Less than 3 weeks to DunDraCon!

Holy crap! It’s about 20 days until DunDraCon! The last time I went to DDC was exactly 20 years ago, 1 week before I left for Japan in 1991. I didn’t run or play anything at the con as I recall, I just hung out with the guys I played Warhammer with at the time, and in the evening that Saturday, we went to my friend’s place in the City where I ran the finale of our Warhammer campaign.

At the con itself, I joined the SCA combat demo (and got my ass beat), and I entered a 40K I’d painted in the painting contest (and I actually won a prize).

A few years later, in ’95, I made the pilgrimage to GenCon (and since I’d come over from Japan, it really was a pilgrimage!) The exchange was totally in my favor at the time (79 yen to the dollar) so I was flush, stayed at the best hotel I could find near the convention center, got room service, the works. But at GenCon, I didn’t get into any of the RPGs I’d signed up for, which sucked.

I played in a tournament for the old Blood Wars CCG though. I was into the game at the time, and I played pretty well. But, a couple of the players in that tournament were some whiney-ass bitches. The first round was quite long and I was really getting tired of this one dude – he was argumentative, snotty, just a punk. As the game we were playing was coming to an end, I had a winning hand and a  game ending play all set up, but I knew that if I won the game, I’d have to play the next round against this one asshole (because he would have been in 2nd place). So, on my next turn I deliberately threw the game, not making the game-winning play and allowing myself to get taken out, so I wouldn’t have to endure another 90 minutes face-to-face with this annoying twit.

So, aside from the EndGame minicons, and anything I ever ran at a JIGG event in Japan, I have never run a game at a “big” con. The Godlike TOG302 game at DDC will be my first. I’m just hoping I get good players and no losers, maniacs or wallflowers.

Going to DunDraCon? Want to play in my Godlike game? Saturday morning at 8AM (yes, really – no I can’t believe it either) Session 2, #207 “TOG302 – The Flying Misfits” room 154!

Too much awesome ! (?)

I haven’t done an inventory of my game shelf for a while (and I probably should), but the last time I did I had something like 325 game books on it, IIRC. I fairly certain the number has crept up since then and maybe I’m pushing 340 – 350 now.

When I look at my shelves and see all those games, I sometimes feel overwhelmed…by all the potential there. The cover copy on most of those games promises to blow your mind with awesome adventures just waiting for you and your crew to get the dice and character sheets out and get to gaming. And for the most part, I think that’s justified. I see awesome campaigns in nearly all of my game books.

I turned my head and looked just now, and my eyes came to rest on Castles & Crusades, a D20 lite system that attempts to capture the feel of Old School D&D. I’ve played it, and yes, it does hit that mark. I would like to play it again too, running old, ancient-assed TSR adventure modules from the D&D 30th Anniversary Collector’s Set (Hall of the Frost Giant King anyone?)

Awesome. Let’s try that again. Turn my head…

Weapons of the Gods. Oh yeah, this one is awesome on a stick! I’ve only run the intro adventure (3 times) and rocked it every time. I come out of that introductory oneshot totally jonesin’ to keep playing with those characters, to keep tear-assing around Only Six Devils city bashing mooks and evildoers. And I would so love to get deep into the Secret Arts system in that game, which is a total headache to try to grok just by reading but seems to be an iceberg of awesome just floating there waiting to be found.

One more. I’ll look at an upper shelf.

Maid: The Role Playing Game. This game is so awesome it crates a singularity of awesome around itself. Actually that’s more like a singularity of madness (because this game is totally batshit crazy). I’ve only run this once, but I swear I have not laughed so hard playing any other RPG ever. Giving yourself to the random charts in this game is a leap of faith but boy does it pay off. I also found it a huge challenge to GM, but I mean that in a positive way. Because everything that happens is so random, you just totally have roll with it, adapting on the fly and laying down beats for the players as fast as you can hammer them together. I actually had to stop a few times and tell everyone to just give me a moment so I could figure out what to do next. The game is totally awesome!

I love that I can find something awesome in all these game books. I just love the promise of it all. And when I actually get to play or run something (awesome), it’s like a drug I can’t get enough of!

Warming up, Rogue Trader and the GM Seminar

I always seem to have something in the works. Right now I’ve been focused on cleaning up my Godlike TOG302 adventure for DunDraCon. In that regard I’ve basically just spruced up the presentation.

