tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15454080333589440692024-03-05T07:59:54.633-06:00Steve's Gamer BlogThis blog explores the creative process behind role-playing games from the perspective of the storyteller.The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-7216976433147356822018-02-02T16:03:00.001-06:002018-02-02T16:03:13.714-06:00How NOT to Run a Wilderness Survival Adventure in Dungeons & Dragons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Me</b><br />
The characters are shipwrecked on a desert island. A <u>cold</u> desert island. Survival in extreme temperatures, snow and ice. That'll be new and fun. The characters must find food, water, and shelter in order to survive.<br />
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<b>Players</b><br />
<i>It's snowing?</i><br />
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<b>Me</b><br />
Yes.<br />
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<b>Players</b><br />
<i>We melt the snow and drink it.</i><br />
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<b>Me</b><br />
Half the characters are attacked by a giant boar on the island, the others by a giant crab.<br />
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<b>Players</b><br />
<i>We kill the crab; now we have delicious crab meat. We dig a pit and cook the pork. </i><br />
<i>Beach party. </i><br />
<i>Luau.</i><br />
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<br />The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-30423801053942556142018-01-23T12:05:00.000-06:002018-01-23T12:34:00.933-06:00The Waiting Is the Hardest Part<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Bug or Feature?<br />
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We were forty-five minutes into the episode and a riveting conversation was taking place between two characters. We were all listening. I was on the edge of my seat. That's when I looked around the table and noted that one player had not yet had a chance to actively engage in the episode.<br />
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I made a mental note to get to him next. But before that happened, another player wanted to interact with the scene between the two characters and this made sense, so that happened, and almost an hour had elapsed before I got around to the one character left mostly observing the action.<br />
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After an action-heavy second episode, the third episode followed as sequel to the previous session's revelations and the new situation in which the characters found themselves: stranded on a sabotaged ship at the edge of a storm, floating toward an unknown island.<br />
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At the beginning of the episode, there was a table that needed to be set: two characters needed individual moments to pick up the story from where it had left off. Then those characters engaged in an important scene with one another. It was amazing to watch.<br />
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After their moment, another character joined in. That made three out of five active players. Finally, about an hour in, the remaining two characters played out an amazing scene together.<br />
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They were some of the best scenes I've witnessed in the past year. They were true and they got to the core of the characters.<br />
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The episode ended with the characters reaching the island and fighting off some of the predators that patrolled the beach at night.<br />
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Afterward, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, the scenes were great. Staggeringly great. They centered on the characters and made real things happen between them. On the other hand, five players had to take turns. That meant that everyone wasn't engaged in the action all the time.<br />
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I thought about this a lot over the week. I thought what I could do to engage everyone. I could create and push more combat, more group challenges, more group activities overall. This would come at the expense of other moments, namely the ones I loved, and the ones I loved are the reason I still bother to do this in the first place.<br />
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With five players, giving everybody spotlight time every week is challenging, but I knew this already. I've known for a long time that two characters might share the spotlight in a given episode--an A story and a B story--but it's rare to have episodes in which every character has equally important scenes and plays an equally important role. More than that, it's natural that characters give and take focus, not just from moment to moment but from episode to episode. I do my best to make sure everyone is engaged. Sometimes I do it well, sometimes not as well.<br />
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These moments of character focus are a feature of the kinds of stories I like to do, and the resultant downtime for other characters is part of that. Smaller groups work best with this style.<br />
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Even so, there are ways to address the issue that don't require artificial action on the storyteller's part: group investment in the scene at hand, and the players choosing to act together.<br />
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<b><u>Group investment in the scene</u></b><br />
Hopefully the scenes are as interesting to the other players as they are to the participating characters and the storyteller. If we're the ensemble cast of our own television show then what the other characters do in the other scenes is important and we should be watching those scenes intently. The players can also add to the scenes with details as they listen, narrating a gust of wind or change of the light (for example) at an appropriate point, or a piece of the setting or action that relates directly and immediately to the scene at hand. A brief detail--let's say no more than ten words--given at an appropriate time by a player on the sidelines can be an incredible gift to the active characters in the scene. It also gives a passive player something supportive to do in the scene.<br />
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<u><b>The players choose to act together</b></u><br />
The players can also <i>choose</i> to act together a little more. It can be as simple as, "Let's all go _____." Or, "Let's discuss _____." If all the players agree to do this, any perceived problem with a divided group is solved. If some players still really want to have their own private scenes, then there isn't really a problem, but rather, there are different desires within the group, and everyone should get a little of what they want in this collaborative storytelling thing.<br />
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I get anxious when players are outside the action for any amount of time, though I wouldn't trade the amazing scenes the characters have together. I see this as a feature, rather than a bug. Still, I'll try hard to make sure everyone gets a chance to shine, if not in one episode then the next. I mean to welcome anyone who desires a more active role to take action, engaging in scenes from the sidelines or initiating scenes that involve the group.The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-38314602907821033972018-01-17T13:16:00.002-06:002018-01-17T13:46:56.761-06:00World Building The Remnants<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been talking very generally about getting a story started for this campaign but I haven't said anything about how we built the setting. A few words about that:<br />
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In 2013 I concluded the story of the world I'd started in my first week of college. Since my first week of college was in the fall of 1993, the story was told over twenty years.* </div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">* A bit of trivia: Upon finishing the story I was looking for a way to process all that had happened when I was commissioned to write the article that would become the Campaign Events section of the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide (thanks to James Wyatt, Steve Winter).</span></div>
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The following year, I wanted to start something fresh for D&D 5e. I'd been very comfortable using my own setting for twenty years, but I didn't have another twenty-year campaign in me. I wanted (and still want) to tell stories with different people, and to tell more stories, to end stories and start new ones.</div>
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In the summer of 2014 I set about to create a world with a couple friends. We used Ben Robbins's excellent world-building game, <a href="http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/">Microscope</a>, to get us started. We contributed sporadically over e-mail and at the end of the summer we had a loose timeline. At the beginning I had asked everyone not to think in fantasy terms, but to contribute anything that seemed interesting, regardless of genre. </div>
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When the summer ended, I looked over the timeline to find an age that would best suit a game like D&D. There was an age on our timeline in which an asteroid strikes the world and demons boil from the fissure of impact, destroying civilization and forcing a minority of survivors to the farthest, remotest, desolate, and inhospitable regions of the world.<br />
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<b><u>Incorporating Ideas</u></b><br />
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One of our friends contributed the idea that the world had a black and white color palette. I found this restriction on color too inhibiting for a long term story (a narrative style that excluded all description of color), so I transformed the contribution into the idea that "it's always snowing." Darkness and a <i>natural</i> absence of color pervades these stories. So, each story has thus far has always featured wintery landscapes and cityscapes. This is consequently the reason I chose <a href="https://www.profantasy.com/annual/2010/august10.html">a black and white style</a> for the map.</div>
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Incorporating the ideas of my fellow world-builders wasn't always easy because some of those initial ideas clashed with my own notions as the primary storyteller as to how the world might look, feel, and sound. Names like "Chi'Khr" populate our timeline (how do you pronounce that?), and creatures I felt were too fantastical (satyrs, centaurs, dragonborn) for the kind of world I thought we were building...</div>
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Which brings to mind a famous story about how the long form theatrical improvisation, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_(improvisation)">The Harold</a>, got its name. <a href="https://www.ioimprov.com/about-us/del-close/">Del Close</a>, the creator of the form, asked his students what the brilliant improv structure they'd created should be called, and one of his students burst out, "Harold," a reference to the time that George Harrison was asked what he called his mustache, and he said "Arthur." Del felt disgruntled that his brainchild should carry its name as a joke, but more than this he believed in honoring a suggestion, in saying, "yes, and," so he was stuck with it.*</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">* When I moved to Chicago in 1997 I stumbled into improvisation at the ImprovOlympic (now i.O.) and studied under Del Close, who taught me these things, and I endeavor to live by the example he taught us.</span></div>
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No one thinks twice about the name of Del Close's improv form nowadays. It's the Harold. Everyone knows it, everyone says it, regardless whether they know the story. Harold is a word that identifies this particular improv form. Likewise, the ideas in The Remnants have organically become part of the whole. Names like "Chi'Khr" have been phonetically smoothed into "Shikoor." Certain fantastical creatures have been given an identity and a reason for being within the world story that feels necessary and integral to the whole. This is what happens over time, as a story builds. You rationalize, you make sense of things, you discover the incredibly cool reason behind something that you had not understood before. Saying "yes," and honoring the suggestion. This is the way forward in collaborative stories. </div>
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<b><u>Plot and Style</u></b></div>
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Demon invasions, apocalypses... Really, none of this is important. When I start a new story set in this world with new players I try to emphasize that all of these things are background and don't ultimately matter. Civilization was ruined and now people live in the cold remnants. But those remnants are full of intrigue and wonder and weirdness and people striving for various goals. I don't want the characters to think they have to save the world. In fact I'd prefer that they forget about that and concentrate on what their characters want. </div>
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The style of the game stories I like to tell carries over from my previous setting because it's my own preferred style and it's baked into me. I studied theatre and writing; most of my friends are theatre professionals, writers, and storytellers of all genres--that's my world. Stylistically, I'm interested in knowing what the characters want and how they affect one another. Some friends likely think of my campaigns as "D&D in name only." I'm fine with that. D&D is a language most players understand, so I'm happy to use that language to help tell their characters' stories. </div>
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The way this translates in The Remnants is that I spend a lot of time thinking about what the characters want (or don't want) and how to manifest those things in interesting ways. The ways that those things manifest become the adventure. The episode. Mostly I just want to see what the characters will do when confronted by circumstances. What they do determines the action, and the action of the next episode. </div>
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<b><u>Limited Scope</u></b></div>
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I don't know much about The Remnants. I've told three mini stories there so far and am on my fourth. Each of these is run over the course of one season, with a slightly, or wholly, different group of players, and arrives at a definitive conclusion to that story (which we find when we get there, it isn't predetermined). Like the Harold. Sometimes a story involves a character from a previous story, but the new story has a different focus. Each time I learn more about the world. I know very little about the map, I don't know what's beyond its borders, nor most of what's inside its borders. I used to try to build worlds very quickly, they felt stale and flat and general. I prefer to start small and build outward, knowing only as much as the characters. This helps me pay attention to the important details, and it makes later discoveries so much more organic than they otherwise might have been. </div>
