Adventure Log

It is late Sunday night, and I just got back from a five day conference. Also, Headshots from the Heart is this week. Oh my. So here’s a post from Legends of Madjan’s adventure log. Look for more wiki updates in the coming months, both from Ilderan Tales, and Ryan’s game Vale Tales. Exciting!

Mikhail, owner of The Inn of the Red Owl, had not been having a good week. For some reason, everybody thought he could use their assistance lately, and none of it ever turned out very helpful. He was delighted to see that in his bar full of people, only one little pesky Gnome – Corrin – was here, and without his friends around, that Gnome couldn’t cause too much trouble. Mikhail would have had a heart attack if he were looking at the door, for a tailless cat had walked in, and began surveying the room with his multi-coloured eyes. Nobody really noticed the cat, for everyone else’s eyes were drawn unto a makeshift stage that was built, covered in several large drums.

Velosh, a famous bard in the region, was one of very few Orcish bards, coming from the distant western sea. A strange rune was centred on his eyepatch, covering his tattooed face; various animal hides and leathers covered him, and he held a small string instrument, playing a few notes in between furious beats to the drums. All of Mikhail’s problems had moved to the back of his head, for Velosh was debuting a lot of new material, and the Inn’s patrons were more than pleased.

After the show, Corrin makes his way up to the bar and compliments Velosh on the show, and invites him to come back to the Rampant Hero to meet his friends, some of whom he feels are worthy of a bard song. They head off, and upon reaching the Hero, Corrin realizes he has a slight problem… He doesn’t know which room his friends are in!

Naturally, after getting a few doors wrong, Corrin finally stumbles upon the perfect room: Saena is trying to sleep, and Winifred is standing in shock as Corrin leads a giant Orc into her bedroom. Spooks sneaks in behind them. After some convincing from Corrin, and a bit of protest from Saena, Winifred tells Velosh the story of how she saved Spooks’ life, at the cost of his tail. Velosh is not amused in the slightest by the story, and tells his own tale about a story of greatness, about the hammer of the gods and the forging of the world. As he finishes, he wishes them a good night and leaves, and Corrin and Spooks get shooed out of the room.

After a long day, everyone gets some much needed rest – though some more than others.

Day 22

Everyone gets up and discuss their upcoming meeting with Jeffrey over some breakfast. They split up for a few hours before the meeting; some go out for a morning stroll, and some go back to bed for a quick nap. They reconvene, and follow Jeffrey into the Rampant Hero’s safe room. Jeffrey isn’t looking so good this morning; he’s apparently had a falling out with some former friends of his, and needs the group to go talk to them, see if they’ll get back on his side.

He then fills the group in on more information about Erik Mayline; a description of Mayline, his Nana, and Danov, the crew that Erik surrounds himself with. He lives about a doctor’s office on Fountain Street, and does most of his business from there. The party decides to go find him immediately.

The house is easy to find. It’s made entirely of wood, and a simple set of stairs leads up to the second floor. The doctor’s office is next to a music school, and the sounds of a beginner violinist can be heard. There’s a simple abjuration, probably an alarm, cast on the door. With a bit of help from Corrin’s Spider Climb, Spooks does some reconnaissance of the house. Inside, an old lady is humming a lively tune, setting a table for three people to settle for afternoon tea. The interior, with it’s fancy rugs and expensive couches, looks quite different than the rundown exterior.

Corrin disguises himself and goes inside the doctor’s office, asking to make an appointment for a friend of his. The dentist inside, a human wearing a white coat, covered in blood stains, introduces himself as Holti Osterrson. The prospect of a customer coming in brings a big smile, ironically revealing three rotten teeth, to his face. Corrin tries to find out when the upstairs residents will be gone, so the noise won’t bother them, and Holti tells him it’s never a problem for them.

Shyama hides in the alleyway, as Spooks returns to the others to let them know the state of things. As they are heading back to Mayline’s place, a large carriage pulls up, and lets out three people. The first is a tall human with a large, bushy beard, carrying in one hand a huge spiked shield – perfectly matching Jeffrey’s description of Erik Mayline. The second is a Dwarf in full plate mail, carrying a crossbow much too large for him. His beard braided in four different ways and tucked into his belt – he matches Jeffrey’s description of Danov, Mayline’s right hand man.