I was really impressed with the character folders Wayne had for his Laundry game, so I got some similar folders and everything went into those. I also fixed up the character sheets with new images, checked them over for mistakes/omissions/inconsistencies/etc. And I made some inserts for these plastic photo stands that Jack (and now Wayne) both use that are absolutely great for use at the table (since everyone can see both the character’s name and image).

I’m also thinking about how to run the adventure itself. My game was slotted for 8AM (yes, really) at DDC, so I’m expecting lots of people to drag themselves in late or simply not show up. Jeezus, the earliest I’ve ever started a game in three decades of gaming was 9AM, so this is going to be a first…

Anyway, I’m looking at the adventure and figuring out “landmarks” for pacing purposes. For example, I know the big raid on Rabaul Harbor is a big complex battle and took about 2 1/2 hours in playtest. Since I only have 6 hours for the whole game, and the first hour is going to explanations and shaking things down and all that, I’ve really got 5 hours. But this is a simple game really. It starts with some roleplaying and character building opportunities the night before the raid. Then there’s the briefing, launch and flight to the target, and finally the attack itself. So the first two parts get about an hour each, and the attack squadrons need to be going in around 11Am and noon at the latest.

But aside from some tinkering here and there, that’s ready to go.

All the thinking about Godlike has me researching the Long Range Desert Group and getting started on an adventure based on the activities of this famous unit. The trucks and other vehicles may not be as sexy as a tank (if a tank is sexy), but when you start reading about them they are pretty cool. If that doesn’t convince you then there is this:

And this:

So if the thought of bearded British badasses driving around the desert in jeeps and trucks with Vickers machineguns all over them doesn’t float your boat, I can’t help you!

I also played Rogue Trader today, which was fun. I’m digging the scale of the game and I like that the PCs are the top dogs on the ship and still getting their hands dirty doing stuff. I’m learning a lot of things that I will apply when the time comes to run the Rogue Trader part of my own 40K campaign.

Finally, the EndGame GMs Seminar only has 9 seats left! If you’re sitting on the fence about this, don’t sit too long!

What I’m reading

I got a bunch of Amazon gift certificates for Christmas. After some deliberation, I bought a few books and some games (of course). These are the non-game books I got:

Brothers of the Snake – Finished this a few days ago. Pretty good story about Space Marines by Dan Abnett, the best of the stable of Black Library authors. When I get to the Deathwatch part of the 40 campaign, I’ll be looking at this book again, and recommending it to all the players.

Rynn’s World – Another 40K Space Marine novel. Haven’t gotten into it yet. INterestingly, the author of this one currently lives in Tokyo. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was a member of JIGG.

Victorious – Last in the Lost Fleet series of mil sci-fi novels by Jack Campbell. Good, BSG-like space opera. I’ve enjoyed this series and it stands out against a lot of the junk on the shelves these days.

With the Old Breed – This is non-fiction. US Marine Eugene Sledge’s account of his service in the PTO during WW2. I also got the HBO Miniseries The Pacific for Christmas too and I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while now.

American Prometheus – This one is a biography of Robert Oppenheimer. It won a Pulitzer and I’ve been wanting to read something about him for a while now. Pretty dense but very interesting. One quick observation – Oppenheimer is like the character Sheldon on Big Bang Theory!

And my wife got me a couple other books. One big fat history of the Pacific War by John Toland and another interesting account of the USS Bunker Hill and the kamikaze pilot who took it out.

So I’ll be busy with these for a while.

3:16, The Laundry and the EndGame Minicon

So, last weekend was the first EndGame Minicon of 2011 (there will be three more this year). In case you don’t know, EndGame is the best game store in the Bay Area, in California, in the U.S., hell maybe the whole world! In my humble opinion of course! The Minicons are one day affairs where roughly 20 games are run over the course of the day. I really dig these Minicons because it’s close, there aren’t big mobs of people, most of the people who show up I know, and there is always a wide variety of games being played, including a lot of the New Hotness, whatever that may be. If possible, I like to run a game and play a game (and that’s about all the energy I have these days).

