Clearing Out my Old Notes

Had a brief session yesterday where I cleared out some of my old gaming notes for campaigns Id run, and been part of.

Serenity/Firefly
Mutants & Masterminds
Werewolf The Apocalypse
Vampire: Dark Ages
Deadlands: The Weird West

I have kept most of my 7th Sea material as this is going to form most of my Orchid novel.

Sad to see how creative I was and that it came to nothing, but keeping it now would be purely nostalgia. Ive enough pre-written campaigns to keep me happy for years without having to write my own material any more.

Running a game for Two Players - By Design and Unexpected

Running a role-playing game with a limited number of players has some challenging problems. If the game was designed from the outset to be played by just two players, then that is fine because the adventure will be keyed around the duo's personality, limitations and the playing style of both the GM and players, there may even be an element of rotation amongst the players and GM. Players need to be aware that with limited players it will require full input from everyone.

Of course if its an accident or bad timing that turns a six player group down to two, then this will also need to be discussed with the players too. have had experience of running games with reduced player numbers in the 7th Sea campaign setting, and in both instances the experience was different. Essentially the game can go one of two ways. (a) either one or both characters take the lead in creating their own story and entertain themselves with the GM acting as the 'bounce' or (b) where the GM entertains the players and has to be prepared to burn through tons of material each session. If found the best way is to announce to the remaining players of the situation and ask them what they wish to do. Carry on with the story (b) or (a) create their own little private adventure to laugh about while the other players have gone away. I find (a) can be very self indulgent and hard to bring to a satisfactory conclusion, but (b) whilst serving the story, prevents the other players from learning of the plot movement, but its the amount of written material this can get through. One way to avoid this is to slow the pace down and become more descriptive.
 

In a two player designed game, both the characters and adventure needs to be tailored to the players and GM, whereas an unexpected two player game will require careful amendment to the adventure to ensure they don't get caught out. I.e. a big fight suddenly becomes a sneak and hide session.

One final observation is when a small group of a DM and two players (especially those two who have decided to multi-class and thereby reduce the speed at which they progress their character) expands to a larger group, usually through invitation etc, suddenly these multi-classed characters will fall foul of the other players who rise rapidly through the levels and have the potential to overrun the main original two heroes.

There is a final 3rd variant to this, which I do not recommend, I have tried it once and it didnt really work (oddly I love Ars Magica for this very reason, and my own developed Dune game uses this a foundational point) which is whereby each player has 2 or more characters, either as part of the party of as secondary or supporting characters in other locations.

The Group is Back - Only Temporary

I ran into my partner in RPG Crime, Gurth.

It wasnt a long meeting, but we did agree that (a) we need to get back on our bikes and lose weight again (b) we need to start gaming again as well, even if it only lasts while my wife is away on holiday.

We are going to try and run as many one-offs as possible, big stories and big games.

Fiasco, Paranoia, 3:16, Polaris.

I intend to look through my RPG collection, especially the indie games and find something that works, even just one time.

This looks like a great weapon for a Western RPG such as Deadlands.

What I particularly like is the 4 shot possibility, plus the added advantage of being able to use any calibre bullet you happen to find to shot rather than bullets which just fit your particular pistol.

The only disadvantage I see is the single shot nature of the gun, i.e. its no 6-shot revolver or pump action shotgun.

Review - Clash of Wills for the Vampire The Dark Ages Horror RPG

Billed as a Dark Ages Vampire Starting Adventure to inspire any new or existing game group, this 40 page softcover book is set in the Midlands of England with the Vampires working for Mithras, Prince of London attempting to convince a dying Lord to leave his lands and property to Mithras, rather than the Brujah of the region.

As with most of the White Wolf role-playing “horror” games, I’ve always found them to be fascinating to read, but am always left wondering what the hell am I going to do with this? I have had extensive experience and interest in running historical games as well as Werewolf:The Apocalypse, so I knew the rules and can handle big, effective characters. But this little adventure should have been something special, a springboard to other great things, but despite an open ended system of encounters, with many lead ins and a couple of lead outs, and optional encounters, its essentially a rail-roaded adventure with little real flair or feeling for the setting. It does provide opportunities to take the adventure beyond the setting, but these are no more than sentences at the end campaign book rather than fleshed out stories and adventures, and certainly not a springboard to a campaign. It does, for example, hint that the heroes could follow the Brujah back to the midlands but there is nothing more written on the subject or the setting in any of the Dark Ages publications.