The third person coming out from the carriage is a woman with a bag over her head, being dragged up the stairs by the Dwarf. Her voice is muffled as she tries to scream, but Shyama, who is hiding nearby, can hear it sounds vaguely familiar.

About half an hour goes by, and everyone shows up. Corrin and Shyama reveal that everyone is inside, with a female captive. At that point, they hear a loud scream from upstairs. Saena levitates Winifred, with Spooks held under her arm, up to the window and hurls them through it. Elias kicks the door down with such vigour that it falls off its hinges, onto the rug below, as he, Boba, Corrin and Shyama spill into the room, Saena sprinting up the stairs to follow.

Downstairs in his office, Holti Osterrson hears a crash from above, and the smile returns to his face. There will be blood spilled this afternoon.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

TPK Talk

List is both late this week due to yours truly being buried in thesis work but lets take a look at what the internet had to offer while I was analyzing the buying habits of 1st century tribal chiefs of southern France.

TBBT Tackles D&D Once Again

The Big Bang Theory can be a bit of a polarizing show, both among us geeks and outside our subculture but every now and then they do our hobbies proud. This week, Dungeon Master takes a look at their latest foray into D&D. Good news, it is mostly positive!

Another D&D Movie?

Looks like. Warner Bros. has announced another Dungeons and Dragons movie and Deadline has the initial report. Unfortunately it looks like it will feature a script by the guy who wrote Wrath of the Titans and Red Riding Hood and features as producer the director of the last D&D movie, which was…less than stellar. Here’s hoping for so bad its good at least.

Presidential Nicknames and More

Do you watch Crash Course? You really should. History, Science, and Literature covered in informative and entertaining ways. Anyway, this weekJohn covered Andrew Jackson, a.k.a. Old Hickory. No matter what else you may think of him, that is a cool nickname. Now I want names like that for some of my NPC leaders.

Getting Back Behind the Screen

Gnome Stew looks at a GM coming back behind the screen after a long time away. A lot of these tips work well for a brand new GM or even a veteran with a few questions, check it out.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

Setting Specifics

Last week Ryan wrote about using a published setting which, I’ll be honest, is something I haven’t really done. World-building and myth-making is one of my favourite parts of roleplaying games, so even when I GMed World of Darkness, I made a bunch of changes to the setting. There’s a lot of work involved in it, and my D&D world has changed a lot over the years, usually from me inventing things from whole cloth and then making them fit after the fact. I’m not going to say that’s a best practice, but it’s also not necessary to invent all of the nitty-gritty of everywhere in a setting for one campaign. If the players aren’t going to go there, it’s a place of rumour and wonder, and doesn’t really need to be filled in. All that said, these are the three things I do when I’m sitting down to create a setting, even for a pickup game.

1. Set the Tone

It may seem weird, but the first thing I do is set the tone or theme. This informs the game, and acts as my guide for everything else. I think of it as a thesis sentence. I usually have one for the world, one for various regions, and then one for each smaller bit. The region my D&D games are in is called Temir, and its tone is “A frontier full of occult secrets”. So it’s post-apocalyptic, and there’s lots of old artifacts of lost civilizations around. Digging a hole in the wrong place could unleash a terrible evil, and that fact informs people’s lives there. When adding elements to your setting, whether it’s characters, places, or adventures, think about how they fit your tone. Sharko the Clownshark probably isn’t a great fit for your grim, dark future, unless it’s a grim, dark future after the clownocalypse.

2. Sketch the Setting

Once I have a tone, then I start sketching the setting. The time, the place, the genre, little details like that. I usually have an idea about this before I set the tone, but setting the tone first means that I don’t get married to one place or idea before I have a theme to construct things around. A joyful adventure game set in 1920′s New York is going to focus on different locations than a noir detective game set in the same time and place. I also design some of the key locations in this stage, and make sure they fit the mood. The early stages of my games tend to stay in one spot, so it’s easy to design a few locales that fit the theme. For the noir game, maybe it’s a back room poker session at the police station where corrupt cops and mobsters gamble the night away. For the adventure game, it could be a street festival, a university, or an comfortable brownstone boarding house. It’s not the location that matters so much as the story you tell about it, of course.

