Restart: #RPGaDAY2020 1 - Beginning

Another year, another #RPGaDAY!

This year the daily blogging prompts take the form of words on a map:

Today's prompt is:

BEGINNING

There are more beginnings than ends.

Part of this is because I start a lot of projects and then never finish them (because other things capture my interest, or I run out of time, or I just don't want to do it anymore), but also I think in general the space of potential is much larger than the space of actual outcomes.

In this hobby, we think about how things start a lot. You all meet in a tavern. Setting expectations and rolling characters in session zero. Coming up with good adventure hooks. Looking into the shadowy dungeon entrance, lantern held high.

I wanted to get a sense of how I've been thinking about beginnings. Luckily I had the good sense to make "beginnings" a tag on this blog, so I'll review some of the things that come up on in posts I've tagged "beginnings".

The first post on this blog, obviously. Interestingly while I've mostly kept to intentions a b and d, I'd forgotten about c: "comment on and synthesize the work of other roleplaying bloggers". I have a bunch of text documents in my "Gaming" folder where I put summaries of stuff I find on blogs that all seems to fit together; for example a whole bunch of different guides on creating adventures. I think I convinced myself that nobody wanted to see stuff that was already elsewhere, but maybe that's not true? Especially if I grind it up into a paste and spread the result out.

There are a bunch of #RPGaDAY2016 posts that are tagged too. Things about getting the first session started off right, first experiences roleplaying, etc. I still love the story of how I just walked in and sat down to watch some people playing in the university dorm common room like some kind of creep and now they're awesome friends and I still play with them every week 12 years later.

There are posts about starting off game design projects, like the weird graveyard text adventure thing I started making for nagademon, and more recently my attempts to make a thiefy duet game in Crook and the Gygax 75 challenge I'm doing at this very moment.

The most-viewed post on this blog is tagged "beginnings": it's the list of Reasons to Do Gamethings which provides an occasionally-updated calendar of game jams, blogging prompts, design competitions and challenges. A whole bunch of potential beginnings!

There's also a post about the *DREAM Principles, which I think I saw as a new beginning for the OSR scene (LOLSOB especially now as I write this with loads of people leaving the OSR discord over TERF shit and opaque moderation). I actually have a draft post where I was going to look at another list of principles (the Dungeonpunk Manifesto from Sword and Backpack), and I think it would be interesting to do a series of posts about these lists of principles cause there's loads of them out there (like the Possum Laws of Gaming and the Principia Apocrypha and even the Dungeonpunk Counter-Manifesto which responded to Sword and Backpack's manifesto cause it wasn't punk enough!)

That's it for this review of previous beginnings. And whaddya know, it generated a few more beginnings. Let's see if they lead to any ends.

Technoccult: Gygax 75 Challenge Week 1

A couple of months ago Ray Otus released the Gygax 75 Challenge, a 5-week workbook guiding one through making a small campaign setting based on the advice of an article Gary Gygax published in a zine less than a year after D&D came out.

It looks super fun so I printed it out and bound it with a pamphlet stitch and flipped through and saw a one-line suggestion that it could be a cyberpunk setting instead of standard fantasy. I shared my excitement about this with Sean Smith (creator of such wonders as Quarrel & Fable, Gully-Toads, and Exuviae), who it turns out had -also- decided to do the Gygax 75 with a cyberpunk setting.

WELL

I decided it would be fun to do a setting linked to his.  Mine takes place 100 years after a calamity destroys whatever cyberpunk civilization existed, and might even feature the same location as a ruin. Fuck knows if this will actually realize in that way but it's a hell of a good idea to start off running with.

What would the the post-apocalypse be like after a cyberpunk future?