The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-30884221975948985292018-01-15T13:33:00.002-06:002018-01-15T13:33:50.386-06:00Pilot Episodes (Bringing the Band Together)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Two episodes into the new story and wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles, the characters are in the same place doing more or less the same thing. It has at times taken me several weeks to get to this point.<br />
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Over the years I've found that there are good ways, bad ways, and expedient ways to get a group of new characters together.<br />
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<b><u>Bad Ways</u></b><br />
In my early days running game stories, black cloaked strangers appeared in taverns and tried to get the characters on an adventure as if they were selling snake oil. The players often ridiculed the cliche stranger and listed all the reasons that going on the adventure was a bad idea. Then there would be a bar brawl and after a long time not doing anything of significance, one of the players would get bored enough to go on the adventure.<br />
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<u><b>Good Ways</b></u><br />
In my less early days running game stories, I started each character's story separately. I met with and interviewed the player about the character. I plumbed the depths of the character's past and relationships. We started playing through some improvised scenarios, grounding in the character's sense of place and self, so that the character would encounter the others fully formed, with an established identity and a background from which to draw inspiration. I still think this approach is the best, but it's very hard to coordinate between five players and a busy schedule.<br />
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<b><u>Expedient Ways</u></b><br />
In a story with five players, you need to set up more individual narrative threads. Doing this outside the regularly scheduled meeting (if you have one) requires more time, schedule coordination, and planning. That time can be hard to come by, and you may need to favor expedience over layered, organic, character-based story building. Therefore, for the sake of expedience, you may need to throw everyone together and do your best to bring them together, hopefully not in a tavern, hopefully not via a black-cloaked snake oil salesman.<br />
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For the sake of expedience, the characters need to be more or less together early on; otherwise people are sitting around not doing anything, not participating, not engaged. There are ways to engage players who aren't participating in scenes, but they take some time and cleverness, and in getting the story off the ground I sometimes find myself in shorter supply of these.<br />
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It can be a challenge to find the right situation that will draw one or two characters together with the others. I prefer that characters enter the story knowing one another, or knowing at least one other character so that there's at least a minimal shared past and understanding between the characters.<br />
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It pains me to take the expedient path because I'm hyper aware of my own narrative hand pushing things along, and regardless whether or not the players had a blast I'm always somewhat dissatisfied.<br />
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I find some comfort in comparing the first episodes to the pilot of a new television show: a little rocky, with characters and setting that haven't been fully realized. There will be inorganic moments and things that feel a little forced and weird as the storyteller uses a stronger narrative hand to get everyone moving in a similar direction. I look at this as necessary business to get to the good stuff on the other side.<br />
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<u><b>How the Players Can Help</b></u><br />
Players can do a lot to smooth out some of the awkwardness of the pilot episodes. The number one thing players can do is "yes, and" the storyteller's setup so that it doesn't feel forced and it doesn't feel inorganic. I know there's some inherent resistance at the top of a campaign story, when the character mostly exists on paper and in the player's head. This is when I most frequently hear the dreaded, "<i>But my character wouldn't do that."</i><br />
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A character will do whatever the player says the character will do. It takes little imagination to deny, to say "no," to come up with reasons not to do something. It takes cleverness and skill and character to stop and ask, <i>"Under what circumstances would my character do this?"</i><br />
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It can be very rewarding for a player to make a choice to move the action along and then ask, <i>"Why did my character do this?"</i> and then puzzle out the reason.<br />
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This brings the player into an elevated creative zone. The player learns something about the character that the player didn't know before. That is one example of what narrative skill looks like when players rise to the challenge.<br />
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<b><u>Getting to the Good Stuff</u></b><br />
The players in our story rose to the challenge and helped make the narrative work so that the characters are all together and going in the same direction, at least for a while.<br />
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Now that that's happened, it makes little difference to me what they choose to do. The rest of the campaign is a story yet to be written, and I can relax my narrative hand, put choices in front of them, and follow the choices they make.<br />
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Soon I'll talk a little about the story they're telling and some other role-playing game projects I've been working on.<br />
<br />The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-16403525056604133582018-01-10T13:00:00.001-06:002018-01-10T13:30:54.897-06:00Starting a New Game: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Answer: everything.<br />
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Everything could possibly go wrong.<br />
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When you start a new campaign story, you probably have some vague ideas about how it will go or what kinds of things you'd like to see. But will those things even happen? How do you know whether they will happen? Should you try to make them happen? Prior to the first episode of the game, what is this story even about in the first place? </div>
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I had a great idea for this new story. Then we added another player and the idea changed. As the weeks passed leading up to the first session I thought about how little I knew of some of the new characters and how they might act in the story. There was this vast expanse of uncertainty and even after all these years running games it still makes me anxious. </div>
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But I remembered how I felt last year around this time, and it was about the same. </div>
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I thought about the ideas I had for last year's story.</div>
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I remembered how those had all changed once the story got underway and the players got to know their characters. </div>
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I realized that this was all going to happen again.</div>
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I'm always anxious waiting on the runway. Sometimes there's a rocky takeoff, but after a few minutes there you are--flying smoothly toward the destination. </div>
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It's good to prepare for any journey. For me that means brainstorming, writing notes--especially details and NPCs the players mention, taking walks, listening to music, and dreaming on the potential of the stories that could be told. Some ideas will stick in such a way that you must introduce them. Really, though, I think it's best not to plan too much. </div>
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If you want to help create an intimate story where the characters' thoughts and decisions drive the action, it's important to be open to those choices, and the more detailed your plan, the more intrusive that plan can be to the story. The players are going to mess up the plan anyway, so it can't be too precious. </div>
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Finally, I always need to remind myself that once people are at the table, things are going to happen. Cool things, unexpected things. Most of the time they're going to be having a good time meeting one another, interacting, setting the table for the action; it's ok to just let that happen. Let the players help set the table; I remind myself that you don't have to entertain everyone at the party, most of the guests can (and prefer to) take care of themselves and get acclimated. </div>
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Chill out, watch, listen, let it happen. After the first episode you'll be more informed. What did they like, what are they interested in? Does that connect to some of your brainstormed plans? Did they touch on something cool, or lead the story in a great direction you hadn't anticipated? Is that worth pursuing? Everyone will probably want to talk to you about what happened in the first session anyway, updating you with details on their characters. I learn a lot by listening. </div>
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Try not to stress too much about the first sessions. Set things up and watch how the players react to them. Allow some breathing room. Accept that you're anxious. You're going to be anxious, so don't worry about not being anxious. </div>
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When you have those thoughts of postponing until you're more prepared, remember that the players don't care how prepared you are. They just want to play their characters; they'll tell their own stories and they'd rather show up and find out what happens than wait around for me to bestow my brilliant plot points and NPCs upon them.</div>
The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-21430711130978955522018-01-10T11:45:00.001-06:002018-01-10T13:00:23.509-06:00RISE from your grave.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a few years.<br />
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There's lots to catch up on, but I'll leave that for now.</div>
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I'm running a new campaign, and now and then I may have a thought that feels worth sharing. This old blog seems as good a place to put them as any.</div>
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In the coming weeks I'll jot some things down here as I go through the campaign. Probably shorter stuff, but who knows. </div>
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Looking through the tags I used to use, I see an RPG philosophy one. These will likely fall under that label. </div>
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Let's get started. </div>
The Townshendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16011507050817095128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-60194272915197370282015-03-26T13:35:00.001-05:002015-03-27T10:53:02.680-05:00Eve of the Apocaylpse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Tomorrow sees the release (in game stores) of Princes of the Apocalypse, the Elemental Evil campaign designed by <a href="http://www.sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/elemental-evil/" target="_blank">Sasquatch Studios</a> and <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/story" target="_blank">Wizards of the Coast</a> for Dungeons & Dragons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">The Sasquatch team consists of D&D design veterans Rich Baker, Stephen Schubert, and Dave Noonan. Ed Greenwood, Robert J. Schwalb, and myself were hired as freelancers for the Elemental Evil campaign (and later, Jeff Ludwig and Thomas M. Reid). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">In my years writing for D&D I had worked around Rich, but hadn't had the opportunity to work directly for him--which was a great pleasure. Rich is an excellent leader. He's both personable and professional, responsive and collaborative. He has good ideas and an acute attention to detail. Rich is fair. If there are problems Rich points them out and asks respectfully for a reworking. Respect is the word that comes to mind when I think of Rich Baker. It's impossible to ignore the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Baker_%28game_designer%29" target="_blank">massive amount of work</a> Rich has done in the industry, but more than that Rich is wonderful to work with, and to work for. It's good to work for someone you respect. They inspire you to turn in your best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Admittedly, I'd been anxious when Rich mentioned the Forgotten Realms and a big dungeon. I think I was afraid of doing something that seemed too ordinary. However, once I began work I started to see the extraordinary </span><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">vision that Rich had for Princes of
the Apocalypse--the way that the adventure changed to address the characters' actions and the way it embraced the players' choices for their characters. The choice-driven, sandbox style design reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition in many respects, although we had finished design work for Princes of the Apocalypse long before that game was released, so for me Dragon Age seemed reminiscent of Princes and not the other way around. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">My part of Princes of the Apocalypse was the Air path, as well as the Water Node, and a few of the side treks, NPCs, and items. I don't know that I have a favorite part--I'm fond of a place called Feathergale for sure. I'm always fond of particular NPCs. If characters are the heart of a story, then NPCs are the lifeblood. I spent a lot of time with Aerisi Kalinoth, though one of my favorites was a minor character, a principled knight-commander. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it to see how it all turned out.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-2979028523489114452014-12-05T12:39:00.001-06:002014-12-05T12:39:26.224-06:00Dungeon Master's GuideI wasn't one of the folks that worked tirelessly for many months on the Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D, so I'm really just thrilled to have been a part of it at all.<br />
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My part of the DMG was the Campaign Events section from pages 26-33. This is the story of how that came to be a part of the Dungeon Master's Guide.<br />
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In October of 2013 I was neck deep in writing for the Monster Manual. I was using every hour of my day to get those words down and get them right, when Steve Winter contacted me about an article he needed for Dragon Magazine by the end of the month. He'd forgotten I was working on the Monster Manual, and said he'd find someone else to do it. Out of curiosity, I asked what the piece was about, and he said they needed something on world-shaking events for the December issue of Dragon (which would also be the last one for a while).<br />
