may be registered by someone else for their personal use. If you see a warning message, change your nickname, or the network may change it for you to something like “Nonick-3B4AE”.

A Few Basic Guidelines

1.) Be respectful. The occasional curse is fine, we’re adults. Racism, sexism, generic attacks on groups of people, countries, etc. will be frowned upon. No personal attacks, no stalking, and any arguments will have a lid put on them if they go beyond civil disagreement. Finally, try not to gross out your fellow chatters, please.

2.) Please try to use decent spelling, punctuation, capitalization and grammar. Some folks really don’t care to hit the Shift key, and that’s fine too, but txtspk will be frowned upon unless it is used in humor or illustration.

3.) There are only two forbidden topics. These are politics and religion. These two topics are easily the most contentious subjects in society today, and lead to far too many arguments, especially online. Use common sense: talking about the fact that the United States has a bicameral Congress is fine, because it is factual, but talking about the doings of the Senate, the behavior of a particular figure, the “real” causes of such and such war, etc. is across the line. As for religion, again, factual statements are fine, but anything beyond that is not permitted. If an op asks you to stop, please do not argue the case, even if you believe you have not crossed the line. There are plenty of other places to discuss these two topics.

If you have IRC experience and wish to be considered for a channel op (admin) position, contact me either here or in the channel. My nickname on IRC is Corvus. I will not automatically op everyone who asks; this isn’t a personal judgement or an insult.

Related posts:

1. Join us on #rpmn
2. Chat with ICE on RPGBomb (get HARP for free until 9pm EST today)
3. World Building Part 9 – The Don Draper School of World Immersion

As much as I liked gaming fiction when I was a teen, I pretty much gave up on it years ago. I can’t recall the last game related novel I read. Looking back there were some gems, like the original Dark Suns novels (loved them back then, don’t really know how they’d stand up to a re-read) and some utter duds like Dragonlords of Mystara (how I despise that book). Still gaming fictions survives and people continue to read it so I guess there is an audience.

Of course the Internet has changed the landscape of game related fiction. No longer do you need a publishing contract to write stories about your favorite game, you can publish what you write in the Web and share it with the world. I realize that fan fiction is a touchy subject, some authors embrace it others condemn it, but think what you may it’s out there. I guess my point is that the barriers to publishing your stories are crumbling. Of course making money out of it, well that’s another story!

There is also another use of fiction in a game related way, fiction you write for your games, be they face to face or in one of the many available online permutations. Despite my disinterest in game related fiction I personally love to write fiction for my games. I love to create my own settings and campaigns (Hello my name is Roberto and I’m a compulsive home brewer!) and short pieces of fiction are, for me, a way to cement the setting and it allows me to share the campaign with my players.

Over time I’ve come to realize not every player enjoys this, not everybody is interested in readying for the game, some people just want to play, not have game related homework. That is fine and good, and in recent years I try to parcel out my writing and give out details in small manageable chunks. In fact I’ve begun the practice of writing one page hand outs about specific details of the campaign. I figure if there is something important for me to say, I better say it in one page.

Still I think there are some great opportunities to use longer pieces of fiction to set the stage or introduce a campaign, making sure everybody knows what to expect and ideally to start up some pre-game conversation. If you can write, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just enough to get you ideas across, by all means put words on paper. If you don’t write, there are short stories you can use to convey the feeling or themes of a game. Taking the idea of fiction to another medium, even watching a certain movie together or playing an electronic game can get across your vision of a new game to your players.

I’m currently planning my next game, a superhero game with a twist. The characters are supers in a world where none existed before. I know it’s been done before, but I think I have some original ideas to play around with in such a setting. And besides, one of my players has always asked me for a game like this and I figure it’s about time to make him happy. For this upcoming game I have written some fiction I plan to share with my players pre-game so we can begin planning for it.

This time around I figured I’d try something different and use the blog to share this information not just with my players but with our readers. Get some feedback and make you all part of the presentation and planning of this new campaign.

I’ve written some gaming fiction and posted it on the blog before and the feedback was great. But that was just the brainstorm of a possible sci-fi campaign that is still in flux. The feedback has helped and I’m still working on the revision of what I wrote and a follow up to that. What I’ve written now is an introduction to a new campaign; you dear reader will be reading this just as my players are reading it for the first time. This is a new experiment for me. I plan to post one short piece of fiction about the campaign every day this week, so by Friday you, as well as my players, will have an idea of the game we’ll be playing.

This is not set on stone; after all it will not be just MY game. I want some feedback from my players and you out there as well. I hope some of you find this interesting. If you are NOT interested in game related fiction I apologize in advance, I’ll get back to other topics next week!

So in closing; expect the first post about the campaign along with this one. What do you think of gaming fiction? Do you enjoy it or do you avoid it? I’d like to know…

Related posts:

1. The time I almost quit gaming!
2. Puerco papers for better gaming!
3. Learning is good for you! And gaming too…

RPG PDFs on the iPad
When I first had the chance to try out a friends’ iPad I noticed that PDF viewing worked great. Flipping pages is pretty fast in most cases and the size of the iPad is big enough to be able to read the books comfortably. I have to admit I still prefer a printed book over reading it on the iPad, but it’s definitely an improvement over viewing PDFs on a netbook or desktop PC. Why? The tablet format of the iPad and the multitouch screen makes navigating through any document feel very natural and intuitive. It’s very close to the real deal.