Anyway, Gygax 75 Week 1:

i. "Get/create a notebook." This blog is it!  also the simplenote app on my phone. I did consider using a physical notebook and I might do that for maps, but I find it easier to capture ideas in text digitally.

ii. "Develop your pitch." So it's a kind of post-cyber-occult-pocalypse. Here goes:

    1. A century ago, the technologic future suffered an occult calamity.

    2. Humanity scavenges for survival in the ruins of a cyperpunk dystopia.

    3. Electric devil skeletons animated by technocultists lurk in collapsed arcologies and burnt-out server farms.

    4. There is a belief that if the dark ritual that caused the calamity can be discovered, it can be reversed. Not everyone wants this.

    5. Power sources are valuable because old cyber-tech still exists and can be repaired and run; batteries are sparingly traded for other goods; "if it runs a current it's currency".

    6. Forests of broken solar-panel trees snaked through with exposed wires; vast expanses of grey ash made of former office tower blocks.

    7. Technoccult magicks are accomplished through rituals that blend blood with computing; sorcery is just another kind of hacking; demons are indistinguishable from rogue AIs.

iii. "Gather your sources of inspiration." Not to be viewed by players, so close your eyes I guess.

    1. Mad Max series (George Miller). Post-apocalyptic settings full of freaks in gonzo costumes roaming around a ruined landscape owe much to Mad Max.

    2. Dangerous Days (Perturbator). The visual aesthetics of dark synthwave are just right on in general but Dangerous Days in particular--I mean there's one image that literally says "SATAN IS A COMPUTER"

    3. Polybius (urban legend). The idea of a satantic mind-control arcade game released as a psychological experiment in portland in the 80s is THE BEST. also other games where demonic forces bleed into the real world like Pony Island and Undertale

    4. The neon graveyard (Las Vegas). What would the bright neon cityscape of a cyberpunk dystopia look like post-collapse? I reckon it'd be like the vegas neon graveyard.

    5. The Matrix trilogy (the Wachowskis). Specifically the real world outside the matrix with that wild underground city and giant vat-walls full of dreaming battery-humans.

    6. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott). What if this society collapsed? Those giant pyramids and video screens, dark and abandoned?

    7. the occult origins of personal computing (Al Robertson). This cyberpunk author has spoken on the idea that the pioneers of the internet, virtual reality, and mass technology were inspired by occult and psychedelic movements. Never mind if it's true or not, that idea's cool as hell.

extra credit. "Assemble a mood board" yes good

That'll do for now I think! Maybe a hack of Mutant Future could run this pretty good.

Guiding Principles for Crooks

It occurs to me that as I go forward trying to make the systems I've created to run a thief job duet game for my partner into something other people can use, it would be wise to come up with some guiding principles. Or at least, make concrete the ones I've been implicitly using.

***

Crook

A game where a lone scoundrel does unusual jobs for unusual people.

1. Player-focused preparation. There is only one player; the GM should focus on things -that specific- player is likely to be interested in.

2. Alternative challenges. There is only one player; it is not possible to solve every problem by hitting it.

3. Alternative consequences. There is only one player; removing them from play should be avoided, but bad things can and will happen to them.

4. Rulings over rules. In the OSR/DIY sense: don't use a rule where you can make it work well on the fly.

5. Be permissive. Yes, and/but. No locked doors without stakes.

***

Thoughts on what these mean for making decisions when designing Crook:

1: What sorts of things is our crook going to be interested in?  The people who offer them jobs, and the nature of those jobs (I've been working on a job generator for this). The people and things that can help them accomplish those jobs. Something that they can do or work towards with the rewards from those jobs (are they paying off a debt? are they atoning for their past? do they want to prove themselves to a specific person? this likely should be a key trait established in when the player makes their crook). Organizations they can be part of, influence or be influenced by that will affect the other things they're interested in (thieves guilds, town guard, noble families, merchants, gangs, etc).

It's also important to tailor to the specific tastes of the player in your duet. Do they like dungeoncrawling more than courtly intrigue? Do they run off their mouth and start fights? Have they trained for years to become the perfect silent assassin? The jobs they're offered and the challenges they face should reflect the tastes of the player-as-a-person.