3. Work Top Down

Don’t get bogged down in the nitty-gritty details. Creating the structure of the setting and then filling in the details is orders of magnitude easier than creating the details and then trying to shoehorn them into some kind of structure, or worse, not having a structure at all. So create the structure first. Maybe it’s geographic structure, with the places and stories driven topographical differences. A planet that stands still, with a light side and a dark side, for example. It could be political, forcing people to declare their allegiances. Are they loyal to the King in the North, or Casterly Rock? There are lots of ways to provide structure, and a good setting is going to employ a few, to give people genuine options, and also make it easier to fit in details. Crafting details before structure is like colouring a page and then trying to draw a picture around the colours and have it make sense. Sometimes it works and it’s brilliant, but more often than not it’s a mess.

We’ll talk a lot more about setting during the summer, but for now I must flee in order to work on more things for Headshots from the Heart. Special hint, we’re giving away two SteelSeries headsets over the next few weeks, so enter to win, and check out some of our awesome auction items while you’re at it! 100% of the proceeds to go Child’s Play, to donate toys and videogames to children’s hospitals!

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

This week on History Hooks, I am up to my neck in thesis work so the Gauls will once again be gracing us with their presence since I have nothing else on the brain. But, while we focused on the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in the years 58-50 BCE last time, today we will be fast forwarding over a century to the year 69 CE and a man named Mariccus who thought himself a god.

The History

Quartets: Good for Barbershop; Bad for Empires.

The year 69 CE was one of turmoil for the Roman empire. The emperor Nero was deposed the previous year by an elderly senator named Galba. However, instead of giving Rome a chance to heal and recover after the excesses of Nero, more chaos was the order of the day. 69 CE came to be called the Year of the Four Emperors as a usurper, Vitellius, arose in Gaul to challenge first Galba and then his former lieutenant Otho, who had assassinated Galba for not naming his as successor. No sooner had Vitellius defeated Otho than another usurper arose in the east, Vespasian, who soon defeated Vitellius in turn and brought the empire back under the control of one man. Yet this was still not the most chaotic period in Roman history (more on that in future instalments).

It was during this tumultuous year that a man named Mariccus enters the scene. The only source that writes about him is Tacitus, the most reliable historian of the early emperors, but it is only a small paragraph. He was a commoner from the Boii tribe which had migrated into Gaul more than a century earlier. Mariccus managed to gather eight thousand men to himself by declaring himself both a liberator of Gaul and a god and set about looting the countryside. Unfortunately for him, it was more a rabble than an army and the tribe he was plundering, the Aedui, was one of the largest and most powerful in Gaul. They swiftly defeated him with the help of a few cohorts sent by Vitellius.

“Human again? Just give us a damn zebra already!”

Mariccus was captured and brought to Vitellius in Lugdunum (modern day Lyon) where the rebel was thrown to the wild beasts. But the animals would not touch him, apparently inspiring the people to believe Mariccus invulnerable. Vitellius put an end to that belief by executing him in front of everyone.

The Hook

Mariccus shows just how powerful the pull of one charismatic, and probably insane, person can be during times of instability. Considering how chaotic many campaign world are, it is not hard to picture someone like Mariccus arising and gathering a strong following.

How you choose to portray someone like Mariccus can vary a great deal depending on your world and/or preferences. You could bring him in directly from history as a charismatic but crazy leader who inspires his followers despite a complete lack powers. Sheer force of will is all he needs to form his army when there is so much chaos and destruction in their lives. The real Mariccus’ motivations are unclear, for your game he could be either a true liberator, attempting to free his people from oppression or an opportunistic bandit using religious and political spin to justify his looting. Or both, there is a long list of real world rebels with laudable goals and questionable methods.

Another possibility is to have his divine powers be legitimate. In quite a few fantasy settings, the gods are real and interfere in the mortal world all the time. Your Mariccus could be the agent of a god, instructed to carry out a mission for his deity whom his followers mistake for the actual god. Or even an avatar of the god, fully possessed and empowered by the divinity. Then it is simply a matter of choosing what sort of divinity is involved as this would change his motivations and tactics. A god of justice would probably mean that Mariccus’ mission of liberation is his true goal whereas a god of destruction would see the damage being done as the aim in and of itself.

As always, when there are no depictions of a Gaul they default to Asterix.

Finally, there is the option of Mariccus being neither delusional nor divinely inspired. He may be a demon or devil (or some other creature) posing as a divinely inspired commoner in order to spread chaos or topple a good regime. His followers may be true believers for the most part and not evil, simply misled. This would give your players a choice once they find out Mariccus’ true nature. Do they try to expose him to his followers and turn them against him or do they continue killing people who have been manipulated (maybe even magically so) by an evil entity?