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I had just wrapped up a campaign that I began 20 years earlier, and it was bittersweet. With all the Monster Manual stuff to be done, I hadn't had a chance to write about it, or think about it in any kind of depth. Taking this article on would be a way to focus my thoughts on the big things that had happened, how they'd affected the world, the missteps I had made, the times when the big moves really worked to make the game world unique and interesting. So I accepted the project and worked on it at night. I needed to get it just right, though; I needed to form my thoughts into words that would give meaning to the conclusion of that story that had been a part of my life for 20 years.<br />
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I was happy with the article when I finished it, and it was published in Dragon #430. Even that felt bittersweet at the time. I'd worked very hard on the piece, and ultimately it was what I had wanted to say as I reflected on the past two decades where I'd watched story arcs rise and fall. The problem was, at this point subscriptions to the magazines had dwindled. It's all fine and good to publish a piece in Dragon, but what does that matter if nobody reads it? What does it matter if it has no audience? There was nothing I could do about that, so I took pride in the work, a memorial to the end of my stories in that world, and resigned myself to the fact that it would linger in digital obscurity until the end of time.<br />
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But wait, there's more.<br />
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While I was working on the Elemental Evil campaign products with Rich Baker and Sasquatch Studios, I had access to early versions of the D&D rulebooks. The DMG, even in its early form, blew me away, and I wrote to James Wyatt, who was putting the DMG together, to tell him how much I loved what he was doing. As an aside, James told me he'd used the world-shaking events article in the DMG.<br />
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As exciting as this was for me, I didn't dare build up my expectations. Anything can happen in development and editing. This is why, when I finally saw the DMG in its completed form--when I finally held it in my hands--I felt such fulfillment. Now those final meditations on the dramatic story-shaping events could have an audience, those 20 years of storytelling could have a small monument as part of my favorite version of the Dungeon Master's Guide. In the scheme of things my contribution is not so much, but personally it continues to fulfill a lifelong dream. For this I am eternally grateful to Steve Winter and James Wyatt, for making it come to pass. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-24570531302349166892014-09-24T11:44:00.000-05:002014-09-24T11:44:06.572-05:00Monster Manual: The Straight StoryMonster Manual came out. I celebrated. Mostly I celebrated on the Internet, posting once to this blog and once to Facebook. On the eve of its release I got to use the book in a game, which was awesome. Hooray for me.<br />
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As happy as I am to have participated in the Monster Manual, in truth I was just a member of the team. Chris Perkins was the head of that team, making the creative decisions and filling in the monsters that didn't have story briefs. Chris was the one who gave out the assignments and provided all the guidance, advice, organization, and structure. It was Chris that Rob Schwalb and I reported to; it was Chris who compiled the book and put it together. If you read his DM's advice columns or watched him run D&D for celebrities, you already know he's a master storyteller with a monumental list of credits to his name. I've worked with Chris before, on <i>Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale</i> (among favorite monster supplements of all time), and on the<i> Dungeon Magazine</i> adventure, <i>Owlbear Run,</i> and a little bit on <i>Beyond the Crystal Cave</i> for D&D 4e. Chris Perkins is good-natured and patient, and has pulled me out of the fire more than once. I owe him a great deal and I love working with him.<br />
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The D&D story team compiled all the story briefs for the monsters. James Wyatt took the lead on this, polling the D&D community about how to present monsters in this edition of the game. James, Chris, Matt Sernett, and others (Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford, I believe--maybe Rodney Thompson and Peter Lee as well), wrote story briefs of what was to be important to each monster, and we used the story briefs to write each entry. So, a lot of the really cool story developments for these monsters came from that team; my job was to organize all those good ideas and write them into an entry. I didn't get to work directly with James on Monster Manual, but we've had some great times working on D&D in the past. James hired me for my first big freelance assignment on D&D, and he was the lead designer on <i>Madness at Gardmore Abbey,</i> and the <i>War of Everlasting Darkness</i> season of D&D Encounters. He's a brilliant storyteller, a generous soul, and a good friend. His work on story made the Monster Manual a fascinating book.<br />
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After Rob and I turned our work in to Chris Perkins, it went to Scott Fitzgerald Gray and Chris Sims, who began the editing process. We've worked together in the past--Chris on <i>Beyond the Crystal Cave</i>, and Scott on <i>Heroes of the Feywild</i>--and in real life we've had remarkable conversations. In short, I think the world of these guys and they're completely and totally awesome. They've also taught me a few things over the past year: at the AFK Tavern in Redmond last May, Chris filled me in on the proper way to do abdominal exercises (sit-ups aren't all the awesome I once thought they were) and <a href="http://insaneangel.com/insaneangel/Film/LanguageOfStory.html">Scott's blog on story</a> blew my fracking mind. Formidable folks, both of them.<br />
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These were the guys I worked with on Monster Manual. Before the process began, though, Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford laid out a vision for it (I remember Mike hashing out ideas for it a few years ago), and at the end of the process, Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins sat together in the office and went through the whole thing and put it together. I worked with Mike for my first three big D&D projects, and we had a blast. Since Mike's running the show now I don't get to work with him directly anymore, which makes me sad because I <i>loved</i> working with Mike way back when. On the plus side, hanging out with Mike and working with Mike are (for me) similar experiences, and at conventions we still get to hang out from time to time, so there it is.<br />
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Finally, I didn't get to work with Rodney Thompson or Peter Lee at all on this one, although they developed all those stats that make the game actually work. I keep mentioning how much I love working with everybody, and here we are again. Working on Heroes of the Feywild with Rodney was a dreamlike experience (part of that was sleep deprivation, surely) and one of my favorite projects ever--we just had fun, creating as we went. And Pete, man--Pete and I were friends from the miniatures community when Pete lived in Wisconsin and before either of us worked for D&D.<br />
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Finally and ultimately: Greg Bilsland brought me onto the project, along with Chris Perkins. Greg's the D&D producer, and so like Mike he works on a lot of higher level decisions, including bringing on freelancers. We've worked together a whole bunch over the past several years, on just about every project I've been assigned. I don't know how to accurately describe Greg's job because he has his hand in everything that happens with D&D and he makes it all work. We've been through thick and thin together and I owe Greg as much or more than anybody else.<br />
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As for my partner in crime, Rob Schwalb, I love that guy. He can write more words than anybody I know, and having the letter D assigned to him, he conquered the lion's share of this book while I sauntered behind him the whole way. He's a genuine workhorse, a kickass gentleman, and a good soul. But everybody knows this. I don't even try to write as much as Rob does because, holy crap. Seriously.<br />
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Yes, there are even more folks who worked on the Monster Manual, but these are the folks that I worked with, and whom I feel ought to be recognized for all their hard work. I've had a few days to enjoy the book's release, and I'm proud of it and happy with it, but you know, I only played one part in what was a huge, huge task. I spent several months on it, but these guys spent more. So there's the truth of it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-74747139499521148462014-09-15T12:21:00.001-05:002014-09-15T12:21:25.580-05:00The D&D Monster Manual (5e)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week sees the release of the <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/monster-manual">Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual</a>, one of the three core books (in addition to the <i>Player's Handbook</i> and <i>Dungeon Master's Guide</i>) that comprise the game. <br />
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Monster Manual was my biggest D&D assignment. Biggest in scope, profile, and words (I turned in about 80k words for this one!). My task was to write the monster entries (not mechanics) for every other letter in the book, starting with A (A, C, E, etc), while Robert J. Schwalb took the even letters: B, D, F, etc. That doesn't mean I wrote every single entry in those letters--some beasts were added later, others recategorized or moved around. <br />
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We wrote the entries using monster briefs provided by James Wyatt and the D&D story team. These briefs outlined the fundamental elements of each creature and included guidance and feedback from the community during the open playtest. For the entries I wrote, I studied the brief and then read all the previous entries for the creature, starting from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and proceeding through the 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, and 4th Edition. When I could find more extensive source material, I delved into that--for instance, the Planescape setting provided the most thorough material on each type of mephit, and the Al-Qadim setting gave the most extensive information on genies. Other times, I looked to monster ecologies from old issues of the Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. As I progressed through the letters I started to view the AD&D Manual of the Planes as my "world bible."<br />
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And yet, for most readers <i>information, information, information</i> doesn't make a good monster entry. A good entry ought to inspire the imagination in the way it's structured, the details selected, the order in which they're presented, and in the words chosen to convey its meaning. In my opinion a good entry also knows which details to omit and leave to the imagination and the world-building sense of the storytellers (by "storytellers" I mean both the players and the DM). These are just the guidelines of storytelling; you make your points not by vomiting information but by choosing your points and making them with the best words and devices available to you. In any case, I saw my job as one of structuring the ideas, finding a dynamic connection and progression from one to the next, and then using the best words to convey those ideas, hopefully coloring it with the monster's "mood" or feel.<br />
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In some entries I got to quote myself. Monsters like the kraken, succubus/incubus, scarecrow, and yeti were creatures for which I'd previously written story-based entries for D&D books and magazines, and when the story team selected details from those entries for 5e I had the luxury of my previous notes. <br />
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In editing and development the book was refined--words that took up space describing what a monster might do in combat were often transposed into abilities in the monster's stat block. Entries for simpler monsters were at times condensed to their main points, allowing room for more art or text for bigger monsters with bigger stories (i.e. GIANTS!). Art and layout were done, quotes and notes were added in the margins.<br />
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Mike (Mearls) handed me my own copy of the book at Gen Con this year and I finally got to see it with all its beautiful art, its statistics, and its stories. I never believed my work would appear in the core books for an edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and I'm eternally grateful to Chris Perkins and Greg Bilsland for the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream. I can only hope that the little story seeds sprinkled throughout these entries grow thousands of bigger, better stories in our collective imaginations over all the years to come. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-57085813155384556912014-07-08T15:48:00.001-05:002014-07-08T15:49:32.149-05:00Crits and WondersI'm playing a D&D (Next/5e) game with folks I know from my friendly local gaming store. <br />
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<i>My first combat roll! (And my remaining hit points after failing to slay the bugbear).</i></div>
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Though I didn't realize it at first, the adventure we're playing is The Ruins of Undermountain, from the second edition of D&D. I'm a little sentimental about Undermountain because it's the adventure upon which I based the very first D&D campaign I ran as a Dungeon Master. In 1991 I had been playing D&D for about 9 years--since 1982--before I tried my hand at running a campaign. I was a frustrated player at the time, had already nosedived as a DM once, railroading the characters into a planned course of action, and after I'd licked my wounds I was ready to try a dungeon adventure where the choices were a bit more limited. As the players explored Undermountain I became more comfortable with running the game and eventually began to experiment with event-based adventures.<br />
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Playing Undermountain 23 years later as my first official post-release D&D experience is really neat. I have only a vague recollection of what rooms looked like, and the dangers that lay nearby.<br />
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My first combat roll of (post-release) D&D Next has come after 3 sessions. It was a natural 20 in a gentleman's duel against a bugbear. Unfortunately, that didn't kill the bugbear and its return strike dropped my character, Lord Hubren Delmarek, to -3 hit points. Lesson learned: don't duel bugbears at level 2.<br />
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I've been playing crazy with the dice so far. Rolled my character with a straight 3d6 per score. Rolled my hit points at 2nd level instead of taking the average. I also found a Wand of Wonder (suitably fitting) and when the party was in danger I pointed it at the twisted reflections of ourselves emerging from the hall of mirrors and just happened to roll a fireball, blasting them to smithereens.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-22109223078341862442014-07-01T13:47:00.003-05:002014-07-01T15:02:30.981-05:00In Medias ResAha! Not dead! Bet you thought you'd heard the last of The Townshend. Not so fast.<br />