2: Combat shouldn't always be avoided, but there should be a focus on solving problems in a way that doesn't get the crook killed or incarcerated. This is important in all kinds of roleplaying adventure games, but I feel it's especially important in a duet. Ingenuity, insight, and non-linear thinking can be encouraged by giving the crook non-combat tools: immovable rods, vials of grease, and 1/day misty step as opposed to flasks of alchemists fire, acid arrows, and enchanted daggers (though if such standard combat items are given sparingly, that will encourage their use in creative ways).

This also can be reflected in environment design. Firey laterns swinging on long chains; precarious boulders above the narrow pass; loose bricks around the other side of the house. Traps that can be reset or redirected. Multiple paths in and out, and ways to manipulate the environment totally--what if there's a button on a pedestal that turns all the liquid in a 20 ft radius into blood? What if the inscription on the ceiling, when translated, teaches a chant that blocks out the sun for 2 minutes and then you forget the chant forever?

3: Preventing your one player from doing what they want to do by killing them or otherwise taking them out of play only serves to stop the game. Instead, have things break, or lost, or be stolen. Have important other people die. If a brutal combat does occur, have the crook be scarred or lose a limb or an eye. Or perhaps the baddies choose not to kill: it's always fun to have our protagonist hogtied and left to die in the desert--or perhaps thrown into a barrel, which is then chucked into a river heading toward a waterfall.

4: This is as much a reminder to myself to pare down rules wherever I can as it is guidance for running the game. That said, while making systems for Crook, I can and probably will go overboard, with full knowledge that I'll have to cut away all the cruft later. A rule of thumb I like for this is from Goblin Punch: "only write a rule when it is better than what you could come up with on the fly". And "better" can be defined in a number of ways as detailed in that post.

5: Others have been far more sophisticated than I with this, but nothing annoys me more than a locked door that is hard to open and if you fail there's no consequence other than not getting through the door. At least put some time pressure on: is the guardian automaton searching for the crook? Is a boulder rolling down the hallway towards us? Or give consequences for failure: the lock breaks and now you've made a wall. Or picking it sloppily triggers a visible blowdart aimed at the lock, or releases acid into the font of healing mineral water you're trying to get to. NO LOCKED DOORS WITHOUT STAKES.

If they want to do something and there's no consequence for failure, they do it! If you really want it to hurt for your Crook to try doing something mundane you can roll to see how many tries it takes and make them lose some spare change down a chasm each time they stumble (and I hope it's clear that that kind of pettiness is precisely what should be avoided). This goes for -abstract- doors especially. If our crook has a hunch about what kind of liquor the gang leader likes to drink as a digestif, they either can find out by asking the GM if they know or can do something interesting to find out (like sneaking into the leader's office and reading their diary, or bribing the manager of the member's-only bar, or beating it out of a lackey)--it should -not- be locked behind a knowledge roll that can be failed.

I think that'll do for now.

OH WAIT one thing I like about the name Crook is that it reminds me of "by hook or by crook" which is exactly the way in which our protagonist should try to accomplish things.

A Job for Penny: Discovering Recursive Random Tables

In a period of time in which it was difficult to play tabletop games with our friends due to time and distance, my partner and I made up a game where I GM'd her adventures as Penny, a master thief who would take jobs for fun and profit. We used Scarlet Heroes, whatever maps I could find, and a large amount of random tables to allow Penny to play in a fairly open sandbox.

The name of this blog comes from this game.

Many of my interests in RPG design and GMing were developed, if not sparked, by Penny's Ventures: one-on-one games (which Kirk Johnson-Weider, in his excellent series of columns on RPGnet, called -duets-), player-focused prep (ie; trying to create only what would matter to the player--especially important when there is only one), timer mechanics for pacing (very much related to fronts from Dungeon World and the clocks in Blades in the Dark) and--most enduringly--the use of several random tables mashed together to quickly generate a number of hooks and encounters.

Penny would receive criminal job offers in dead-drops she had secreted throughout the world. Each job would be from a patron (that she either knew already or was someone new) and included broad details of the nature of the job, potential rewards, and how far it was to travel from her current location. She could choose whichever one caught her interest, at which point we would use the selected job, a few more random tables, and the current context of the gameworld to set up the details of the game session--either right there at the table (in a quick and dirty manner), or well beforehand if I had texted my partner with a list of jobs and they picked one for the next session.