Mariccus shows how even some of the least known and written about figures from history can have great stories just waiting to be told. The spareness of the details gives you more room to add your own touches to the story.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

Not to TPK, that’s in August. To me. Today is my birthday, so of course I’m updating the blog. I’m officially thirty years old, and I’ve spent almost two thirds of that playing roleplaying games, and loving it. Today I just want to mess around a bit, and do a short post on some of my biggest gaming influences over the past twenty years. Here’s a short rundown.

Knights of the Dinner Table

Of all the gaming comics I’ve read, the Knights stuck with me the best, though Order of the Stick was a close second. They’re all mad, but they have that easy camaraderie that comes from being long-time gaming buddies, and they use the game to reflect on real life. They have a community built around their love for gaming and while it makes me laugh a lot of the time, there are sometimes when it brings a tear to my eye. I’d say that I’ve been in B.A.’s shoes, but I’m much more familiar with Brian’s. Check out our links page for other gaming comics I read.

Brilliant Gameologists

Brilliant Gameologists was one of the first podcasts I listened to, and really changed the way I think about gaming and GMing. Josh, Meg, and Zeke turned me on to the idea of the GM acting as a coach and helping facilitate the players’ ideas, rather than providing an overarching story. They also introduced me to a lot of awesome games, like Spirit of the Century, Savage Worlds, Dread, and Burning Wheel, and gave me the courage to go outside my little D&D bubble and try new things. On top of that, I became a better min/maxer on their forums, and a proud one, too. I love playing around with the building blocks games give, and sometimes pushing the limits.

The Gaming Den

I haven’t been back to the Gaming Den in years. I sought it out because it was the lair of Frank Trollman, the man who almost single-handedly reconceptualized fantasy gaming for me. And made me angry about it. What I found was a community full of interesting people who would spew bile and vitriol t horrible ideas, but also offer honest and informative criticism on both design and thematics, a space where nobody was afraid to put up an idea, and where flame wars were common but productive.

Penny-Arcade

Not the comic, but the people. The Penny-Arcade D&D podcast was hilarious, and introduced me to the magic of Chris Perkins, who I still think of as the world’s only professional GM. Looking at some of the amazing work Mike Krahulik has done for his D&D game inspired me to try and push my game harder, and I look forward to doing some interesting things with terrain once I get some more space (and my Reaper minis arrive!). Then they did live D&D at PAX, and emerged to play a tabletop game to the howls and cheers of a literal throng of nerds, and blew my mind. They are the essence of pushing things to the next level, and inspire me to keep moving forward.

Everyone I Know

I’ve played with a lot of people over the past twenty years, from my high school friends hacking through games I designed because I couldn’t afford D&D books, to all the people I GMed for for all those damn vampire Larps…When I started running horror, and finally got back into adventure and online storytelling, everyone taught me something about myself, and about how to game better. I’ve slung dice with a lot of people over the years, and I look forward to meeting more people and learning ore things in the future.

Looking at this, part of me thinks about the untold hours I’ve devoted in the last twenty years to playing games. But that’s the wrong way to think about it. I learned all kinds of practical skills, but that’s not what I mean. I spent all those years not just playing games, but making friends, telling stories, and having fun. I spent those years making heroes. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Happy birthday to me, and here’s to twenty more years of gaming.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

TPKtalk

From stories of the mundane, to plots from real life, there’s a lot to see in this week’s TPK roundup! Send us your cool news or gaming stories by tweeting us with #TPKtalk, and we’ll check them out.

The Story of the Tin Can

Tin cans, right? The things that survivalists and your grandparents keep all their food in. They almost weren’t a thing. Learn the whole story, fraught with drama and patents, on the BBC. Every object that we take for granted has a history, it had to be invented or discovered, and put to use by people. What’s one object in your game world that everyone takes for granted, but has an interesting story?

Transhuman: the Eclipse Phase Player’s Guide

Eclipse Phase is an incredibly fun creative commons rpg. I say this in part because of my deep love for transhumanism, but they’re also a great company. The respect they have for their freelancers and their community is profound. And now they’re doing a kickstarter for their Player’s Guide, so check them out.

Gamer Stereotypes

It wouldn’t be a roundup without an A to Z post from Dungeon’s Master, This week he talked about gamer stereotypes, both positive and negative. The picture of a gamer has changed a lot of the years, and we know exactly why. Wil Wheaton. That’s right. he singlehandedly changed things, like a nerdy Hercules. Go read the post.