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The past year has been craaaaaazy. At this time in 2013 I'd just been to Origins, picked up several board games, and was enjoying my summer, trying to figure out what was next. Earlier in 2013 I'd had a number of articles hit <i>Dragon</i> and <i>Dungeon</i> magazines:<br />
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<ul>
<li><i>Siege of Gardmore Abbey</i> was published in <i>Dungeon</i> (with freaking amazing artwork by Ralph Horsley, linked above from <a href="http://www.ralphhorsley.co.uk/">Ralph's site</a>).</li>
<li><i>Fey of the Wind and Wood</i> came out in <i>Dragon</i>, featuring four short new fairy tales (I mention those because they're always my favorite part).</li>
<li><i>Beyond the Crystal Cave</i> (my version with Chris Sims) came out in <i>Dungeon</i>. </li>
<li><i>Owlbear Run </i>came out in <i>Dungeon</i>. </li>
</ul>
I think I only mentioned half of those on this blog. At any rate, things seemed to be coming to a close. I wasn't sure what I was doing next. I wondered if my time designing D&D/RPGs was coming to a close. Not for any particular reason except that everything ends at some point, and it's sometimes hard to discern when that end has arrived.<br />
<br />
At Gen Con the next month I had coffee with Chris Perkins and Greg Bilsland from Wizards of the Coast. We're friends from previous projects and I've enjoyed working with both of them several times. They said they had some work to offer me, and I said cool, and they said it was the core <i>Monster Manual</i> for Dungeons & Dragons, and I said cool. They said there was other work as well, and I said cool.<br />
<br />
I went home and wrote about 80k words on that book over the next three months, and Robert J. Schwalb wrote as much or more. In the midst of all this, Steve Winter contacted me about a time-sensitive article he needed for the last issue of <i>Dragon Magazine</i> he was editing, on world-shaking events.<br />
<br />
In the midst of this, I drew my 20-year campaign story to a close. That was an intensely personal experience, as it's formed the landscape of my subconscious for half my life. I had to do the article on world-shaking events as catharsis after this momentous conclusion. I was running on empty by the end of October, but managed to finish an article of which I'm extremely proud, and which was printed in the last issue of <i>Dragon Magazine</i> before the magazines went on hiatus (issue 430). Incidentally, <a href="http://www.howardlyon.com/blog/">Howard Lyon</a> did the art for that article, which appeared on the cover--significant because I love his work and he's the artist who did the banderhobb and the nymphs from Monster Manual III, my first assignment. Here's what his awesome art looked like:<br />
<br />
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<br />
In the midst of this, I (separately) hosted two old friends, one visiting from Norway, the other from Vancouver. I went to my 20-year high school reunion, and on the way back was hit by a tornado while taking cover in a Starbucks. But that's another story. I made it home in one piece and shortly thereafter turned in my work.<br />
<br />
Then I went through a meditation on the meaning of life. I tried to resolve issues with people with whom I'd had conflict. I made some new goals. I stayed home for Christmas. A close friend of 20 years moved across country. The coldest winter on record hit Chicago. <br />
<br />
In the midst of this, my wife bought me the board game Eclipse. Even though I'm not a miniatures painter, I decided to paint all 84 ships in the base game, all 108 ships in the expansions, Ship Pack One, and another 14 ships from Rise of the Ancients, for a grand total of 206 miniature ships between the beginning of March and the beginning of April.<br />
<br />
The ship painting thing was a mad, meditative thing I needed to do. I needed to get outside my head and do something creatively different so that I could see the creative process from a detached perspective. That's a whole other can of worms, but it was well worth it. Plus, I now have a pretty sweet-looking game--for non-painter, I mean.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Again I kind of thought maybe I was at the end of my rope, wondering which direction to go next. Then, just as the painting was finishing up I had an offer to do a big Dungeons & Dragons project for 2015. I said cool. Every minute since has been devoted to that project--I'm likewise very proud of it; hopefully others will dig it as well. When it's announced, I'll jump up and down and point at it.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to this week.<br />
<br />
Here we are at the release of the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons. An edition that so far feels like the game I grew up playing, with a lot of the kinks hammered out.<br />
<br />
D&D got us through tough times. It helped us meet our friends. It inspired our imaginations. It gave us a reason to get together week after week, catch up on each others' lives, make up stories. It introduced us to strange new worlds; it took us on our own hero journeys, our own paths of self-discovery, the foundations of a personal mythology. It exposed us to literature. I think it even showed us how to be more developed, more understanding people. That's what comes of pretending to be in someone else's shoes over and over again.<br />
<br />
As the release of the free Basic D&D rules approaches, I think of those that will soon experience the awe and the wonder of an untethered imagination. I think of those school-age kids short on cash, looking for a diversion, an escape, a medium of expression. I believe that the social experience of playing roles is therapeutic, that it helps people cope--that the monsters and dragons and conflicts of games like Dungeons & Dragons are representative of the problems we face in real life and that by conquering them in our imagination, we learn to conquer them in real life (for a comic, yet surprisingly genuine, take on this check out the I.T. Crowd episode, "Jen the Fredo").<br />
<br />
Dungeons & Dragons can't feed the hungry or heal the sick.<br />
But it's fed countless hungry souls and mended torn-up hearts.<br />
<br />
One seldom knows the impact of one's work. As this new edition of Dungeons & Dragons is released over the coming year, I can only hope that my small contributions to the game play a role in fulfilling people just as I was fulfilled.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-46057079864635752542014-02-18T15:37:00.001-06:002014-02-21T14:38:04.425-06:00Ribbon Drive, by Joe McDaldno<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've played Joe Mcdaldno's game excellent road trip RPG, <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/ribbon-drive/"><b>Ribbon Drive</b></a>, three times now and I feel that it's a great example of a role-playing game that breaks new ground while exploring potentially deep and meaningful experiences on the part of the players. I wanted to share a few of the insights we had while playing this game, in hopes that others will try it and benefit from our experience.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ribbon Drive is a game about catharsis through a journey, set to a mix tape (in modern times, multiple playlists). If you've seen the Cameron Crowe film <i>Elizabethtown</i>, it's something like that, but you could argue that it can have as much in common with <i>The Muppet Movie</i>, if your game goes a little cockeyed (as road trips often do). </div>
<div>
<h2>
How to Play</h2>
</div>
<div>
The game's mechanic is a musical playlist, which should have a theme and a name, and everybody brings one. It's a great (er, devious) way to get your friends to listen to (and enjoy through the act of engaging with it in play) your music. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
When you put together your playlist, you're probably aiming to include music that's personal to you right now, in real life. You're entering the game with something on your mind that you're looking to explore through the point of view of a character.<br />
<br />
- The first song of the first playlist determines the nature of the journey, some impressions of the characters, how they know each other, and the journey's destination. All of this is gleaned from the first song's lyrics of the impressions it leaves on the players. <br />
<br />
- The second song of the first playlist determines the characters' qualities (their "traits") and their goals (their "futures"). <b><i>The characters aren't allowed to talk about anything in the future outside of the two futures they choose</i></b>.* This is a very important rule because it focuses the game on what's meaningful to the characters--and probably to you, the player, if Ribbon Drive is an exploratory vehicle for you.<br />
<br />
- Players take turns framing scenes, letting the music guide them. They use their traits to surpass obstacles, but when obstacles and character traits don't match up, the characters take a detour, the playlist switches to the next player's playlist, and the journey takes on a new tone.<br />
<br />
- The game ends after all the players but one have resolved one of their goals ("futures"). The remaining character is the one that has come to terms with his or her futures so that those goals cease to matter in light of the events that have encompassed his or her companions. This remaining character is declared the protagonist. A closing scene usually ends the game after this. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
*It's important to remember to refer back to your goals ("futures") so that the game doesn't wander. If the focus of the game wanders, the structure breaks down and the story and its meaning start to get murky. <b><u>Remember:</u></b> your character's two futures are his or her goals--one generally long term and one generally short term--and the yearning and fear and desire for these things is what the game is ABOUT. The road is the underworld where those yearnings and fears are explored. I'm harping on this because it's very easy to forget. If you're ever lost in a scene, or at a loss for something to say, go back to your character's goals (futures) and use the tone of the music playing in the present moment to inspire you.</div>
<div>
<br />
The other advice I will give anyone about to play Ribbon Drive is this: make no plans. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The first game of Ribbon Drive I played was too structured. The players had concrete ideas about what they wanted the trip to be about, and so we floundered from scene to scene, clawed our way toward that preordained thing. It was hard. The second game, however, was very different.</div>
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<div>
Ribbon Drive stresses that you're to take your cues from the song that's playing. That means you conduct your scenes to reflect the mood and rhythm of that song, and you change the tone of the scene as the music changes.</div>
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<div>
The music will surprise you in the way that it seems to comment on your characters and their situations--if you're listening to it. You'll hear lyrics that seem to come at the perfect time and inform the moment and your entire emotional state. It's like that time when you're in a D&D game and the guy playing the fighter charges into the orc horde at the exact moment that Anvil of Crom from the <i>Conan the Barbarian</i> score starts playing over your speakers.<br />
<br />
Ribbon Drive is like that except all the time. You're looking for those moments and you're actively changing your narrative depending on what's playing. You're listening to the music and making choices based on how it makes you feel or certain lyrics that you overhear. That's the beauty of the thing. It's all about the moment. <br />
<h2>
Why This Game is Great</h2>
Ribbon Drive is great for a multitude of reasons, but here are a few:<br />
<br />
- The more thought and meaning the players invest, the more thought and meaning they'll derive from the experience. That's true of any RPG, but Ribbon Drive is focused on resolving the personal issues at the characters' cores, and all the characters change due to the experience of their journey. That's the fundamental essence at the heart of story.<br />
<br />
- The choice of a playlist is a personal one. Every game is very different because every game runs on a different playlist. Every playlist was inspired from a different (or at least evolving) emotional place. <br />
<br />
- The game is 24 pages long, concise, and well-written. The whole experience plays easily within a single evening.<br />
<br />
- The core mechanic of the game is the "mix tape," the music playlist. Which is an awesome idea in the first place.<br />
<br />
- By listening to the other players' music, you may learn something about them. You may learn something about yourself. You may gain an appreciation for music you'd never heard before or music you never liked before; you may find yourself understanding it in a new context or appreciating it because of the moment when it played during the game, forever linking a song to the imagined moment that you lived within the game. <br />
<br />
- You can purchase Ribbon Drive not just with cash but by <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/paying-with-good-deeds/">doing good deeds</a>.<br />
<br />
I could heap more praise on Ribbon Drive, but don't take my word for it--get a copy of the game and play it yourself. Make your own memories. Discover those sublime moments from the road. You can even make your journey across the stars <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/radion-accelerator-drive/">a la Firefly</a> or <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/slashed-to-ribbons/">a horror scenario</a>. <br />
<br />
Ribbon Drive is one of my favorite role-playing games, and one I'm always looking forward to playing, again and again and again. Every time I've played this game, the people I've played with have brought something else to it--a different energy, a different perspective, a different frame of mind. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.<br />
<br />
<h3>
My past playlists</h3>
<br />
<u><b>American Bucket List</b></u><br />
(a wistful reminiscence made as summer faded and fall began and big changes were in the air) <br />
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<u><b>Slow Deep Breaths </b></u><br />
(created in the aftermath of having narrowly survived a tornado)<br />
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<u><b>Rage Kids</b></u><br />
(created in frustration while coping with change)<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-71631858465377796622014-02-17T01:03:00.001-06:002014-02-17T08:22:46.910-06:00Becoming, by Brian Engard<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<a href="http://becomingrpg.com/"><b>Becoming</b></a> is one of the most fascinating games I've played in a while. When I picked it up with the Indie Cornucopia <a href="http://www.bundleofholding.com/index/current">Bundle of Holding</a> in November, the red and black art caught my eye and the idea of the hero journey and sacrifice built into the game intrigued me. The light 121 pages rulebook sealed the deal--it was a game I could read quickly and explain easily.<br />
<h2>
How to Play</h2>
- In Becoming, there is one PC and three DMs.<br />