I want to dig into how I generated Penny's job offers, because it was key to make them interesting and fun as well as tie in to Penny's background and the gameworld.

It started with researching patrons and jobs as used in sci-fi freelancer games like Traveller. The patron-job structure needed for Penny was a clear analogue and I figured I didn't need to reinvent the wheel when I could just reskin a sci-fi one for the generic fantasy realm Penny played in. I ended up choosing the Mission Generator from Thunderegg's OSR Sci Fi GM Screen they made for running White*Star--it was freely available (at the time--I'm unable to find the pdf they offered now but the blurb on the RPGGeek page confirms my memory), very simple, and very hackable.

It boils down to 5 random tables:

1d4 to get a patron. (Corporate, Criminal, Government, or Military)
1d10 for what they want. (ie; Smuggling, Escort, Con, etc)
1d6 for the risk (how many encounters it will entail).
1d6 for how distant the job is. (your current planet, in the next star system, etc)
1d6 for the reward.

I liked that the "what they want" roll was modified by the type of patron. -1 for Criminal, +1 for Military or Government. The table is written so that the extreme outcomes (and therefore, certain kind of jobs) are more or less likely depending on the patron. Some of the tables made certain outcomes more likely by giving the same result for a range of rolls (ie; a roll of 1-3 gets a certain result).

Also, the reward was a) not always monetary (one outcome was "favour owed" which I LOVE), but also b) proportional to the Risk roll+Distance roll, which is a neat way to automatically ensure that harder jobs are worth more.

The thing that -really- caught my attention was the reward table result for rolling a 6: "Roll again, plus add +1 to Reward Risk for all future missions". Over time, missions get more difficult and take a longer time, in a way that is disconnected from the PC's level. That is, on the assumption that this is actually permanently increasing the Risk roll (AKA nudging upward the likey number of encounters the mission will entail), and not just inflating the Reward on its own (because "Reward Risk" is not explained).

In any case, the idea that the result of a roll on a random table could alter future rolls on that table is -very cool-. The use of nested random tables is long-established, where a certain result on a top-level table gets you to roll on a different sub-table. There are also results like "roll again on this table" or the more interesting "roll again and combine". But here we have random tables that are -recursive-; that not only refer to themselves but can -alter- themselves.

Has anyone seen recursive tables before? Let me know--I couldn't find any in a cursory skim of bookshelf.

***

The table determining the patron offering Penny a job is as follows:

1d6: Patron
1-2: criminal
3:  noble/merchant
4: government
5: military
6: former patron

If the result is 6, we roll on the Former Patrons subtable. Every time Penny accepts a job from a new patron (1-5), they're added to the Former Patrons subtable.

As the game progresses, Penny's list of former patrons grows, and she will receive job offers from people she's worked for before. This gives a nice sense of continuity, and the potential for some interesting decisions and mechanics. What if refusing to take enough jobs from a former patron culls them from the table? Or if choosing between two former patrons will cause conflict between them--say, if one patron asks Penny to steal from another?

Next time, I'll talk about how I flesh out the patrons and their jobs, and experiment with the structure of the tables.

In My *DREAMS

After some time away (during which OSR turned within and G+ died), I wanted to see what was going on, and found SWORDDREAM (which for my own reference, tounge-in-cheekly backronyms to Second Wave of RPG Design, DIY Rules Everything Around Me).

(I found this post most helpful in understanding what *DREAM is and might be and what it isn't and shouldn't. Also the splat is there because not everyone dreams of swords.)

There are nine principles that people have pinned to the door and I wanted to put them here (again for my own reference have you seen how many fucking blogs are in my roll I can't keep track of anything) and jot down some thoughts on each one if I had any.