 

Another feature of the adventure is that it is meant for new and inexperienced storytellers, but instead of helping out as a good introductory adventure should, it instead becomes a burden upon the storyteller to keep track of half a dozen NPCs and their motivations and opinions of each of the players. Whilst this may be the de-facto in every Vampire game, to push this straight onto a new storyteller without some advice on handling this aspect now and in the future is a little disappointing. A simple introduction of a chart, table or form to assist the storyteller in deciding how each of the NPCs react to the players, and how those reactions change over the period of the adventure would be immensely helpful. If I ran the game again I would do this as it eliminates a lot of the social book-keeping that is required of a Vampire game.

 

Essentially this scenario is a series of six medium-sized encounters which the characters have a surprising amount of control over. Whilst this is a good thing from the players view, it can wreck the game in minutes, and therefore fails as an intro-game for new players and especially new storytellers. All the encounters bar one is negotiation. One good thing is that the game allows immense room for the storyteller to add lots of extra encounters and details, which I did, but again I’m viewing this game from the point of view of a new storyteller. One throwaway character/encounter became a hook/liability for the players. Instead of slaughtering a young family, they instead took pity and preserved the life of the young children (with a decent church education) whilst allowing the parents to fall foul of a hideous disease ruining the county.

Each of the six encounters is prefaced by a “how we got here” intro, as the unfolding of events can be different. Allies can be enemies.

1 Meeting with Mithras’ agent in London and travel to Midlands

2 Arrival on the outskirts, the village and meeting with Jillian and her brothers

3 Arrival at the castle

4 First night

5 Second night

6 End fight at the Abbey

We managed to complete the game in two sessions of three to four hours each. The book is priced a bit too high considering the value, as apart from the castle layouts there is little reason to return to this book once finished.

RPGs as Westerns

Something that has always challenged me is when designing a campaign or adventure for any role-playing game and I want to base in on existing material or use it for inspiration, is what would be the best source material tobase a RPG upon? A book, a movie or TV series?

 

ADND claimed to have been heavily based on the works of Jack Vance with elements of J.R.R. Tolkien. But then when you read any classic fantasy story, epic or otherwise (and I mean proper fantasy novels, not the cheap hack trash that TSR managed to pump out on a daily basis in the late 80s and pretty much most of the 90s) they are not good for basing a RPG adventure on. Most have one idea or concept which doesn't sit well with an ongoing campaign, or be based around one hero (e.g. Conan the Barbarian), and completely destroysthe concept of a RPG party.
 

So I thought more about the concept, what genre of books or films would be best to base a campaign on.

 

The DM of the Rings, a wonderful webcomic based on Lord of the Rings movies clearly showshow a bunch of players are completely inept at taking part in something based on Tolkien. So its plain to see that Role-Playing Games have very little to do with Tolkien.

And then it hit me, the Western. Yes thats right the Western, that quintessential American dream! Now that is what the modern role-playing group is like. A posse of ne'er do-wells. And I am not picking up on this because of Firefly, but simply because those western style games I have run in the past, the concept of a posse seemed to me to sit much healthier than a party in any other game I have ever run. It just makes sense for there to be a posse.

 

Deadlands, both the Weird and Wasted West are perfect settings for a mob of unruly players to shoot bad guys, and get shot at themselves without any consequences. Yes there are sheriffs, but they can be shot too.

Id heard the heroes of Pendragon referred to as a gang of knights wandering ancient Britain in search of trouble to sort out. A gang of knights is about as uncouth as you could imagine a team of valiant knights to be. Yet it was the most apt description.

2012 Gaming

Our group has been on a hiatus seeing as my wife's have birth to daughter no3 over the Christmas holiday, and I've been itching to get back.

Right now we have 2 big games that are underway, our Dark Heresy campaign which is close to finishing as well as my Vampire Dark Ages campaign.

DH is being run by our resident blood thirsty history teacher and V TDA is being run by myself.

A long time away

Jesus, I just noticed Ive not posted here in over a year. Odd when I used to write here at least once a week, I suppose different needs were severed better by Facebook, Twitter and such like.