This time around I ran 3:16. I think this was the fifth time I’ve run the game and the fourth time at the Minicon, and it was hands down the best session of the game I’ve had yet. The players were absolutely on fire and got totally into it. I’m afraid we got a little too loud (sorry, Carl!) but that’s just how far in the zone we all got. There was so much Catch-22 going on and so many one-liners flying around I can’t begin to remember them all. Some highlights:

Chris’ character, Trooper Hicks, and his series of crap dice rolls getting him (among other things) blown up by his own grenades. Probability swung back his way later on and he earned the moniker “Manimal” for his close combat prowess (or at least his enthusiasm)!

Adan’s Sergeant being a shining inspiration to his squad while at the same time finding a way to move back away from the fighting at every opportunity.

Mike’s Trooper Carver spinning out of control through an asteroid field in Zero-G until he was shredded by rock man flechettes, “I hate Zero-G!” you had to be there.

I can’t remember any specific examples, but Morgan had some really great one-liners and got a lot of mileage out of using his buddies as a shield.

And Luke did a fantastic job as the Corporal with the big E-cannon. Over the course of the game, he improved the weapon to do d100 kills – and then he actually rolled a 100! Whoa! Then someone played Forced Weakness on him and in his battle lust he flashed back to his mother telling him “You were never good enough!” and then had an aneurysm and passed out. Genius!

The one trick I pulled this time was couching the at-the-table chargen in the drill sergeant’s tirade from Full Metal Jacket (yes, I’ve pretty much memorized R. Lee Ermey’s classic monologue – I know, I’m pathetic). It worked really well to set the mood and get people into the mindset of the game. I think this may have been the one thing I did that contributed the most to the success of the game. Again, the players were utterly awesome and my helmet’s off to every single one of them!

I will run 3:16 again!

In the afternoon session, I played The Laundry with my fellow Crew member, Wayne Coburn GMing. This was a lot of fun, though I feel I could have contributed more if I hadn’t started to fade around 5pm. I was up early that morning, and the 3:16 game took a lot out of me. I was trying to give 100% but I don’t think I reached it and I hope I wasn’t a drag on the game.

At any rate, though I don’t know much about The Laundry series of novels, I think I have watched enough British TV to understand where the game was coming from.  I think I do a shite British accent, but some of the other players were getting along just fine (not that we had to do a British accent for this game but it just kinda felt like we should have at least tried – I appreciated the effort and tried to step up). Gil did a Scottish accent and Matt tried as well. I could at least manage certain word usage with some degree of competence – “boot” “lift” “ground floor” that sort of thing. In the end I settled on trying to channel Jason Statham’s voice for my ex-Metropolitan Police “bagger” – basically a clean-up man – just trying to put in his years and collect his pention.

The adventure itself was from the corebook and was meant as an intro to the setting. The new Laundry agents get sent to Dunwich (yup) for training. I think the big takeaway I got from it was you need to embrace the madness of government bureaucracy to grok the game. There were forms to be read and signed for everything, literally – Wayne had put together a fantastic set of character dossiers in these cool file folders. Wayne’s props really brought a lot to the game.

Upon reaching the island, we were run through some “training sessions” involving mostly being informed of ways we could have our brains eaten. Eventually the body turned up (because there is always a body) and then things, of course, went pear shaped. Some crazy man (besides us) was trying to summon Dagon. Without any weapons to speak of, we set about duct taping the chanting doctor to a chair to question her, while the lunatic outside went all stabby. I was getting a bit punchy at the end and I don’t quite recall the entire sequence of events but the black helicopters showed up and the commandos came down the zip lines and we wrapped. Which I liked!

The Laundry seems like a pretty interesting setting but I think a) you’ll get a lot more from it if your read the novels (which I am about to do) and b) you have to be on board with getting bent over by the bureaucracy and violated with red tape. Since that sort of black humor is part of the setting, you have to go with it to really enjoy it. So, if I’m in the mood for that again, I’ll definitely look at The Laundry RPG.

It’s been a busy month for gaming so far and I’m not done yet!

 

 

Reviews?

Was reading some game reviews recently.  It’s getting really hard to find good objective game reviews these days.RPG.net has a big database but 90% of the reviews are just plain bad and basically useless.

Many reviews are totally subjective – for example, someone hates the very concept of a giving game, and so doesn’t bother to really even try for any objectivity. It’s just “I hate the idea of this game, therefore, this game is bad”. What use is that to anyone? All the reviewer did was state their preference.