There are three apps I can wholeheartedly recommend for viewing RPG PDFs on the iPad:

1. iBooks
   The official ebook reader software from Apple does not only access the iBook store, but also is a pretty good PDF viewer. PDFs are uploaded using iTunes. Alas you can’t access any online storage services using iBooks which limits the amount of stuff you can take with you. But it’s pretty fast when it comes to viewing PDFs and it’s free.

   You can download iBooks here.

2. GoodReader
   GoodReader has a lot of cool features like PDF annotations, web download, or Dropbox support. The PDF viewing engine is as fast as iBooks but you get a lot of additional features like accessing files over WiFi. If you don’t mind paying 99 cents you get a perfect replacement or addition to iBooks. You can buy GoodReader here.

3. Dicebook
   Dicebook is not only a PDF viewer but it also contains a dice-rolling function, which can be pretty handy at the game table. I’ve written a review of this app some time ago, so check it out. Dicebook sets you back $1.99 and it’s available here.

   

RPG products in other formats
Aside from PDFs some fan-created documents are available in .RTF or .DOC formats on the web. Although both formats are not really optimized for being viewed on a tablet device, GoodReader handles these formats pretty well.

Recently RPG publishers have looked into other digital formats as well. While PDF has become the defacto standard for digital RPG books, some companies have been dabbling with special ebook formats like the ePub format supported by Apple’s iPad and other devices. PDFs have some major problems when it comes to mobile devices: a) it takes a lot of processing power to display them and b) PDFs have a fixed format and don’t scale too well. The ePub format solves both these problem but it’s hard if outright impossible to layout an ePub document like a regular RPG rule book. EPub is definitely a great choice for novels or text books but it doesn’t work as well when RPGs are considered.

Richard Iorio from Rogue Games was kind enough to send me a couple of Rogue Games’ ePub books to allow me to check them out on my iPad. I have to admit they are looking pretty good, but they contain mostly text. As far as I’ve seen there are no tables or sidebars which are usually very common in RPG products. The format works good enough for most adventures or setting books which contain mostly fluff, but I have a hard time imagining what a RPG rule book in ePub format would look like.

What may the future hold?
Some magazine or newspaper apps show what the future of RPG books on the iPad and similar devices may look like. In case of RPG books it would be easy to include all kinds of cool features like a search function, dice rollers, initiative trackers, perhaps even a character generator. The question is if RPG publishers have the funds necessary to pull something off and if there are enough people interested in buying such an app for their device.  That’s something only time can tell.

Related posts:

1. Apple’s new iPad and RPGs
2. Iron Kingdoms RPG source books now available in PDF
3. Dicebook

I gave them a rundown of the situation and rolled for initiative. The fight was brutal, two characters were felled in battle and a major NPC died, another PC near death. The PCs managed to run away from the battle, separated and confused. In the aftermath I turn to my players and say “27 days before these events…”

This is something I have tried before. I’ve had sessions begin with a combat and then work back to how the players got there during the session. Other times I’ve played sessions that have turned out to be a dream or an imaginary story told by someone else about the players. Some instances have been more successful than others and like everything, the more you do it the less of a surprise or a thrill it becomes.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, ideas have come from endless sources, from RPG advice to the conventions of movies and TV shows. But the structure and nature of a role playing game session make it difficult to use some of those techniques. Foreshadowing and “cut-aways” are probably the easier to pull off. Inspired by the countdown to Za’ha’dum during the third season of Babylon 5 I had a similar countdown going to a major campaign development for about two months, beginning every session by telling the players “so many days until such and such.” They began looking for clues and trying to figure out what was going to happen. When it happened I had created expectations that did not disappoint.

The idea of a “cut-away”, narrating to the players what is going on somewhere else in the campaign, as to give context, create tension or fill in the blanks is something I think I first read about in the West End Games Star Wars RPG. This was a LONG time ago so my memory may not be totally accurate. I think they actually advocated starting the adventure by telling the players how they got there and then play on from there but I loved the idea and took it a step further.

This is trickier. You need players willing and able to separate player knowledge from character knowledge, and require restrain from the GM. You have to resist the urge to tell too much, or to become so enamored with the NPCs that your “cut-aways” overshadow the actual game, the player’s adventures are the main attraction and everything else is window dressing. I’ve used the idea of the cut-away during direct narration, in hand outs written for the game or through electronic communication. I’ll admit to overusing it, especially during my AD&D 2^nd edition games.

One of my regular players dislikes the idea of the “cut-away” so much that he asked me to stop using them and for my last D&D 3.5 campaign, which lasted for close to three years, I used NO “cut-aways”. Now I try to limit the use of such resources and typically reserve them for special occasions.