8-Bit Arsenal

Tony Sutton on Man at Arms makes a genuine blade from Minecraft. That is all.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

Today on Hisory Hooks we are going to look at one of my favourite individuals from antiquity: Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II of Egypt and his rather complicated family history. He was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, which began after Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BCE and lasted until Cleopatra VII committed suicide in 30 BCE. Lets look and see what a GM can gleam from this troubled Pharaoh.

The History

When Ptolemy VIII first came to the throne of Egypt in 170 BCE he was barely into his teen years, if that (dates of birth are notoriously hard to pin down for ancient figures). The people of Alexandria had declared him Pharaoh alongside his sister Cleopatra II (not the most famous Cleopatra VII who wouldn’t be around for another 120 years) to counter the claim of Ptolemy VI, their brother, who had been put on the throne by Antiochus IV of the rival Seleucid Empire. By 169 BCE, Antiochus had been chastised by Rome and forced to withdraw from Egypt, leaving the three teenaged siblings to work out an arrangement between them.

Ptolemy VIII, as the youngest, was forced out and given Cyrene to rule while his brother and sister married and ruled Egypt (sibling pairing were common by this point of Ptolemaic rule). Naturally a bit upset by this, Ptolemy VIII spent the next two decades plotting against his brother and sister, mostly attempting to seize the island of Cyprus. His brother, for whatever reason, showed remarkable clemency towards Ptolemy VIII, even after the latter was captured attempting to land troops on Cyprus. Ptolemy VI simply let hi go back to Cyrene.

All this changed in 145 BCE when Ptolemy VI died while on campaign in Syria. Cleopatra II declared their young son, Ptolemy VII, as Pharaoh but her brother had other plans. Arriving in Alexandria he forced his sister to marry him and killed his nephew, possibly during the wedding, becoming the ruler of Egypt once again. He chose for himself the title of Euergetes, which can roughly be translated as benefactor but the people of his realm had another name for him, Physkon, potbelly.

Basically this but also a pharaoh.

Physkon, who was so named because he was massively fat, ruled well despite his slide into personal excess. His strong relationship with Rome kept Egypt safe and his gifts and building projects kept the people happy. Well most of them. Cleopatra II may have been his sister, wife, and mother of their child but she was also his worst enemy. Their relationship was strained at the best of times and Physkon decided this would be a great time to make it worse.

Some time in the 130′s BCE, Physkon married his niece, Cleopatra III, the daughter of his siblings Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VI. So Cleopatra II found herself replaced by her own daughter and reacted in a way that most people would find reasonable: war. Cleopatra II and her son seized control of Alexandria, which had always supported her, forcing Physkon and Cleopatra III to flee. Physkon managed to get ahold of his son, however, but sent him back to his mother on her birthday…having first chopped him into pieces and stuffed in a basket.

The war would drag on for years with Physkon eventually gaining the upper hand and chasing Cleopatra II out of Egypt. She attempted to continue the war from Syria with help from another of her daughters but her plans fell apart. In 118 BCE peace was declared between Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II with the latter even returning to Egypt and ruling alongside her brother and daughter. I imagine they avoided family dinners whenever possible.

Two years later Ptolemy VIII Physkon would die and the war between his sons would soon tear Egypt apart once again. History tends to repeat itself.

The Hook

Physkon’s life and personality can make great additions to a ruler in your setting, whether he be the king who sends your PCs out on quests or the ruler of an enemy nation they are tasked to stop.

Making Physkon into a bad guy is certainly easy enough to do. The armies under his command could invade your PC’s home and they could learn about this villainous king attempting to conquer them. Having your PCs discover that he schemed against his brother and murdered his nephew will make it clear that even family is not out of bounds for him. When they learn that he has married both his sister and niece, largely by force, that will spur the more heroic among them to try to rescue these women or your more practical PCs may see them as a way to get to the king from within. His very nature as Physkon helps make him seem villainous, the gluttonous king who engorges himself, living a life of pure hedonism.

Granted, a fat man who can barely stand and sweats excessively while he walks is not the most threatening of individuals but this is a fantasy world so it is easy enough to make him a powerful wizard. Alternatively, he could be controlled by someone or something even worse but that is a tad cliched. Perhaps the best thing would be to leave him as simply a fat, old man. The heroes must decide if they are willing to execute or assassinate a helpless man to end the threat he poses.