- The DMs take turns running the game. The DMs are the Fates. <br />
- The game is 9 scenes long, and each Fate alternates scenes, so each runs 3 scenes total.<br />
- When a Fate isn't running the scene, the Fate embodies/inhabits an NPC in the scene. <br />
- Each Fate has an agenda and pushes that agenda in the scene, whether narrating or playing an NPC.<br />
- When the Fate running the scene introduces the main conflict of the scene, the hero negotiates with the other 2 Fates. Those Fates offer the hero support against the conflict... for a price. The hero must sacrifice his or her strengths, virtues, or allies. If the hero refuses, those Fates lend their dice against the hero. Dice are rolled, and the winner (the hero or the narrating Fate) decides what happens. <br />
- The game goes on and the hero sacrifices much of what he or she once held dear. <br />
- The Fates gain points for the hero's sacrifices, and the hero gains points for succeeding in conflicts.<br />
- At the end of the game, the player with the most points narrates what happens. The Fates bend the ending toward their particular agendas.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Initial Skepticism</h2>
I was at first as skeptical as I was excited about Becoming. I like not knowing what happens in an RPG and allowing for lots of flexibility and player freedom, so I initially had a tough time embracing Becoming's predetermined scene structure--even if the rules do offer a brief word of encouragement to go off book if need be. We've all had the misfortune to play RPGs in which the structure of the game is so constrained that the game is tedious from the get-go. Same problem when the structure's too loose. <br />
<br />
That said, the scenes in Becoming's scenarios are typical of their genres, so they're the kinds of scenes that naturally tend to appear in the story whether you planned them or not. We're talking archetypal stuff here--the threads that have woven the tapestries of our own legends for time out of mind. In actual play I've found that Becoming's scene structure works perfectly well and have had no problem following the general outlines of the scenes just as they appear. The scenes as written are like the kinds of notes I might write myself in preparation for a D&D adventure--a few elements and possibilities for things that may happen. They're focused in the way a Fiasco playset is focused. After playing the first session of the game, I stopped worrying. <br />
<h2>
Why This Game is Great</h2>
In Becoming, the structure of play is very defined. The hero has a goal and the Fates embody their own goals; they embody their goals in the people the hero meets, in the voices of the hero's enemies as well as his or her allies. They embody their goals in the setting and atmosphere as each Fate takes a turn at narration.<br />
<br />
Because the structure is so defined, your goals as a role-player are focused. While the overall goal is to tell a good story, the "win conditions" drive the Fates to compete to create clever conflicts for the hero, and to strike bargains with the hero that are too sweet to decline. It's not always easy to figure out how your Fate plays a role in the present scene, but part of the fun is discovering that brilliant connection, or developing an NPC so that he or she reflects the perspective of your Fate.<br />
<br />
Each of the scenarios in the Becoming book is a completely different genre (or one genre, if Joseph Campbell's hero journey is that genre). There's a medieval setting, a galactic voyage, a horror scenario, a zombie apocalypse, and even a werewolf scenario and a star-crossed lovers variant. We're playing Exodus, the galactic voyage in which the hero is humanity's last hope for finding a habitable world.<br />
<br />
In Exodus, I'm playing a Fate: Duty. Our hero is an idealist guided by her faith in God, and she treats her crew as family. It's my job to present her with challenges that put her in positions where her faith gets in the way of her job, or where her job gets in the way of her family, or where her job gets in the way of her faith. At the beginning of the game, the group creates the hero by selecting the hero's qualities from a list; the hero's player gets to pick 3 qualities, while the Fates choose 2 apiece. This way, the hero is the creation of the group, and the Fates choose aspects they hope to exploit. For instance, I chose Abel, the career soldier, from the list because I felt that a career soldier would be a good way to remind the hero of her duty (and boy has it ever been). <br />
<br />
Even in playing NPCs, the Fates are finding characters we love, and we're finding complexity within these characters. Abel the career soldier, for instance, doesn't believe anything the captain believes, and at this point in the game he doesn't even respect her views. BUT Abel is the embodiment of duty, and so while I (the Fate) am trying to subvert the hero and eventually have my way with the story, Abel sticks by the captain's side, her staunchest ally. While playing Abel as an NPC, I've used him to remind the captain of her duty and frittered away little pieces of her soul as Abel does the dirty work--even killing and torture--to keep a mutinous ship under command. So while he doesn't believe in her, he's on her side all the way, and it's costing her soul. Our game is full of these nuanced characters, played by the other Fates. <br />
<h2>
How We Are Playing</h2>
In our game the captain's player, Megan, hasn't read the scenario. Thus, this is very much like a traditional D&D adventure where the DM has notes on possible scenes and the player is reacting to them. Every scene is a surprise for her. It's surprising for us to see how well it works. <br />
<br />
Since Duty is assigned the first scene in Exodus, I began it like I'd begin any game I was DMing. I went for a slow build, describing the blinking lights in the cockpit, the slow, quiet approach to the Vertigo--the last space station at the edge of unknown space. I tried to set the scene with details and just let scenes play out. Sometimes several things happened before we got to the threat--and that was great too. <br />
<br />
All the scenes have followed suit, and what I had thought was meant to be a one-shot RPG has become a measured, intense role-playing experience built on a solid structure that frees us to improvise toward concrete objectives. Every week we've had about enough time to play 3 scenes. This makes for a very natural three-act structure, a very natural beginning, middle, and end. In the last session of the first night, the captain failed miserably and lost command of the crew--the first major problem she'd encountered. At the end of the second session the captain ended a mutiny with blood on her hands. The crew are no longer family; God is no longer on her side; the crew are employees at best, and the captain has been forced to compromise her principles repeatedly to keep control.<br />
<br />
We'll finish up this week, but I've found myself thinking about the game all week when I'm not playing it, wondering how it will end up, what will become of the characters. That's the best kind of experience, I think.<br />
<br />
Becoming is a game about the hard choices and sacrifices we choose to make on our hero's journey. There's a lot to think about within the context of the game. It's not a game that lets you off easy-- without making you think about what you've done, what you might have done, what you should have done, what you need to do. Stories tell us what our lives are about, and Becoming gives us the tools to tell some compelling stories.<br />
<br />
This game delivers the goods. Can't wait to see how it ends. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Players</h3>
Robert Ryder<br />
<a href="http://greginda.com/">Greg Inda</a><br />
<a href="http://www.belmontburlesque.com/cast.php?id=4">Paris Green</a><br />
<a href="http://stevesgamerblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/prior-offenses-or-steve-townshend-d.html">Steve Townshend</a> (hey, that's me)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-47834507031301069622014-01-28T15:12:00.000-06:002014-02-17T08:21:10.853-06:00Happy 40th, Dungeons & Dragons<b>Beginnings</b><br />
For better or for worse, Dungeons & Dragons has influenced my life for more than 30 of its 40-year lifespan. I first played the game when I was around seven years old, down in the basement of my grandparents' house, with my aunt (who introduced us to the game) and my 2 older cousins. This was 1982, and we were playing with the "blue box." The adventure was B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, and my character was Luke Skywalker, human fighter.<br />
<br />
When we arrived at my grandparents' house that day, my cousins were (literally) jumping up and down.<br />
"Steven! Steven!" they said, "Aunt Kim's got this great new game called Dungeons & Dragons! Do you wanna play?"<br />
<br />
I was reluctant at first. I had my Darth Vader case in hand and more than anything I had anticipated some adventures with action figures.They agreed that we could play Star Wars later on, but I don't think we ever got to that. Dungeons & Dragons was far too engrossing. And it filled that same niche as playing with action figures, only with a structure of play. A way to succeed and get better. It was like playing a board game except your pieces could talk to each other, or bend the rules to do anything you could possibly imagine.<br />
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<b>The Early Years</b><br />
When I think back on those early days, I remember experiencing the magic and wonder of the unknown. I remember gazing for hours at the art. Regardless whether it was Errol Otus's weird color illustrations or David Allen Trampier's or Jeff Dee's black and white illustrations, they enthralled me. I didn't know what lay between the covers of most D&D books--I never had any ambitions apart from being a player, immersing in strange and fantastic worlds, meeting interesting characters and creatures who became my friends and enemies. I remember the musty smell of the basements we played in, doing multiplication and division longhand in order to calculate our experience points and treasure--even as we were learning those skills in elementary school. I remember devouring novels just to get a taste of those strange lands in between the times when I'd get to meet up with my cousin and play the game again. He lived in Minnesota and I lived in Michigan, and I wasn't allowed to own the game until I reached the magical "recommended age" of 10, printed on the Dungeons & Dragons box cover. So I played D&D with the older kids on the back of the bus, or at friends' houses after school. God, I loved it more than anything (my idols Han Solo and Indiana Jones were close contenders).<br />
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<b>Close Companions</b><br />
Like many others, Dungeons & Dragons was the way I met my best friends. The reason for this is that D&D was a group social activity that required a regular meetup and a shared group activity where the point was for the participants to make something together. That's not the way we thought of it--nothing so lofty as that--we were there to experience exciting adventures. But whether by design or happy accident, the way Dungeons & Dragons worked was that a group of people came together and made things up. And because we wanted to know what happened next in the story, or we wanted to beat the bad guys or gain the magical treasures, we continued to gather, and in gathering we did what friends do: we shared our joys and sorrows, our dreams, ambitions, regrets, our secret crushes, our romance woes. In the process we put on masks of character and lived double lives; we simultaneously related to one another in two realities: the one where we were hanging out as friends, and the imaginary world in which our alter egos existed.<br />
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<b>The Dreamers</b><br />
Even so, Dungeons & Dragons wasn't exactly a cool thing to do. It was a sort of secret handshake, a thing you didn't flaunt because you didn't want girls to know you were a loser, or influential people to think you were a weirdo. You talked about it with people you suspected were in the know. Fellow dreamers and fantasists, should you be so lucky to find them. You didn't want to be that guy who alienated everybody in the room, droning on and on about your imaginary character. You knew that guy, and sometimes caught yourself being him in polite company.<br />
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I came out of the closet with D&D when I was 26 years old. This came from a fearless honesty (er, Meisner training) I was going through at the time, but in retrospect it was also the time that Peter Jackson's film version of The Fellowship of the Ring appeared in theaters, putting dwarves, orcs, hobbits, and elves in common parlance. To my great surprise, I soon learned that D&D players existed in the upper echelons of theaters and other places I was striving to succeed. This "secret handshake" made it easy to communicate with those folks, to find common ground, and succeed. We spoke the same language.<br />
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<b>by Steve Townshend</b><br />
I never thought I'd grow up to work on Dungeons & Dragons. It was a side ambition. A secondary thing I wouldn't have minded doing if I wasn't acting. That changed when I put acting aside to focus on writing. I tried to write for D&D, and apart from a few articles spread over the years, I failed. I failed over and over and over again. That all changed in 2009 when James Wyatt gave me a trial freelance assignment under Mike Mearls, my favorite D&D writer.<br />
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The last 5 years have been an incredible experience, the fulfillment of a lifelong love. It was enough that Dungeons & Dragons gave me amazing experiences and good friends, but having a hand in writing and influencing the game has meant more than I can possibly express. Dungeons & Dragons gave me the opportunity to succeed at something I'd loved practically all my life.<br />
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For years I said, "If I were in charge of D&D, this is what I'd do..." and somehow I got to do it.<br />
I got to do it in Monster Manual 3 and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. In Demonomicon.In Madness at Gardmore Abbey and Siege of Gardmore Abbey, in Owlbear Run, Beyond the Crystal Cave, and the War of Everlasting Darkness. It's there in the ecologies of the Scarecrow, Succubus, and Banderhobb. I got to do it in Heroes of the Feywild and The Wee Fey and all the other pieces I wrote for Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. I got to do it in the core Monster Manual for the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons.<br />
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<b>Debts of Gratitude</b><br />
It seems strange and unlikely that I was given these opportunities. I owe a great debt of gratitude to James Wyatt and Mike Mearls, who gave me a shot and showed me the ropes. Chris Perkins picked me up and showed me the light whenever I grew weary or burned out or couldn't see the forest for the trees. I owe Greg Bilsland for shepherding me through the business of the work. I owe Rodney Thompson for opening the door to endless possibility. I owe Steve Winter for inspiration, friendship, and leading by example. I owe Rich Baker for great ideas and great conversation. I owe Kim Mohan for being Gandalf to my Frodo, for lack of a better metaphor. And Stan! and Chris Sims and Chris Thommason and Scott Fitzgerald Gray and Robert Schwalb and Miranda Horner and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes and Brian and Matt James and Sterling Hershey and Claudio Pozas and Creighton Broadhurst and Jeremy Crawford and Bart Carroll and Robin Laws. I owe Peter Lee and Chris Tulach and Trevor Kidd for being good friends. I owe Bill Slavicsek and Andy Collins for a job interview that got me a freelance job 2 years later. I owe Steve Schubert for being a friend and an inspiration. I owe Bruce Cordell and Monte Cook for being awesome; we didn't get to work together, but awesome is as awesome does. I owe Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for starting the fire, all the others who carried the torch--from Tracy Hickman to Ed Greenwood to William W. Connors, who I never met, but boy did I love his stuff. <br />