I also dislike chapter-by-chapter reviews. They’re fine I suppose if you simply want to know what’s in the book. But they are most often not playtest reviews. So the author of the review can only tell you what they think it might play like. This in itself is not such a bad thing, as long as the reviewer acknowledges it. But a read-through of a game without play experience has to be reserved – the reviewer should state what they think but qualify it as not having played the game yet.

I do appreciate any reviewer who can give a fair review of a game even if they are pre-disposed to not liking it.

Honestly, the only reviews I really want to read are actual playtest reviews. Even those can be done poorly of course. A good reviewer needs to be open and aware of his or her own biases and preferences, and able to give a game a fair shake before pronouncing it “bad”.

I don’t write reviews very often, but when I do (these days anyway) I will only review games I’ve had actual play experience with. I’ll try to identify what the designer’s goals were with the game and whether or not they were met (or exceeded). I’ll report on the play experience, and how well the rules supported the pursuit of the designer’s goals. Since most RPG books are written as a reference (particularly the core book, if there is one) I’m also looking at how successful the book is at that as well.

A bad game, for me, is one that is:

Poorly written and poorly organized

Has obvious problems with the rules

States a goal for itself and misses or worse, goes off in an entirely different direction

Has no clear goal for itself and wanders around

Doesn’t aid the GM or the players in using the game to its full potential

I suppose I should write more reviews myself, but really, I’d rather just read good ones. If you all know of any consistently good, objective RPG reviewers out there, let me know.

 

EndGame GM Seminar!

Myself and a few other EndGame regulars will be doing a GMing seminar at the store on March 19! here’s the text from the flyer we handed out at the Minicon today.

I know not many people read this blog that don’t already know about this, but if you’d like to attend, shoot an email to the address listed below!

Should be fun!

EndGame Presents

The GMs Seminar

Saturday, March 19

At EndGame

10AM – 4:30PM

Fee: $20

Join the EndGame community of GMs for a day of discussion and workshops about running roleplaying games!

Brian Isikoff, Ryan Macklin, Mike Montesa and Sean Nittner will be on hand to share their experiences and advice

for getting the most out of your game, your players, and yourself!

Spin Up the Jump Drive: Gaining Player Buy-in and Team Building at the Table, with Brian Isikoff

Having trouble getting a campaign started up and firing on all cylinders? Brian shows you how to get everyone

involved and invested in the game.

Fall in! Running Military Themed RPGs, with Mike Montesa

Have you ever watched a movie like Saving Private Ryan, The Great Escape, or a TV show like Band of Brothers

and wanted to do something like that in a game? And then you thought, naw, it’ll never work? Mike will discuss

ways of achieving the drama of a good war story, and touching on things like handling chain-of-command,

adventure design and other issues and challenges specific to roleplaying in the context of a military setting.

Practical Props, with Sean Nittner

At the table, in nearly every game, is the opportunity to turn generic components into props that reinforce the

themes and flavor of your game. Sean will be talking about converting over all your generic basics like dice,

character sheets, and in game currencies into tailored props that help the game come alive and act as constant

reinforcement of the setting to the players.

Bringing your ‘A’ Game, a GM Workshop by Ryan Macklin

Ryan Macklin will run a 2-hour, hands-on workshop on GMing techniques, based on the problems you’re dealing

with today. He’ll help you find ways to address problems with preparation, dealing with people at the table, and

executing a smooth session. Get and keep your players hooked on your game while making your GMing easier

with Ryan’s help

•

To register for the seminar, send an email to:

EndGameGMSeminar@gmail.com

•

In the subject line put: EndGame GM Seminar Registration

•

Please include your full name.

•

After I receive your email, I will send you a PayPal request for the registration fee. Once you have paid the fee, you’ll receive confirmation as a seminar attendee.

Doors open at 10am and the seminar begins at 11am. Coffee and pastries available for registered

attendees. Seminar materials will be provided but bring your own notebook!

Space is limited to 25 attendees, so don’t wait to sign up!

 

A Hero’s Passing

Totally nothing to do with gaming, but Major Dick Winters (of Band of Brothers fame) passed away on January 2nd.

In my life I think I have only known a true leader like Maj. Winters only once. Leaders like him are extremely hard to find and you’re incredibly lucky if you do.

Those who knew him were indeed lucky. Those who served with him were honored. The nation should mourn his passing and remember what he and others like him did for humanity 67 years ago.

40K Underway!