Like some other fat, flawed, and fictional kings.

Of course, one could go the other way and have Physkon be a benefactor to the party. He is a good ruler who is respected by his people but still a flawed man. He is endlessly scheming but always for the benefit of his kingdom. He is enormous, sure, but who doesn’t enjoy the finer things in life? Married his sister? Of course! That has been the tradition for generations, who is he to break it now? The more the PCs learn about him, the more uneasy they become but he always seems so cheerful and wise when they talk to him. Creating that sort of tension where the PCs don’t know what to think of their benefactor can lead down plenty of interesting avenues.

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

When it comes to my friends, I’m the GM. Any system, any timeframe, I’m the one who runs the games. Every once in a while someone will run a game, but it peters out after a few sessions, and I’m back behind the screen. I get it. Many are called, few are chosen. But I finally got into something more long term, playing in Ryan’s D&D Essentials game, and boy did I have a lot to learn about stepping around the table and playing. I wanted to share the biggest things I’ve learned about playing as a GM with you today.

Lesson #1: Shut Up

Credit: Torsten Blackwood

I had to learn to shut my mouth. Whether it was answering rule questions, coaching, or questioning rule calls, the lesson I came away with after my first session was to shut my pie hole. there’s this urge to answer questions that needs to be suppressed in the same way the urge to clap does when you’re holding a rope for a street performer. It’s not even a matter of “they’re the GM, so what they say goes,” it’s about giving them the space to actually be the GM. Nobody likes a backseat driver, and a backseat gamer is even worse. I’m much better now, six months into the game, but god damn if I wasn’t a bad boy in our first couple sessions. I had to have a stern talk with myself. Also, god forbid the words “Well that’s not the way I run it…” cross your lips. That is the worst kind of bullshit, and you know it, because you hate it when people do it to you. Offer suggestions well away from game and behind closed doors if you must, but don’t do so with any expectation that the GM will act on them, and treat them with the respect you’d like at your table.

Lesson #2: Know Your Stuff

In most systems, the GM is required to be familiar with an order of magnitude more rules than any individual player (and in some more than all of them combined), so learning what’s needed for a single player character should be easy. Don’t be struggling when your turn comes around, even if the whole game is new. To be fair, Essentials is as simple as D&D gets without being a board game, but even if it were Ars Magica, GURPS, or god forbid Rolemaster, the same applies. Take the time to know your stuff. My first turn I fumbled with my cards, but by my second, I had a pretty good order worked out, and started to understand what everyone else in the party could do. In a way, that’s the part that really seems like a vacation from the screen, but I occasionally get dismayed that I only get to play the one character (I thought about multiple personalities, but it wasn’t really constructive). There’s all these spare cognitive cycles, to the point where I’ve taken to bringing a notebook and jotting other things down while I’m in the D&D frame of mind.

Lesson #3: Lead by Example

The first two also fall under this, but this was the big one. I knew what I wanted from players, not just in terms of not being annoying jerks who questioned my every decision and who could take a combat turn faster than molasses on a winter morning. I want them to be engaged, to be listening, taking notes, exploring the world, and finding the things in it that make them happy. So I do my best to do what I’d want players to do, whether that’s biting at adventure hooks, having meaningful scenes, and of course, getting one over on the GM now and again. No one is in a better position to know what a player should be like than the GM. We all have our ideas of the perfect player, so be that player, rather than whatever you might have done. You know how to do it. Maybe it’s unreasonable, but it’s something to strive for. For me, that means developing strong relationships with the game world, so that’s what I’m doing, and not only am I having a great time, I’m helping everyone else have one too. Well, Ryan’s a maybe, You can ask him on twitter (@RhinoofSteel).

Those are the three most important lessons I’ve learned from playing as a GM. Sometimes things will happen that I feel are problems, but it’s just a matter of treating them as opportunities instead, even if those are opportunities to shut my mouth and lead by example. Everyone wins. To learn more about Ryan’s game, Vale Tales, you can check out the Vale Tales wiki, or read about my character. If you’re a GM, how do you find playing? If you’re not, what is playing with a GM like?

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

We’ve got some great things in this week’s roundup, from how to be a gaming ambassador to a bunch of incredible art projects, and a warning from Pat Robertson about the evils of D&D. Serious business.