Everybody will tell you not to split the party, but if you ask my players they’ll tell you this is one piece of advice I never follow. Splitting the party allows you to tell stories in different places; explore different plots and create tension. This is perhaps the hardest one to pull off. If you do it in just one session players will be more accommodating, just be sure to pace yourself as a GM and avoid spending too much time with just one character or group of characters.

One thing that has worked in the past is setting a timer and allowing myself just that time to tell their part of the story before moving on to the next character or group, repeating the process round robin. Way back when I had time to play more often I would actually split the party and then play separate sessions with each player, sometimes two or three before they met up again. Now I try to avoid it and despite my desire to split the party I avoid it and keep the party together.

I guess what I’m trying to say is be creative, don’t be afraid to try something new and experiment with ways to tell a story. Let me share some examples of different storytelling methods I’ve used in the past:

• During an AD&D campaign, the players were captured by their enemy and I asked the group for a week off before we next met to play. When they arrived I told them I was not ready for the game but instead wanted to test a new adventure I was working on. I handed out pre-generated characters and ran them through the session. Little by little they began finding parallels to their characters, and by the end of the night realized they were all playing out a very complex illusion created by their enemy, each player actually running one of their fellow player’s characters. When they finally broke free of the illusion they found out they had been captive for over half a year, defeated their enemy and set forth to discover what had happened in the campaign while they were prisoners.
• A supers session began with the players as heroes in training for a world wide superhero peace keeping organization, the little guys in a big leagues game. While they camped in the Australian outback as part of their training they see this flash in the night sky and lose all contact to home base. They finally make it back only to discover that some group has carried out a concerted attack on all the super groups bases, the flash in the night sky was actually the main team’s orbital station burning up on reentry. Suddenly the trainees are the only remaining team as all sorts of global threats begin to emerge in the power vacuum left by the main team’s disappearance.
• On that same supers game later on the campaign players had their consciousness sent back in time and inhabit the body of the pulp heroes of the world. Each player played one of the world’s pulp heroes, but they had no idea which hero’s consciousness had inhabited which hero and whether they were playing their regular character. In an interesting turn of events one of the heroes stayed in the past and amassed a great fortune with his knowledge of the future so he could fund the team’s efforts in the present when they returned. I had not expected this but the player’s creative thinking opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities for the campaign. Sadly we did not play that campaign much longer.

Those are just a couple of examples, and I realize the first and the third one are similar, but the players came at them from totally different perspectives. On one they had no clue what was going on, on the other they knew what they were facing and the challenge was in discovering just who was who.

As far as my current game goes I know some of the players believe what they played was a vision or a dream, foreshadowing meant to warn them of upcoming danger. Most were pleased and even those that were a little skeptical were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which I am greatly thankful for. But like I told them this is not a dream or an imaginary story. The events that unfolded during the session had a different meaning in light of what they knew was coming. Hopes, plans, long expected reunions and budding relationships were seen differently in light of what was to come. Just wait until I begin the next session with the aftermath of the battle and then tell them, “19 days before this!” Let’s see how the rest of this plays out…

Some parting thought, all this can be tricky. The greatest danger when foreshadowing or playing events in the future is painting yourself into a corner. Setting things up that then become impossible due to character death or losing a player, things that can be oftentimes outside your control. Also be wary of overuse, said it before and I’ll say it again, do it too often and many of these ideas lose their luster and become common place. Lastly, take into account your players, not everybody enjoys these tricks. The majority of my players embrace them but I have one player who gets lost easily (the same one who hates “cut-aways”) so I know that in order to make everybody happy I can use these tricks but I have to keep them short and manageable.

I hope some of these ideas inspire you, please share any of your tips on using non-conventional storytelling methods, I’d love to hear them!

PS – This post is dedicated to all my players who have endured my bat-crazy ideas over the years, especially to Pierre the eternal obelisk seeker (inside joke alert!), Peter who decided to stay back in the past during the supers game, and Sara who got killed in the future encounter only three sessions after joining the group, this killer GM apologizes!

Related posts:

1. Another news scare-story about D&D from the 80s
2. Gaming fiction weal or woe?
3. Character advancement the hard way

Michael wrote his thoughts on the Red Box and the Essentials line here on the blog. I had not read the Disassociated Mechanics post until I found it on Michael’s post and I found it amazing someone had written so eloquently about one of the things that bother me about D&D 4^th edition. Mind you this was not the only thing that made me quit the system, and I’ve said it before the system has many good things; it’s just not the system for me and my group.

I recently read The Escapist’s excellent interview with Mike Mearls and I have to applaud some of the things he’s been doing with the D&D 4^th edition rule set. I don’t doubt he, like every other designer before him, truly loves the game and want to see it succeed and grow.  I think the Red Box sounds like an excellent idea; a proper introduction to the game like the original Red Box was for me in the 80s. I also believe that the lower price points for many of these books eliminate a major hurdle for the younger generation as well as making them more affordable in these difficult economic times.

I had the Red Box on my hands a couple of weeks ago. I almost purchased it on impulse and nostalgia alone, but after thinking about it I realized I am not a new player, I don’t need to learn how to play D&D 4^th edition, I already know how to play. This product is not for me, so I put it back. When I learned the Rules Compendium had arrived I figured I’d like to read it, get and idea of what had changed and see how they present the rules. After all, it was only $20 bucks!