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I'm sure I've forgotten someone. :-(<br />
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<b>And on and on...</b><br />
My relationship with D&D is almost 32 years old. It's a tempered passion, a mature bond that flares and cools as the years go by. Sometimes we don't speak for a time, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when we get together again it's like no time has passed. The passion and wonder return and we go on more adventures together. This is the way it's always been, this is the way it will always be. D&D and I have other friends and other interests. Our time apart is essential for enjoying our time together. That's part of what makes a healthy relationship. Whenever we get back together, our stories are richer for what we've learned in the time away.<br />
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In October I drew a close to a story I've been telling on and off for 20 years. That's 2/3 of the time I've played the game, and half of D&D's lifespan (not to mention my own). Things are quiet now that the new edition of the game is in the works and the magazines are on hiatus. An old friend whom I've played games with for 21 years is moving across the country. It's time to explore other worlds for a while, to learn new ways of telling stories and playing games. The next time D&D and I get together, D&D will have a few new ways to play and I'll have a new set of story ideas and game perspectives.<br />
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We're going to have fantastic adventures.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-59519933237964557092013-09-28T17:31:00.000-05:002013-09-28T17:58:08.713-05:00My Gaming LifeI've played some exciting games lately. <br />
<br />
I would go so far as to say that over the past month I've had some of the richest gaming experiences of my entire life.<br />
<br />
<b>Apocalypse World: </b>We finished an <a href="http://apocalypse-world.com/">Apocalypse World</a> game that we began in June. It was a small, intimate group of close friends, and we all pushed to make risky choices. Post-deluge Earth, on the bayou. Our characters were emotional wrecks, and those emotions propelled the game forward. The game ended in a beautiful, poetic tragedy and was one of the most fulfilling games I've played.<br />
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I get a little angsty when people worship a system, "Oh it's the <i>system</i> that makes that happen," I disagree with that; it's <u>always</u> the players and the way they use their imaginations; I've played plenty of conscious-altering D&D games in my life; loads of them. That said, Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World gets out of the way and pushes character interaction and choice forward by emphasizing and rewarding those elements.<br />
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<b>D&D: </b>I ended a 20-year campaign (coincidentally) on the day it began in 1993. One of the players (Lowell Kempf) was there all 20 years, and is about to move across the country. The rest of the players had played for 10 years apiece. This ties up a mythology I'd been building for more than half my life, what I used to call the landscape of my subconscious. In some ways it's tough to leave, in other ways a relief that we drew the story to a conclusion. This was the workshop in which I taught myself all about story games. It was a beautiful thing. I will miss it.<br />
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<b>Dungeon World:</b> To be fair, I ended the D&D campaign using <a href="http://www.dungeon-world.com/">Dungeon World</a>. I'm pressed for time before Lowell leaves and I needed action to happen very quickly. In the end, only their choices mattered, not what they fought or the rolls they made. DW provided an active streamlined experience. <br />
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I've begun a second Dungeon World game as an experiment to convert and run old modules. Starting from the beginning has been a different (and wonderful) experience. The world building thus far has been rich, dark, and Conan-esque. We started with <i>I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City</i>, by David Cook. Tomorrow I'm starting a conversion of <i>B4: The Lost City</i>, by Tom Moldvay. <br />
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Unrelated: I briefly met one of Dungeon World's designers, Adam Koebel, at the Diana Jones Awards at Gen Con. Nice guy. <br />
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<b>Psi*Run: </b>I played <a href="http://nightskygames.com/welcome/game/PsiRun">Psi*Run</a>, by Meguey Baker, at Gen Con at Games on Demand (it's where you go to play indie RPGs). In Psi*Run you're essentially X-men-type-mutants on the run from something. What you're on the run from, who you are, etc... that's all stuff you figure out in play. There were some amazing story acrobatics that happened near the end, justifying my character (who I had thought was the hero) into a demented madman, the villain of the tale. It made complete sense and was glorious.<br />
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<b>The Quiet Year:</b> My friend Greg picked up <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/portfolio/thequietyear/">The Quiet Year</a> on a whim at Gen Con. The Quiet Year is a game by Joe Mcdaldno. It's a post-apocalyptic game where you take turns making choices and drawing those choices on a map, which every player adds to on his or her turn. There's a deck of 52 cards, one for each week of the year. You're overseeing a small piece of civilization with 1 quiet year between the apocalypse and when the Frost Shepherds come. What those are is up to you--but that's largely irrelevant. The game plays in about 4 hours and is a blast. I ordered my own copy and when I pulled the cards out of the box I saw an ad for another game by Joe Mcdaldno... which I ordered immediately. That game is called...<br />
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<b>Ribbon Drive:</b> <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/portfolio/ribbon-drive/">Ribbon Drive</a> is a game about a road trip, which uses (actual) playlists as the game mechanic. I thought this was such a crazy good idea--and I loved The Quiet Year so much--that I bought it right away and I. Cannot. Wait. To. Play. Which may happen this week. In Ribbon Drive, you're characters working out your issues over the course of a road trip. Each player brings a playlist (about 45 mins) and the lyrics to the first 2 songs on that list. Characters and reasons for the journey are determined from those lyrics and the first two songs. At points where the road trip takes a detour, the playlist switches and there's a new tone for the journey. This is what my Ribbon Drive Playlist will look like. It's pretty subdued. <br />
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Joe Mcdaldno's games appeal to me because they're cleanly written, they're meaningful, and they're not complex. They're easily-accessible experiences, but they're also deep experiences. Check out his site, <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/">Buried without Ceremony</a>. One of my improv mentors at iO used to call improvisation "tissue paper art." Here for a the span of a moment. <a href="http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/about/">That's kind of the idea behind Buried without Ceremony.</a> <br />
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I picked up a lot of fantastic board games this summer, all of which are worthy of high praise. To name a few: Village, Founding Fathers, Viva Java, Palazzo, Kingdom Builder.<br />
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Games are doing it for me right now. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-75187077888707889712013-08-24T12:12:00.001-05:002013-08-24T12:12:05.603-05:00Viva Java: My Favorite Large Group Game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It happens all the time: your friends all want to come over and play games, but the games you have only play up to 4 or 5. So you're stuck playing party games like Apples to Apples, or maybe you get in a few rounds of Tsuro, Slide 5, or if you're lucky, 7 Wonders.<br />
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The problem is, you want to play a board game that employs fun mechanics and offers a level of strategic thinking. Something substantial and interesting rather than light, luck-based, or arbitrary. You also don't want to wait 7 turns until the game comes back around to you.<br />
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This is why you need to buy Viva Java.<br />
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I discovered the game this summer at Origins 2013. It was near the end of the convention and I'd already picked up more games than I wanted to bring home: 2 random "free" games from the Columbus Area Board Gaming Society hall (Mammoth Hunters and Palazzo); I'd picked up Kingdom Builder because it came with a free expansion at Origins (and is a great game); I'd purchased Quicksilver because it's fun and the designers are wonderful people; and Founding Fathers engaged my strategic thinking so I had to have that one too. Loaded up with games, I felt a little fatigued when on the second to last day of the con I discovered that there was an aesthetically beautiful game all about making coffee on display in the exhibit hall.<br />
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The theme alone was enough to get my attention, but the components really drew me in. The components are rendered in earthy colors--lots of browns, reds, greens, yellows. There are slates illustrated with various coffee brand logos and little colored coffee beans. The wood pieces are well sculpted, and the cardstock thick and durable. Everything about the game was beautiful.<br />
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What further drew me in was that the game claimed to play up to 8. Which made me both hopeful and cautious. Hopeful because it meant I'd no longer have to play Apples to Apples (I no longer have much fun with the arbitrariness of that game, but my wife won't let me sell it). Cautious because I wasn't sure how well it would play. The very last thing I wanted was to bring home a beautiful game that no one ever cared to play. <br />
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The game's designer, T.C. Petty, explained the rules of the game to me, and because I was feeling doubly cautious I read the rulebook. And then I asked him to explain the rules again the following day. He patiently walked through the game with me, so I purchased the game and decided to give it a shot.<br />
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The first time we played Viva Java we played with 7. I figured we might as well jump right in.<br />
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<b>How You Play: </b>It's pretty basic. You do 3 things on your turn. That's it. Just 3.<br />
1) Put your piece on the board and do the thing in the space where you put it.<br />
2) Decide whether to earn points now or adjust your game abilities to earn more/better points<br />
3) Score, set up for the next round<br />
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Obviously there's a lot more to the game than that. All the locations on the game map have different abilities tied to them. Some give bonuses and others give penalties, but each comes with a bean (of a color you might want) so there's strategic decision making involved. And after you put your piece on the board/world map you'll form a temporary team comprised of your neighbors on said map, and the team votes on whether to go for points now (make a coffee blend) or adjust strategy (research). And then there's the research track, which consists of several different abilities that allow you to break the game in some way; you're unlikely to get them all, so you have to choose which ones you want and how many points to spend on each. There's actually a significant level of strategy involved. <br />
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<b>Why It's the Best Group Game Ever:</b> Viva Java is the best large group board game ever because <i>everyone is always engaged</i>. There's no sitting around waiting (and waiting) for your next turn. <i>Even with 8 players</i>. So how does that work, exactly? <br />
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1) During the first phase of a turn, each player simply decides where to put their single piece. That decision will be heavily influenced based on what beans you want, what positive or negative abilities you're trying to gain/avoid, and what spaces are available after the other players have made their moves. The point is, it's only 1 action, it resolves instantaneously, and after everyone places their one piece, you move on to phase 2, where you decide whether to get points or adjust your game abilities.<br />
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2) There is a social aspect, but it's Catan-like, and it happens independently of what the majority of the players are doing. By Catan-like, I mean that it's like trading in Settlers of Catan in that you're working with the other players to get what you want (i.e. whether it's better for you to blend or research, and if you're blending, whether it's better for you to be doing most of the in-game work or someone else). The social aspect isn't a party game where you have to do charades or draw pictures; it isn't arbitrary or luck-based and doesn't rely on abilities you have outside the game. <br />
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All the players are doing the second phase of their turn simultaneously. Researchers adjust their boards independently of those who are blending. If there are 2 separate teams blending, they act independently of one another. What this means is that in the second phase of the turn, a whole bunch of stuff happens at once with an absolute minimum of waiting around. Everyone does their thing at the same time.<br />
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3) If your players are cool (and every group I've played with has been), after the round is scored, everyone just sort of falls into setting up the board for the next round.<br />
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<b>But I Just Wanted To...:</b> Another reason Viva Java rocks is that it always seems to end just before you have completed your master plan for total awesomeness and coffee domination. The game leaves you wanting more, and ends long before it would begin to drag. The ending conditions are:<br />
- Someone gets 21 points<br />
- All the coffee slates are gone<br />
- Someone fills up every point on their research track<br />
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Most of the time, someone gets 21 points, but we've also run out of coffee slates before. We've never had someone fill up their research track.<br />