Copied from a post on Fish in the Pot, with my notes under each one:

THE NINE PRINCIPLES OF *DREAM

1. *DREAM stands against hate & prejudice in all forms. We seek to actively oppose bigotry & harassment in gaming communities. We create kind spaces.
        The less people like Pundit and Zak in the scene the better, and the more diversity among designers and players the better. Even if this started as a kneejerk reaction to the shitheads (which it really doesn't feel like), it's important to make this value crystal clear.

2. *DREAM works to be radically inclusive. We seek support and encourage creators, GMs, Players, and organizers from marginalized groups. And we seek to get better at this all the time.
        Same as above thought. Also: how can -I- be better at this?

3. *DREAM encourages the use of sensible tools for communication and consent.
        The X Card comes to mind. Are there other tools?

4. *DREAM opposes harassment and strives for non-toxic discourse. We value best intentions, we call in before calling out, and we start discussions before we make accusations. We seek to empower everyone to curate their spaces.
        Thoughts 1 and 2 again. Curating our own spaces is important. Nobody has to listen to shitheads if they don't want to, especially not in their own house. This isn't some rationalist agora. I feel like Principles 2-4 are ways of implementing the broader value expressed in 1.

5. *DREAM values creators & their work. We support equitable pay for professional creators and fair treatment for hobbyists.
        "Fuck you, pay me." But also, fair treatment for hobbyists means that if people hack your work, or criticize it--don't go after them.

6. *DREAM values a DIY approach to creation. We question gatekeeping, we take alternative approaches when traditional publishing models fail, and we believe anyone can make great games.

7. *DREAM values experimentation in game design & world-building.
        I like this a great deal.

8. *DREAM isn’t defined by, but is interested in: anti-canons, emergent story, generative worlds, kitbashing, non-violent play options, and more. And it is fine if some of these things contradict each other.
        So much of these specific interests are my own that I really want this scene to persist (and of course I should contribute to the pile if I really mean it), but to pick out one that challenges my preconceptions: -emergent story-. I have used Fate a bunch and enjoyed many so-called "storygames", but this feels like something different. Is it in the OSRian sense, where the story comes out of what the players actually do in response to the neutral-abiter-DM's in-game situations -as opposed to- having written out a plot and characters etc? Not like to railroad the PCs but like... are emergent narratives the opposite of adventure paths and box text? This, above all, for me, warrants exploration. A delight of OSR/DIY/artpunk(and now *DREAM) is the rich, dense items in random generation tables. For improvisational purposes, a detailed-yet-brief prompt is a strong start... for emergent narrative? I have usually defaulted to very neutral items in my tables (but was I using those for generative worlds? or what even is that if I misunderstand?) and let improvisation and the depth of the setting inspire details. Anyway, there's loads of stuff to explore in this space.

9. There is no one *DREAM. Anyone who commits to these principles is *DREAMing.
        Excellent.

I look forward to seeing what comes out of the *DREAMJAM so we can see what up in this scene.

Reasons to Do Gamethings: a calendar of narrative game design challenges and writing prompts

A seasonal calendar of recurring game jams, blogging prompts, design competitions, and challenges to spur your work on narrative and tabletop games.

You might find it useful too.   UPDATED July 25th 2020

This is fairly extensive (but necessarily incomplete). It includes board games, RPGS, storygames, and interactive fiction. I have deliberately excluded game jams focused on graphical video games, but if that's your jam (HA) then you can check out the calendar at Indie Game Jams. I've tried only to include -active- competitions that have happened more than once. There are loads of new game jams on itch.io going on all the time as well--and Max has a collection of current physical game jams on itch.  I've guessed at the likely date of some competitions based on previous years. Some long-running competitions have ended or are no longer updated, but have extensive archives of games worth looking at--they are listed at the end.

(Also, someone should host another Threeforged because that was a great idea, and the One Room Game IF Competition was great and should come back in some form. Even more also, I'm surprised at how many individual, unrelated One-Page RPG competitions have been started and fizzled out. I want there to be a big official one. There is a One Page RPG Jam again, on itch.io! But now I'll hope for Game Chef to return.)