Then when I looked at the book and saw it was just the rules (mind you this was clear from the start in all the promotions for the book, I just did not read up as I should have) and I would have to buy another book for the classes, Heroes of the Fallen Lands, pretty much spending $40 for a slightly modified version of a book I already own, and not even the whole of that book because not all the classes in the Player’s Handbook are in there I opted not to  buy it. I realized that I had tried this system and moved on. I was just going to buy this because it was D&D, not because I really needed it.

At least the tile set I can use. So I put down the Rules Compendium, got the Pathfinder RPG orc book and a box of the Lords of Madness miniature set (which disappointed me to no end but that’ the subject for another post). If you like the Essentials books I am glad for you, enjoy! They are simply not for me.

If you are interested in a different take, make sure you read Youseph’s excellent review on the Red Box and watch the unboxing video, different strokes for different folks! What works for me may not work for you, variety IS the spice of life… Have a good day everybody.

Related posts:

1. My thoughts on the D&D Essentials Starter aka “Red Box”
2. Why I ordered the D&D Essentials “Red Box” after all
3. D&D Essentials “Red Box” Unboxing

When Warren Spector finished with his entertaining keynote presentation, Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade took the stage of the great hall for a Question and Answer period. It was a funny and informative Q&A session as the two answer questions about Penny Arcade, PAX, and games in general. At one point an older gentleman came up to the Q&A mic and politely asked if either Gabe or Tycho had any bubblegum. Gabe and Tycho kind of looked at each other funny and then finally said “no”. Then in the iconic Duke Nukem voice the man said “Well, I am here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I am all out of bubble gum”. I remember the reaction to everyone in Benaroya Hall just being “That was really cool”. It would not be till later in the day that I would realize why that gentleman was even there.

At the end of Gabe and Tycho’s Q&A we made our way back out to the streets of Seattle and to the convention center where we went right to the exhibit hall. The first time you walk into the main exhibit hall you’re flooded with flashing lights and random sounds that are quite overwhelming at first. It takes a moment to process what is going on and where it’s happening. There was just so much at first it was almost like sensory overload, but in a good way.

Walking through the convention center’s main gaming exhibit hall you find yourself surrounded by games. Mostly computer or condole games, but the occasional and refreshing table top game is on display as well. Some of the game titles that jump out at you when you’re walking around are ‘Little Big Planet 2’, ‘Portal 2’ ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Swarm’, ‘Halo Reach’, ‘Infamous 2’, and ‘Duke Nukem Forever’. When I saw the Duke Nukem Forever sign I understood that the guy at Gabe and Tycho’s Q&A panel was the voice actor for the new Duke Nukem Forever video game.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Hannah, Lyle and I slowly walked through the entire exhibit hall and gravitated to the Wizards of the Coast booth. The booth was awesome with a little more than half dedicated to Magic the Gathering and the rest dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons. A wall was setup to show off unreleased products like Magic cards and new D&D miniatures. On the Magic side of the booth two tables where setup to teach people who to play Magic and two computer/gaming stations where setup to show of the Magic The Gathering video game. The other side of the booth was setup with an area for live action D&D to teach people how to play.

I was supposed to meet with some people with Wizards of the Coast on this day for some interviews and a demo of the Red Box. With some time to kill before I was to meet  Hannah, Lyle, and myself decided to try out the live action D&D training. We got in line and quickly made our way to the front where a Gentleman presented us with pre generated character options. The character options were laid out on a table before us in the form of two-sided laminated cards that would hang around your neck from a lanyard. The characters were simplified for the purposes of training, but that did not mean you where going to win the demo. The two groups that went before Hannah, Lyle and myself where both slain by the dragon!

When the three of us walked onto the life-sized battlemat to fight the dragon we didn’t know what would happen. We each took our turn and we each managed to deal a blow to the beast. Some of us got really lucky and rolled some critical hits. In my case I rolled two crits in a row for my Rouge and we where able to vanquish the dragon. The three of us got a button to pin on to ourselves that said “Monster Slyer”. For our critical hits we also got tokens that allowed us to claim other prizes.

From the Wizards of the Coast booth we made our way down stairs to an area called the Hidden Level which housed the a large area for Magic the gathering and Dungeons & Dragons play. D&D players where able to join a random dungeon delves or partake in A dark sun arena battle. Magic the Gathering players where able to just play or partake in a “buy-in” game. Hannah found this useful for learning how to play magic for the first time.

After exploring the hidden level we made our way back upstairs to meet with some people from Wizards of the Coast. I had the chance to speak with a D&D game designer and play a game out of the Red Box with one of the game developers by the Dungeons & Dragons bus! I will be writing more on this experience in a future post.

As morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon turned to evening Lyle, Hannah and myself found a place to eat dinner. It gave us a chance to talk about the days events and do a little planning about for the next day.