We kicked off our big 40K campaign today, starting with Dark Heresy and the intention is to hit all three 40K RPGs before we’re done. The Inquisitorial Acolytes delved into the darkest depths of Hive Sibellus hunting down heretics. We had a good time and I felt pretty good about it when it was over.

I feel that the first session of a campaign really is the foundation. If Session Zero is the blueprint, the first actual play session is where you build the base for the whole campaign. I had two goals. The first was to convey the feel and atmosphere of the setting. The second was to simply run a well-paced adventure that engaged the PCs.

On the first point, 40K is such a huge setting with so much background and depth that I do worry about getting the descriptions and tone on target. Descriptive detail is a key thing here, so I spent a lot of brain cells absorbing a lot of the descriptions and color in the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels. The players seemed to enjoy the imagery so I think that was successful.

On the second, I think everyone was really into it and I tried to keep the pace up and things moving ahead. While I had an outline of places and people, and a few ideas for some set pieces, everything naturally hinges on the PCs and what they do. I played a few scenes off the cuff and managed to handle it well I thought.

I didn’t actually get through the amount of material I thought I would, but that’s OK. I like to build the follow-up adventures on what’s gone before, and I think the direction the PCs are headed (death and damnation, ha ha ha!) should be cool!

So, another month (grah!) and we’ll be plunging into Dark Heresy yet again!

Care and feeding of players

My Warhammer game last Monday was an interesting one. I had a table of four players of widely varying experience with RPGs. One player was a regular RPG hobbyist, one was a young college kid who’s previous experience was some aborted games of Dark Heresy, and two players whose last RPG was AD&D back in jr. high, about 15 years or so ago (but one of them was big into FFG’s boardgames).

Watching how they played and what I had to do to bring them in, facilitate, help and so on was very interesting. I usually play with a pretty experienced crew with a wide range of games under their belts. I felt like I was more aware of what I was doing at the table, consciously picking different techniques.

For example, I leaned on the Hobbyist to show the others “how to roleplay” since he really got into his trollslayer character. Big ass troll threatening us? Froth, tear at my beard and lets charge!! Gradually the others started to “get into character” though I could tell the other three felt a bit shy about it.

FFG-Guy had the nominal leader of the group, but I could tell he wasn’t comfortable having to make decisions. I didn’t put much pressure on him to do so, though I did look to him to make final decisions (after they all spent some time hashing things over).

The other AD&D guy was a little harder to handle and initially, I wondered if he might get discouraged. His character had perhaps the most roleplaying potential that a more experienced player might relish, but I’m pretty sure this guy just wanted to kill things and take their stuff. The character wasn’t armed for it, and spent the first half of the adventure with a just a quarterstaff. He spent a lot of time needling the other players to give him their swords (which they refused). But, the character had the highest intelligence in the group and so I made a point of highlighting that and giving him chances to use that and the related skills to really shine.

In the big fight with the troll, AD&D Guy didn’t actually engage the troll, but he did charge into engagement range to drag his sister to safety, which was a big risk. He also used his smarts to point out weak spots of the troll to his buds. Then later on, he devised a plan to lure away an entire pack of wolves singlehandedly. Some bad rolls or bad timing would have doomed him to getting eaten, but he pulled it off and everyone thought that was really cool.

So, much of the time, with this guy, I was thinking “Say yes or roll the dice” to his actions. I also realized he needed some sort of reward for his “work”. So after the troll fight, when the group returned to the village with the creature’s head, I had the leader of the town militia (a grizzled old one-legged vet) give AD&D Guy his sword. It wasn’t a magic weapon at all, and I described it as being old and had seen hard use, but it was a sturdy, well-made sword. I also said it had the names of some far off places inscribed on it as battle honors. The other players thought this was cool and AD&D Guy’s eyes lit up. He was really happy to have that sword, and in his best scene in-character, played out the exchange of the weapon from the old man! The irony was, he didn’t even use it in the following fight!

College Guy seemed a bit quieter than the others but he was definitely into the game. I was doing a lot of “say yes or roll the dice” with him too. He was playing an elf and managed to pull off the snooty attitude really well. What I found hilarious was how he and the Hobbyist had their characters “teaming up” to show up the two human PCs. I think he felt a little self conscious at the start but gradually warmed up and said he really enjoyed the game.

So indeed, an interesting session. I would like to play with these guys again!