Do let me know if I've missed any regular things!

ONGOING / TRY ANY TIME

    The Gygax 75 Challenge    https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75 (make an rpg campaign setting in 5 weeks, working through a booklet)

    RPG Blog Carnival    https://ofdiceanddragons.com/rpg-blog-carnival/ (monthly topics hosted by active bloggers)

    RPG Generator    https://sadpress.itch.io/rpg-generator-alpha (randomly generated game idea)

    Meta Prompt Generator    https://crateredland.blogspot.com/2020/07/meta-prompt-generator.html (write an rpg post about...)

    Boardgame Geek Monthly 24hr Challenge (anytime w/in month)    https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2307821/current-contest-info (also several other rotating contests are listed in this post, including faves like the Mint Tin Challenge and the 9-Card Challenge)

    Game Crafter Community Contests    https://www.thegamecrafter.com/contests (boardgames, roughly every 3-4 months)

    One Month Story Challenge    http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/one-month-story-challenge.html (nobody has used the hashtag since 2015, but the challenge is self-guided for creating a bunch of narrative ideas)

WINTER

    Secret Santicore/Santicorn     http://santicore.blogspot.ca/ (OSR rpg content, now mostly run on the OSR Discord but archives up to 2017 still online. 2018/2019 collected on various blogs)

    Cardboard Edison submit (Jan 31 deadline)      http://cardboardedison.com/award/ (unpublished board games)

SPRING

    Spring Thing (Mar 1 deadline, submit by Apr 1)       http://springthing.net (interactive fiction)

    Secret Jackalope (an Easter-ish version of Secret Santicorn for OSR rpg content)

SUMMER

    NarraScope Game Jam (May-Jun)    https://narrascope.org/ (interactive fiction)

    RPG Superstar (deadline June)    https://rpgsuperstar.com/ (rpg content design competition)

    One Page Dungeon Contest (deadline Jun/Jul-ish)    https://dungeoncontest.com/

    IntroComp  (deadline Jul 31 but pre-register in Jun)    http://introcomp.org/ (first room of an interaction fiction)

    #RPGaDay (August)    https://melestrua.wordpress.com/category/rpgaday/ (daily prompts for blogging/game design)

    Saga Forge Scribe (August 24 deadline)    https://www.wearesaga.com/sagaforge (one-shot module competition, Halloween theme)

    One Page RPG Jam (deadline Aug 31)    https://itch.io/jam/one-page-rpg-jam-2020

    200 Word RPG (did not run 2020 but claims it'll be back)    https://200wordrpg.github.io/

(and ongoing submissions at reddit.com/r/200wordrpg)

AUTUMN

    The Mega RPG Jam (ran in Sept 2019)     https://itch.io/jam/mega-rpg-jam/community (creator says will be another one in 2020)

    IFComp (deadline Oct 1 but pre-register in summer)    https://ifcomp.org/ (interactive fiction)

    ECTOCOMP (deadline Oct 31)    https://itch.io/jam/ectocomp-2019-english (Halloween/horror interactive fiction)

   NaGaDeMon (November)    http://nathanrussell.net/naga-demon/# (national game design month)

***

DEFUNCT (but archives available)

    BGDF Game Design Showdown    http://www.bgdf.com/forums/game-design/design-contests (last thread was posted august 2018)

    One Game A Month    http://onegameamonth.com/ (officially ended in 2018)

    24 Hour RPG    http://www.1km1kt.net/cat/24-hour-rpg (last entry was august 2016)

    XYZZY Awards     http://xyzzyawards.org/ (last awarded for 2018)

    New Year's Minicomp     https://intfiction.org/t/eleventh-hour-new-years-minicomp/12848 (last ran in 2017)

    Game Chef      (no archive or website anywhere! I just thought I should mention this great little competition that appears to have completely vanished)

Get Devil Snake

Today marks the start of NaGaDeMon 2016: National Game Design Month. It's a challenge to create a game of any kind during November. I've mucked about with creating game mechanics and homebrew settings for my tabletop roleplaying, and created a small boardgame for the Coursera MOOC Introduction to Game Design (which I 100% recommend to you!), but never fully completed a game despite a few aborted attempts for GameChef and 200WordRPG.