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<b>Variants and Expansions: </b>Another totally awesome aspect of this game is that it comes with a number of components that can be added or subtracted from the game as you choose. Rather than wait a year or more to get a micro expansion for the game, the base game comes with alternate rules and pieces from the start, to customize as you see fit. There's also an Intern expansion that allows you to play a 3 or 4 player game, which is very different from the 5-8 player game, but I enjoyed it very much. The 3-4 player game with the interns requires even more strategy because you need the interns to blend, but the interns give you both bonuses and penalties--so there are significant choices involved. You may wish to blend by yourself (if you have the beans for it), and that calls for another level of strategy. <br />
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Viva Java is a game I want to play over and over again with large, or even small, groups. I'm engaged by the strategy and the theme and by the game's fluid play. It can be a challenge to teach a game like 7 Wonders (new players wonder what all those symbols actually mean), but it only takes a couple quick turns to get into the swing of Viva Java. <a href="http://dicehatemegames.com/games/vivajava/">Check out the complete rules and other images of the game on the Dice Hate Me web site</a>. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-59659218420571539172013-04-30T22:28:00.001-05:002013-04-30T22:59:08.558-05:00Owlbear Run<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today, <a href="http://www.wizards.com/DnD/TOC.aspx?x=dnd/4new/dutoc/213">Owlbear Run was published</a> in <i>Dungeon Magazine #213</i>.<br />
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Chris Perkins commissioned the adventure last fall. I sketched out some ideas, and Chris gave me some specifics in regard to what he wanted. I drew some rough maps, and Chris sent me back refined and clean versions of those ideas. I wrote the adventure over the month of December 2012 (which seems like something of a miracle now, considering all the holiday travel).<br />
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Owlbear Run isn't typical of most of the published adventures I've read. That's not to say it's <i>ehrmagawd awezomezz</i> or in any way spectacular. Rather, it probably runs more like one of my own home games, the type I used to run in college when I was in my late teens and early twenties. It's lighthearted and random instead of moody and dramatic. There's a lot of role-play, puzzle solving, plotting, and strategy. It's in no way straightforward, and its success is largely reliant on what the DM and players bring to the table. When I ran it for my group, I told them not to worry much about their stats, but encouraged them to come to the table with characters who had interesting personalities. We ended up with:<br />
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- a paranoid, once-mighty wizard, who had forgotten more spells than most mortals ever know<br />
- a dwarven union boss striving to bring equality to the tunnelers of the Phantom 309 union<br />
- an eladrin orphaned in the world: beautiful, elegant, cusses like a sailor<br />
- a kobold prince setting out to forge his legend<br />
- an heir to the dung-shoveling business with deep mafia connections<br />
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Before I ran the adventure, I reminded myself that an adventure is mostly what the characters say and do when they encounter the plot. It's not a stage where the DM has to dance-monkey-dance for the players' entertainment, with the success or failure of the session hinging on the DM's brilliant plot. This is a good way to approach Owlbear Run. The adventure's there as a guideline, a structure for play. The rest of it is playing pretend, playing make-believe with the weird ideas you and your friends come up with.<br />
<br />
<b>Using Owlbear Run with Other Fantasy RPGs</b><br />
Before I close, I feel like I should address <a href="https://twitter.com/TheTownshend/status/329327360551817217">a comment I made on Twitter</a> about how I felt that Owlbear Run could easily be adapted for another fantasy game like Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, 13th Age, Dungeon World, etc. Here's how that works...<br />
<br />
In Owlbear Run, the characters have to choose an owlbear and sponsor pairing. They do this by interviewing sponsors and investigating the owlbears to make their best choice. They can converse with the competing teams, or challenge them. During the race, they'll have to force or charm their owlbears into cooperating. They'll encounter a number of puzzles, NPCs, and some fights. When the PCs fail a challenge or fail to get their owlbear to cooperate, the NPC teams have a better chance of moving ahead in the race. None of these things, with the possible exception of 4e monster stat blocks, necessitates heavy, edition-specific mechanics. The monsters in Owlbear Run have parallels in all the other popular fantasy RPGs. And since the race's mechanics are specific to the adventure itself--and not intrinsic to 4e--the adventure's form, outline, and encounters can be applied anywhere else. Just swap any 4e stat blocks or skill check equivalents to what they would be in the system you're running.<br />
<br />
There will be some variation, since every system plays differently. In Dungeon World, for example, you'll be rolling 2d6 to charm your owlbear, succeeding on a 10+, succeeding with consequences on 7-9, and getting the adventure's failure results on 6 or less. In 13th Age, minion monsters turn into "mooks," which behave in a slightly different way, and the escalation die will keep fights brief (you could probably even come up with a way to use the escalation die mechanic in the race as a bonus, propelling certain teams forward). The crazy number of options in Pathfinder or in more free form games like AD&D or (by extension) Dungeon Crawl Classics or Barebones Fantasy will likely have players plotting and experimenting to gain an edge in the race--which the adventure encourages the characters to do. <br />
<br />
Sure, you can do this for any number of adventures. It's just that, comparatively, Owlbear Run's encounters don't rely on a specific system in order to translate well.<br />
<br />
In my opinion, anyway. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-54720739169360311662013-04-28T16:41:00.001-05:002013-04-28T16:41:43.838-05:00A Few Dwarven Forge Sets for SaleFor anyone who's interested, <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/drammattex/m.html?item=200920068460&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562">I've put some sets up on Ebay</a> in order to make room for the Kickstarter stuff. Limited space and no basement means I can only own so many sets. <br /><br />Stuff I've posted:<br />- Room and passage set<br />- Room set<br />- Wicked Additions<br />- Wicked Additions 2<br />- Advanced Builder<br />- Advanced Builder 2<br /><br />All are with bow ties except Advanced Builder 2. <br /><br />Here's the resulting hole in my closet, hopefully big enough to accommodate my Kickstarter overindulgence... hopefully. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcsp-Nt9xXSc-zSIL5fampCSTl8IvOUYhHa6G_OPH_k96F6Bt4nvOoR9yJ8KbxMtMTLnUg2bWcYnWAw-Hj6QzDycgCkN4IbSKP0KDqCQJKNOMSvwB4SKYp3AbAe8rrTRIu-xTe3Ui49Kdz/s1600/photo-7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcsp-Nt9xXSc-zSIL5fampCSTl8IvOUYhHa6G_OPH_k96F6Bt4nvOoR9yJ8KbxMtMTLnUg2bWcYnWAw-Hj6QzDycgCkN4IbSKP0KDqCQJKNOMSvwB4SKYp3AbAe8rrTRIu-xTe3Ui49Kdz/s320/photo-7.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-7077478781490786862013-04-17T15:17:00.001-05:002013-08-24T12:21:41.606-05:00The Best Laid Plans of Dungeons & Dragons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
I picked up my camera and shot <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHUp_e928yg">this 1 minute video</a> while the players were plotting their strategy during the playtest session of Owlbear Run.<br />
<br />
I'm tickled by this video because it reminds me when this group got together every Saturdays from 2003-2005 and spent half the session planning their next move. Despite what they might claim, I don't think those plans ever survived contact with the adventure.<br />
<br />
I used to let sessions run like that for hours. As the DM I didn't want to be obtrusive; I wanted the players have complete control over their actions.<br />
<br />
Later, when I reflected on those years I came to feel that all that plotting occurred because I made the players scared of the game. That had been my goal from the start--to make sure they valued their characters' lives and took the story seriously--but I think I may have gone too far, or let that campaign go on too long. In later years, I learned to keep games moving; I learned to do stories in manageable arcs; I learned to vary the mood of the game and establish trust with the players so they understood I was on their side in telling the story, and that we were all telling it together.<br />
<br />
We haven't played for a long time. Children come along, professional obligations, relationships... it's tough to keep things going. We played Owlbear Run as a gift from Shad Kunkle's wife on Superbowl Sunday. As a birthday gift, she set up a D&D day for him. Since I knew it would be a one-shot, and had just completed Owlbear Run, I figured that would be the best choice. It's also whimsical, lighthearted, and silly at points. When the adventure is published, I'll give it to Shad as a memento of his birthday.<br />
<br />
The players aren't doing deep role-playing in this video; they're strategizing, casually planning. It's a one-minute window into what they did for hours. It ends fittingly, with Liz exploding over an innocuous comment from Shad.<br />
<br />
Just like old times.<br />
<br />
(I'm not sure why the video links to my entire YouTube channel, but whatever. Enjoy the cats.) Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-82299088501023078542013-04-16T15:45:00.000-05:002013-04-16T15:45:00.582-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwkFpvxGiBcsdFogmhXgxft3f9aieEtOniSqh6ZP2OZtIXjMRYlFS_IRwBs0BMJ4hcCRgLLmTVFvLAqDI7lCvJi2IM1Y6c6i6_Z_XVpJmDXNHhwIdS8l9QqT4u8ZbMaHnYOcF1n14Z4FKt/s1600/Dungeon213_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwkFpvxGiBcsdFogmhXgxft3f9aieEtOniSqh6ZP2OZtIXjMRYlFS_IRwBs0BMJ4hcCRgLLmTVFvLAqDI7lCvJi2IM1Y6c6i6_Z_XVpJmDXNHhwIdS8l9QqT4u8ZbMaHnYOcF1n14Z4FKt/s320/Dungeon213_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
These past few months have been busy. Busy!<br />
<br />
I've only been working on a couple projects, but those projects have taken most of my time, as usual.<br />
<br />
The first one was <i>Owlbear Run</i>, an adventure for <i>Dungeon Magazine</i> that comes out this month (and gets the front cover!). This adventure was Chris Perkins's brainchild. I started working on it in October, sketching out ideas, running them by Chris. He had specific ideas about the adventure's execution, so I designed toward that model. We discussed the adventure extensively in November and I got started in early December and finished up on New Years Eve. <br />
<br />
I had a short break in January and began working on the <i>13th Age Bestiary</i> for<a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/?tag=13th-age-bestiary"> Pelgrane Press</a> in February, the project I just finished.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, several pieces have appeared in DDI: <i>Siege of Gardmore Abbey</i>, <i>Beyond the Crystal Cave</i>, and <i>Owlbear Run</i> in <i>Dungeon Magazine</i>; <i>Fey of Wind and Wood</i> in <i>Dragon</i>. <br />
<br />
There are a few coming up as well: next month sees the release of <a href="http://paizo.com/products/btpy8vdl">Pathfinder's</a> <i>Ultimate Campaign</i> (I wrote a big chunk of the character backgrounds section and character generator). Later this year <a href="http://www.steamscapes.com/">Steamscapes North America</a> comes out, which includes the story I wrote for it, <i>Songs without Words</i>. I hope that game catches on; the alternate history is well conceived, and I poured everything I had into the fiction.<br />
<br />
Today I feel a little bit like a dry sponge that's squeezed all the water out. I need to catch up on all the things that fell by the wayside while I worked toward my deadlines. Scrub the bathroom, set up routine appointments, give away old clothes, clean out our middle room and storage locker, sell some things on Ebay. Sometimes I need to focus to get that kind of thing done. Most of all I need to absorb new images and experiences so that I have raw material from which to create. I have a few small projects on the back burner that I'm <i>especially</i> looking forward to writing when the time is right.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-70462086187974149832013-02-14T08:37:00.002-06:002013-02-14T08:56:47.174-06:00Fey of Wood and Wind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgf6sWbY6BwE39dHiaArrR6nQerIgFPQKrcG8GaJrfh78Vq-APut_nMwKMFH4IMNDOBxPbRrshtSxkHziL3pHhGsMJlWTRnMKbL965O7CJktYcaahbP0WMWjDy4KhjvjM6Ytj1YONTMgj/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-14+at+8.27.44+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgf6sWbY6BwE39dHiaArrR6nQerIgFPQKrcG8GaJrfh78Vq-APut_nMwKMFH4IMNDOBxPbRrshtSxkHziL3pHhGsMJlWTRnMKbL965O7CJktYcaahbP0WMWjDy4KhjvjM6Ytj1YONTMgj/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-02-14+at+8.27.44+AM.png" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>Fey of Wood and Wind</i>, a piece I wrote for Dragon Magazine #420, is out today. <br />
<br />
Since it's St. Valentines Day I'll leave you with a hard learned lesson on love, drawn up for this article (plus, the beautiful illustration by Beth Trott, above). <br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'HiroshigeStd'; font-size: 13.000000pt; font-weight: 500;">To Hold The Wind
</span></div>
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<div class="section">
</div>
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(91.000000%, 90.100000%, 83.200000%);">
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<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">There was a lonely young shepherd who loved to
watch the sky. As he lay in the heather, he imagined
he saw the shape of a fair maiden dancing among the
clouds. “If only she were mine,” the shepherd sighed. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">One day a storm came, pelting the pasture with
hailstones. When the storm had passed, the shepherd
discovered a beautiful sylph lying in the field, her
dragonfly wings tattered and full of holes. Her name
was Levene, and the storm had broken her cloud and
cast her down. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">In the weeks that followed, as the shepherd nursed
the sylph back to health, Levene fell in love with her
savior. “Stay with me,” the shepherd said, “for I have
loved you since first I saw you.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">Levene promised to stay on one condition. “I am
a daughter of the wind,” said she, “and I must always
have my freedom.” And because he loved her, the
shepherd agreed. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">The sylph stayed with him, and their love grew as
a gentle breeze fans spark to flame. But Levene was
a spirit of the air and often traveled to faraway skies,
and the shepherd soon became lonely again. Many
solitary nights he thought about what he could do
to keep his love at home, and at last he decided on
a solution. “Marry me,” he said to her. And because
Levene loved him, the sylph agreed.