Well, my creative juices are flowing and I need to put something in the way to soak up the mess.

Things in Progress
Orchid novel - been doing bits and pieces, but more editing and revising rather than anything new

Things in Planning
Ice Age - either a role-playing system or a campaign based on my fascination/love for the cold winters with last for generations rather than just months

Things up in the Air
iPhone app - I want to have a go at programming an iPhone app, not sure what yet, but could prove to be profitable and worthwhile

So thats whats been occupying my mind for now.

Deadlands RPG

Deadlands RPG sessions still remain on hold. Personal problems with 2 players (one of which is our venue host) has meant the delay.

I was hoping to "cheat" and run an adventure I had already run before, Dime Novel 1 - Perditions Daughter, as I realised none of the players had actually been through this adventure, such was the turnover of players since I ran it last 3 or 4 years ago.

Trouble is a gamer who dropped out in September last year, has rearer his ugly head, and put that idea back in its grave.

Still, gonna be running Riders in the Sky, the Marshall Screen adventure.

Also the delay has enabled me to fill up my laptop with suitable music to inspire the imagination of the group too.

Dark Heresy and Deadlands

So a double dose of news about our Sunday group.
We've gained 2 new players, and lost 1, whilst a 2nd has gone AWOL and not responding to any stimuli...

So it means that the group is still where it was almost 2 years ago, struggling to keep a good sized group to make running/playing games worthwhile. The bad weather hasnt helped, and the Christmas holidays means no gaming now to the New Year.

Still in the intervening months we managed to finish off the 2nd part of Haarlock's legacy for the Dark heresy RPG, and also planned a short Deadlands diversion. This may run for a lot longer based on virtually a new set of players, means I can run some adventures Ive already run with past players in the same group.

Now I love Deadlands, but the overhead in terms of materials (rules, paperclips, character sheets, 2 decks of playing cards, poker chips AND dice) is enormous when compared to other games.

Still, I'll keep running it as long as they enjoy it. Been playing Red Dead Redemption on the XBox 360 just to get into character.

Once Im all GMed out, Ill sit back and enjoy the 3rd and final part of the Dark Heresy campaign...

RuneQuest Summary

So the RuneQuest game ended on a high. The players accomplished their goal and everyone had fun, which was key. What was a little sad was that a couple of the players said they enjoy the game, the puzzles and the story, but didnt really enjoy the RQ system. As previously mentioned, I ran the game using the Chaosium 2nd Edition (Games Workshop boxed set edition) of the rules. I love the system and it really works for me, but these 3 didnt.

Ive tried to understand why, and it comes down to access to the rules. I guess they wanted something more tactile than 1 printed cofy the rules along with PDFs. I have quite a bit of RQ material, but will save it for another group of players for another time.

Anyway, 3 new players have joined our group of 4, meaning the numbers are making it easier to allow games to happen, as in the past 1 player dropping out meant the game was cancelled until the following week. Still Ive got this Sunday and Dark Heresy to look forward to, then 2 weeks have to be relocated to a new venue whilst one player has their parents-in-law arriving. Im sure we'll get there in the end, just a standard month of gaming every Sunday without interruption. Please?

The Sunday Night RPG Group

Im really pleased to say the numbers are up, and we seem to have 5 players and a GM, 6 when Gurth gets his act together in September 2010. Im please also that I stuck through with the group as I was seriously considering jacking it all in for a few months then finding a whole brand new group. Different day, different people, different games.

RuneQuest fill in Campaign

Well my little fill-in RuneQuest campaign came to an end.
It was a Pavis/Big Rubble and Tomb of Horrors mash up.
Whilst the players generally enjoyed the story and action, they didnt enjoy the system. This is something I feel is my fault rather than the system. I choose to run the original Chaosium 2nd Version, which also meant getting hold of the rules apart from my copy an absolute nightmare.

Still it filled the gap whilst we waited for our Dark Heresy GM to get his act together.

We played DH for 1 session, before disbanding for a couple of weeks because of weddings, holidays and christenings.

Good News, Bad News - just how bad can bad news be?

Well, in 3 weeks time, after my break, Im starting Call of the Cthulhu, running the epic Masks campaign.

Good news.

The bad news that our group have lost both a good player and a great friend. We still dont know the real reason behind his accident whilst training at kick boxing, but after sparring for the evening, he felt light-headed, fainted and never recovered.