I am going to try something this year. It might not go anywhere. I am publicly giving myself permission (and you a warning?) that I can decide not to complete a game and it won't count as a failure.

This year I think I'll create a piece of interactive fiction. I've loved int-fic for years, and enjoy playing the winners and nominees for stuff like the XYZZY awards every few years. The question now is what language to pick. I've messed around with Inform 7 before and have a half-sort-of game built off of the tutorial from Brass Lantern, but I think I should put that aside and start fresh. I also don't feel like I really understand Twine or fit into that scene. And I don't want to dive into older, weirder, more programmerly languages (like Hugo or TADS or whatever else lurks below).

One that recently came out might fit the bill: Texture. It seems to be designed specifically to be total-beginner-friendly, with a pretty drag-and-drop interface that reminds me of programming Lego Mindstorms and which Killscreen has a positive opinion of, so: why not?

NAGA DEMON! I SHALL CREATE FOR YOU A GAME USING TEXTURE.

Next: random seeds for inspiration.

The Shard of Mirabilis

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: share one of your best Worst Luck stories.

After joining the gaming group I had stumbled upon in university, I rolled up my very first PC. He was a monk named Den, made using some options from Oriental Adventures and trying to use 3rd ed tripping rules effectively. Essentially Den could quickly move around the battlefield, tripping multiple enemies to give bonuses to the other PCs and occupying the big bad while still easily avoiding wizard AOEs with lovely monk reflexes.

Or at least, that's what he was intended to do. See, I have this transparent purple d20 that must be cursed. Whenever the roll mattered, I don't think it ever got above 13, and I swear it was weighted towards a critical fail. Den would often trip himself instead of the enemies, and most of his multiple attacks were wasted by rotten luck. This happened often enough that the DM and I came up with plot to explain it. Den's parents were killed when he was young (shut up he was my first PC) by shapeshifting beings who live on the other side of mirrors. His father's final attack before death shattered the mirror-man Mirabilis, who cursed Den and his father's whole family line. Breaking a mirror gives you bad luck; breaking a mirror-man is far worse. Den carried a shard of Mirabilis on a cord around his neck, which once per day let him re-reroll a d20--so long as it landed on 13 or under. The rest of the time, he just had to live with bad luck.

A Critical Hit

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: most challenging but rewarding system you've learned.

By far the most complex system I've played regularly is D&D 3-3.5. The amount of feats, prestige classes, and subsystems for things like grappling just sent my head spinning. And since it was my first proper experience with roleplaying, I tried to learn it all so I could "play it right".

While I no longer think it's a system I'd want to run again (and Pathfinder doesn't really appeal either), I'm -glad- that there was so much complexity. It gave something interesting to engage in, and the promise of the same sort of strategic depth that Magic: the Gathering had. I'm not sure I would have stayed interested in roleplaying if not for that perceived depth. You can probably tell by my hedging language that I no longer believe this. I think the rules were bloated and the depth illusory, especially once you got into the OGL d20 third-party supplements. The enormous success of 3rd ed and the OGL spawned an incredible ecosystem of games.

Once I had a grasp of d20, there was this whole wide world of other settings and games built on it, and through them I discovered the enormous variety in tabletop gaming. The separation of system and setting really intrigued me, and I think some of the design decisions I like in games is related to that, as is an enduring interest in generic game systems. Expanding beyond D&D was possible because I could try running d20 Modern and Mutants and Masterminds--a trail of breadcrumbs leading to different types of games.

I also don't think I would be as interested in story games and rules-lite systems if I wasn't responding to the crunchiness of 3.5 (and later, 4e). I wouldn't have as broad an interest in roleplaying games either. And I might not even have kept roleplaying in the first place! So thanks, 3rd ed, for being a useful stepping stone.

The Weirding

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: Your dream team of people you used to game with.