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">On the day they were married, the shepherd
slipped a ring of cold iron onto his wife’s finger, for he knew that only iron could bind the fey. “Now we
shall finally be together,” he said. </span></div>
<div class="column">
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">They remained happy for a time. But on windy
days when Levene looked to the sky, her smile vanished like the sun behind a storm cloud. Slowly she
began to diminish, and soon she dwindled into a frail
wisp of a thing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">“Why do you fade away so?” asked the shepherd. “Are you not happy by my side?”
</span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">“Happy, my love, but not free.”
</span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">“You roamed so far I feared you might never
return.”
</span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">“To love another is to hold the wind,” said the
sylph, “never knowing which direction it will blow.”
</span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">Ashamed, the shepherd removed the iron ring
from Levene’s finger. “You are free to come or go as
you choose,” he said. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">A great gust of wind filled the shepherd’s
hovel, and the sylph kissed him once upon the lips
before the wind bore her out the door and away. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(9.800000%, 24.100000%, 36.800000%); font-family: 'MentorSansStd'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">The shepherd ran after her. He reached out to
hold her, but the wind swept Levene from his arms.
He called out her name, but the wind tore it from his
lips. Again and again he called, until her name was
only a cry, like the bleating of a lost sheep—until his
voice was lost in the tempest that carried the sylph
ever farther away from him.
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-75667264832825784672012-11-27T12:16:00.003-06:002014-08-25T13:20:58.540-05:00Fallen Angels: Ecology of the Succubus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhat-zjyopEj_rYefXSwKOsz8nTpzcUJp00e7e24PObhcR2yKgihTLqxxqryEBkOZLyP4UE79AQbPd_m_I5O022CHIznYi69tg6bhfnkvwygdKm963laQoPNHYS9xBdQsHRzbVnStXW1-zb/s1600/262164_10151115926322096_411137937_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhat-zjyopEj_rYefXSwKOsz8nTpzcUJp00e7e24PObhcR2yKgihTLqxxqryEBkOZLyP4UE79AQbPd_m_I5O022CHIznYi69tg6bhfnkvwygdKm963laQoPNHYS9xBdQsHRzbVnStXW1-zb/s320/262164_10151115926322096_411137937_n.jpg" height="320" width="141" /></a></div>
<br />
Wow, it was a whole year ago that I wrote the article that appears in this month's <i>Dragon Magazine</i> (#417).<br />
<br />
I picked <i>Ecology of the Succubus</i> from a list of topics that D&D was looking to have freelancers write. I like writing ecologies and this would be my third, following the <i>Ecology of the Scarecrow</i> and the <i>Ecology of the Banderhobb</i>. I think I'm averaging about one a year. I feel as though I've been one of the go-to authors for fey in D&D over the past few years, but the ecologies have given me a chance to do horror (scarecrow, banderhobb), and the <i>Ecology of the Succubus</i> and <i>Demonomicon </i>have provided an opportunity to explore wickedness and deviltry. I've enjoyed the variety.<br />
<br />
As soon as I accepted the article, I began to regret it. How was I going to write about sex demons in a D&D-friendly manner? Why would I want to skirt the topic of what these creatures are about, diluting them to a clean, inoffensive, PG-13 article?<br />
<br />
Furthermore, I soon realized that I'd taken on an even larger burden. Succubi come with edition baggage. They had been classified as demons up until the 4th Edition of D&D, when demons and devils were slightly recategorized. Some traditionalists have cried foul over the change. Did I want to involve myself in that debacle? Not a jot.<br />
<br />
In the end, I decided to rise to the challenge as best I could. I wasn't going to shy away from the true version of the succubus--in fact I was going to embrace it. And I wasn't going to deny the previous editions either--I was going to embrace them. This made for a tall order, a big challenge.<br />
<br />
In the end, I was pretty happy with it. Much of the article concentrated on bringing out the original mythological elements and justifying all the previous lore of the succubi and incubi across all the editions of D&D. It was a hard task, but one I'm glad to have done. You can check out the article <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19565963/Ecology%20of%20the%20Succubus.pdf">here</a>, if you like. <br />
<br />
The illustration above was used for the article and is the handiwork of Mark Winters.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-16252636788937172272012-10-24T15:47:00.002-05:002012-10-24T15:47:52.740-05:00D&D Encounters: War of Everlasting Darkness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://dungeonsmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/war-of-everlasting-darkness-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://dungeonsmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/war-of-everlasting-darkness-cover.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>
<br />
This happened. Happens. Is happening. Starting tonight.<br />
<br />
I wrote this adventure with Shawn Merwin under the guidance of James Wyatt. It came in the mail on Monday and my wife said, "I don't even remember you working on that. You didn't complain about it or anything."<br />
<br />
Because, you see, as I said last August in my brief ENnie thank-you speech, on just about every project my wife talks me down from catapulting myself into Lake Michigan while I struggle against the white space on the page near the beginning of the project and declare it all but impossible.<br />
<br />
Anyway...<br />
<br />
This project was a lot of fun and totally experimental. The idea was to create a D&D 4th Edition adventure in the style of a classic AD&D type adventure where a session might be made up of many small encounters, combat on a grid was optional, etc. I'd just finished running a handful of AD&D adventures so I was definitely in that zone at the time. It's going to be something of a departure from the traditional 4e game, but that might be a good thing. Who am I kidding? It'll be what the players and the DM at any given table make of it. I think it'll be fun. I remember putting in lots of choices, alternate ways of doing things, and inventing a few mechanics that I was pleased with. There's also some crazy "roll a die and see what happens" randomness in at least one session.<br />
<br />
I designed sessions 4, 5, and 6 if I recall correctly. I designed an additional session (concerning werewolves!) that had to be cut when the season calendar/schedule was adjusted; it was the most tangential of all the sessions and therefore the easiest to cut from the adventure without losing anything. However, if you want to know about it, I'll reveal the details of the lost werewolf session in a future blog. (It was really, really tangential). <br />
<br />
Perhaps my favorite session to write was session 6. Ameron of <a href="http://dungeonsmaster.com/2012/10/dd-encounters-war-of-everlasting-darkness-preview/">Dungeonmaster.com</a> kindly says of it:<br />
<br />
<i>The session that stood out most for me was week 6. In this session the
PCs have to help defend a town from the pending attack of a monster
army. They have nine days in game to fortify the town and get things
ready. Each of the town’s defenses (catapults, riders, town watch, etc.)
has a battle value. As the PCs do things to prepare the town’s defenses
these scores increases or decrease. When the attack finally happens the
overall outcome is determined by the final battle value. The PCs being
the heroes of the story have a fantastic confrontation with the monsters
which has a huge bearing on the town’s final battle value, so the fate
of things truly is in the hands of the PCs.</i><br />
<br />
Thanks, Ameron!<br />
<br />
While I'm sure similar mechanics have been used previously and elsewhere, I was ignorant of them, so this session was a challenge for me because I was inventing on the fly--trying to create a simple additional mechanic that would serve the session without complicating things. I was initially worried that creating a "battle value" term would confuse people (I hate to make up new terms to keep track of) but it seems like it works and you only use it in that session.<br />
<br />
The other challenge for me was to create a siege/battle mechanic that worked differently than the one I used for <i>The Siege of Gardmore Abbey</i> (which you maaaaaay be seeing in real life sometime soon but I can say no more...). It wasn't just about originality, but mostly about designing something that worked best for this session and its goals. At any rate, I was happy with it. By the way, if you're running that session or playing it, the key to success, imo, is to draw it out and play it as organically as possible--that is to say, role-play the living hell out of it. I think the structure's neat, but it's there as a skeleton for you to flesh out.<br />
<br />
That's about all I have to say about it right now. I hope everyone has fun. <br />
<br />
Other news, since I haven't posted in a while:<br />
- I wrote a big chunk for <i>Pathfinder: Ultimate Campaign</i>. I guess this book isn't a secret so there it is.<br />
- Wrote a story for the upcoming <i>Steamscapes North America</i>; this is a Savage Worlds game put out by Pinnacle. It is probably the best thing I've ever written so far. At least in my opinion. The most finished.<br />
- I'm working on a Dungeon adventure. For the April issue. And all that that implies. No joke(s).<br />
- 13th Age. The Townshend. <a href="http://www.pelgranepress.com/?tag=13th-age-2">Rumor has it</a>.<br />
- At D&D XP last January, I announced a couple forthcoming articles. The succubus article (<i>Fallen Angels: Ecology of the Succubus</i>) should hit very soon in Dungeon Magazine (November). <i>The Wee Fey </i>(I wrote 4 Bard Tales for it, and am super excited about them, I don't care if they are only a few hundred words apiece) should be in Dragon Magazine in early 2013. Granted, this news is old if you were at the new products seminar at D&D XP, but once these pieces are up they will be new!<br />
- I continue to tear out my hair over personal writing projects, but this isn't news. <br />
<br />
That's all the news that's fit to print!<br />
<br />
Yours truly,<br />
<br />
-The Townshend<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1545408033358944069.post-11982086596663386322012-08-21T16:08:00.002-05:002012-09-12T11:10:25.127-05:00Gen Con 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Gen Con was awesome as usual. More social and professional obligations than in previous years, but all of these are good things, and blessings. Got to hang out with a lot of fantastic folks. Won TWO silver ENnie awards, one for <i>Madness at Gardmore Abbey</i> (Best Adventure) and one for <i>Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale</i> (Best Monster/Adversary), so this was embarrassingly wonderful. Gardmore also won for Best Cartography, but I had little if anything to do with that. <i>Heroes of the Feywild</i> didn't make Best Supplement, but I love that book no less--heck, I'm enormously proud of it. To have 3 of my projects up for a total of 5 ENnies in one year is astonishing to me in and of itself.<br />
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I played some good games this year, but my favorite was probably<i> Kingdom Builder</i>, which my friend Lowell picked up. I'm the faceless dude in the black shirt.<br />
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D&D Improv was a bag of ridiculous madness and barely controlled chaos. It was sick, wrong, and completely insane. This photo by Adam Ford sums it up entirely:<br />
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I spent my first years in Chicago improvising at the ImprovOlympic (now iO), Annoyance, and Playground. I was a professional actor until I turned 30 and decided upon a different career path. I've often wondered what I would do if I went onstage again. Would I freeze up and not know what to say? Would it be awkward? Weird? Uncomfortable? I got to find out last Saturday. It was like riding a bike in some ways, in other ways like flying. Mostly like waking up and finding out you'd rolled over onto your arm; wiggle your fingers a little bit and the sensation all comes back. I soon felt like I'd never left. We didn't do high art by any means, but hopefully everybody had a good time. Me, I had a fracking blast. I left that show flying, empowered by all the impulses that were coming back, synapses firing. Waking up after a long sleep.<br />
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As for Gen Con purchases, I bought my wife the Aeryn Sun style Farscape coat from Pendragon Costumes that she's been salivating over for 6 years. It was a high price item, but sometimes you just have to forget about the numbers and do something to make someone very happy. I also picked up the <i>Ascension</i> expansion since we play at home pretty frequently. I bought the new <i>Dungeon Crawler</i> minis as tribute to my friends who made them. On the last day, I picked up 2 indie RPGs: <i>Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North</i> and <i>Microscope</i>. I'm grappling with the rules to Polaris right now--looks like a challenging RPG, but I'm up for a challenge. Microscope also looks like a lot of fun--creating the entire history of a civilization over time if I understand it correctly.<br />
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Lots of other great stuff happened at Gen Con this year too. It was a magical experience.<br />
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