After finishing dinner we headed back to the expo hall to attend the play “Of Dice and Men”. We where lucky to even be able to attend this play. We gave ourselves a good hour, hour and a half to get in line. When we got in line however, we learned their where only 40 spots left in line. We waited in line while Hannah played Pokémon Silver on her Nintendo DS and traded Pokémon items with other poke ball wearers in line.

The doors finally opened for the play and the long line of people waiting to attended made their way in through the doors and found their seats. The play was really good and put on by some really great actors. You would be cheering one moment and gripping the edge of our seat just waiting to see what happens next.

When the play was finished we headed outside. Lyle caught the bus to go home for the night and we made plans to meet the next day. Hannah and I dropped some stuff off at our hotel room and then headed right back to the convention center. By this time the expo hall was closed, but that did not mean people where still not having fun and playing games. As we walked back to the convention center we found people in line to play Rock Band 2. I have to admit that some of the performances were rather good. The two floors of the expo hall that still had activity were dedicated to board gaming and make shift stores selling everything from board games to t-shirts. One room would be filled with people playing games like Carcassonne and Axis & Allis, while another room would be filled with people playing Magic the Gathering, Zombie Dice and Munchkin. They even had a room to check out games to play. Pretty much anything you could think of was available for check out.

Still another room was filled with bean bag chairs where people could talk, play games, check their e-mail, etc. It was a very relaxed and fun feeling everyone had. It was at this point however that I wish I had brought some of my Dungeons & Dragons material to run a game with. Hannah had some pre made characters all ready to go and I was in a mood to observe other Dungeons Masters, but no one was really playing Dungeons & Dragons in these rooms. It was a this point that I made a mental note that If I attend PAX next year I was going be prepared to run my own D&D game.

Hannah and I spent the next few hours walking around and just taking in all the gaming awesomeness that was around us before we headed back to our hotel to call it a night.

Related posts:

1. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 3
2. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 2
3. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 0

It begins with the following sentence:

I have never seen a video or movie about tabletop roleplaying gamers that takes the tabletop roleplaying games hobby seriously.

I know I just lost some of you there — that word, “serious”, is like a plague to many. But those of you who have read this far, I ask you to hear me out. The reason a lot of people flinch from the concept of “serious” is that things are often portrayed on a black/white, all-one-or-all-the-other scale. It is, however, possible to be “serious” without being too serious.

Yes, we’re a bunch of people, many fully-grown adults with jobs and families, who sit around playing pretend with rules and dice (most of the time). There’s something inherently childlike (not childish, but childlike) about that, and that’s a good thing — we need that creativity, that wonder. It’s also good that we can laugh at ourselves. These are things we should never lose. But it seems to me that we, our group of people with a shared interest, can not seem to step back and examine our hobby without going for cheap yuks.

This gets me back to the sentence from above. I have never seen a video or movie about tabletop roleplaying gamers that takes the tabletop roleplaying games hobby seriously. (I don’t mean informational videos intended purely for gamers, like the wonderful Gamescience dice rant videos. I mean things like Dorkness Rising, media that reach outside our hobby either by design or through simple osmosis.) I see this as a problem for multiple reasons.

First, the comedy always seems to hit the same notes. This is because it plays on stereotypes, and while stereotypes can have cores of truth, we as a group of people with shared interests are so much more than that. These stereotypes are old, worn out and tonedeaf. Gamers have worked to move beyond the stereotypes, so why must these videos and films be stuck the old rut?

Secondly, the videos and movies are more visible to the nongamer populace than our “internal memos”. We already have a difficult enough time explaining our hobby to people who aren’t in the know. Continually presenting people outside the hobby with these kinds of depictions of ourselves isn’t helping anybody. We paint ourselves as fools, never seeing the damage we’re doing to our own efforts to get gaming to be seen as just another hobby. Every hobby is “weird” in its own way, and that’s a good thing all in all, but we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

Finally, we’re doing this to ourselves. We’re not being “persecuted” or suffering “prejudice”. Gamers are doing this. We’re presenting this unbalanced view of ourselves and reinforcing negative stereotypes about us. Right now, I’m sure many of you are asking, “So what?” and “Why should we care what other people think?” I don’t know about you, but I, for one, am quite tired of people having a reinforced boatload of assumptions about what kind of person I am just because I mention that I play RPGs. This really happens. It’s happened since the beginning, and in some measure it will happen forever, but we’re really not helping things. (If you do not feel this is at all a problem, I probably won’t be able to convince you that my thoughts have any merit. So be it.)

I’m not calling for the abolition of comedy or parody based on gaming. Far from it: as I said above, we need to be able to laugh at ourselves. I’m not crying that the sky is falling, because the world goes on every day as it has before. My problem is that we’re doing nothing to display the other side of things to people who aren’t us.

A tiny vignette: I once taught a young man how to multiply decimals. This was something his math teacher hadn’t been able to get this young man to grasp all school year. It took me ten minutes. I did it by teaching him how to calculate his experience point bonuses for high ability scores in AD&D 2nd Edition. By tying the math concepts to something he enjoyed doing, the math became something interesting, something he wanted to learn. I couldn’t have done that without the game.