God speed Jason...

A Break from RPGs

Having a couple of months break from role-playing games, though I fear it may be a little longer due to finances and lack of home help.
At least we finished Purge the Unclean campaign for Dark Heresy, its just a shame the DM said it was unfinished and left a lot to the DM to wrap up all the loose ends...

Dark Heresy Continues

It has been a good solid month since I last posted and a lot has gone on in my life, work wise and family wise, not all of which I have sorted out in my head yet, and sadly wont be divulging too much here until Im happy about it going public, whatever that means.

In the meantime I will tell you briefly how the Dark Heresy campaign is going, and its going a real treat. I think we are 2 big adventures into it and feel it slowly building to a crescendo.

We have fought assassins through the streets of Scintilla, fought off onslaughts of marines sent to murder us in our sleep, we have fought mechanical demons sent to eliminate us, and yet we fight on.

And now, we have finished a full sweep of a space hulk with only 15 hours to find an ancient sword, 15 hours because if we dont find our target in time, the Space Fleet will hurl warheads to destroy it. Its a deadly task which we accepted.

And still we have survived.

With almost 4,000 experience points most of the party are heading towards level 5, which is rather more rapid a progression than I thought possible.

Just to Prove my Dark Heresy and Cthulhu in Space Theory

Dark Heresy mini adventure came to a pleasant end (pleasant as in enjoyable, as opposed to the nasty ending for innocents and chaos alike).

We are about to embark on the official campaign, cant remember the name, but they guy who is running it (Wrigamortis) his wife is due to give birth to twins any time between now and April.

I've canvassed the group and all of them love the horror and investigation route. So as not to steal his thunder, Ill be running Call of Cthulhu instead.

L5R RIP for Now. Mutants and Masterminds rules instead

Ive finally gotten to the bottom of the L5R problem, and it wasn't me.
Being a bit of an empathic, I was picking up on the general attitude towards the game from the other players and it was manifesting itself into my own negative thoughts.

To be fair, the GM was winging the game to suit our whims within certain of his own boundaries of the overall story he wanted to tell.

So we agreed amongst the players who were attended that we should rest the game indefinitely and maybe return to it some time much later in the future.

And in its place, I'm running Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition superhero campaign.

edit 2014 - I later discovered that several of the players also had issues with the Asian names and nomenclature which added to general confusion.

Something is Going Wrong, and I dont know what

Something is going wrong with our RPG group and I dont know what.

We're still playing Legend of the Five Rings, a game I adore before we started playing earlier this year, and having played it for the first time, I still love it to death. But I have found myself for the 3rd time in as many sessions really not enjoying the session at all.

Firstly we have 2 new players, one is a go along with the crowd kind of guy who is intelligent, smart and funny, but enjoys playing the intelligent warrior type. The other player is a post university student who is careful in his actions and thought processes.

Added to this mix a turbulent few weeks, different venue for each session, plus a couple of players finding it temporarily hard to get to the game (only short term).

My problems is I really am not enjoying it at all. Now I dont know if its ME, the new PLAYERS, the GAME/GM, or the GROUP.

I need to analyse this a little further, but I need to work fast, as at this rate, I would have clocked up almost a month's worth of gaming wherein Im not enjoying myself.

I intend to discuss this with the GM, who is also a good friend of mine too.

Legend of the Five Rings

We played L5R last night, and despite the low player number (GM + 2 Players + 1 New Player) it went rather well.

4 of the players couldnt make it, all for genuine reasons. Im well aware of the summer break being a big issue for getting players back on the RPG wagon.

Still it gave me the chance to catch up on my notes, create a new character for the new player and get underway with a small side-trek to introduce combat and more background story.

One of the nice side-effects of running a smaller group of characters is that they get to perform roles they dont normally entertain. So our resident ninja/shinobi was virtually forced to fight face-to-face as opposed to sitting in the trees and picking off targets.

Next week we should be back up to our normal quota of players 7 + 1GM.

One other bit of good news was I got my hands on Legend of the Burning Sands.



Using the same system as L5R, this game has been promised for over 10 years, something the back-blurb at least is honest in mentioning. Its still in its sellophane wrap having been bought on my behalf from www.leisuregames.com. Im looking forward to a quiet evening this week to savour every page.