Public Play

Ameron’s still doing his blogging A to Z over at Dungeon’s Master, and this week he had a great post on the opportunities that public play presents. Public Play as a way of being a gaming ambassador. “The mystery of Settlers of Catan or Dungeons & Dragons is revealed as people hover around the table and watch.” Now I need to get down to my FLGS more often and play. Read the full post at Dungeon’s Master.

Love Effect Relay

Our friend Rob over at Intelligent Designs is a brilliant graphic designer and a gangster of love. Evidence: he made these encoded Mass Effect valentines for a client. If your love is still classified, this N7 decoder might help unlock it.

This is Not the 80′s

Newsflash, Pat Robertson thinks that D&D is evil, when asked about magic and videogames in an interview this week. He says “We should flee from evil, period.” Now Pat, if you’d played D&D, you’d know that you don’t flee from evil. You fight it. Just saying.

Japan Wins

“Warning: Kuratas is an art piece. It is not a normal vehicle, so it does not guarantee you safety and comfort. However, it makes your dream of becoming a robot pilot come true.” That is all.

The Wonders of 3D

This week on Scishow, Hank Green talks about how 3d printing has gone from humble beginnings to making us capable of printing drugs and molecules. What does the future hold? Printing donor organs and living tissue to order, perhaps. I’m going to go print up some lunch right now, in fact. Have a great weekend!

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!

One of the first and most important steps when starting up as a GM is to pick your system. There are many factors to take into account when choosing one, e.g. complexity, setting, combat, player expectations. When faced with these factors last year I settled on D&D Essentials as my system of choice and I’ll explain why below.

There are a lot of 3.5 books.

When I decided to begin my campaign, I had very little experience with RPGs, as previously discussed. The only game I had played for any length of time used the D&D 3.5 system. There is a lot of things that 3.5 does great but, and this was a huge but to me, it is very complex. Having played games in that system I felt like I wanted my game to be similar but I did not feel like I could get a firm enough grasp on everything in the 3.5 system. Too many books and Dragon magazines and Errata for me to wrap my head around in a short period of time. So I extended my search outward.

The first, and as it turned out last, place I looked towards was the newest D&D system. I had read things about 4th Edition D&D and parts of it seemed like they would be great. Simplified was the word I kept seeing thrown around, usually in a derogatory manner. Yet simple was what I wanted. I needed to master all the rules in a short time so an edition that had been out for less time seemed like a great solution. Unfortunately, I discovered that 4th ed. had become filled with enough books, errata, etc. that there was little difference in choosing it over 3.5. Luckily Wizards had another idea towards the end of 4th ed. that allowed me to construct my game: Essentials.

I know, I know. Its D&D Lite, Kiddie D&D, and whatever else has been said about Essentials but it is a real blessing for new GMs. There are a bare handful of books that I had to read: The Dungeon Master’s Guide, The Heroes books, and the Monster Vault. It even had a true beginners guide in the Red Box set with a full adventure to start with if I wanted it. There are a variety of choices for players without it being completely overwhelming either to them or the GM who must keep track of what their players can do. The default setting, the Nentir Vale, is well developed and if one uses the Threats to the Nentir Vale Monster Vault it is practically a sandbox ready to go. There was even online support in D&D Insider which provided invaluable support for managing characters and designing new monsters. I was very excited when I started to read all of this and realized that instead of preparing for months on end, I could be ready to go in weeks. It all seemed perfect so I went ahead and made Essentials my system.

I still consider this to be the right choice but having worked with Essentials for months now, I do see some of the limitations. The lack of options is great when you are starting out as a GM since it is harder to be overwhelmed but some players may feel stifled, especially if they are used to other systems. It is important to take your players into consideration when picking your system, since not everyone will be on board with your chosen system. I had toyed with the idea of Gamma World, a post apocalyptic system, or one of the Star Wars or superhero systems as they are all passions of mine but knowing my players, they would have preferred a fantasy setting. Some of my players are not all that happy with Essentials, particularly those who have spent a lot of time in 3.5 and feel like they can’t do everything they want with their characters. It is impossible to please everyone, all of the time so the best that we as GMs can do is to keep our players interested and engaged with our games.

So there is why I picked Essentials as my system of choice, at least for now. What was your first system and why did you pick it?

For my other work, check out my website or Concept Crucible, my philosophy blog. Thanks for reading!