I’m sure there are millions of stories like mine out there. Why, then, do we never talk about them in front of the camera? Why can’t we see a short documentary on a family who all game together, a short film that shows how “normal” it is, how it brings the family together? Why must every gamer video be thick glasses, a total lack of social skills and attacking the darkness, where a female at the table gets the male players stumbling all over themselves and every encounter is straight out of Knights of the Dinner Table? Why must it all be the same tired gaming jokes?

If you know of gamer media that display gaming in a positive, or even productive, light for consumption beyond just the gaming hobby, please let me know. I would like to help put that kind of thing forward where it can be seen alongside the comedy and parody. I’d also like to open a dialogue about creating more positive gamer media that is accessible by more than just the gaming “in crowd”, stuff that would be readily accessible by nongamers.

In my own defense, folks, I feel obligated to conclude by pointing out that I laugh until my belly hurts every time someone quotes the Dead Ale Wives. All I want is some balance, here.

Related posts:

1. Greetings from the Philippine Gamer
2. Let’s all put our minds together, RPMN Blog Carnival anybody? Social Media and its impact on RPGs!
3. Return of the Gamer in Japan

We where both checked in at the airport by 6:45AM and seated on the plane by 7:40AM. We were no sooner seated when we heard the announcement made that we would have to de-board the plane because it was discovered that the brakes on the plane needed to be replaced. With a collective sigh from everyone on board we all grabbed our language and made our way back to the gate seating area. Every 30 minutes for the next 2 hours we were updated by the overhead speaker system saying that maintenance was still working on the plane and they hope to board everyone in the next 30 minutes. Even though it was frustrating to hear this statement every 30 minutes I am glad that the airline took the time to notice this braking issue with the plane and fixed it before trying to send us on our way.

One The Plane

The non-stop flight from Juneau to Seattle was just under 2 hours long. The weather in Juneau when we took off was overcast and rainy. Hannah kept herself entertained on the flight by playing games on her Nintendo DS and I switched from reading a book to trying to nap. We landed with Seattle welcoming us with 72 degree sunny weather.

We made our way from the airport to our hotel in downtown Seattle via the new Link Light Rail system. The $2.50 ride from the airport to downtown was worth every penny. Through the windows of the rail car we watched as we were carried through traffic, weaving under and above ground at times till we made it to our University Street stop. From there it was a short 3 block walk with our bags to our hotel.

We spent the rest of the day exploring Seattle on foot. We walked around and made sure we could find the PAX convention center. We checked out a few shops while trying to get the lay of the land. We had dinner at the HardRock Café and dessert at the Cheese Cake Factory. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at little convenient store and picked up a few bottles of water and hand sanitizer to take with us the next day. With everything ready for PAX the next day we went to sleep.

Related posts:

1. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 1
2. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 2
3. PAX Prime 2010 – Day 3

While the 4th edition of Dungeonslayers will be over 160 pages long, the core rules aren’t that much longer than in its predecessor, but it’s still 99% compatible to the older editions. Nevertheless DS4 has been improved in all aspects.

The book is now fully illustrated, contains a table of contents and a detailed index, new and optimized rules, an improved game mastering section, new equipment, three fully-fleshed out adventures and a setting! The games appendices contain treasure tables, rules for miniature gaming, a toolbox for creating your own player races and a condensed version of my firearms rules.

One of the new features of DS4 will be the hero classes like paladin, druid, archmage or assassin. These classes will grant access to new talents and abilities and allow to individualize your characters even further.

Christian also managed to make combats in DS4 more tactical and fun without making the rules more complex by adding Slayerpoints. You earn those points by hurting your enemies and they can be used to activate special moves, ignore some minor damage, or temporarily increase your stats.

In my opinion DS4 makes a good game even better and I can’t wait to get my hands on a print copy with will be available in October.

Here are some pictures from the upcoming old-fashioned roleplaying game:

These teasers have to suffice for now. I’ll post some more info on DS4 over the next few weeks. So stay tuned!

As far as I know, the Dungeonslayers translation team is already eager to start working on a English translation, but given the size of the latest edition, this may take a while. In the meantime I will try to keep you updated. If there are any questions about DS4 and the print release, please feel free to ask. Any questions, I can’t answer myself, I will relay to the game’s designer Christian Kennig.

Related posts:

1. Preview: Warrior, Rogue & Mage Revised Edition Part 1
2. Preview: Warrior, Rogue & Mage Revised Edition Part 2
3. Dungeonslayers: First sneak peek at the 4th Edition

Stay tuned! And how do you like my new t-shirt?

Related posts:

1. Check out Signs & Portents #80
2. Crypts and Things
3. Five good things I learned playing D&D 4th edition (or… How I learned not to care about diagonal movement!)

This week’s Free Stuff is: Synapse

Synapse is a new RPG written by Greg Christopher. It was just made available last week as a Public Beta, to be improved over the course of the next few months into a final release. The PDF is nearly 300 pages long and in full color with stunning art donated by artists from around the world.