I had a group of friends I made during university, and we would game together nearly every week for five years. When I moved to England for grad school, the amount of gaming significantly dropped--I'm lucky if I can play a one-shot once every four months. I miss just seeing my friends weekly, let alone gaming with them.

In the first week of university, I knew nobody. My experience with gaming was mostly PC adventure games and Magic: the Gathering, with a few gamebooks and an AD&D introductory box set I played with my little brother maybe twice. In the common room of my dormitory, I saw some people sitting around with some books, dice, and a DM screen. I came in and sat down and just watched for a bit, like a weirdo. I asked if I could join in, and they said yes. If they thought I was weird for just watching them play, it didn't show. Turns out, they were all weird too. I had found my people.

Over the next few years about half of the gaming group would become my roommates, in one apartment or another. I'd stay up til 4 am with them, individually, talking bullshit and games and life. We'd GM campaigns for everyone in each other's apartments. I'd meet my romantic partner in one of these campaigns.

I can't even imagine how much of my life has been shaped by sitting down in the common room because I spotted some dice and a DM screen. I love each and every single person I've gamed with because of that, and I'd love to play with all of them again.

Off on the Right Foot

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: What makes a successful campaign?

Boy, I guess they got tired of the softball questions! I'm just going to come right out and say that there is no one correct answer. Reams and reams have been written on this and I don't think we're going to come to a consensus.

However...

I think it's crucial to get the first session right. That means in-game and out-of-game.

In-game, the PCs need to be tied together in a way that motivates them to work as a team -and- to go out into the world and help each other with their problems. This needs to be more than "you meet in a tavern and already know each other". Why are you meeting and how do you know each other? It can be built into the system, like the way Fate character generation has players create aspects that tie the PCs together (for example by guest-starring in each others' past adventures in Spirit of the Century). Or it could be part of the story: uniting the PCs through a faction (maybe they all work in the same guild), or through a common problem. I started my urban horror game The City by having all the PCs share a horrifying experience.  After a crowd of hundreds of people around them all collapsed and they were the only ones left conscious, they were transported into an alternate dimension full of booming voices that threatened them, and left each PC with a forehead mark that only the other PCs could see. That pretty much guarantees party cohesion for at least a few sessions. Tying the players together isn't that hard and I think it's a crucial step to player buy-in--and buy-in, ultimately, is what keeps campaigns going.

Out-of-game elements are just as (if not more!) important towards buy-in. A Session Zero might be the way, or bankuei's Same Page Tool, or any other variation of the social contract. The point is to make sure all the players agree on details like the level of commitment to playing regularly, what genre conventions should be followed, and understanding what content is ok or not ok. This also involves finding out if the players are actually into the proposed system and setting and playstyle--and if not, collaborating to find a combo that works for everyone. It might be possible to do this implicitly by playing with a gaming group of peers that you know really well already, outside of gaming alone. However, making at least some elements of the social contract explicit will always help, especially if you have a diverse group of players.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be harping on about buy-in a LOT here. I genuinely believe that no campaign will last without it, so we should try to get it right.

Opening the Book

Here are my intentions:

a) record my thoughts on running roleplaying games from the perspective of someone comfortable with improvising but who enjoys creating fairly detailed settings.

This will most likely focus on the use of random generators like dice tables, tarot cards, and GM emulators to support sandbox-style play in settings that are sketched out with enough prompts to get going.


b) discuss and analyze interesting game mechanics and subsystems

I believe all GMs use house rules, and running RAW is a recipe for disaster. There are many bits and bobs that we cobble together into our games, and I like thinking about how they work.


c) comment on and synthesize the work of other roleplaying bloggers

There is a lot of really good stuff out there, and it's inspired combinations of ideas and informed my GMing style and technique. I want to keep track of it somewhere that isn't vague notes in a forgotten folder.


d) share stuff created for my own games

 Random tables, useful subsystems, maps, setting designs, session reports, etc. Hopefully they'll be of use to someone other than me.


Wish me luck!