The game is a completely open-ended universal system with strong emphasis on character depth and personality. The primary elements of a character are seven mental attributes, including the namesake Synapse. In addition to these, your character chooses from 21 talents to customize precisely what their brain is good (and bad) at. This brain is then placed in a physical body. Build a race using a point-buy system from nearly a hundred biological characteristics; ranging from mandibles to turtle shells to wings to echolocation. This is followed by a similar system for culture where you define the society from which your character springs. Build any culture from Ancient Egypt to the Galactic Empire. Your character is the given life experiences using another point-buy system, where you make choices about your education, siblings, parentage, and more. All of these systems feed into a personality model to build a unique personality from 22 different motivation values. You define what exactly drives your character in their daily life. Choose from six morality models that go far beyond good and evil. On top of this, you build a network of NPCs which your character has met over the years. These NPCs integrate you into the social fabric of the game world, providing resources, contacts, allies, and more. Finally, choose from a long list of skills for any setting you need and buy your starting equipment (or property, if you are rich enough). As you can see, this game generates characters of stunning complexity.

The game uses a d6 success-based mechanic to determine success/failure at tasks. The combat system involves a bullet-time model that resolves quickly and decisively. The game also includes a conversational mechanic where you can pick and choose motivational appeals to make in your adversaries to influence their decisions. Even if you choose poorly, you get a few chances to attempt to get the conversation back on track. It also has a standard roll-vs-difficulty and a manuever mechanic that works for chase scenes; from horses to starfighters. Your body is represented by three values; strength, endurance, and resilience (resistance to toxin/disease). You can take damage to these values independently as if they were different kinds of hit points. You also track mental stress to determine how well your mind is able to keep it together under adverse circumstances. As you take stress, you start to get shaky and make mistakes. If you reach a critical stage, your brain shuts down and you withdraw into a catatonic state and cower on the floor.

Since the game emphasizes the brain and not the physical form, it easily supports any setting. Your mental skills are used to run all the mechanics, not your body. Instead of drawing upon your physical body, simply replace your body with the values of a giant Mech and take to the field as if you were merely a giant armored combatant. Build a new body as a vampire, choosing from dozens of vampiric powers. Or teach yourself magic and choose from dozens of magical abilities.

Synapse is a powerful character development engine that can be used to play any setting, any genre, any game that you desire. You owe it to yourself to check it out. And give Greg some comments on his forum so that he can make the final build the best that it can be.

So take a moment and check out Synapse. Download the pdf, and check out the blog. Maybe even give Greg some feedback to make Synapse even better then it is! As always be sure to thank Greg for the free stuff!

Related posts:

1. Free Stuff Friday: Mad Irishman Productions
2. Free Stuff Friday: DC Adventures Character Sheets
3. Free Stuff Friday: Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Character Sheets

Solomon Kane is the hero of a number of stories written by Robert E. Howard, who is probably better known for his sword and sorcery stories about the Cimmerian Conan. Kane is a gloomy man, all clad in black who wanders the world to fight evil in all its forms. The stories are set into the late 16th and early 17th century, an era we don’t see that often in roleplaying games.

The first thing you’ll notice when you have a look at the game is the beautiful artwork. Usually the production quality of Savage Worlds products is already pretty high, but TSWoSK is definitely a highlight. The style of the cover and the interior artwork are a perfect fit for both the setting and the era.

The Savage World of Solomon Kane is a stand-alone game which contains all the rules you need to play. While the rules presented are more or less identical to the ones presented in the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition (read my review here), references to modern equipment, mad science, etc. have been left out, because they don’t fit into the genre. Since I already reviewed the core rules earlier, I won’t go into detail here. The book also contains a summary of all the Solomon Kane stories, but players and GMs are recommended to read at least a few of the stories.

One difference between the SWEE and the Solomon Kane game are the magic rules. The SWEE magic system has been heavily modified to better reflect the magic presented in the stories. Power Points aren’t used and there are only two Arcane Backgrounds (Sorcery and Shamanism) available. The most important difference is that while magic can be either used for good or ill, it’s always considered to be evil and ungodly by Kane and a lot of his contemporaries.

TSWoSK contains the obligatory Gamemastering section which does a good job of introducing new GMs to their job. But even veteran GMs can learn a thing or two when it comes to the particularities of the setting. There’s even a chapter dedicated to Adventure and NPC creation, which can be very helpful for anyone running a Solomon Kane game. As with any good Savage Worlds game, there’s of course a handy Adventure Generator which allows GMs to come up with a basic plot by rolling a few dice. Especially when you didn’t have enough time to prepare your game, the Adventure Generator can help you to improvise something in no time. The book also contains a plot point campaign which allows the characters to travel in the footsteps of the famous adventures himself. But you’re of course free to run your own stories as well.

Another highlight of the book is the vast background section. There are lots of information on the life in the times of Solomon Kane and pretty detailed descriptions of important persons and events during that era. Together with the locations described in the plot point campaign, the GM get’s a pretty good picture of the world in that era. The game also contains enough background information to run your own campaign set in Kane’s world or to just use the book for running other 16th/17th century games.

The 355-paged book concludes with a bestiary, a very good looking character sheet, the Savage Worlds templates (for you to photocopy and cut out) and a two-paged index.

In my opinion The Savage World of Solomon Kane is one of the best Savage Worlds releases so far. Especially if you and your gaming group are interested in the era, you get a lot of bang for the buck. The hardcover book is available at Amazon.com and probably your local gaming store, but you can also get the digital edition at DrivethruRPG. The lavishly illustrated PDF sets you back $35, the printed copy usually costs $5 to $10 more.

This review is based on a read-through of the book. The review copy in PDF format has been provided by the publisher.

Related posts:

1. Review: Legends of Steel – Savage Worlds Edition
2. Savage (Worlds) Excitement!
3. “Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition” Review

Last March I wrote a post titled The Importance of Dice where I talked about how important dice are to both players and game masters alike. It seems like everywhere I look every person has their own unique way of holding and rolling their dice. Some people wont let anyone else touch their dice for fear of negative consequences as a result. The options of dice we have to choose from as participants in this role-playing game hobby of ours have is staggering, but today I am just going to focused on one brand of dice. Gamescience dice, and what my personal experience has been with them.

Shortly after I wrote The Importance of Dice I placed an order with Comic Lair for a set of green opaque Gamescience dice with white numbering. I chose to go through the Comic Lair because they where one of the first places I searched for that would ship to Juneau, Alaska. Finding companies that will ship to Alaska can be a challenge. I also chose to go through the Comic Lair because I called them and got to speak with the owner Chad, who took his time to help me out and answer all of my questions. Who says customer service is dead?

Chad explained to me that Gamescience don’t look perfect. They don’t ship from the manufacture with painted numbers for starters. All number painting is done third-party either I as a buyer could paint them in myself and save a couple of bucks, or Chad could do it for me if I choose. Gamescience recommends using deco paint pens with an ultra fine tip which is what Chad used. Recently he has been testing out Sharpies new enamel paint pens and him they seem to be adhering better to the dice and he has been experimenting with different color choices on his eBay store. It will take some time to know if they last any longer then the deco paint pens that Gamescience recommends. I also asked Chad about the blemishes, or imperfections on Gamescience dice that I had been reading about. He explained that yes, these dice do have imperfections on them as result of how they are molded. This is something easily fixed with an emery board. He also cautioned me that no matter what, these dice will not ever look 100% flawless like other dice. Unlike other dice, Gamescience dice do not go through a tumbling process to smooth out these imperfections, but that is why some RPG hobbiest prefer them. As a result you have a set of dice with sharp edges that cause the dice to come to a stop more quickly. This produces a more random dice roll then most other bands of dice with their smoothed down rounded edges. What this means is a dice with rounded edges will roll across your table longer allowing it to find its center of gravity. The result is that a dice with rounded edges are more likely to roll a particular number depended on where it’s center of gravity is. A Gamescience dice, with its sharp edges will not roll as far and as a result will not find its center of gravity making each roll more authentically random then other bands of dice with rounded edges.

I thanked Chad for all his time and asked him to send me a set of Green opaque dice with white numbers. I wanted to leave the number coloring up to someone who had more experience than myself. Less than a week later I got my first set of Gamescience dice in the mail.

The dice came well packaged and survived the trip from Trenton, New Jersey all the way to Juneau, Alaska. When I took them out of their package the first thing you really notice is how sharp the sides of each dice are. It really sands out. I spent a good ten minutes just squeezing them in my hand and feeling all the edges.

The next thing I noticed was the blemishes on each dice. They did stick out and they did not allow the dice to lay flat on the side that had the blemish, but just as Chad had said, a quick file with my fiancée emery board leveled off the imperfection so the dice would lay flat on the affected side. Also like Chad said the dice do not look flawless. Leveling off the imperfection made it so the dice would lay flat but you can still see where it was. Some of the dice also look a bit lighter or darker from one another. It’s just how it is.

Ever since I got my set of green Gamescience dice I have been using them at every game I have played since. I have noticed that the white numbering is starting to slowly flaking off. I think when and if it gets to a point where I want to redo the numbers on my dice I will try the crayon method.

I do not miss using my other dice at all. I feel that as a game master it is my job to provide a far balanced game. Having a set of dice that I feel are producing a more random result is part of that job. It’s also important to remember that when you are playing an RPG having fun is key. I am not requesting my players to go out and buy Gamescience dice. (but some have, including my Fiancée, who has bought several sets now.) I want my players to have fun and that means everyone gets to use the dice they like the most. Mine just happen to be Gamescience dice.

Check out Bridget’s post at Dicemonkey.net to see what she thinks of Gamescience dice.

Related posts:

1. Review: Printed Dice
2. The Importance of Dice
3. D Total

Part 1 (49:33):

Part 2 (32:41):

I hope you enjoy the video! By the way, there’s an alternative recording of the seminar at RPG Circus.

Related posts:

1. Gen Con: Last Day
2. WHFRP 3rd Edition Seminar by Jay Little
3. Video Review: Fantasy Craft

Thanks again to Patrick and Alex for that awesome interview!

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Microlite Interview with AntiPaladin Games
3. Interview with the AntiPaladins: Mini Six Bare Bones Edition